Smother Perhaps a little too reminiscent of her previous, terribly received feature Because I Said So, Diane Keaton’s latest effort has her moving in with her son (Dax Shepard) and daughter-in-law (Liv Tyler) and retying the apron strings as quickly as possible, with dire consequences for the son’s interest in family planning. This is opening in Taiwan before the US, which doesn’t bode well. Nor does the trailer, which comes across as a mediocre sitcom pilot. That leaves us with Keaton’s charisma, but here, once again, she is playing a meddling irritant. Get a new agent, Ms Keaton! | |
Sweet Rain If Death knocks on your door, be grateful if he looks like a smoldering Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) with a friendly hound rather than some rotting husk with a raspy voice, a scythe and a dog from hell; be even more grateful if he decides to hang around for seven days before deciding whether you should perish. There are shades of Brad Pitt’s Grim Reaper character from Meet Joe Black in this adaptation of the book by Kotaro Isaka. A number of characters are marked for death in this romantically edged, other-worldly fantasy, but will they meet their maker? Also known as Accuracy of Death, the jarringly dissimilar alternate titles actually make up the full Japanese name of this movie. | |
Piano, Solo This is a biopic of the troubled Italian jazz pianist Luca Flores, as played by award-winning actor-director Kim Rossi Stuart. As a boy Flores witnessed the death of his mother in a road accident in Africa, and for the rest of his life he was tormented by this incident. The music of his childhood shaped his career, leading him to the world of jazz, but despite success and recognition, his demons were never far behind and they eventually claimed him. Virtually unreleased except in Italy, for most viewers this film will be a complex introduction to one of Europe’s jazz greats — and a portrait of a man whose music was all too heavily grounded. | |
Apartment More Ringu recycling here, this time from South Korea. A woman moves into an apartment block opposite another where dead bodies make all too frequent appearances. Surprisingly well received by Variety and other reviewers as a workable, simple shocker. Released in 2006, this is also known as APT and 9:56, the latter being the time of night after which you’d better not turn off the lights, as the Taiwanese poster says. | |
Love Now Through a twist of fate, two gorgeous, professional couples whose marriages are in the doldrums swap partners without realizing it. From there it’s all downhill unless this unfaithful foursome can face their problems quickly and directly. Also known as Changing Partners, this is the latest in a DVD package from South Korea to screen at the Baixue theater in Ximending. |
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
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