Kung fu mixes with Indiana Jones, and Jay Chou (周杰倫) and Lin Chi-ling (林志玲) are in the lead roles. The Treasure Hunter sounds like a film that can’t go wrong. That is until old-time slapstick comedy whiz Chu Yen-ping (朱延平) manages to spoil the Chinese version of this ancient civilization adventure with an utterly nonsensical story plagued with stale humor and dull, silly dialogue.
In a role tailor-made for the Mando-pop king to show off his aloof charm, Chou plays Ciao Fei, a treasure hunter and kung fu master. The hero is in search of a map that will lead him to a lost city brimming with riches. His companions on the journey include city gal-cum love interest Lan Ting (played by Lin), Chinese thespian Chen Daoming’s (陳道明) deadpan archaeologist, and comic sidekick Pork Rib played by Eric Tsang (曾志偉).
Chou’s real-life pal Will Liu () plays the mummy-man villain. There is also the group of thugs termed the Sandstorm Legion who never make it back to the screen after pulling down a dingy bar at the beginning of the movie.
Even more puzzling is the laughable Eagle of the Desert, who is supposed to be a mysterious guardian of all things in the arid region, who suddenly and inexplicably exits the movie with the girl he loves.
The film possesses no plot other than a mad scrambling to grab the treasure map. The romance between Chou and Lin doesn’t work either. The onscreen love is killed prematurely by a plethora of coy, mushy dialogue and feeble flirting. The good news is that despite the poorly written script, baby-voiced Lin manages to play her babe-to-ogle-at role with dignity. Chou is his usual self as a one-expression hero looking good with the aid of an over-the-top wire-fu show.
The final verdict: It is best to avoid The Treasure Hunter unless you want to have a good laugh at the movie.
In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
Pei-Ru Ko (柯沛如) says her Taipei upbringing was a little different from her peers. “We lived near the National Palace Museum [north of Taipei] and our neighbors had rice paddies. They were growing food right next to us. There was a mountain and a river so people would say, ‘you live in the mountains,’ and my friends wouldn’t want to come and visit.” While her school friends remained a bus ride away, Ko’s semi-rural upbringing schooled her in other things, including where food comes from. “Most people living in Taipei wouldn’t have a neighbor that was growing food,” she says. “So
Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated