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Good Will Evil 凶魅

This strangely titled Taiwanese chiller has nothing to do with Good Will Hunting. A rising politician can’t raise a family because his nightmare-prone wife won’t agree; eventually they agree to adopt because it will benefit his career, but the strange child they pick from an orphanage has a thing for dismembering dolls and other sinister behavior. Like most horror flicks with disturbed children and flawed adults, there’s a horrible secret awaiting to surface. There’s also the requisite red ball bouncing down the stairs in slow motion, though not as slowly as the release for this film (it was made last year).



Be Kind Rewind

Jack Black gets too close to a power station and his magnetic body ends up wiping clean the videos in a rental store where his friend (Mos Def) works. To save the situation before the boss returns, the enterprising lads recreate the library by shooting their own goofy versions of movies that were lost. Critics couldn’t help asking: Have these people never heard of DVDs, or buying ex-rentals online? Taking a break from her Darfur activism, Mia Farrow plays a customer who can’t tell the faked movies from the originals. From Michel Gondry, music video heavyweight and director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.



Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers

Offbeat, charming Japanese production features Juri Ueno as a housewife whose absent husband and admiration for her self-assured best friend (Yu Aoi) prompt her, True Lies-style, to seek adventure as a spy. But this is no action film; it’s more a character study and a philosophy of life dressed as quirky comedy. Turtles may be fast underwater, but the movie has taken time to build an audience — and three years to get a Taiwanese release. It screens first in Taipei before swimming to other centers on the west coast.



South Taiwan Film & Video Festival

For movie lovers who despair at the Golden Horse film festival and competition’s political agenda, here’s the perfect alternative. The South Taiwan Film & Video Festival is chock full of exciting Taiwanese and international product that would never get the Horse’s nod, ranging from celluloid features to animation and video productions. This year’s retrospectives include Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖), whose debut feature Cape No. 7 (海角七號) has become a bona fide Taiwanese phenomenon, Lin Shu-yu (林書宇), director of Winds of September (九降風), and Hsu Hui-ju (許慧如). The festival is screening at the Ambassador complex in Tainan until Nov. 20, then at the Kaohsiung Film Archive from Nov. 29 to Dec. 7. Chiayi Performing Arts Center will also screen a selection of titles on Dec. 6 and Dec. 7. Some films have English subtitles and there are free screenings. More details are at www.south.org.tw/south2008.

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