A helicopter shootout, street explosions and a hijacked airplane — these are common elements in Hollywood action flicks, but they are rarely, if ever, attempted by Taiwanese cinema. That is, until now. An action blockbuster released for the Lunar New Year, Black and White Episode 1: The Dawn of Assault (痞子英雄首部曲:全面開戰) by Tsai Yueh-hsun (蔡岳勳) successfully turns up the heat with action sequences the like of which have never been seen in local productions. The fireworks are complemented by a star-studded cast led by Mark Chao (趙又廷) and China’s Huang Bo (黃渤).
There is already talk of a sequel as the current movie is billed as the prequel to Tsai’s popular TV drama Black and White (痞子英雄).
Set in a fictional metropolis named Harbor City, the movie begins with an illegal diamond deal gone wrong as small-time gangster Xu Dafu, played by Huang, finds there is more than one buyer salivating over his smuggled gems. A group of military men intercept the case of diamonds, killing everyone on the spot but Xu. He is rescued by Hero Wu, played by Chao, a young, upright police officer who believes there is no gray area in justice.
Photo courtesy of Universe Entertainment
It does not take long before the two are targeted and chased by rival hit men and militants.
The story unfolds when beautiful scientist Fan Ning (Angelababy, aka Yang Ying, 楊穎) comes along, explaining that the whole hullabaloo is not about the diamonds, but what else the case contains: an anti-matter bomb that could destroy humanity if it falls into the wrong hands.
The villains, in this case, are a militant group from Pawanda, a make-believe country in Southeast Asia, which is planning to set off the bomb in the city.
PhotoS courtesy of Universe Entertainment
Naturally, fingers are crossed that the unlikely duo will save the day.
Mostly shot in Kaohsiung with a hefty budget of NT$350 million, the movie is an ambitious project produced by a skilled crew of filmmakers.
The action choreography was created by French martial artist and actor Cyril Raffaelli, who works closely with Luc Besson, while a professional pyrotechnics studio from Hong Kong supervised the explosion scenes.
PhotoS courtesy of Universe Entertainment
Director Tsai and his team spent NT$30 million to have an aircraft mock-up made in the US. Now based in Kaoshiung, the plane is Taiwan’s first to be built specially for movies.
Needless to say, the resulting movie is packed with adrenaline-pumping action, all undertaken without stuntmen.
Chao is definitely an action star in the making. He jumps from a bridge, spins a car at high speed and drives through explosions.
There is a sparkling on-screen chemistry between Chao and Huang as the righteous cop and the smart-mouthed gangster. The two partners progress through finely choreographed set pieces that make good use of the diverse landscapes that the port city offers. From industrial docks, ultra modern skyscrapers to a bustling urban center, Kaohsiung looks like an amusement park for filmmakers, which will probably please the movie’s sponsor, the city’s government.
Though the action is top-notch, more often than not, the film prizes style over content.
The story and the motives of the characters are not properly outlined, and plot lines appear and disappear without sufficient exposition. As a result, the film gets a bit baffling toward the end as to what groups of characters are involved.
Nevertheless, director Tsai and his team deserve a round of applause for producing a slick Hollywood-style production.
Apart from Black and White Episode 1: The Dawn of Assault, the Lunar New Year season sees a slew of Taiwanese movies hitting the big screen to entertain the holiday crowds. Both Flying Dragon, Dancing Phoenix (龍飛鳳舞) [see Around Town, page 13] and Din Tao: Leader of the Parade (陣頭) focus on local culture in the form of gezai opera and temple fairs, respectively. Meanwhile, Bang Bang Formosa (寶島大爆走) and Perfect Two (新天生一對) by slapstick director Chu Yen-ping (朱延平) target people with a taste for farcical comedy. Finally, romance blossoms in The Soul of Bread (愛的麵包魂), starring rising star Michelle Chen (陳妍希), and Doze Niu’s (鈕承澤) star-studded Love (愛), will be released on Feb. 10.
Taiwan has next to no political engagement in Myanmar, either with the ruling military junta nor the dozens of armed groups who’ve in the last five years taken over around two-thirds of the nation’s territory in a sprawling, patchwork civil war. But early last month, the leader of one relatively minor Burmese revolutionary faction, General Nerdah Bomya, who is also an alleged war criminal, made a low key visit to Taipei, where he met with a member of President William Lai’s (賴清德) staff, a retired Taiwanese military official and several academics. “I feel like Taiwan is a good example of
March 2 to March 8 Gunfire rang out along the shore of the frontline island of Lieyu (烈嶼) on a foggy afternoon on March 7, 1987. By the time it was over, about 20 unarmed Vietnamese refugees — men, women, elderly and children — were dead. They were hastily buried, followed by decades of silence. Months later, opposition politicians and journalists tried to uncover what had happened, but conflicting accounts only deepened the confusion. One version suggested that government troops had mistakenly killed their own operatives attempting to return home from Vietnam. The military maintained that the
Before the last section of the round-the-island railway was electrified, one old blue train still chugged back and forth between Pingtung County’s Fangliao (枋寮) and Taitung (台東) stations once a day. It was so slow, was so hot (it had no air conditioning) and covered such a short distance, that the low fare still failed to attract many riders. This relic of the past was finally retired when the South Link Line was fully electrified on Dec. 23, 2020. A wave of nostalgia surrounded the termination of the Ordinary Train service, as these train carriages had been in use for decades
Lori Sepich smoked for years and sometimes skipped taking her blood pressure medicine. But she never thought she’d have a heart attack. The possibility “just wasn’t registering with me,” said the 64-year-old from Memphis, Tennessee, who suffered two of them 13 years apart. She’s far from alone. More than 60 million women in the US live with cardiovascular disease, which includes heart disease as well as stroke, heart failure and atrial fibrillation. And despite the myth that heart attacks mostly strike men, women are vulnerable too. Overall in the US, 1 in 5 women dies of cardiovascular disease each year, 37,000 of them
RSS