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.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50