This Movie Is Broken
Concert movie that should be a great follow-up for those who made the Broken Social Scene gig here last weekend, and for those who missed it, an introduction to the band. The film by Canadian director Bruce McDonald weaves an easygoing story of a tentative relationship between Bruno (Greg Calderone) and Caroline (Georgina Reilly), who wake up together one morning and need to work out how to go on from there. Much of the action takes the two may-be lovers through the backstage setup of a Broken Social Scene performance. Intimate camera work is effectively cut with excellent concert footage, creating a movie that has proven a big hit with fans.
Ice Kacang Puppy Love (初戀紅豆冰)
This Chinese-language film from Malaysia is a bittersweet coming-of-age comedy that is full of nostalgia for traditional Asian family life. Directed by and starring Ah Niu (aka Tan Kheng-seong 陳慶祥, as Botak) and Angelica Lee (李心潔, as Fighting Fish) as cousins who have a close friendship verging on the romantic. Their relationship is complicated by an annoying neighbor, Malinfan (Gary Chaw, 曹格), who falls hard for the combative Fighting Fish. Romantic attachments in Ice Kacang Puppy Love are an extension of the sound track’s songs, which are slightly melancholic and very melodic. The mixture of pop star faces and nostalgic mood will be easily recognizable to Taiwanese. Ice kacang is the Malaysian term for the shaved ice dessert that is popular here. The theme music for the film is already working its way up the charts.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec
Any work by Luc Besson is likely to be visually stunning, and in his most recent guise of director, he has bundled together visual ideas into something that resembles a post-Avatar meeting of Mary Poppins and Laura Croft. There are flying dinosaurs and Egyptian mummies, as well as Louise Bourgoin dressed in 1920s flapper kit. The title character, Adele Blanc-Sec, is a free-spirited woman who throws herself into a world of adventure that involves many delightfully improbable scenarios rendered with all Besson’s usual attention to detail. Based on a comic book series by Jacques Tardi, Besson has predictably given the satirical and complex original material his usual stylistic polish (which for many translates as a complete lack of depth). This is a fantasy that is aimed as much toward adults as children.
Bunny and the Bull
A clever film that fails to be funny, Paul King’s (creator of the popular surreal/absurd comedy television series The Mighty Boosh) Bunny and the Bull is a visual feast that fails to work on many levels. Impressive production work that corrals a wide range of animation techniques into a fantasy road trip reminiscent of Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep alienates audiences with its heavy-handed technical smarts. Leads Edward Hogg (Stephan) and Simon Farnaby (Bunny) provide a deadpan response to this fantasy work that should be funny, but they are let down by a script that is short of laughs.
Love You 10,000 Years (愛你一萬年)
Romantic comedies that depend primarily on a highly improbable premise for their laughs are nothing unusual, but Love You 10,000 Years manages to underwhelm even before it is out of the gate. Its lack of credibility is heightened by publicity material that lauds the support of the Taichung City Government and the presence of numerous scenic locations. Films that factor in government promotions are rarely a success. Then we have Vic Chou (周渝民), who has chosen this unpromising vehicle to save his floundering career. The story is about a slacker guitarist, played by Chou, who meets a Japanese woman on the rebound from a nasty breakup. They decide to embark on a love affair that will lasts just 100 days. The results are pretty predictable.
Axis Powers Paint It, White
Alien invasion movie from Japan based on a Web comic titled Hetalia: Axis Powers that was adapted into manga and anime formats. Originally set during the period between the two World Wars, it has now moved to outer space. The film, directed by Bob Shirohata, who oversaw the concept’s migration to anime, continues the basic idea of satirizing world events through various national stereotypes.
Liar Game: The Final Stage
Yet more manga-based movie action, Liar Game: The Final Stage provides a resolution to a franchise that was first serialized in 2005. This film is partly set on the island of Kinmen (金門), which should provide additional interest for local viewers. The plot focuses on Nao Kanzaki (Erika Toda), an almost pathologically honest college student who gets caught up in an ongoing scam involving “genius swindler” Shinichi Akiyama. The story follows a progression that is similar to that of a computer game, as characters advance from one level to the next. For manga fans only.
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
The latest Formosa poll released at the end of last month shows confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) plunged 8.1 percent, while satisfaction with the Lai administration fared worse with a drop of 8.5 percent. Those lacking confidence in Lai jumped by 6 percent and dissatisfaction in his administration spiked up 6.7 percent. Confidence in Lai is still strong at 48.6 percent, compared to 43 percent lacking confidence — but this is his worst result overall since he took office. For the first time, dissatisfaction with his administration surpassed satisfaction, 47.3 to 47.1 percent. Though statistically a tie, for most
Six weeks before I embarked on a research mission in Kyoto, I was sitting alone at a bar counter in Melbourne. Next to me, a woman was bragging loudly to a friend: She, too, was heading to Kyoto, I quickly discerned. Except her trip was in four months. And she’d just pulled an all-nighter booking restaurant reservations. As I snooped on the conversation, I broke out in a sweat, panicking because I’d yet to secure a single table. Then I remembered: Eating well in Japan is absolutely not something to lose sleep over. It’s true that the best-known institutions book up faster
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
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