About the Looking For and the Finding of Love
A tension-ridden romance between a composer and a singer ends in self-inflicted tragedy, or so it seems, until … the latter follows her troubled beau to the other side. Fassbinder, this ain’t. Curiously mixing chronically challenged relationships with special effects, this German fantasy is more than three years old, one among a miserly lineup of films this week that suggests Taiwanese distributors have elected not to put up any real product against the Harry Potter juggernaut. Co-written by Perfume author Patrick Süskind, of all people.
Anamorph
Willem Dafoe stars in this 2007 horror mystery as a cop with a line in hunting serial killers, but his latest case proves to be his most dangerous yet. “Anamorph” refers to the shifting of an image as it is observed from specific positions; the psycho version afflicting Detective Dafoe sees scenes of carnage become works of art. This film’s humdrum critical response shouldn’t be enough to turn away horror fans who like a lot of blood and gristle with their artsy mood. Starts tomorrow.
Bunt
A youngster who lives to deliver hot water in his school finds himself without a purpose in life when new technology arrives, so he looks to the school baseball team for salvation. But there’s a problem: He’s expected to play for a team whose coach is under real pressure. When a film from South Korea that’s more than two years gets a grindhouse release, it’s usually a DVD promotion, and this one is no different. Unlike many, however, this one has real heart and deserves a wider young audience. 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
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