Hou Hsiao-hsien (
Meanwhile, the organizers of the 9th Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF), which begins Oct. 7, announced that the Asian Filmmaker of the Year prize would be given to Hou.
PHOTO: LEE KAI-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
Cafe Lumiere is Hou's 16th movie. Shot in Japan, with Japanese actors, it is the first time for Hou to shoot a film entirely in a foreign location in a foreign language. Giant production company Shochiku Films (松竹映畫) hired Hou to make a Japanese film and pay homage to Japanese filmmaking master Yasujiro Ozu on the occasion of his 100th birthday.
Hou has been an admirer of Ozu's movies since A Time to Live and A Time To Die (
The movie is a meeting of minds and talents. It is a re-telling of Ozu's masterpiece Tokyo Story for the 21st century and portrays everyday life in modern Japan from the viewpoint of a Taiwanese director.
Tadanobu Asano, the handsome samurai in Kitano's Zaitochi and first-time actress/singer Yo Hitoto are the lead actors. Hitoto appears in Kirin beer's TV ads in Taiwan.
The story is about Yoko (Hitoto), a freelance writer, who becomes friends with the proprietor of a secondhand bookstore, Hajime (Asano). Raised in the rural town of Yubari by her uncle, Yoko is an independent young woman with a hidden sorrow.
She becomes pregnant and the father of the child is Taiwanese. Yoko begins to reevaluate her view of her family, Hajime, and the new life growing inside her.
The side story is about about Taiwanese musician Jiang Wen-ye (
As Hou readies himself to go to Venice, the good news from South Korea is that he was told by Kim Ji-seok, programmer of PIFF, that he will be made Asian Filmmaker of the Year.
"We are very pleased to give the first award to Taiwanese director Hou," Kim said last weekend.
"Cafe Lumiere is a film with great meaning. It provides a conversation between two masters, between past and present and between Japan and Taiwan," he said.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist