The Tempests of First Love (初戀風暴)
Produced by Taiwan cinema new wave pioneer Peggy Chiao (焦雄屏) and directed by veteran TV director Chiang Fong-hung (江豐宏), The Tempests of First Love works hard to break away from the usual lachrymose schlock and produce a contemporary teen love story that has its eye on social issues but is also able to have fun with the genre. A good student (played by Michelle Chen, 陳妍希) discovers her mother having an affair with another man and accidentally gets to know his son (Tony Yang, 楊祐寧), with whom she hatches a plot to break up the adulterous fling. Chen’s character then falls for the young man and Tempests falls hopelessly into the structure of improbable soap opera romance.
The Long Goodbye (被遺忘的時光)
This documentary about the effects of senility by veteran documentary director Yang Li-chou (楊力州) is filled with touching stories about the ravages of the condition and the impact it can have on young people taking care of their elderly charges. Yang — who played a major role in the making of My Football Summer (奇蹟的夏天, 2006), a slick, narrative-driven production about a soccer team — is a skilled operator able to stamp his personality on this glimpse into the easily forgotten world in which the senile live.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
A very, very art house film that has won some fans on the festival circuit but is unlikely to have broad mainstream appeal with its cheap special effects and dreamy, metaphysical action. The title character, Uncle Boonmee, is suffering from imminent kidney failure. Key figures from his life come to visit and Boonmee believes that he too has been reincarnated, possibly after a life as a water buffalo. Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s film picked up the Palme d’Or at Cannes, but was far from being a popular favorite. Not for those looking for an easy night at the cinema.
Certified Copy
With the same kind of self-reflective conversation-driven mood that brings to mind films such as Before Sunrise, Certified Copy takes on life, love, art, truth and forgery in an unashamedly arty movie that lets the characters, a writer (William Shimell) and an unidentified woman (it is probably sufficient that she is played by Juliette Binoche), wander through the Tuscan countryside talking about what they see and feel. The writer is promoting a book about art, both original and copied, while Binoche dabbles in art objects of dubious provenance. The pace is slow, but the talk, and the relationships it reveals, is sufficiently engrossing for those who can appreciate the languid mood.
The Servant
South Korean costume drama that mixes romance and comedy in a stylish production that puts a twist on a popular folk tale. Stars popular TV and film actress Jo Yeo-jeong as the object of desire of two people — one master, the other a poor man. Jo’s character is drawn to the servant, but also has aspirations to advance in the world through a good marriage. The two men battle it out as the woman tries to work out if love or wealth comes first. Beautiful to look at with great costumes, a strong dose of sensuality and, by all accounts, witty dialogue.
Bayside Shakedown: Set the Guys Loose
Police drama-comedy series that has managed to build two sequels onto the back of a very fluffy original from 1998. There is a nostalgic quality that will appeal to fans, with some tasty almost-but-not-quite romance between the hero and a female colleague, but apart from the attractive leading cast, there is not much content and far too much effort at appealing to contemporary sensibilities. A standard cop-shop drama that has seen better days.
Stricken (Komt een vrouw bij de dokter)
Art house drama by Dutch director Reinout Oerlemans that deals with the complex issues surrounding marriage, fidelity, cancer and the prospect of death. The story, about an advertising executive who finds comfort in the arms of other women after discovering his wife is suffering from breast cancer, offers plenty of material for post-cinema discussion and has a superb performance from Carice van Houten (Black Book and Valkyrie). Flashy direction and camera work, however, don’t quite hide the fact that the film is more bark than bite.
The Storm (De storm)
A fictional story set against the backdrop of floods that devastated the Dutch coastal province of Zeeland in 1953. Julia is a teenage mother who becomes separated from her son when the floods hit their home, and she embarks on the daunting task of finding him in the chaos caused by the disaster. Fortunately she is assisted by a good-looking air force lieutenant. The actual storm takes a back seat to a rather implausible search story.
Love and Marriage (婚戀三部曲)
From Yuan Ju Productions (緣聚影視), a Canada-based production house of overseas Chinese artists that makes films that “extol the pursuit of freedom, [and in which] human beings search for the path to return to one’s original true self and the elevation of the moral standard.” Love and Marriage is a three-part film that looks at the issues of — you guessed it — love and marriage, among young Chinese people from the perspective of three young men. TV soap opera acting and a strong dose of moral instruction.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and