Money and Honey (麵包情人)
Documentary by Jasmine Lee (李靖惠) that takes an intimate look at the lives of Filipino maids in Taiwan. Money and Honey, which has been in production for 13 years, was the opening film at the 2011 Women Make Waves film festival and has been successful on the festival circuit for its clear-eyed and sympathetic portrait of women working far from home, and is one of the first films to document life inside nursing homes in Taiwan.
Taken 2
With Taken 2, you at least know what you are going to get: Liam Neeson getting beaten on by Albanian mafia then getting his own back, taking out the bad guys with guns, knives, fists and explosives. The story connects with the original of four years ago by the simple device of a mafia father looking for revenge for the death of his son. It is a serviceable link, but the absurdity of further plot development is too much even for this kind of forgettable action thriller. There is a beautiful setting in Istanbul and lots of Neeson bad-assery, but director Olivier Megaton and writer Luc Besson fail to make the characters come to life, and the thing plays out almost as a caricature of itself.
The Campaign
Depending on what you enjoy, The Campaign is either a “raucous send-up of the moral, financial and sexual peccadilloes of the political animal,” regardless of political affiliation, or a “fun house fable that both exaggerates and understates the absurdities of our (US) democracy in this contentious election year.” There are plenty of amusing moments, and the two leads, Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, do well in the piece of unashamedly light, but not unintelligent, entertainment.
Fortress
This is a low budget World War II movie that seems to have mostly gone straight to DVD. Internet comment has been largely favorable, though primarily from fans of war movies. The cast is mostly unknown, with the exception of Chris Owen, the Sherminator from American Pie. Heavy-handed heroics, cliched dialogue and some rather clunky green screen effects don’t totally undermine the film’s appeal.
Granny Goes to School
Heartwarming film from South Korea about an illiterate old woman who reluctantly takes care of a little girl who was adopted by her son before his death. A tense and unhappy relationship gradually changes when the granny of the title starts learning to read, and the seven-year-old child and 70-year-old women learn to love and help each other.
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
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s
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
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