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 the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
Pei-Ru Ko (柯沛如) says her Taipei upbringing was a little different from her peers. “We lived near the National Palace Museum [north of Taipei] and our neighbors had rice paddies. They were growing food right next to us. There was a mountain and a river so people would say, ‘you live in the mountains,’ and my friends wouldn’t want to come and visit.” While her school friends remained a bus ride away, Ko’s semi-rural upbringing schooled her in other things, including where food comes from. “Most people living in Taipei wouldn’t have a neighbor that was growing food,” she says. “So
Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated