What Women Want (我知女人心)
A Chinese-language remake of the Mel Gibson romantic comedy of the same title released in 2000. Starring Andy Lau (劉德華) and Gong Li (鞏俐) and directed by China-born, US-trained director Chen Daming (陳大明), this is a big feel-good confection that does not aspire to offer anything either new or even particularly exciting. Whatever one might have thought about the original, it was a reasonably sophisticated example of its genre, but Chen’s remake has stripped the story of sexiness and has made the lead woman cold, passive and ultimately a little pathetic. Despite the presence of two of Chinese cinema’s biggest names, What Women Want does not give its audience what it wants: a good time at the movie theater.
Redline
Futuristic racing car anime that has been many years in production and seems to have been anxiously awaited by fans. Directed by Takeshi Koike, an anime artist deeply influenced by Western graphic art and the French artist Jean Giraud. The minimal story, about an illegal road race conducted on an authoritarian planet that will dedicate all its military resources to preventing the race from finishing, is a triumph of style over content — but in the best possible sense. One staff reviewer on Anime News Network describes the film as “potentially one of the most daring and important anime movies for a very, very long time.” With a soundtrack made up mostly of high-octane techno and its ground-breaking graphic style front and center, Redline may offend anime purists, but love it or hate it, this is much more than your usual anime fare.
Hermano
The debut feature by Marcel Rasquin, this film from Venezuela tells the story of two brothers from the slums of La Ceniza who have an opportunity to break out of poverty and crime through their talents on the soccer pitch. But even when on the verge of success, dirty money, criminality, and an act that demands vengeance get in the way of their hopes and dreams. The film was nominated as Venezuela’s entry for the Oscars and has some solid acting, a realistic portrayal of life on the wrong side of the tracks in Venezuela, and a score that features local popular music.
Gantz: The Perfect Answer
The second part (part one was released in March) of a live-action adaptation of a well-known manga by Hiroya Oku. Gantz is an action adventure in which Kei Kurono and his friend Masaru Kato die in a train accident and are revived as fighters by a mysterious agency called Gantz, which deploys a band of “dead” humans in a battle against an alien race. The original manga is famous for its violence, nudity, and the tendency to present humanity as being pretty reprehensible. The movie has toned much of this down to create a mainstream science fiction action film, angering many hardcore fans of the original manga.
Sound of Noise
Experimental music comedy by Swedish directors Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjarne Nilsson about a tone-deaf policeman tasked with tracking down a crew of musical terrorists who threaten to lay the beat down for the whole city. The cop is called Amadeus Warnebring, and the terrorists start their campaign by making music on the anesthetized body of a TV personality in hospital for a hernia operation. Lots of originality by the creative team, the really remarkable thing about Sound of Noise is that despite its film school anarchic streak, it actually makes some sort of sense. A perfect accompaniment for those already excited by the percussion lineup of the Taiwan International Percussion Convention (台灣國際打擊樂節) [see story on page 13].
The Sentiment of Flesh (Le sentiment de la chair)
Softcore porn with intellectual aspirations, The Sentiment of the Flesh tells the story of a passionate affair between Helena, a student in anatomical drawing, and Benoit, a young radiologist. These two find a professional as well as a sexual interest in each other. Helena memorizes every feature of her lover’s body, while Benoit wants to get intimate with every internal aspect of Helena. Make of that what you will. The attractive cast members spend much of their time with their clothes off, but the film’s efforts to be more than a bit of unconventional titillation can get a bit trying.
William and Kate
A made-for-TV movie that is being put on the big screen here for anyone who hasn’t had enough of the exhaustive television coverage of the royal wedding. This is a rather hastily put together, US-made biopic, and is full of every romantic cliche ever invented. This royal soap opera features some capable UK talent including Serena Scott Thomas (sister of Kristin Scott Thomas) as one of the Middleton sisters and Ben Cross as Prince Charles, but accents for the US cast are a little less predictable. Passable filler for those still locked into royal wedding mode.
Women in Trouble
A straight-to-DVD conflation of cinematic tropes taken from Pedro Almodovar and Quentin Tarantino, Women in Trouble at its best fails to achieve what either of those erratic directors can put together at their worst. Full of overworked cliches, the attempt at portraying the lives of eight women doesn’t bring together enough insight to be sufficient for even one.
Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night
Japanese take on the Paranormal Activity franchise, this is not to be confused with the American sequel Paranormal Activity 2. In a surprising move, Paramount Pictures authorized a series of international sequels based on the success of the original, Tokyo Night being the first. Directed by Toshikazu Nagae, Tokyo Night does not depart much from the format of the original, and generally delivers the goods. The pacing is a little tighter than the US counterpart, but given the faithful adaptation of the original, if you didn’t like the US version, you’re not likely to enjoy this one.
Zebraman and Zebraman 2
Following the release of Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins last week, distributor Catchplay is screening the director’s iconic 2004 Zebraman superhero spoof and its 2010 sequel Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City, which for anyone who appreciates Miike’s rather twisted vision of the life cinematique, are absolute must-sees. If a chubby schoolteacher dressed in a zebra suit fighting oceans of green slime and dealing with aggressive eggplants and a pea-green baby is your kind of thing, you’ll be hard pressed to find it done better.
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
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby