Buttonman 鈕扣人
“There are no good people in the world, just people with different levels of bad,” says the poster for this moody, intriguing underworld saga. Francis Ng (吳鎮宇) stars as the title character, a triad fix-it man who cleans up after killings and leaves nothing behind for the authorities to investigate. Things turn sour for our antihero when his associate in organ plundering is killed and his girlfriend gets it on with his trainee. This is the first feature from Taiwanese director Chie Jen-hao (錢人豪), though the film was financed by Hong Kong investors. Screening exclusively at Spring Cinema Galaxy in Ximending, Taipei.
The Sparrow 文雀
Charismatic actor Simon Yam’s (任達華) characters have swung from the truly repellent (Dr Lamb) to the heroic (Bullet in the Head), but whatever the movie, he delivers. In this unusual film, Yam stars as a Hong Kong “sparrow” (pickpocket) who, together with his petty criminal friends, meets his match in a female admirer from China (Taiwan’s Kelly Lin Hsi-lei, 林熙蕾). Sparrow took a long time to make and won’t reach a big audience, but it deserves a look, not least for a pickpocketing climax to end them all. As with Buttonman, you’ll have to go to Spring Cinema Galaxy in Ximending to catch this one. Directed by Johnnie To (杜琪峰), whose consultants for the film’s pickpocket scenes included professional thieves and ballet dancers.
Getting Home 落葉歸根
Established Chinese director Zhang Yang (張楊) adapts a true story for the screen, earning plaudits around the world for an award-winning film of humanity, humor and unobtrusive satire. A man whose workmate and friend dies as the two are drinking decides to honor a promise the deceased had made to him — take his body to his home village after passing on. Thus follows an odyssey of strange encounters with people across half the Chinese countryside as the man (played with restraint by comedian Zhao Benshan, 趙本山) struggles with the task of single-handedly transporting a corpse.
Outlander
A spacecraft crash-lands in Norway in the time of the Vikings, and the locals don’t take to one of its occupants (Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ) too kindly when he shows up in their kingdom. Eventually the king (John Hurt) and his men see the wisdom of letting “Outlander” deal with a creature even more strange and dangerous. This movie took even longer to complete than Sparrow, but early critical reaction was less than kind, which might explain the delay of its US release to sometime next year.
Paris
Hard to think of a movie title that might bite off more than it can chew than this one (perhaps excepting Australia, which opens on Dec. 24), but Francophiles should be delighted with a trip to Paris: It’s got all the self-absorption, fine acting, photogenic locations and quirkiness you could ask for — and no plot intrusions by ethnic violence or threats of terror attacks. Juliette Binoche is a social worker who helps her dancer brother cope with a career-threatening ailment, setting in motion the introduction of characters both funny and appalling as the city unfolds before the viewer.
The Sky Crawlers
This is a contemplative, award-winning anime from director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell), who focuses on permanently youthful pilots fighting and dying in battles for public entertainment in what resembles a Nipponese aerial Rollerball with Orwellian trimmings. Variety called it a “labored parable,” perhaps helping to explain its failure in Japanese theaters, but the Japan Times was more supportive, in particular lauding the battle sequences, said to be “thrilling in a primal, adrenaline-pumping way.”
Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit
Like The Sky Crawlers, Ikigami is set in a Japan of the future in which the government sanctions the murder of a small proportion of the population as an incentive for the rest to be good cogs in the wheel (presumably this is the same administration that will launch live-to-air contests of teens killing teens, as depicted in Battle Royale). Government operative Shota Matsuda is one of the Men in Black/Meet Joe Black types who helpfully give victims 24 hours’ notice of their fate. Based on a manga, as if you hadn’t guessed.
Dragon Hunters
Finally, a European animated co-production in English and French that has eyes on Pixar’s market — in Europe at least. In feudal times, two dragon hunters of dubious motivation are forced by circumstances into hunting down their scaly, ruthless prey. Like the Singaporean animation Zodiac: The Race Begins that was released here back in May, this film apparently suffers from an imbalance between the quality of the animation and the effort put into story and characterization, though the visuals themselves might interest aficionados. The rest may just see a cinematic video game.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su