Ang Lee (李安) made a swift, three-day visit to his homeland this week for a whirlwind of book signing events, the local premiere of his espionage thriller Lust, Caution (色,戒), press conferences, Mid-Autumn family festivities and to receive a US$600,000 award by the Government Information Office (GIO) for bagging a second Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
Though having personally invested US$2 million in the film, Lee said that he would donate the GIO's award - criticized as "adding flowers to the bouquet" (錦上添花), meaning that the government gives resources to the well endowed, leaving budding filmmakers to struggle - to help young talent.
While the limited release of the film in the US does not bode well for Lee, the traffic-blocking line of moviegoers for the Taiwanese premiere last Monday suggests that the film will be a hit here, in part for the same reasons Tsai Ming-liang's (蔡明亮) The Wayward Cloud (天邊一朵雲) - another movie that garnered massive media coverage for its explicit scenes - was two years ago.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES AND AP
One thing is for sure, those who watch Lust, Caution for the exposed bits will leave feeling much more satisfied than those who watched The Wayward Cloud - no amount of nudity could have saved that sleeper.
In a recent homosexual popularity contest, Aboriginal diva A-mei (張惠妹) outshone dancing queen Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) to become the rainbow ambassador for Taiwan's LGBT community and an honorary witness to the same-sex "wedding" ceremonies slated to take place at the 2007 Taiwan Pride Parade on Oct. 13.
Unperturbed, EMI issued a statement proclaiming Tsai as the new queens' queen. Taiwan Pride Community (TPC, 台灣同志遊行聯盟) leapt to the rescue, rebutted the label's doublespeak and confirmed A-mei's rainbow credentials.
Noting both pop stars are highly admired among the LGBT community, TPC stated A-mei had been chosen as the event's spokeswomen a long time ago and noted Tsai was fully booked on the day. The group said it was at a loss to explain EMI's declaration.
In its quest for pink dollars, EMI got egg on its face, but has hopefully learned its lesson: You can fool some LGBTs all of the time, and all LGBTs some of the time, but you cannot fool all LGBTs all of the time.
Mando-pop king Jay Chou (周杰倫) is proving himself to be a savvy businessman, publishing a short novel adapted from his box-office hit Secret (不能說的秘密) last week, that is one month after the film's release.
You have been warned: Brace yourself for yet another version of Chou's cloyingly saccharine puppy-love story.
Other stars who know how to milk the showbiz industry are Hong Kong actress Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝) and actor Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒). One month after the birth of their baby boy, the couple flew to Suzhou City to sing one song each and walked home with more than US$100,000 in their pockets.
Meanwhile in matrimonial news, tomboy Ella of S.H.E was voted as the best potential wife material by the Chinese gossip Web site ent.163.com, beating strong contenders Vicky Zhao (趙薇) and Fan Bingbing (范冰冰), to become the only Taiwanese star to make it into the top five.
Pop Stop reckons either the Chinese have distinguished and ahead-of-the-times tastes or that Ella has a solid lesbian fan base.
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
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
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located