Legendary Amazons (楊門女將之軍令如山)
Frankie Chan (陳勳奇) is probably best known as the composer of the scores of Chungking Express (重慶森林) and Ashes of Time (東邪西毒), but as director of Legendary Amazons, he is not doing himself any favors. The inappropriateness of the English title alone suggests that the film is not really intended to go much beyond the Chinese-speaking world, and the presence of people like Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝) pretending, without any tongue-in-cheek, to be hardened combat veterans of vicious desert campaigns, really just stretches credibility too far. There are some decent big battle set pieces, but the film does not go beyond the historical romances that have been coming out of Hong Kong for decades.
Magic to Win (開心魔法)
From Wilson Yip (葉偉信), director of the solid Ip Man (葉問) martial arts films, Magic to Win shows a lighter side to the director. Unfortunately, it also seems to highlight other less desirable qualities, including a slap-dash approach to narrative coherence and a propensity to cherry-pick ideas from recent Hollywood productions. His new film, with its mixture of the mundane and the supernatural, both equally unbelievable, requires a huge suspension of disbelief if you are to go along for the ride. If you do, the film is filled with energy and high spirits, and perfectly enjoyable, though it fails to achieve the innocent good humor of the Happy Ghost (開心鬼) franchise of the 1980s, which it is clearly trying to emulate. Forgettable entertainment, but with enough familiar faces, including Louis Koo (古天樂) and model-turned-actress Karena Ng (吳千語), to command some attention.
The Source (La source des femmes)
A film that tries to combine sexual comedy with social issues fails to do justice to either in a story that is all cliche and lazy exoticism. The story revolves around the women from a small village in North Africa banding together against their husbands in an attempt to get the men to help in the dangerous and burdensome task of fetching water from the spring. Led by Leila (Leila Bekhti), a young wife from a less conservative part of the country, the women decide to withhold all sexual favors until the men chip in with the domestic work, enduring both physical and psychological abuse for their efforts. The characters are all one dimensional, and director Radu Mihaileanu squanders a talented cast in a tale in which he works through a catalog of standard scenarios toward a predictable end.
Touching Home
Coming to the scene on the wake of the high-profile Moneyball, Touching Home, a based-on-real-life against-the-odds inspirational tale from the world of baseball, fails to distinguish itself. Released in 2008, it is also more than a little shopworn, and despite a solid performance by Ed Harris as an alcoholic father making amends with his twin sons by helping them pursue their dreams to make it in professional baseball, the story is all just a bit too formulaic to make an impression.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50