Monsters
A low-budget feature debut by special effects wizard Gareth Edwards, Monsters is a post-alien invasion road movie that has a cynical journalist guiding an American tourist through an alien infested region along the Mexican boarder to the safety of the US. The film has earned high marks for making a little money go a long way in terms of the mood and feel of the picture, with the presence of the “monsters” more felt than seen. Although performances by Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able are merely adequate and the subtext about immigration and power relations between Mexico and the US lacks subtlety, Monsters is nevertheless a marvelously bracing antidote to the scourge of vapid megabuck Hollywood science fiction blockbusters.
The Boys Are Back
The most appealing thing about The Boys Are Back is the presence of Clive Owen, who plays a single parent dealing with two children of widely different ages going through the usual traumas of growing up. Based on journalist Simon Carr’s memoirs about being a single parent with two boys, the situations aren’t all that interesting, and though Owen does yeoman’s duty portraying a gentle, somewhat disengaged parent who is sometimes just as childish as the two boys he is nominally bringing up, The Boys Are Back fails to find a theme beyond a bland miscellany of irresponsible parenting. Directed by Scott Hicks, who brought us the powerful feature Shine (1996) and the fascinating musical documentary Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts (2006).
Just Call Me Nobody (大笑江湖)
A parody movie in the manner of the Wayans Brothers films, Just Call Me Nobody makes fun of martial arts genre movies and TV series based on the works of Louis Cha (查良鏞, also known as Jin Yong), drawing heavily on cinematic quotes from many recent Chinese-language and Western movies ranging from Star Wars to Terminator. The movies of Wong Kar-wai (王家衛) also come in for a drubbing. Major talent in the form of Taiwan’s Jackie Wu (吳宗憲) and Kelly Lin (林熙蕾) provide some credibility, but the film’s format says all that really needs to be said, and the jokes are largely predictable jibes about the absurdities of popular cinema.
Night Market Hero (雞排英雄)
Billed as the first film in 16 years to star comedian Chu Ko Liang (豬哥亮), who has recently emerged from his life on the run from creditors, Night Market Hero features plenty of local comedic talent and a scenario that highlights Taiwan’s curbside culture. The setting is a community of night market operators, whose lives are filled with their petty rivalries and unspoken romances until they find common cause in resisting the incursion of a property developer who wants to turn their neighborhood into a residential complex. This is a film that revels in grass-roots Taiwanese-style humor, and is also a celebration of the return of one of Taiwan’s great comic talents to the big screen.
If You Are the One 2 (非誠勿擾2)
A sequel to the moderately successful film by Feng Xiaogang (馮小剛), If You Are the One 2 carries on the story of Xiao Xiao (played by China’s Ge You, 葛優) and Qin Fen (played by Taiwan’s Shu Qi, 舒淇), who spent the first movie trying and failing to get it on. Feng has gone for a blend of wistful longing mixed with gentle comedy, and tarted up the concoction with location shoots in various scenic locations around Asia. This last tactic is usually a good indication that the director has run out of things to do with his actors or that the story has nowhere to go. Ge is a fine actor able to straddle comedy and pathos, but his talents seem to be sadly wasted in this bland cinematic concoction. Still, Feng is one of China’s most versatile young directors — his film Aftershock (唐山大地震) is already out on DVD — and his efforts in comedy are worth a glance.
Arthur: The War of the Two Worlds
The third installment in a series of children’s films created by Luc Besson, Arthur: The War of the Two Worlds lines up the battle between Arthur (voiced by Freddie Highmore), a young child brought into the world of the Minimoys, and the arch villain Maltazard (voiced by Lou Reed). This final installment finishes a story begun in the previous two installments, and fan comment suggests that it does not stand particularly well on its own. It is primarily interesting for its English voice cast, which in addition to Reed, also has Iggy Pop and Mia Farrow.
Special Treatment (Sans queue ni tete)
French movie that makes self-consciously clever parallels between the work of a prostitute and that of a psychiatrist. The film stars Isabelle Huppert as the prostitute Alice, and Bouli Lanners as Xavier, a psychiatrist whose family life is in crisis. Although billed as a comedy, the laughs do not flow, and attempts at wit often fall flat. The presence of the grande dame of French cinema is not enough to lift this tawdry attempt to titillate into an enjoyable experience.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist