Dreams, a Journey Toward Wan Wan (帶著夢想去旅行)
There is nothing new about blogs turned into books turned into films. Taiwan Internet blogging sensation Wan Wan (彎彎) receives the cinematic treatment in this film by TV director Wang Chuan-tsong (王傳宗). Wan Wan, and the simple line-drawing character than dominates her blog, hit Taiwan’s office workers like a tornado back in 2004, providing a cutesy depiction of petty frustrations and dreams for a better life. When hits on her site broke 200 million in 2008, books and films soon followed. Dreams, a Journey Toward Wan Wan is a documentary that tells the tale of this strange phenomenon. Check out the Wan Wan Web site at cwwany.com.
Camino
Spanish film inspired by the life and death of Alexia Gonzales (a woman who is currently being considered for sainthood), Camino tells the story of a young Catholic woman’s struggles with debilitating illness and the effects it has on her deeply pious family, especially her mother, a devout member of the extreme Catholic group Opus Dei. The film picked up a slew of Spanish film awards last year, including the Goya Award in 2009 for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Screenplay, but its deep concerns with some of the more bizarre aspects of the Catholic faith may make it play less well in Taiwan. At 143 minutes, Camino is likely to prove a grueling experience.
Shrek Forever After
The fourth and, we are promised, final installment of the Shrek franchise. Given the poor reviews of Shrek the Third (2007), it’s just as well that this outing has the added gimmick of 3D to bring in the punters. Unsurprisingly, Shrek Forever After has failed to recapture the off-kilter humor of the first two Shrek movies. The desperation of the filmmakers is reflected in the high-concept “what if?” story scenario with Shrek finding himself transplanted by the evil Rumpelstiltskin into a world in which he has to become reacquainted with all his old pals. Instead of being fun or exciting, it’s all been seen before.
Echoes of the Rainbow (歲月神偷)
Hong Kong movie directed and written by Alex Law (羅啟銳) based on his own childhood and the tragic death of his brother from leukemia. The period detail is said to be very accurate of Hong Kong from 50 years ago, and likely to stir up memories. Strong performances by veterans Simon Yam (任達華) and Sandra Ng (吳君如) as parents of two boys eking out a precarious living as shoemakers and dealing with family tragedy. The pitfalls of a director going straight for the heartstrings have been avoided in Law’s careful and sensitive recollection of a Hong Kong very different from the one usually portrayed in cinema.
Gabai Granny 2
A follow-up to 2006’s Gabai Granny (Saga no Gabai-Baachan), based on a successful novel by Yoshichi Shimada about a young boy growing up poor but happy under the care of his grandmother, a practical and resourceful woman who teaches him many life lessons. This sequel, subtitled “Grandma I Want to Play Baseball,” picks up the same set of characters and adds a baseball theme. The main character experiences plenty of laughter and tears in his struggle to make it onto a school baseball team, helped with practical advice and comforting words from grandma.
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
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
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