Saw V
Gruesome, moralistic game player Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) is back for more torture tests, even if he’s been dead since Part III. His cop acolyte Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) now carries the flag for giving deadly lessons in ethics, but he has to be careful because seemingly every investigator in the state is on his tail — those that aren’t dead, at any rate. No previews were available for this entry, and it doesn’t need them, because it’s going to make another killing. Part VI is on the way.
Scar
In a classic example of predatory programming, the management of the Scholar theater complex jumped at the release of Saw V to slot in this similarly titled horror flick (especially in Chinese) with the added gimmick of 3D. A woman travels back to her hometown in Colorado to visit family and before long the killing begins. Problem is, the deaths resemble a macabre incident that prompted her to leave town many years before. There’s torture, too, but Jigsaw devotees are unlikely to get their fix.
Death Race
The Saw series is fundamentally about body abuse and serpentine plots, so car chases have not featured prominently. Those who prefer the latter while preserving a body count would be better off seeing this loose remake. Jason Statham stars as an unjustly imprisoned man whose jail runs Rollerball-like contests, except with souped-up cars, novelty weapons and a lucrative online following. Has all of the action and aggression of Paul Bartel’s 1975 original, but by most accounts none of the smarts. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (Event Horizon, Resident Evil), whose frenetic films lobotomize interesting actors — in this case Joan Allen, who plays the evil head of the prison.
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
This is the first theatrical entry in the Disney stage and screen franchise that started on cable TV and is now a favorite among tweens and pre-tweens the world over. Typically American offering of high school cliques and sports worship makes up for the cliches with solid dance sequences and tunes for the younger set. The kids are as pure as the driven snow, and hardly remind one of the high schools that most of us attended. Hard to know where Part 4 might go ... High School Musical 4: The Repeat Students, perhaps?
The Lazarus Project
The writer of Eagle Eye debuts as director in this leisurely paced mystery about an ex-con (Paul Walker from The Fast and the Furious and Eight Below) whose latest robbery turns into a bloodbath. He is caught and apparently executed — only to wake up in an asylum with a head full of doubts about what is real and what is not. This Taiwanese-financed film more or less went to DVD in the US after some screenings at festivals. Happily, Paul Walker completists now have a chance to see him on the big screen here with this well-received if greatly under-exposed effort.
The Feelings Factory
A professional woman makes new acquaintances at a speed dating function. One of the men turns out to be fine for a time, while another turns out to be a little more than she expected. The audience discovers some mortal secrets about her, and from there things only get more complicated. This French film about growing alienation from natural expression of feelings impressed reviewers, with special regard for lead actor Elsa Zylberstein.
The year was 1991. A Toyota Land Cruiser set out on a 67km journey up the Junda Forest Road (郡大林道) toward an old loggers’ camp, at which point the hikers inside would get out and begin their ascent of Jade Mountain (玉山). Little did they know, they would be the last group of hikers to ever enjoy this shortcut into the mountains. An approaching typhoon soon wiped out the road behind them, trapping the vehicle on the mountain and forever changing the approach to Jade Mountain. THE CONTEMPORARY ROUTE Nowadays, the approach to Jade Mountain from the north side takes an
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and