Adolescent love and the 1990s come under the microscope in Our Times (我的少女時代), an ambitious movie that could become a summer blockbuster.
Frankie Chen (陳玉珊), in her directorial debut, revises the “ordinary girl meets Prince Charming” tale, injecting a welcome dose of feminine perspective into the overused genre to touch upon the life experience of a girl becoming a woman in 1990s Taiwan. The comedy is supported by an appealing cast of novices, veterans and big-name stars.
It’s present-day Taipei, Truly Lin (Joe Chen, 陳喬恩) is in her thirties and stuck in a dead-end job. One night Lin suddenly recalls her first love, a high school romance that took place in 1994. The younger Lin, played by Vivian Sung (宋芸樺), is a plain, clumsy girl who spends her high-school days goofing around with friends and fawning over the most popular boy in school, Ouyang (Dino Lee, 李玉璽). An unfortunate incident leads Lin to become an errand girl for the school’s much-feared troublemaker Taiyu (Darren Wang, 王大陸).
Photo courtesy of Hualien Media International
It doesn’t take long, however, before Lin sees Taiyu for who he really is: a kind, smart young man. As their friendship evolves, they agree to help each other attract the people they are interested in and in the process Lin and Taiyu soon fall in love.
Meanwhile, Taiyu’s tough behavior results in a clash with school authorities and several street fights. Concerned, his parents send him to the US before he has a chance to say goodbye to Lin.
Fast forward two decades, Lin quits her job and breaks up with her boyfriend. Across town, a sold-out Andy Lau (劉德華) concert is set to take place at the Taipei Arena, where two surprises await our heroine.
Photo courtesy of Hualien Media International
The light-hearted, briskly-paced film is a collaboration between Chen, a seasoned producer of soap operas and top-notch film producer Yeh Ju-fen (葉如芬). The experiences of these two veteran producers show in how well they can pick their cast, which, not to give the film away, include two Asian heartthrobs.
Another pleasant surprise is up-and-coming actress Sung, who captured the public’s attention with her performance the romantic comedy Cafe. Waiting. Love (等一個人咖啡) last year. Sung comes off as a lovable ugly duckling growing to become a strong, attractive girl, while playing well with the comic effect without caricaturing her role.
Chen and her crew have also done a fine job with their attention to detail of the era. Hairstyles, pop songs, sports drinks, tea houses, scary chain letters circulated in school and teenage obsessions with pop stars Lau and Aaron Kwok (郭富城) all create the right 1990s vibe. But the movie isn’t set in the 1990s simply for fun and decoration. It recalls a society that has just emerged from almost 40 years of martial law, an experience that makes the heroine who she is today.
With the screening time exceeding two hours, however, the movie could have used some pruning to keep its structure tighter and story snappier. Plotlines revolving around the two protagonists become repetitive at times, adding no new meaning to the narrative.
What was the population of Taiwan when the first Negritos arrived? In 500BC? The 1st century? The 18th? These questions are important, because they can contextualize the number of babies born last month, 6,523, to all the people on Taiwan, indigenous and colonial alike. That figure represents a year on year drop of 3,884 babies, prefiguring total births under 90,000 for the year. It also represents the 26th straight month of deaths exceeding births. Why isn’t this a bigger crisis? Because we don’t experience it. Instead, what we experience is a growing and more diverse population. POPULATION What is Taiwan’s actual population?
After Jurassic Park premiered in 1993, people began to ask if scientists could really bring long-lost species back from extinction, just like in the hit movie. The idea has triggered “de-extinction” debates in several countries, including Taiwan, where the focus has been on the Formosan clouded leopard (designated after 1917 as Neofelis nebulosa brachyura). National Taiwan Museum’s (NTM) Web site describes the Formosan clouded leopard as “a subspecies endemic to Taiwan…it reaches a body length of 0.6m to 1.2m and tail length of 0.7m to 0.9m and weighs between 15kg and 30kg. It is entirely covered with beautiful cloud-like spots
For the past five years, Sammy Jou (周祥敏) has climbed Kinmen’s highest peak, Taiwu Mountain (太武山) at 6am before heading to work. In the winter, it’s dark when he sets out but even at this hour, other climbers are already coming down the mountain. All of this is a big change from Jou’s childhood during the Martial Law period, when the military requisitioned the mountain for strategic purposes and most of it was off-limits. Back then, only two mountain trails were open, and they were open only during special occasions, such as for prayers to one’s ancestors during Lunar New Year.
A key feature of Taiwan’s environmental impact assessments (EIA) is that they seldom stop projects, especially once the project has passed its second stage EIA review (the original Suhua Highway proposal, killed after passing the second stage review, seems to be the lone exception). Mingjian Township (名間鄉) in Nantou County has been the site of rising public anger over the proposed construction of a waste incinerator in an important agricultural area. The township is a key producer of tea (over 40 percent of the island’s production), ginger and turmeric. The incinerator project is currently in its second stage EIA. The incinerator
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