Deemed a tough sell in a youth and beauty-obsessed society, the elderly are usually overlooked in mainstream Taiwanese cinema.
Foreign films such as Late Bloomers (2006) and Young@Heart (2007), however, have hit local screens and through inspiring drama and heart-warming comedy have struck a chord.
In Step by Step (練•戀•舞), experienced female documentary director Kuo Chen-ti (郭珍弟), whose Viva Tonal (跳舞時代), a documentary about the Taiwanese pop music scene during the 1930s, won a Golden Horse Award, takes a similar approach. Starring promising actor Joseph Chang (張孝全) and supermodel Janel Tsai (蔡淑臻), the film weds star charisma with comedy in a dance genre package and winds up a lively story about a group of nursing-home residents.
Chang plays Biran, a young male nurse working in a small-town old people’s home in Yunlin. Never the type to follow the caregiver’s manual, Biran is custodian, friend and family to the group of aging eccentrics who are no longer interested in or excited by life.
Ruping (Tsai), a new dance teacher in town, catches Biran’s eye and heart. Cold and detached, the mysterious woman reluctantly agrees to teach the residents at the nursing home. New steps, beats and rhythm bring refreshing joy to all but Old Tang (Tien Ming, 田明), a retired military commander who harbors a secret that has been gnawing away at his mind for decades.
A specter of doom looms when the insidious head of the nursing home plans to close down the establishment and sell the property to a big enterprise. Determined to leave without regret, the residents train for the upcoming national ballroom dance competition. Meanwhile, both Biran and Ruping learn to heal emotional wounds and help their geriatric friends make the most of life.
Mostly shot in Hsilo (西螺) Township, Yunlin County, the film radiates a countryside charm, and the colonial Baroque-style architecture, which is used as the site for the nursing home, exudes a nostalgic sentiment that reflects the mood of the film’s senior characters.
While model-turned-actress Tsai turns in a passable big-screen debut performance and Chang tackles the role of the young caretaker with ease, the stars of the film are the group of veteran actors including Chang Fu-chien (張復建), Hung Ming-li (洪明麗) and Hsiao Hu-tou (小戽斗).
Mostly remembered for serious and righteous roles, Chang Fu-chien is a delightful surprise as he plays a likable elder who suffers from mild Parkinson’s disease. Tien’s character, a retired officer, may bring tears to viewers’ eyes when the reason behind his bitterness and longing for a family is revealed towards the end of the movie.
In Step, Kuo has blended a series of characterizations into a commercial genre flick. Yet, the film lacks the necessary dramatic tension that makes a dance movie captivating and enthralling. The dance scenes mostly involve Tsai’s elegant moves and svelte body. The elders are depicted as clumsy novices at tango at first, but their transformation in the ballroom is never shown, which hinders audiences from building up anticipation and makes the final dance competition nothing more than a show of feebleness.
Step by Step opens a new path in terms of subject matter, yet the lack of narrative transition and climax prohibit the film from fully developing into the piece of entertainment it sets out to be.
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
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located