The 62nd Venice International Film Festival which started yesterday has a strong Chinese feel about it this year and the martial art masterpiece Seven Swords (
Hong Kong singer/actress Sammi Cheng (
It is also a good year for Taiwanese productions. Fall ... In Love (
In celebration of the centennial of Chinese cinema, the festival has curated a retrospective section on Chinese films from the 1930s to the 1990s in its program The Secret History of Asian Cinema. Internationally acclaimed director John Woo (
Back to the local scene. This week ravers and electronic music lovers will get a kick from the highly enjoyable film It's All Gone Pete Tong, a comedy depicting the tragic life of the legendary (and totally fictional), world-class DJ Frank Wile.
In this mock-biographic film, Frankie Wile is the self-destructive genius of the UK techno/dance scene, who loses it with a sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll lifestyle. Tragedy strikes when a hearing disorder worsens until Frankie is completely deaf. He locks himself away in depression and gradually learns to accept his deafness and then finds a new perspective on life.
Camp is Broadway musical star Todd Graff's debut on the big screen. The film draws on the director's personal experiences and tells of a group of young people who join a musical-theater camp to live out their dreams. Each person has their own story and secret, and together they will learn something new and valuable before the summer ends.
The low-budget film scored nicely on the US festival circle and was nominated for the Jury Award at the Sun Dance Film Festival and was also invited to show at the Seattle International Film Festival.
The Hidden Blade by renowned director Yamada Yoji offers an alternative to music-oriented cinema this week. Co-starring Japanese stars Matsu Takako and Masatoshi Nagase, the film portrays the ill-fated life of a samurai who struggles to adapt himself to the new era and faces the consequences of tragic love. The film is the Japanese entry in the competition section of Berlin International Film Festival this year.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and