Ending Cut (老徐的完結篇)
A short film, running just 59 minutes, Ending Cut is yet another sentimental take on life in Taiwan. Produced by veteran filmmakers Wang Tung (王童) and Wu Nien-jen (吳念真) and created by aspiring director Liao Chi-hua (廖祺華), the movie is about an old man, his two sons having more or less abandoned him, who picks up a small video camera and starts recording his life for posterity. The leading role is played with assurance by Taiwanese new wave auteur Ko Yi-cheng (柯一正), and the film won a Best Supporting Actor gong at the 12th Taipei International Film Festival (第十 二屆台北電影節) among other awards. A film with lots of heart that will also test your love of all things Taiwanese.
Villain (Akunin)
High-profile Japanese release based on a novel by highly accomplished writer Shuichi Yoshida. Villain, which is a crime thriller-cum-melodrama, focuses, after an elaborate setup, on two lonely people on the lam. Yuichi Shimizu (Satoshi Tsumabuki) is a young man who has killed an insurance saleswoman. He meets Mitsuyo (Eri Fukatsu) through a dating agency, and she dissuades him from turning himself in. During their time on the run, the two develop a passionate relationship. At the same time, both their families, and the victim’s, suffer the fallout caused by this decision. Big-time melodrama with superior acting and a contemporary nihilistic vibe.
Room in Rome (Habitacion en Roma)
Spanish production with English-language dialogue that walks the line between art house and soft porn with shameless abandon. Alba (Elena Anaya) and Natasha (Natasha Yarovenko) are strangers from opposite ends of Europe (Spain and Russia) who chance upon each other in a bar. One is straight, the other gay, but a game of seduction begins in which clothes are quickly shed, but the baring of souls, as the film’s promotional material emphasizes, is much slower. Much is made of the psychological foreplay, and while the setting never strays from the room in Rome, director Julio Medem shows some skill in working the camera to broaden the visual scope of the film.
The Woman Who Dreamt of a Man (Kvinden der Dromte om en Mand)
More steamy art house fare, this time from Denmark. The film examines sexual obsession from a female perspective. Karen (Sonja Richter) is a successful photographer whose career gives her little time for family life. She meets Machik (Marcin Dorocinski), a professor from Warsaw, and falls for him hard. When he tries to extricate himself, Karen is not having any of it. Director Per Fly adopts a first-person view that blurs reality and fantasy elements. There are some hot bedroom sequences, but this material has been covered so often that even the writhing of well-toned bodies is not enough to get audiences going.
Shodo Girls (Shodo Garuzu!!: Watashitachi no Koshien)
A film about a calligraphy club in a small-town Japanese high school that follows the well-worn narrative of oddball teachers and unlikely students overcoming adversity to achieve a goal — often winning some kind of competition — and also becoming better and more mature people in the process. Shodo Girls’ only innovation is to bring this tried and tested formula to the discipline of calligraphy.
Final Days
A television drama by director Thomas Berger that looks at the last days before the fall of the Berlin Wall through a cast of characters linked through various relationships with a young couple who attempted the dangerous journey from East Germany to West Germany in 1983. One made it, the other didn’t, and the ramifications of this minor tragedy of the Cold War lingers on into the late 1980s as agitation for reunification gets serious and the battle for hearts and minds gears up. Originally released in 2008, the film runs for 186 minutes and is good value for money, if nothing else.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
By far the most jarring of the new appointments for the incoming administration is that of Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) to head the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). That is a huge demotion for one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Tseng has one of the most impressive resumes in the party. He was very active during the Wild Lily Movement and his generation is now the one taking power. He has served in many of the requisite government, party and elected positions to build out a solid political profile. Elected as mayor of Taoyuan as part of the
Moritz Mieg, 22, lay face down in the rubble, the ground shaking violently beneath him. Boulders crashed down around him, some stones hitting his back. “I just hoped that it would be one big hit and over, because I did not want to be hit nearly to death and then have to slowly die,” the student from Germany tells Taipei Times. MORNING WALK Early on April 3, Mieg set out on a scenic hike through Taroko Gorge in Hualien County (花蓮). It was a fine day for it. Little did he know that the complex intersection of tectonic plates Taiwan sits
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50