Confucius 孔子: 決戰春秋
Casting Hong Kong’s enduringly charismatic Chow Yun-fat (周潤發) as the most famous Chinese thinker of all was bound to divide Chinese-speaking audiences, though Beijing gave him and his colleagues a boost by kicking Avatar out of theaters to make room for them. In Taiwan, however, the market rules and the toothy one will have to stand on his own two feet. Purists might ask why a film about a philosopher would place so much emphasis on battle scenes worthy of a biopic of Sun Tzu (孫子); romantics will mourn the apparent excision of love scenes between Chow and Zhou Xun (周迅) to satisfy neo-neo-Confucianists in Beijing and elsewhere. Still, director Hu Mei (胡玫) seems to have delivered a respectful and respectable production that might attract a modern international audience to the timeless Analects.
14 Blades 錦衣衛
Donnie Yen (甄子丹) headlines in another actioner bound to increase his already considerable fan base. He plays the head of the titular Praetorian Guard-like bodyguard unit to the Chinese emperor. Lots of combat in this one, and its traditional settings are bound to impress those who love their fisticuffs and weapon-bearing on exotic-looking sets.
From Paris With Love
In recent years, for every Old Dogs John Travolta comes up with a movie like From Paris With Love. In this one he’s a scary-looking CIA agent who takes no nonsense from his prey, or from his apprentice-of-sorts, a Paris-based diplomatic assistant (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, from Bend It Like Beckham) who has higher aspirations. Lots of the crew on this one worked on the Liam Neeson action feature Taken.
Phantom Pain
The title is more intriguing than the set-up: A terrible accident leaves a German cyclist permanently disabled — but also gives him the chance to show that he has true grit. You’ve heard this story before, but star Til Schweiger has a large number of admirers and, hey, everyone has to see an against-all-odds sporting redemption epic at some point. It’s also based on a true story, which helps.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s