Tai Chi Hero (太極2英雄崛起)
Following on from Tai Chi 0 (太極1從零開始), Stephen Fung’s (馮德倫) planned trilogy about a simple country kid who learns the mysteries of Tai Chi in order to save his village, Tai Chi Hero takes everything to the next level. Leading man William Feng (馮紹峰) not only does his chop-socky action sequences, but also has a real chance to get it on with Angelababy (楊穎), and there are villainous foreign soldiers (led by actor Peter Stormare) and lots of improbable steampunk military hardware. The first installment made it huge at the box office in China and appealed to kungfu fans around the world with its technical accomplishment and determination to entertain, whatever the cost. Of course, Tai Chi Hero is also silly and shameless, but what’s not to like.
Frankenweenie
Tim Burton is the undisputed master of the dystopian fairy tale and while his recent takes on classics like Alice in Wonderland and Sweeney Todd might not have been to everyone’s taste, his talent for reworking classic material and making it his own is prodigious. With Frankenweenie a tale of the love between a boy and his dog, and the disastrous results that ensue when he brings the animal back to life, has great potential for retro magic and a touch of spoof. Burton plays with such hallowed cinematic material that he has inevitably caused some offense, but his energy and invention carry all before it, and Frankenweenie is nothing short of a delight.
Chasing Mavericks
A sports movie with a coming-of-age theme that might have come right of a screenwriters’ DIY. Young kid (Jonny Weston) with no direction meets older dude (Gerard Butler) who does something awesome (in this case, surfs giant waves). Kid wants to learn to be the best, has problems with friends and family, but finally faces up to his own demons, achieves his goal and, lets not forget, also scores with the hot chick as well.
Eva
Spanish take on Steven Spielberg’s AI: Artificial Intelligence that shows good sense in using its relatively limited budget to good effect. Alex, a Robot programmer, is given a project to build an artificial child, which he models on Eva, the 10-year-old daughter of his brother and his former lover Lana. The time spent with the child makes Alex suspicious that there are secrets in Lana’s past that he has yet to discover, even while his feelings for her are rekindled. Imaginative, intelligent and an outstanding performance by Claudia Vega as Eva.
Sasha
German film about a young pianist whose comfortable life changes when his homosexuality is exposed, after his younger brother begins an affair with his supposed “girlfriend.” The film, in German and Serbo-Croatian, features some strong acting from the young cast, and good support from the adults, particularly from Predrag Bjelac as Sasha’s father.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
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