Ajami
A nominee for the 2010 Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category, Ajami has taken a long time to be given a local release. It is a Middle Eastern take on Paul Haggis’ Crash, but without the absurd coincidences and heavy-handed sentimentality. Directed by first-time feature filmmakers Yaron Shani and Scandar Copti, one an Israeli Jew and the other a Palestinian, the film presents a multi-stranded story about life in the mixed Arab and Jewish neighborhood from which the film takes its name. Evenhanded and thoughtful, the vision it presents is bleak, with misunderstanding and violence tearing apart the lives of normal people who aspire to little more than survival. At 120 minutes, Ajami is a little long, and the jittery handheld camerawork can become annoying, but these are minor complaints against an outstanding film that works at both topical and dramatic levels.
Donkey Xote
It is hard to imagine why this 2007 Spanish animation, now dubbed into English, has ended up on these shores, other than as fodder for those who thought that Shrek Forever After was funny. Even the trailer for the film announces that this film is “from the producers who saw Shrek,” a joking reference to its stylistic plagiarism of that successful franchise. There is even a donkey whose resemblance to Shrek’s best friend seems rather more than coincidental. Based on the story of Don Quixote, its riffs on the complex novel are not without wit, but in trying to bridge the gulf between literary humor and DreamWorks antics, it ties itself in knots and forfeits most of its potential appeal.
Resident Evil: Afterlife
The bad news: There is life after death. After we thought that the Resident Evil franchise had come to an end, it has returned, and in 3D and 3D IMAX no less. The additional technology will come in handy for a series that has always touted its effects, and the trailers certainly sport great visual prowess. Star Milla Jovovich (Alice) never fails to look less than ravishing in a skin-tight bodysuit and she is joined once again by Ali Larter (Niki Sanders from Heroes) in this girl-power action feature. The world has been ravaged by an infectious virus, and it is up to Alice to take down the people responsible. Guns, knives and explosive devices abound as Alice fights her way through a vast underground complex to complete her mission.
The Stool Pigeon (線人)
Dante Lam (林超賢) is back in yet another hard-hitting cops-and-robbers flick with a slightly different twist. This time the heart of the story is the police informant, a much-overlooked character in the movie detective’s arsenal. Elements from recent films Fire of Conscience (火龍), Sniper (神槍手) and Beast Stalker (証人) all make an appearance, and the mise-en-scene might all be a bit ho-hum if you are looking for originality, but for Lam’s growing number of fans, this is unlikely to be much of a worry, since you can’t get too much of a good thing. The story, which centers on a relationship between a detective, played by Nick Cheung (張家輝), and his informant, played by Nicolas Tse (謝霆鋒), has sufficient complexity to draw audiences into the story, and Kwai Lun-mei (桂綸鎂) provides more than adequate eye candy.
Saying Good-bye, Oneday (Sayonara itsuka)
Japanese film made by South Korean director John Lee that primarily takes place in Thailand. The complexity pretty much ends there, for Saying Good-bye, Oneday is really a fairly straightforward piece of romantic melodrama about a man, Higashigaito Yutaka, who chooses professional success over love, only to find that his high-powered job is no substitute. It goes without saying that Yutake has the opportunity to reprise his youthful passion. He meets her 25 years later in a Bangkok hotel; both discover that the fires of love have not been extinguished. The plot is full of holes, but Saying Good-bye, Oneday is stylishly put together and contains superior acting by J-pop idol Miho Nakayama and veteran TV actress Yuriko Ishida.
Bangkok Traffic (Love) Story
An urban love story that broke box office records when it was released in Thailand, the film was rather surprisingly made with the sponsorship of Bangkok’s BTS Skytrain system. With the city playing a significant role, Bangkok Traffic (Love) Story lends itself to comparison with Arvin Chen’s (陳駿霖) Au Revoir Taipei (一頁台北). While this is basically a fluffy romantic drama about young people overcoming the many obstacles that modern city life places in the way of establishing a strong and meaningful relationship, the acting and storytelling are solid and the crucial role of nighttime maintenance workers on the Skytrain system fits snugly into the overall texture of the film.
Flowers
A film by veteran Japanese director Norihiro Koizumi, Flowers is a celebration of beautiful Japanese women through the ages and has a closer relationship to glamour calendars and sophisticated advertising than it does to drama. It stars some of the most celebrated beauties of Japan’s cinema establishment, including Yu Aoi, Yuko Takeuchi, Rena Tanaka, Yukie Nakama, Kyoka Suzuki and Ryoko Hirosue, and the story ranges from pre-war Japan to the present. Its conceptual framework is largely that of matinee soap opera, with many of the problems faced by the women in the film solved by marriage to Mr Right.
Superior Ultraman 8 Brothers
Ultraman is a venerable Japanese fantasy anime that got started way back in 1979, the stories revolving around an array of superhero characters who battle monsters and other evil forces. The hokey effects have now acquired a retro chic, and the massive merchandising machine continues to surround these simple toy-like figures. In this most recent incarnation, Ultraman Mebius slips through into an alternate universe that is under threat and is spurred by a mysterious “red-shoed girl” to awaken seven other heroes to save it.
Anita
Rescheduled from last week, Anita is an Argentine film about a young woman with Down syndrome who lives with her mother running a small shop in Buenos Aires. The relationship is carefully crafted by director Marcos Carnevale, and features excellent acting by veteran Norma Aleandro as the mother and Alejandra Manzo as the title character. In allowing Anita, for all her disability, to be a real character with both good and bad elements, the film has more to offer than a short synopsis
might suggest.
Two Cities Film Festival
(兩個城市影展)
The Two Cities Film Festival (兩個城市影展) comprises six films by veteran documentary director Dong Cheng-liang (董振良), who is noted for exploring social problems in Kinmen (金門), his hometown. The lineup includes Dong’s newest work Movie Eater (吃電影的人), which fuses the director’s ideals and dreams with his memories of Kinmen and Taipei. The festival runs through Oct. 17 at alternative venues across Taipei. The screenings schedule for tomorrow and Sunday is 4:30pm, 7:30pm and 8:30pm at Whose Books (胡思二手書店), 44, Ln 235 Zhongzheng Rd, Taipei City (台北市中正路235巷44號). For more information, send an e-mail to firefly.film@msa.hinet.net or call (02) 8914-5953.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not