Body of Lies
Director Ridley Scott and actors Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio: heavyweights all three, and this thriller about terrorism, surveillance, frailty and conscience has early reviews humming. DiCaprio is an Arabic-spouting CIA agent in the Middle East, whose suburbia-based boss (Crowe) guides him on a mission to take out a top militant. Complicating matters are the friendly head of Syrian intelligence and a nurse, who catches the agent’s eye. This hard-hitting treatment of the “war on terror” sees DiCaprio forge ahead with another punchy performance reminiscent of Blood Diamond — and a million miles from Titanic. Fans of the director might compare the political edge of this film with the apolitical narrative of Black Hawk Down. Based on a novel by Washington Post writer David Ignatius.
Bangkok Dangerous
Nicolas Cage’s performances of late have veered from the committed (World Trade Center, Lord of War) to the ephemeral (the National Treasure films, Next). With his latest movie, Cage might have found a place in between. In Bangkok Dangerous he plays a hit man who arrives in Thailand to complete some contract killings before — you guessed it — retiring for good. Naturally, the last of the hits doesn’t quite go as planned as the bodies pile up in the sleazier parts of the city. Directed by the Pang Brothers (Oxide, 彭順, and Danny, 彭發) from Hong Kong, this is a remake of their first joint feature film from the late 1990s.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Woody Allen fans should be delighted with his new film, which stars Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson as two friends, Vicky and Cristina, in Spain who meet a cultured seducer (Javier Bardem, with a much more alluring haircut than in No Country for Old Men), who offers to take the ladies on a tour — and then some. Things get hot and flustered when Penelope Cruz, Bardem’s ex-wife, enters the scene. This comes across as an old-fashioned comedy of manners updated for modern sexual sensibilities and relocated to photogenic Spanish locations.
Butterfly Lovers (武俠梁祝)
TV heartthrob and pop star Wu Chun (吳尊) from the Taiwanese group Fahrenheit joins Hong Kong pop star Charlene Choi (蔡卓妍) in this martial arts spin on the legend of Liang Shanbo (梁山伯) and Zhu Yingtai (祝英台), two lovers from centuries ago whose eventual romance cannot overcome social and family mores. Likely to add oomph to this production is Jingle Ma (馬楚成), a veteran cinematographer and sometime director, as here, and Tony Ching Siu-tung (程小東), martial arts director extraordinaire of Swordsman and A Chinese Ghost Story fame.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In the aftermath of the 2020 general elections the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was demoralized. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had crushed them in a second landslide in a row, with their presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) winning more votes than any in Taiwan’s history. The KMT did pick up three legislative seats, but the DPP retained an outright majority. To take responsibility for that catastrophic loss, as is customary, party chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) resigned. This would mark the end of an era of how the party operated and the beginning of a new effort at reform, first under