The advent of the Year of the Rooster brought with it reams of speculation on the local gossip pages about local stars' fortunes, good and bad, for the year to come. For most of the stars, this year will apparently offer more of the same -- meaning celebrities who are down, such as Momoko Tao (
Among those who'd best watch their back for lurking, ill-intentioned ghosts is Faye Wong (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Speaking of romance, the past week also included Valentine's Day, which meant the paparazzi were hiding in the bushes hoping to catch the local celebrities out on the town with their significant others. The biggest catch of the day was of Jay Chou (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
In film news, the organizing committee of the Oscars announced last week that Zhang Ziyi (
Taiwanese film is sure to make a splash this week at the Berlin International Film Festival when Tsai Ming-liang's (蔡明亮) The Wayward Cloud (天邊一朵雲) plays in the competition. Known for his stark view of urban life, the film's press material features two of the film's stars, Lee Kang-sheng (李康生) and Lu Yi-ching (陸亦靜), stark naked engaged in some rough-looking hanky panky in the shower. Tsai told local media before leaving for Berlin with his cast that the film might shock some and judging from the photo stills, he's probably right.
For lighter film fare, a spokesperson for Stephen Chow (
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
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your