This week offers a unique opportunity, thanks to the Taipei City Government and the Taiwan Film Center, to watch the best Chinese-language films released in the past year for free at two locations in Taipei.
The Best Chinese Cinema of the Year festival, which ends Friday, features 20 films from Taiwan, China and Hong Kong, several of which received major awards at film festivals around the world. Beijing Bicycle (十七歲的單車) and Betelnut Beauty (愛你愛我), two of the festival's most anticipated films, made a sensation by winning three major awards at the beginning of the year at the Berlin Film Festival. Their sweep, along with another entrant titled The Cabbie (運轉手之戀) at the Berlin festival set the tone for Chinese-language cinema's preeminence at festivals throughout the year.
Hsiao Ya-chuan's (蕭雅全) Mirror Image (命帶追逐), which won first place at both the Taipei Film Festival and the Fukuoka Film Festival, will be another highlight of the festival, with its story of youth and love in the so-called "e" era.
Another stand-out film is Lanyu (
Making this festival special, aside from its unimpeachable admission price, is the fact that many of these films see little or no screen time in Taiwan, despite the fact that many were made by Taiwanese directors. Several of the films, including Beijing Bicycle, are also being screened in Taiwan for the first time.
The films will be screened at Changchun Theater, located at 172 Changchun Rd., Taipei
Changchun Theater screenings
Today at 12pm, Blue August; 2:30pm Betelnut Beauty; 5pm The Cabbie; and 7:30 Mirror Image (English subtitles)
Tomorrow at 12pm Mirror Image (English subtitles); and 7:30 Betelnut Beauty
Thursday at 12pm The Cabbie; 2:30 Blue August; 5pm Lanyu; and 7:30pm Glass Tears (English subtitles)
Friday at 12pm Glass Tears (English subtitles); 2:30pm Betelnut Beauty (English subtitles); 5pm Glass Tears (English subtitles); 7:30 Beijing Bicycle (English subtitles)
KMT National Headquarters
Today at 10am Bundled; 12pm Xiao Shan Going Home; 2:30pm Ha Ha Shanghai; 5pm Go for Broke; 7:30pm Ge Ge
Tomorrow at 10am Grandma's Hairpin; 12pm Birdland (English subtitles), Fluffy Rhapsody; 2:30pm A Small Mirage (English subtitles) and West Island
Thursday at 2:30pm Grandma's Hairpin; 5pm Birdland (English subtitles); 7:30pm A Small Miracle (English subtitles) and West Island
This is the year that the demographic crisis will begin to impact people’s lives. This will create pressures on treatment and hiring of foreigners. Regardless of whatever technological breakthroughs happen, the real value will come from digesting and productively applying existing technologies in new and creative ways. INTRODUCING BASIC SERVICES BREAKDOWNS At some point soon, we will begin to witness a breakdown in basic services. Initially, it will be limited and sporadic, but the frequency and newsworthiness of the incidents will only continue to accelerate dramatically in the coming years. Here in central Taiwan, many basic services are severely understaffed, and
Jan. 5 to Jan. 11 Of the more than 3,000km of sugar railway that once criss-crossed central and southern Taiwan, just 16.1km remain in operation today. By the time Dafydd Fell began photographing the network in earnest in 1994, it was already well past its heyday. The system had been significantly cut back, leaving behind abandoned stations, rusting rolling stock and crumbling facilities. This reduction continued during the five years of his documentation, adding urgency to his task. As passenger services had already ceased by then, Fell had to wait for the sugarcane harvest season each year, which typically ran from
It is a soulful folk song, filled with feeling and history: A love-stricken young man tells God about his hopes and dreams of happiness. Generations of Uighurs, the Turkic ethnic minority in China’s Xinjiang region, have played it at parties and weddings. But today, if they download it, play it or share it online, they risk ending up in prison. Besh pede, a popular Uighur folk ballad, is among dozens of Uighur-language songs that have been deemed “problematic” by Xinjiang authorities, according to a recording of a meeting held by police and other local officials in the historic city of Kashgar in
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was out in force in the Taiwan Strait this week, threatening Taiwan with live-fire exercises, aircraft incursions and tedious claims to ownership. The reaction to the PRC’s blockade and decapitation strike exercises offer numerous lessons, if only we are willing to be taught. Reading the commentary on PRC behavior is like reading Bible interpretation across a range of Christian denominations: the text is recast to mean what the interpreter wants it to mean. Many PRC believers contended that the drills, obviously scheduled in advance, were aimed at the recent arms offer to Taiwan by the
RSS