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.
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