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.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50