The nominations list for the 43rd Golden Horse Awards (金馬獎華語影片競賽) was released last Monday and caused a tsunami of griping and whining, not least by director Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮). With only two nominations in minor categories, namely Best Supporting Actress and Best Sound Effects, Tsai's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (黑眼圈) was rejected by jury members for being "too individualistic and indulging in personal style, so that it fails to move the general public."
An indignant Tsai declared he would never again participate in the annual flick fest since the event has turned into what he dubbed the "Golden Horse Genre Film Awards," as these are the only type of films the juries can understand.
Echoing the director's wrath, producer Wang Tsung (王琮) also threatened to withdraw the film from the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (台北金馬影展) if the jury didn't make a public apology or issue an explanation.
The on-going brawl has caused alarm within the government. The Department of Motion Picture Affairs (電影處) under the Government Information Office (GIO) has already instructed the event's president Wang Tung (王童) to solve the issue as soon as possible otherwise the GIO will step in if necessary.
In this power play, Tsai seems to hold the trump card. It would certainly look very bad for the event if its opening film, the tickets for which have already sold out, gets pulled at the last minute.
International hot shot Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) is another star that has fallen out of favor with the Golden Horse organizers. Having failed to win a Best Actress nomination for her role in The Banquet (夜宴), the megastar snubbed the event by agreeing to attend the Asia-Pacific Film Festival, which has its awards ceremony one day before the Golden Horse hands out its gongs. Organizers are waiting for confirmation from Zhang's agent as to whether she will grace Taiwan's premier film event.
Local TV stars are dusting down their tuxedos and ball gowns in preparation for the annual Golden Bell Awards (金鐘獎). The nomination list for this event was released last week.
Having rocketed to stardom based on her good looks, but lacking acting credibility, Lin Chih-ling (林志玲) has finally won recognition for her on-screen efforts; she has gained a place on the best female TV host award nomination list.
As for her male counterparts, pretty much all the big-name TV entertainers are on the list except for Hu Gua (胡瓜), who has been out of favor since he was accused of cheating at an illegal gambling venue last year. To rub salt into the wound, Hu's friend Peng Chia-chia (澎恰恰) is back on track after a nasty DVD sex scandal.
Over the years, local celebrities have come up with all sorts of innovative excuses for explaining why they were visiting a love hotel when cornered by members of the paparazzi. Using the bathroom, sharing a meal and discussing business are the most commonly used pretexts. In a new take on an old theme, entertainer and drag queen Topper (大炳) said he visited a love motel to use it's high-tech facilities: to play computer games that is.
The peppy gay entertainer was spotted last week visiting two motels on the same night. After spending two hours with a gentle-looking man at the first stop, Topper enjoyed an interlude of debauchery at a gay bar then headed to the WeGo Motel with the same guy and a female companion.
Is the funnyman a sex machine who needs it all night long, and even indulges in threesome action to finish off the evening? Topper's side of the story is he just likes playing innocent games and visiting love hotels once a week to go cruising.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s