A cinematic account of national history is never an easy task for filmmakers, who must do justice to the past yet produce a movie that is more entertaining than a teaching aid.
Based on Ching Da Kuei Di (情歸大地), a novel by Li Chiao (李喬), one of Taiwan’s best-known Hakka writers, 1895 (一八 九 五) brings to life the Hakka militias’ resistance to Japanese troops after Qing Dynasty China was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894 to 1895) and ceded Taiwan to Tokyo under the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
The ambitious work is educational at best and, with its barely passable storytelling techniques, is unlikely to attract an audience that goes beyond educators
and students.
Local starlet Cheryl Yang (楊謹華) plays the role of Huang Hsien-mei, the virtuous wife of Wu Tang-Wu Tang-xing, played by Wen Sheng-hao (溫昇豪). A well-educated young Hakka, Wu organizes guerrilla resistance against the Japanese together with two Hakka leaders, Jiang Shao-zu (姜紹祖), played by Chang Shu-hao (張書豪), and Hsu Xiang (徐驤), played by Wu Hao-sheng (吳皓昇).
Though the Chinese high officials who proclaimed the short-lived Taiwan Republic in response to the Treaty of Shimonoseki flee to China, leaving the Hakka militias to their own devices without sufficient rations, money or munitions, the resistance forces manage to keep the Japanese from advancing south.
The guerrillas persist and casualties mount. Carting supplies to the front with other villagers, Huang sees her husband, for the last time, before Wu and his men lose a decisive battle on Bagua Mountain (八卦山) in Changhua County, which saw about 4,700 Japanese and 14,000 Taiwanese fighters killed.
The film’s lack of funding — the budget was NT$60 million — is acutely felt. Instead of turning the more than modest funds into inspiration for imagination, director Hung took an aesthetic approach that is more slippers-and-spears television than cinematic by having some 30 extras running about aimlessly in the battle scenes, which are touted as the film’s high points.
The most bothering, if not purely absurd, part of the movie occurs in the scene when Aboriginal, Taiwanese and Hakka comrades are seen standing together in an act of unity. Used as human props, two extras in Aboriginal garb remain faceless in the shade throughout the scene, never to reappear.
1895’s cast members give passable performances with the exception of veteran actor Li Xing-wen (李興文), who plays a Taiwanese bandit and delivers well-appreciated comic relief without turning his character into caricature.
Young Japanese actor Koichiro Kijima fails to impress as Ogai Mori, the famed Japanese physician and novelist who was sent to Taiwan in 1895 and, in the film, attempts to give the occupying army a human face in the guise of a benevolent colonist.
Returning to the director’s seat after his feature debut, the rom-com Pure Accidents (純屬意外), director Hung is likely to go unnoticed with this ambitious, yet flaccid epic.
Behind a car repair business on a nondescript Thai street are the cherished pets of a rising TikTok animal influencer: two lions and a 200-kilogram lion-tiger hybrid called “Big George.” Lion ownership is legal in Thailand, and Tharnuwarht Plengkemratch is an enthusiastic advocate, posting updates on his feline companions to nearly three million followers. “They’re playful and affectionate, just like dogs or cats,” he said from inside their cage complex at his home in the northern city of Chiang Mai. Thailand’s captive lion population has exploded in recent years, with nearly 500 registered in zoos, breeding farms, petting cafes and homes. Experts warn the
The unexpected collapse of the recall campaigns is being viewed through many lenses, most of them skewed and self-absorbed. The international media unsurprisingly focuses on what they perceive as the message that Taiwanese voters were sending in the failure of the mass recall, especially to China, the US and to friendly Western nations. This made some sense prior to early last month. One of the main arguments used by recall campaigners for recalling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers was that they were too pro-China, and by extension not to be trusted with defending the nation. Also by extension, that argument could be
Aug. 4 to Aug. 10 When Coca-Cola finally pushed its way into Taiwan’s market in 1968, it allegedly vowed to wipe out its major domestic rival Hey Song within five years. But Hey Song, which began as a manual operation in a family cow shed in 1925, had proven its resilience, surviving numerous setbacks — including the loss of autonomy and nearly all its assets due to the Japanese colonial government’s wartime economic policy. By the 1960s, Hey Song had risen to the top of Taiwan’s beverage industry. This success was driven not only by president Chang Wen-chi’s
The centuries-old fiery Chinese spirit baijiu (白酒), long associated with business dinners, is being reshaped to appeal to younger generations as its makers adapt to changing times. Mostly distilled from sorghum, the clear but pungent liquor contains as much as 60 percent alcohol. It’s the usual choice for toasts of gan bei (乾杯), the Chinese expression for bottoms up, and raucous drinking games. “If you like to drink spirits and you’ve never had baijiu, it’s kind of like eating noodles but you’ve never had spaghetti,” said Jim Boyce, a Canadian writer and wine expert who founded World Baijiu Day a decade
RSS