The Tourist
A reworking of ideas from Jerome Salle’s 2005 chic French espionage thriller Anthony Zimmer, which starred Sophie Marceau and Yvan Attal. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Hollywood version has upped the ante in star power with the likes of Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, who are supported by Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton, and Steven Berkoff. The Tourist drips style, but the dialogue falls a bit too pat and everyone is so scrubbed and coiffured that the film makes a Roger Moore Bond flick look like a gritty exploration of crime by comparison. That said, for audience members who like to watch good looking people pretending that they are playing a high stakes game, The Tourist is a more than adequate way of passing a couple of hours in the cinema.
Me, 19 (我,19歲)
Music, dancing, young people on the cusp of romantic and artistic discoveries: With its music video cinematography and soap opera style, an obtrusive score, and fantasy sequences that cut into various styles of anime, Me, 19 has it all. But there is so much packaging, it’s impossible not to wonder whether there is any content. Chang Chieh (張捷) plays a young, exceptionally talented cellist who falls for a struggling young dancer and has to face the challenges of ambition, love and the realities of growing up. Produced by Peggy Chiao (焦雄屏) and starring young actor Anita Lee (李路加) and veterans Jack Kao (高捷) as the stern parent and Huang Kuo-lun (黃國倫) as the flamboyant musical maestro.
Frozen (為你鍾情)
A film by new generation Hong Kong director Kwok Chi-kin (郭子健) that combines science fiction, comedy and nostalgia for the ballads of Leslie Cheung (張國榮). The film stars Philippines-born jazz crooner Janice M. Vidal, who has become a vibrant presence in the Hong Kong music scene. Her character discovers a cryogenically preserved body of a woman in a family vault. It transpires that this is her mother, who died in a traffic accident 20 years earlier, and when regenerated, introduces her daughter to the heyday of Canto-pop and one of its eternal icons: Leslie Cheung. Cheung’s music figures extensively throughout the movie, which coupled with Vidal’s own considerable fan base, is likely to give Frozen a solid following, whatever its other merits.
Kungfu, Wingchun (功夫,詠春)
Building on the success of the three recent Ip Man (葉問) movies, which have done much to reinvigorate interest in the wingchun (詠春) style of martial arts, Kungfu, Wingchun takes the next logical cinematic step by introducing a woman into the main martial role. Wingchun is a form of kung fu that has long prided itself on turning weakness into strength, and this film, which features female kung fu star Kara Hui (惠英紅) and emerging media personality Bai Jing (白靜), tells the story of a girl who beats the guys at their own game. Good acting and a comedic take on the martial arts genre gives Kungfu, Wingchun a lightness that might lead the way to rediscovering the appeal of early Jackie Chan (成龍) films.
Odds in Love (愛情鬥陣)
Directed by Chen Hsiu-yu (陳秀玉), Odds in Love stars Robert Wing Fan (范植偉) of Crystal Boys (孽子) and Prince of Tears (淚王子) fame, and singer Kelly Poon (潘嘉麗), who emerged from Project Super Star, a Singapore talent show. They play two A-list celebrities who loathe each other but who are required by their agents to work together on a project. Cue mutual bitching as they go about bad-mouthing one another, fighting rumors that they are an item, then, surprise, surprise, they fall in love. Shot in Taipei, Shanghai and Singapore. The whole enterprise is as stilted as the film’s English title.
A Better Tomorrow (Mujeogja)
A South Korean remake of the John Woo (吳宇森) film of the same name. The original made Woo a star and gave Chow Yun-fat (周潤發) his ticket to Hollywood. But director Song Hae-sung’s version fails to achieve the transcendent quality that makes a silly action movie something more. There is lots of cool posing, but the well-toned but tone-deaf cast is just going through the motions. It’s all the more of a pity to see that Woo was an executive producer on this film. Get Woo’s 1986 original on video instead.
Gnomes and Trolls
The first part of what has become yet another fantasy franchise. Released in 2008, Gnomes and Trolls has scored sufficient success to warrant a sequel, which opened in Europe earlier this year, but is yet to make it to these shores. The first production from the recently established White Shark Film, subtitled “The Secret Chamber,” Gnomes and Trolls has a sufficiently interesting story to make up for its relatively low budget. A young gnome wants to transgress the limits set by his people to explore wider and more dangerous horizons. Gnomes and Trolls has garnered positive audience reviews but failed to achieve much critical attention. This new take on a familiar theme might appeal to younger audience members.
My Soul to Take 3D
Although directed by Wes Craven, creator of the Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream films, My Soul to Take 3D has little of the energy and spark that we expect from such a master of horror. A serial killer comes to a small town to stalk seven children whose birthdays fall on the same day he died. Conversion to 3D adds little visual interest and seems to have been done to make this second-rate offering more appealing.
Pool
A thoughtful film by Japanese writer/director Mika Omori, Pool follows the moods rather than the actions of five people staying at a guesthouse in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. A young Japanese girl goes to Thailand to visit her mother, and hopes during the stay to understand why her mother left Japan to make a living in this unfamiliar country. She learns to appreciate the beauty and calm of the new life her mother has made, and makes the acquaintance of some unusual locals who pull the story in a mystical direction.
The year was 1991. A Toyota Land Cruiser set out on a 67km journey up the Junda Forest Road (郡大林道) toward an old loggers’ camp, at which point the hikers inside would get out and begin their ascent of Jade Mountain (玉山). Little did they know, they would be the last group of hikers to ever enjoy this shortcut into the mountains. An approaching typhoon soon wiped out the road behind them, trapping the vehicle on the mountain and forever changing the approach to Jade Mountain. THE CONTEMPORARY ROUTE Nowadays, the approach to Jade Mountain from the north side takes an
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and