Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood directs and stars in this drama about a crusty, racist, epithet-spewing Korean War vet who is less than impressed with having Asians as neighbors. But Clint the director has a surprise in store. They are Hmong, a people who backed the US during the Vietnam War. Eventually he comes to know the family, and gets involved when violence comes knocking. The title refers to the main character’s prized car that he must care for and defend — and perhaps what it represents in a wider sense. Glowing reviews — and some debate — accompanied this latest effort from a legendary American actor-director.
Departures
This is the Japanese entry that beat Waltz With Bashir to the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film. A cellist returns to his old home in the country with his wife and finds a job as a handler of corpses in preparation for their display at funerals. His challenge is not so much the sometimes-gruesome work, which he becomes captivated by, as reconciling his inner demons with the demands of family and face. It’s an offbeat, humorous and carefully detailed film that will delight those who want to see something unusual. Japanese title: Okuribito.
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Released in the wake of the economic disaster, this film suffers from an immediate loss of orientation in the same way that Collateral Damage did in depicting pre-Sept. 11 terrorism. Isla Fisher (the dynamic Aussie star of Wedding Crashers) is the confessor of the title, a New York columnist who simply can’t afford to shop like there’s no tomorrow — but does anyway. Directed by fellow Australian P.J. Hogan of Muriel’s Wedding fame, though fans of that benchmark Aussie comedy-drama might struggle to find similar sophistication here.
Defiance
Daniel Craig stars as one of four Belarusian brothers who set up a forest-based Jewish community that resists the Nazis in this recreation of a remarkable true story. Narrowly escaping from the Germans, the brothers head to the woods, only to be joined by a growing number of refugees. Eventually their numbers reach well over 1,000, and a mini-society forms as the threat lurks around them. Craig’s fans will have a good time, and there’s just enough action for it to be called a war movie. Directed by Edward Zwick (Glory, Blood Diamond), who can’t seem to resist worthy subjects.
K-20: Legend of the Mask
A superhero film of sorts, K-20 rises above the pool of Japanese manga-based movies. Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) is a circus performer who is fingered for the crimes of a supervillain, but he escapes detention and sets out to clear his name by snaring “K-20,” his newfound nemesis. A strange retro urban setting (World War II never took place in the Japan of this film) is the canvas for a spectacular fight between whimsical good and eccentric evil.
Mapado 2
In the first Mapado (2005), a couple of lowlifes (gangster and crooked cop) arrived on a strange island in search of a woman with the key to a fortune but ended up getting comically nasty treatment from a group of elderly women. In this sequel from 2007, the ex-cop is back on an assignment and ends up again on the island by accident, again suffering at the hands of the five aggressive grannies, one of whom may carry a lucrative secret. Both films were surprise box office hits in South Korea. Also known as Mapado 2: Back to the Island, this is showing at Ximending’s Baixue theater.
Aftermath: Population Zero
The Scholar multiplex in Taipei and the second-run Wonderful Cinemas in Taichung are offering this made-for-cable National Geographic mockumentary for those who can’t get enough of the apocalypse (or don’t have cable). Anthro-apocalypse, that is. This film is not interested in how humankind perishes, but what would happen to the world in our absence if we simply vanished. Pets, cities, the environment, nuclear power plants … you get the picture. Desolation special effects abound. Narrated by Reg E. Cathey of TV’s The Wire.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not