▲▲COMPILED BY MARTIN WILLIAMS
Detroit Metal City
We’ve all heard stories of professional musicians who pay their dues performing music they can’t stand. This manga adaptation from Japan takes this predicament to the wackiest level, as a good-natured rural boy with a thing for easy listening finds himself forced to retain the identity of a death metal icon caked with gothic makeup after his titular band DMC hits pay dirt. This feverish metal revisiting of the Mrs Doubtfire theme has had audiences in stitches on both sides of the Pacific. And yes, if the title weren’t already a giveaway, Gene Simmons makes a late appearance.
Suite Dreams
The release of director Koki Mitani’s The Magic Hour two weeks ago allows this handsome, impressive Japanese comedy from three years ago to hit Taiwanese theaters. The scene is a large hotel, the time is New Year’s Eve, and the players are a bunch of powerful and/or eccentric guests and staff. Mitani respects his characters and how they interact, and the result is a wide and detailed canvas of hilarity and drama that has delighted critics and audiences.
700 Days of Battle: Us vs the Police
Another Japanese release, but a polar opposite in terms of sophistication. Based on part of a “hit” blog serial (as measured by Web site hits, presumably), 700 Days proceeds through a litany of comical clashes between some high school friends and a cop. Broad and family-friendly, this is recommended for anyone who thinks youthful rebellion only ends with a pie in the face of authority rather than drug addiction or a debilitating police record.
Memory
With Billy Zane, Dennis Hopper and Ann-Margret in a movie, there should be something for everyone, but the reaction to this little-seen chiller from 2006 was less than generous. Zane is afflicted with “memories” that may or may not have been his own. One would hope not, seeing as they included abducting and killing kids. The response to this potentially horrifying scenario seems to have largely focused on the viability of Zane’s hair and why the market forgot to send it straight to DVD. That forgetfulness now extends to the Taiwanese market.
The Gig
Another promotion for TiVo product makes its way to Taipei’s Baixue theater in Ximending. The shadow of Porky’s looms large as a bunch of Thai college friends set about capturing the girls of their wet dreams by forming a group called “The Gig.” The first rule in associating with women, so the newspaper ad sagely tells us, is “don’t fall in love with the girl you’re banging.” Got that straight? This 2006 release made enough money to get a sequel filmed the following year. Starts tomorrow.
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
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
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
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