A feature debut by director Cheng Hsiao-tse (程孝澤), Miao Miao (渺渺) is the latest addition to the adolescent romance genre that has become a staple of contemporary Taiwanese cinema. What sets it apart from the pack is its big-name production team — Jet Tone Films (澤東電影), founded by Wong Kar-wai (王家衛), producers Stanley Kwan (關錦鵬) and Jacky Pang (彭綺華), editor William Chang Suk-ping (張叔平) and cinematographer Kwan Pun-leung (關本良).
The payoff of working with the heavyweights is a piece of well-executed, technically polished pop art that should prove popular with the youth market.
Ai (Sandrine Pinna), a sassy high school girl, meets Miao Miao (Ke Jia-ya, 柯佳嬿), the new exchange student from Japan, and is immediately attracted to the quiet, gentle newcomer. The two become best friends, palling around after school, sharing each other’s secrets and baking cakes together. Life is sweet, for a little while.
It doesn’t take long for Miao Miao to find first love in the form of sullen record store owner Chen Fei (Fan Chih-wei, 范植偉), who shuts out the world with a pair of headphones. Miao Miao enlists Ai’s help in stealing into the taciturn man’s life and winning his affections. Jealous and frustrated, Ai finds her feelings for her best pal go beyond friendship.
Miao Miao tells a solid story about friendship and first love. The well-cast Ke and Eurasian actress Pinna are keys to the film’s authenticity, as the rapport between them feels real and heart-felt. Pinna particularly stands out with her seemingly effortless performance. The sole male lead, Fan, however, struggles with a role that requires nothing more than a sulky face.
On the technical side, Chang’s smooth editing means the narrative structure is sound and clean-cut. The tasteful cinematography by Kwan Pun-leung (2046 and The Postmodern Life of My Aunt, 姨媽的後現代生活) lends a glossy look with an atmospheric palette of greens, purples, oranges and yellows. The urban landscapes of Taipei appeal lyrically, are saturated and rich in detail and stand in pleasing contrast to the clear and transparent hues of suburban life.
The script, however, doesn’t live up to the big names behind the film. Plot cliches are cloyingly overused and narrative devices intended to develop the characters sometimes feel manufactured and forced. And the film’s occasional tone of literary pomposity eats away at the realism generated by the “slices-of-life” acting and dialogue.
In other words, when the leads start citing Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and The Little Prince, the goose bumps the audience gets aren’t the kind the scriptwriters intended.
What was the population of Taiwan when the first Negritos arrived? In 500BC? The 1st century? The 18th? These questions are important, because they can contextualize the number of babies born last month, 6,523, to all the people on Taiwan, indigenous and colonial alike. That figure represents a year on year drop of 3,884 babies, prefiguring total births under 90,000 for the year. It also represents the 26th straight month of deaths exceeding births. Why isn’t this a bigger crisis? Because we don’t experience it. Instead, what we experience is a growing and more diverse population. POPULATION What is Taiwan’s actual population?
After Jurassic Park premiered in 1993, people began to ask if scientists could really bring long-lost species back from extinction, just like in the hit movie. The idea has triggered “de-extinction” debates in several countries, including Taiwan, where the focus has been on the Formosan clouded leopard (designated after 1917 as Neofelis nebulosa brachyura). National Taiwan Museum’s (NTM) Web site describes the Formosan clouded leopard as “a subspecies endemic to Taiwan…it reaches a body length of 0.6m to 1.2m and tail length of 0.7m to 0.9m and weighs between 15kg and 30kg. It is entirely covered with beautiful cloud-like spots
For the past five years, Sammy Jou (周祥敏) has climbed Kinmen’s highest peak, Taiwu Mountain (太武山) at 6am before heading to work. In the winter, it’s dark when he sets out but even at this hour, other climbers are already coming down the mountain. All of this is a big change from Jou’s childhood during the Martial Law period, when the military requisitioned the mountain for strategic purposes and most of it was off-limits. Back then, only two mountain trails were open, and they were open only during special occasions, such as for prayers to one’s ancestors during Lunar New Year.
A key feature of Taiwan’s environmental impact assessments (EIA) is that they seldom stop projects, especially once the project has passed its second stage EIA review (the original Suhua Highway proposal, killed after passing the second stage review, seems to be the lone exception). Mingjian Township (名間鄉) in Nantou County has been the site of rising public anger over the proposed construction of a waste incinerator in an important agricultural area. The township is a key producer of tea (over 40 percent of the island’s production), ginger and turmeric. The incinerator project is currently in its second stage EIA. The incinerator
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