The Unknown Woman
Brutality against women and children looms large in this feature from 2006 directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, who made the much-loved Cinema Paradiso. A Ukrainian ex-sex slave has a mysterious mission that involves ingratiating her way into the home of a family whose young daughter has a strange affliction. Critics were split on the Hitchcockian elements, but uniform in praise for lead actress Kseniya Rappoport, who plays the strange former slave with a sick agenda. The Village Voice — much more moralistic these days, it seems — castigated the parents of the child who played the daughter. See the film to see why. Italian title: La Sconosciuta.
Boys Over Flowers: Final
Yet another adaptation of a manga-cum-TV series, this follows the adventures of a young Japanese woman whose relationship with a spunky and rich member of her high school has evolved from rivalry to romance. Their preparations for marriage are interrupted by the dastardly theft of an obscenely expensive tiara presented to her by her fiance’s family. The “flowers” of the title refer to the boys who ran the school where they met and who feature in this story; in this “final” episode, however, it appears that romance, jetsetting and tiara-hunting are able to conquer silly obsessions such as male bonding. Variety reported that the film knocked the new Indiana Jones installment off the top of the Japanese box office when it opened in June.
Shaolin Girl
This is a Japanese film executive produced by Stephen Chow (周星馳) that tries to ride on the coattails of his Shaolin Soccer from a few years ago. The difference is that the hero is a heroine and that lacrosse (!), not soccer, is the motivating sport that revitalizes her family’s martial arts school as evil homes in. There are actors from China and Hong Kong thrown into the pot, but Taiwanese audiences should be able to spot the difference in quality within minutes — then ask for their money back when they realize that Chow is not the director, as local advertising implies.
Small Town Folk
What appears to be a jokey attempt at English Gothic ends up the butt of poor reviews and occasional gushing praise across genre Web sites. Various innocent morons enter the town of “Grockleton” in rural England only to find various dangerous morons waiting for them with sharp implements. Shot with little money, Folk relies on a degree of cultural familiarity for its humor. That, together with its restricted rating, means it will struggle to last more than a week in theaters here. Starts tomorrow.
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