The 50th Asian Pacific Film Festival handed out its annual medals last Saturday, and crushed the Taiwanese delegates' high hopes of taking the top awards this year. Tsai Ming-liang's (蔡明亮) The Wayward Cloud (天邊一朵雲) was ruled out from the competition section for its explicit sexual content, while veteran actress Yang Kui-mei (楊貴媚) didn't get crowned as Best Female Actress, and only got the Special Jury Award to comfort her broken heart.
As the hostess of the festival's A Night of Taiwan section, Patty Hou (侯佩岑) was criticized by local media for being big-headed. Hou is said to have asked for special treatment and to have made lame excuses for being late for rehearsals.
The situation took a turn for the worse when Taiwanese delegates changed the name of the event from A Night of Taipei to A Night of Taiwan without warning. The organizers got upset and said it was their tradition to use the host city's name in order to tone down politically sensitive issues. Festival member countries then insisted on reversing the name change at the last minute. Everything comes down to politics eventually, it seems.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Opening today in Taiwan, Jackie Chan's The Myth (神話) has already grossed over NT$300 million in Asian countries. However, at a celebration party last week, the box-office hero surprised everybody by slamming Hong Kong's film industry, saying he was frustrated and planned to retire soon because people in the business just couldn't unite to improve Hong Kong movies.
Hong Kong actor Tony Leung (
Hong Kong actress/singer Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝) has
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
totally transformed herself after getting together with Dutch boyfriend Jeroen, a plain-looking corporate man who used to be her English teacher. Cheung has not only tried to quit smoking and stop shopping for extravagant clothes, but moved out of her mansion and in to her sweetheart's shabby abode. From a man's point of view, it may be a good thing to be able to tame a wild, beautiful woman. But to women with a sober mind, the question remains: Is it really worth it? And how far is too far?
The local music scene
suffered serious turbulence last week. Mando-pop band F.I.R. (
A fan of extreme sports, rock star Chang Chen-yue (張震嶽) fell off a bike last Friday seriously fracturing his right leg. The doctor said he needed two-months in bed and that his injury would take six months to fully heal. So it will be a while before we witness a bunch of young kids go crazy and wild at the foul-mouthed musician's performances.
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
When the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese forces 50 years ago this week, it prompted a mass exodus of some 2 million people — hundreds of thousands fleeing perilously on small boats across open water to escape the communist regime. Many ultimately settled in Southern California’s Orange County in an area now known as “Little Saigon,” not far from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, where the first refugees were airlifted upon reaching the US. The diaspora now also has significant populations in Virginia, Texas and Washington state, as well as in countries including France and Australia.
On April 17, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) launched a bold campaign to revive and revitalize the KMT base by calling for an impromptu rally at the Taipei prosecutor’s offices to protest recent arrests of KMT recall campaigners over allegations of forgery and fraud involving signatures of dead voters. The protest had no time to apply for permits and was illegal, but that played into the sense of opposition grievance at alleged weaponization of the judiciary by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to “annihilate” the opposition parties. Blamed for faltering recall campaigns and faced with a KMT chair
Article 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) stipulates that upon a vote of no confidence in the premier, the president can dissolve the legislature within 10 days. If the legislature is dissolved, a new legislative election must be held within 60 days, and the legislators’ terms will then be reckoned from that election. Two weeks ago Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed that the legislature hold a vote of no confidence in the premier and dare the president to dissolve the legislature. The legislature is currently controlled
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