Seasoned television director Fung Kai’s (馮凱) Din Tao: Leader of the Parade (陣頭) is edifying for those not familiar with dintao, a type of traditional temple performance troupe. For everyone else, the film is an overly long formulaic exercise in banality.
Performer Allen Ko (柯有倫) plays A-tai, a young man who dreams about becoming a rocker in the US. He quits school in Taipei and returns to his Taichung hometown before following his heart’s desire.
A-tai has never been on good terms with his father, Uncle Da (Chen Po-cheng, better know as A-hsi, 阿西), who runs a dintao troupe. The father and son never make an effort to understand one another, and quarrel each time they meet.
Photo Courtesy of IFILM
But Uncle Da has other things to worry about. While his company struggles to make ends meet, long-standing rival Wu Cheng (Liao Chun, 廖峻) and his troupe meet with success and popularity.
Irked by Wu’s arrogance, A-tai decides to take the troupe’s demoralized members on a countrywide walk in search of inspiration to revamp the traditional folk art form.
The movie was inspired by the Jyou-Tian Folk Drum and Arts Group (九天民俗技藝團). Founded in 1995 by drummer Shue Chen-rong (許振榮), the Taichung-based troupe is credited with updating folk drumming, acrobatics and traditional dances for contemporary audiences and introducing the performances to international audiences by attending art festivals abroad. The troupe’s last sojourn was a seven-day, 250km-long ultra marathon across the Sahara Desert in Egypt in October, completed while its members carried a 17kg statue of the deity Nezha (哪吒).
Photo Courtesy of IFILM
The movie has a certain degree of authenticity in its depiction of dintao as an extended family in which the troupe’s leader is more like a father figure to the group’s young members, most of whom are dropouts. It also fares well in the acting department, anchored by veteran actors A-hsi, Liao Chun and Samantha Ko (柯淑勤). Pop idol Alien Huang, better known as Hsiao-kuei (小鬼), deserves special mention for his dintao performances. Yet the movie is little more than a glorified television drama, replete with cliches, stereotypical characters and an uneven narrative.
As Taiwanese grassroots culture is a mainstay of local productions of late, movies like Din Tao: Leader of the Parade have come one after another, following what is believed to be a winning formula that blends traditional practices with modern elements. However, without a good story line and emotional depth to sustain it, the enthusiasm for traditional cultural doesn’t last the distance.
Photo Courtesy of IFILM
From the last quarter of 2001, research shows that real housing prices nearly tripled (before a 2012 law to enforce housing price registration, researchers tracked a few large real estate firms to estimate housing price behavior). Incomes have not kept pace, though this has not yet led to defaults. Instead, an increasing chunk of household income goes to mortgage payments. This suggests that even if incomes grow, the mortgage squeeze will still make voters feel like their paychecks won’t stretch to cover expenses. The housing price rises in the last two decades are now driving higher rents. The rental market
Fifty-five years ago, a .25-caliber Beretta fired in the revolving door of New York’s Plaza Hotel set Taiwan on an unexpected path to democracy. As Chinese military incursions intensify today, a new documentary, When the Spring Rain Falls (春雨424), revisits that 1970 assassination attempt on then-vice premier Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). Director Sylvia Feng (馮賢賢) raises the question Taiwan faces under existential threat: “How do we safeguard our fragile democracy and precious freedom?” ASSASSINATION After its retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime under Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) imposed a ruthless military rule, crushing democratic aspirations and kidnapping dissidents from
It looks like a restaurant — but it’s food for the mind. Kaohsiung’s Pier-2 Art Center is currently hosting Comic Bento (漫畫便當店), an immersive and quirky exhibition that spotlights Taiwanese comic and animation artists. The entire show is designed like a playful bento shop, where books, plushies and installations are laid out like food offerings — with a much deeper cultural bite. Visitors first enter what looks like a self-service restaurant. Comics, toys and merchandise are displayed buffet-style in trays typically used for lunch servings. Posters on the walls present each comic as a nutritional label for the stories and an ingredient
Fundamentally, this Saturday’s recall vote on 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers is a democratic battle of wills between hardcore supporters of Taiwan sovereignty and the KMT incumbents’ core supporters. The recall campaigners have a key asset: clarity of purpose. Stripped to the core, their mission is to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty and democracy from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They understand a basic truth, the CCP is — in their own words — at war with Taiwan and Western democracies. Their “unrestricted warfare” campaign to undermine and destroy Taiwan from within is explicit, while simultaneously conducting rehearsals almost daily for invasion,
RSS