Emperor
Although it stars Matthew Fox (Jack Shephard of Lost), who does a perfectly fine job as General Bonner Fellers, the man tasked with making a case regarding whether Emperor Hirohito should be hanged as a war criminal. As the lead investigator, he gets to look dashing and has all the scenes with beautiful women (here played by Eriko Hatsune as an old flame who Fellers knew before the war and who he continues to search for amid the ruins of a defeated Japan). But the romance, told in flashback, is a plodding thing compared to Tommy Lee Jones’ interpretation of General Douglas MacArthur, who gets all the good lines and provides most of the drama. Director Peter Webber strives for a Chinatown-like noir as Fellers pursues an investigation into the murky political dealings that led to Pearl Harbor but does not come up with any substantive answers for his boss. History gets to play a very minor role in what is largely an exercise in atmospherics, and as for the final twist, it’s not as though we don’t know what happened in the end.
Runner, Runner
Some films are just designed for a Friday DVD session with beer, crisps and not too much concentration. Runner, Runner, sees Justin Timberlake as a poor college student who cracks an online poker game. Then he goes bust. Then he meets the man behind the game, Ben Affleck, and thinks he has found the perfect partnership. Life is all beautiful people, swimming pools, bikinis and champagne until things go very badly wrong. The setup of Runner, Runner is quite appealing, but director Brad Furman (who did an excellent job with The Lincoln Lawyer), squanders his opportunities, falling back into a by-the-numbers thriller with Timberlake on the run from a host of nasties. Halfway through, if you need to pop out to get another beer, don’t worry; you’ll get back and find you haven’t missed a thing.
Battle of the Year
Street dance has a significant following in Taiwan and Battle of the Year has plenty of that, though the formidable athleticism on display is largely messed up by various effects, with dance slowed down, speeded up and otherwise edited to within an inch of its life. This is a pity, because the dancing is the only thing worth watching. The story is about a dance competition. Teams from around the world will participate. The US has failed to win for 15 years, but they are now determined to win back the trophy. Endless rehearsals, more inspirational cliches than anyone other than hardened sports and dance movie fans can possibly stomach and some jaw-droppingly unsubtle product placement give Battle of the Year a cynical mood, rather than the celebratory one it clearly aims for. Then you have the bad acting and pain-inducing script. Just know what you are heading into before you buy that ticket.
Linsanity (林書豪旋瘋)
Directed by Evan Leong (梁伊凡), this sports documentary chronicles the rise and rise of basketball sensation Jeremy Lin (林書豪). Although Lin was born in California and studied at Harvard, his family has roots in Taiwan, and this has inevitably made him a local hero, even among those who do not follow professional basketball. The film traces his story from childhood in Palo Alto through many years of discouragement before his rise to prominence in 2012 with the New York Knicks. It is a rousing story and benefits from Leong’s close association with Lin, having filmed him ever since he was a star college player. Issues of racism in relation of Lin’s long delayed entry into the NBA draft and the Christian faith that sustained him through this difficult period are dealt with at some length, though perhaps with insufficient depth. The film drifts toward sensationalism, but as an intelligent and articulate interviewee, Lin manages to provide a measured and sympathetic account of the man behind the Linsanity phenomenon.
Talaash
Hindi film by director Reema Kagti provides Bollywood noir that manages to hit the spot. Inspector Surjan Singh Shekhawat (Aamir Khan) is looking into the mysterious death of a film star and gets drawn into the underbelly of Mumbai’s red light district. He meets up with a sex worker, improbably played by Kareena Kapoor, probably the sexiest woman in the Indian film industry. The connection between the policeman and the prostitute will change both their lives. The film is a bit messy, but this works well with the material, allowing life’s jagged edges to disturb the muscular, controlled world of the protagonist, whose commitment to the case sees his career, and even his life, in jeopardy. Khan also sports a moustache that, for those unused to exuberant facial hair, assumes a life of its own in the film.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and