The Wingless Swallow (不能飛的鳥)/Fururi (不思議天使)
A package of two films set in Taiwan and Japan with the same crew and actors, this is an unusual exercise in mood and emotion suitable for older teenage girls in particular. Set in Taipei, The Wingless Swallow sees a young author of picture books struggle with family memories, but she finds a voice for her past after coming across children’s tales in an old library. Fururi looks at the frustrated dream of a young Japanese woman to become a flight attendant, and what happens when she meets a mysterious youth. From director Masayuki Koide.
Poker King (撲克王)
Just how many more crappy gambling films can Hong Kong come up with? Louis Koo (古天樂) has a special gift that allows him to calculate poker odds, and this comes useful in squaring off with Sean Lau (劉青雲), who has his beady eyes on Koo’s deceased father’s casino empire. Time Out Hong Kong pointed out in its dispirited review that the film was produced by the firm that owns the casino in the film. Even the film’s poster and title font seem tired. Next!
Troubled Water
Praise aplenty for this Norwegian film whose structure resembles a pared-down take on Rashomon. A young man released from prison after serving time over the death of a young child reinvents himself as a church organist, but fate cruelly brings the boy’s mother to his church. From there the fireworks proper are unleashed, but not before the mother’s alternative take on the story is delivered. Humane and rich, this is bound to be one of the highlights of the year.
Transsiberian
As the title almost suggests, this is a train mystery, with missing passengers, relentless police, drug dealers and murder most foul. Married couple Emily Mortimer (Match Point, The Pink Panther) and Woody Harrelson run into all sorts of intrigue and danger on the famed remote train route after encountering a couple of fellow passengers into drugs. Ben Kingsley is a Russian narc on the trail. Great locations and lots of surprises add up to a movie that Roger Ebert called “one hell of a thriller.”
I Come With the Rain
The weirdest release of the week takes no prisoners, on screen or off. Josh Hartnett is a traumatized ex-cop on an Asian hunt for the son of a pharmaceuticals mogul. His enquiries, with the help of a Hong Kong policeman friend (Shawn Yue, 余文樂, Infernal Affairs), lead to a young man (Takuya Kimura) living in a hut who performs bizarre healing ceremonies. Also hunting this prey is a marauding gangster (Lee Byung-hun) with a romantic score to settle. Extensively violent, gruesome and framed by religious motifs and serial killing flashbacks, this international production prefers style and symbols over story and was dismissed by Variety as “frequently incoherent,” though it has its defenders. From eclectic director Tran Anh Hung (Cyclo, The Scent of Green Papaya), who probably doesn’t care what Variety thinks.
Rahtree Revenge
More grisly stuff, but this time in a more conventional and comic format as Thailand’s Buppha Rahtree series clocks up its fourth entry. The female ghost Buppha and her would-be acolyte, a student/cartoonist, are still angst-ridden and morose in the Oscar Apartments building, but that razor-packing little girl with a serious jaw injury is still hanging around. Added to the mix are bumbling cops, a Cambodian shaman and an illegal gambling den. There’s even a cameo by a small Chinese-style hopping vampire. Fun for all who like Thai horror with plenty of sauce.
Pride
Two ambitious would-be opera singers duke it out amid wildly fluctuating fortunes (figuratively and literally) in Pride, a Japanese drama from director Shusuke Kaneko. Working class struggler Hikari Mitsushima (Death Note, Exte: Hair Extensions) and rich kid Stephanie (a singer in real life) star as the initially friendly, later combative, twosome who end up vying for the same romantic and musical opportunities. The Japan Times liked this one, calling it a “deliciously bumpy ride.”
Ander
Very little advance press for this Spanish film, but what exists is very positive. Ander is a farmer approaching middle age in the Basque country whose life is quiet and routine. An accident leaves him unable to work, so his family reluctantly hires a migrant laborer from Peru, leading to interpersonal revelations. Like My Beautiful Laundrette, this film crosses ethnic and class boundaries to unite ordinary people in life-changing relationships.
Villa Amalia
A composer and pianist (Isabelle Huppert) goes almost completely off the grid — existentially, not mentally — after discovering her husband’s infidelity and running into a childhood friend. Abandoning her career, Huppert takes a trek through Europe in search of inner peace, a journey that finishes at the title location, which brings its own complications. The implications of the story and the anomalous elements of the main character are sure to provoke debate among the few who see it.
5th Taiwan European Film Festival
This festival, a joint effort of the European Economic and Trade Office and the INFINE Art and Culture Exchange, is back. Feature films from all over Europe are on the menu, and it’s on a tour of university campuses and select other locations until Jan. 15. Screenings are in DVD format, but entry is free. Titles, times and locations are at www.infine-art.com/eufestival, though the English-language page is yet to be updated.
SEAL Team VI
A US counter-terrorist unit in Iraq just before Operation Desert Storm runs into grave danger (“Is there any other kind?”). Purportedly based on actual events. According to IMDb, debuting director Mark C. Andrews was also the film’s writer, producer, foley artist, underwater cameraman and assistant editor — who said auteurs died out? This DVD promotional release is at the Baixue theater in Ximending from tomorrow.
On the evening of June 1, Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) apologized and resigned in disgrace. His crime was instructing his driver to use a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon. The Control Yuan is the government branch that investigates, audits and impeaches government officials for, among other things, misuse of government funds, so his misuse of a government vehicle was highly inappropriate. If this story were told to anyone living in the golden era of swaggering gangsters, flashy nouveau riche businessmen, and corrupt “black gold” politics of the 1980s and 1990s, they would have laughed.
When Lisa, 20, laces into her ultra-high heels for her shift at a strip club in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, she knows that aside from dancing, she will have to comfort traumatized soldiers. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, exhausted troops are the main clientele of the Flash Dancers club in the center of the northeastern city, just 20 kilometers from Russian forces. For some customers, it provides an “escape” from the war, said Valerya Zavatska — a 25-year-old law graduate who runs the club with her mother, an ex-dancer. But many are not there just for the show. They “want to talk about what hurts,” she
This is a deeply unsettling period in Taiwan. Uncertainties are everywhere while everyone waits for a small army of other shoes to drop on nearly every front. During challenging times, interesting political changes can happen, yet all three major political parties are beset with scandals, strife and self-inflicted wounds. As the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is held accountable for not only the challenges to the party, but also the nation. Taiwan is geopolitically and economically under threat. Domestically, the administration is under siege by the opposition-controlled legislature and growing discontent with what opponents characterize as arrogant, autocratic
It was just before 6am on a sunny November morning and I could hardly contain my excitement as I arrived at the wharf where I would catch the boat to one of Penghu’s most difficult-to-access islands, a trip that had been on my list for nearly a decade. Little did I know, my dream would soon be crushed. Unsure about which boat was heading to Huayu (花嶼), I found someone who appeared to be a local and asked if this was the right place to wait. “Oh, the boat to Huayu’s been canceled today,” she told me. I couldn’t believe my ears. Surely,
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