Billed as the first Taiwanese movie to venture into thriller territory in years, Zoom Hunting (獵豔), producer Cho Li’s (卓立) directing debut, looks like a promising commercial flick with its theme of voyeurism, explicit sex scenes and a star-studded cast that includes pop idols Ning Chang (張鈞甯) and Wen Sheng-hao (溫昇豪) and famous actors Chin Shih-chieh (金士傑) and Jack Kao (高捷). But an unimaginative story line and drab performances by the lead roles ruin the surprise.
The film begins with fashion magazine photographer Ruyi (Chang) taking snapshots from her balcony and inadvertently capturing a couple (Wen and Chou Heng-yin, 周姮吟) having sex. When she realizes the couple are adulterers, Ruyi can’t resist the urge to stalk them with her camera and share the discoveries with her novelist sister Ruxing (Chu Chih-ying, 朱芷瑩).
One night, the voyeur hears a loud argument from the couple’s room across the street and sees a man being knocked down by a woman. She calls the police, but nothing unusual is found.
Convinced that something did happen, Ruyi enlarges her photographs and discovers that her sister had been in the room earlier. Meanwhile, Ruxing overcomes her writer’s block and finishes an erotic thriller that involves the murder of a married man by his paramour.
Puzzled, Ruyi starts investigating and eventually confronts her sister about what really happened that night.
Zoom Hunting opens with an auspicious premise effectively delivered through fluid cinematography by Hong Kong’s Kwan Pun-leung (關本良), whose credits include Wong Kar-wai’s (王家衛) In the Mood for Love (花樣年華) and Ann Hui’s (�?�) July Rhapsody (男人四十). In the beginning of the film, Kwan’s aerial cinematography hovers over Ruyi’s apartment building and swoops down to close in on other characters whose identities will soon be revealed.
Thus director Cho takes merely a few minutes to pin down the setting and main characters — a group of ordinary people living in an ordinary neighborhood. That the mystery thriller unfolds through breakfast eateries, a neighborhood park, narrow alleys and other sights familiar to Taipei residents only adds to the allure.
But as the film proceeds, tension and suspense are gradually worn out by the director’s plain narrative skills and dull verbal explanations by the characters. This dramatic device works well on stage but seems abruptly out of place for the intended mood and pace of this film.
The wooden acting of Chang and Chu as the two sisters doesn’t help either. It is theater actress Chou’s natural performance and the explosive cameo of Michelle Krusiec as the cheating man’s wife that deliver much-needed flare.
Zoom Hunting makes a decent stab at exploring a rarely touched upon genre, but the suspense dwindles early and drains emotion from what should be the pivotal, intensely charged scenes toward the end.
What was the population of Taiwan when the first Negritos arrived? In 500BC? The 1st century? The 18th? These questions are important, because they can contextualize the number of babies born last month, 6,523, to all the people on Taiwan, indigenous and colonial alike. That figure represents a year on year drop of 3,884 babies, prefiguring total births under 90,000 for the year. It also represents the 26th straight month of deaths exceeding births. Why isn’t this a bigger crisis? Because we don’t experience it. Instead, what we experience is a growing and more diverse population. POPULATION What is Taiwan’s actual population?
After Jurassic Park premiered in 1993, people began to ask if scientists could really bring long-lost species back from extinction, just like in the hit movie. The idea has triggered “de-extinction” debates in several countries, including Taiwan, where the focus has been on the Formosan clouded leopard (designated after 1917 as Neofelis nebulosa brachyura). National Taiwan Museum’s (NTM) Web site describes the Formosan clouded leopard as “a subspecies endemic to Taiwan…it reaches a body length of 0.6m to 1.2m and tail length of 0.7m to 0.9m and weighs between 15kg and 30kg. It is entirely covered with beautiful cloud-like spots
For the past five years, Sammy Jou (周祥敏) has climbed Kinmen’s highest peak, Taiwu Mountain (太武山) at 6am before heading to work. In the winter, it’s dark when he sets out but even at this hour, other climbers are already coming down the mountain. All of this is a big change from Jou’s childhood during the Martial Law period, when the military requisitioned the mountain for strategic purposes and most of it was off-limits. Back then, only two mountain trails were open, and they were open only during special occasions, such as for prayers to one’s ancestors during Lunar New Year.
March 23 to March 29 Kao Chang (高長) set strict rules for his descendants: women were to learn music or cooking, and the men medicine or theology. No matter what life path they chose, they were to use their skills in service of the Presbyterian Church and society. As a result, musical ability — particularly in Western instruments — was almost expected among the Kao women, and even those who married into the family often had musical training. Although the men did not typically play instruments, they played a supporting role, helping to organize music programs such as children’s orchestras, writes
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