Our Times 我的少女時代
Yet another “youthful days” movie out of Taiwan, this film’s exaggerated dialogue and mannerisms of the characters make it appear to be just another cutesy high school flick — albeit set in the main character’s memories of the 1990s. But high school is high school, no matter what the era is. There’s the super handsome guy on the basketball team that the entire school’s female population is in love with, including the plain-looking female protagonist, who is then befriended by an (also handsome) delinquent who enlists her to help him get with the school’s most popular girl. You can guess what happens from there. The trailer bills the film as “a gift for ordinary girls,” and with phrases like “always remember the courage of youth,” this film will either make you squirm or warm your heart. Oh, there’s a cameo by megastar Andy Lau (劉德華).
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
British filmmaker Guy Ritchie takes a stab at remaking the popular US spy action series from the 1960s. Unlike many recent remakes that try to modernize the film, this one is still set at the height of the Cold War in the 1960s, and it does pay homage to the era with its shooting style, fashion choices and jazzy soundtrack. The story focuses on two United Network Command for Law and Enforcement (U.N.C.L.E.) agents (one is CIA, one is KGB and they don’t like each other) and their mission to escort a German nuclear scientist’s daughter to find her father, who is being forced to build a nuclear bomb for evil forces. Many critics say that the film has plenty of swagger and style, is beautifully produced and makes for light-hearted, fast-paced entertainment, but that it lacks substance — most point to the lack of chemistry between the two protagonists, which should have been the film’s main driving force.
Latin Lover
Featuring several big-name European movie stars, this Italian comedy marks the last big screen appearance of “Italian Goddess” Virna Lisi, who died at age 78 in December last year. The story begins when the 10th death anniversary celebration of fictional movie star Saverio Crispo turns into a giant family reunion. The event is held in Crispo’s hometown, where his first wife and daughter live. Eventually, all the women in Crispo’s life are gathered: two wives and four daughters from four different women in four different countries. A fifth daughter later appears, and there’s plenty of drama and laughs to be generated from these characters hanging around the house. This film also serves as an ode to the heyday of Italian cinema, with Crispo’s legacy revealed in fictional television bits that allude to the careers and lives of some of Italy’s biggest heartthrobs of the past.
Song of the Reed 蘆葦之歌
Today is International Memorial Day for Comfort Women, and also marks the release of Song of the Reed, a documentary on Taiwan’s comfort women, who were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Army before and during World War II. The trailer opens with one of these women barely containing her emotions as she talks about how she was looked down upon because of what she was forced to do. While it’s a somber subject, the film doesn’t just portray sadness and hardship. It’s also about being strong and living on, as you also see these women, in their old age, laugh and dance and attend exhibits and events about the subject through a series of workshops put on by the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation (台北婦女救援基金會) to help them deal with the past. As much as it highlights the brutality these women endured, it also shows that letting go of and healing is just as important.
Tokyo Fiancee
Based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Belgian writer Amelie Nothomb, Tokyo Fiancee tells the story of a romance between 20-year-old Amelie a Japanese college student while she worked as a French tutor in Japan. Amelie was born in Japan and lived there until she was five, and longed to return (“I wanted to be Japanese, that was my only goal,” her older self says in a voiceover in the trailer). With any cross-country romance, cultures clash in many ways and Amelie realizes that “becoming Japanese” isn’t as easy as she thought, especially with the various social codes of Japanese society. The film is updated to modern times, as the book was set in the 1990s but the Fukushima nuclear disaster happens in the film. Light hearted and punctuated with surreal sequences of Amelie’s imagination, we see Tokyo through her free-spirited eyes as she gradually comes of age.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not