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.
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
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
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