The Transporter Refueled
Another sequel/reboot this summer — and at this point we’re just going to sit back and accept it. This time it’s the fourth Transporter installation, but unlike Mission Impossible and Terminator, which have retained their signature stars over the past decades, Jason Statham is gone, replaced by British rapper-turned-actor Ed Skrein. The two couldn’t be any more different, Skrein being scrawnier, more personable and lacking the rugged, cool vibe that made fast-driving courier-for-hire Frank Martin such a memorable character. Will he make it work in his own way, or will he try too hard to be Statham? Nevertheless, the film promises what it has always promised since 2002: fast cars, femme fatales (four of them!), ridiculous driving and fighting stunts and an unlimited supply of adrenaline. Also, we get to see Martin’s father in action in this film.
Vacation
Another sequel … nevermind. The Griswolds are back, but since Chevy Chase doesn’t have the age-defying powers of Tom Cruise (or simply because the first film was released more than 30 years ago when Chase was already 40 years old), this time the protagonist is Rusty Griswold, who was a child in the family’s ill-fated first trip to Walley World, America’s “favorite family fun park.” Given all the mishaps that happened during their 1983 cross-country drive, it’s puzzling why Rusty would want to replicate the trip with his own family. Perhaps it’s the fact that he never made it into the park, which was closed for repairs when the family finally arrived. Now with Walley World about to close for good, it’s Rusty’s last chance — but unfortunately he’s inherited his father’s penchant for getting into trouble. Chevy Chase does make an appearance in the film, reprising his original character.
Corrections Class
Like last week’s The Tribe, this film also focuses on dysfunctional special education students in the former Soviet Union. It revolves around wheelchair-bound Lena, who is assigned to a special class of students somewhere in Russia with a wide range of physical and mental disabilities — epilepsy, Down syndrome and even stuttering. Lena fits right in with her classmates, and they spend time hanging out and messing around like normal teenagers. One of their pastimes is lying on the train tracks as the train passes over them, which sets the tone for the chaos that is to come. When Lena falls in love with handsome Anton, things turn ugly and bleak, not only with the school faculty and the students’ families, but the students themselves, who are cruel and brutal as ever in this type of “social lesson” films.
Mr Holmes
This is not a sequel, despite the popularity of timeless sleuth Sherlock Holmes in recent years. It’s a unique take on the story, featuring a 93-year-old Holmes played by Ian McKellen who is spending his old age in a cottage by the sea with a widowed housekeeper and her son, who is a fan of the detective. Holmes’ sidekick Watson has passed on, and Holmes is much more humble than his usual incarnations, attributing much of his famous traits to embellishments by Watson, and he even visits a theater to watch a movie based on himself. Yet, there is still unfinished business, and Holmes tries to set things right as his memory fades. It’s an interesting take, as we see Holmes as the real person here, not the fictional version narrated by Watson. The film is slow-paced and mostly introspective, but hey, after so many action-based Holmes productions in recent years, why not?
Return to Sender
Starring Rosamund Pike, Return to Sender tells the tale of a woman, whose life is ruined after a brutal rape, starts visiting her attacker in prison regularly, seemingly to gain closure as she is unable to move on. She even starts inviting him to her house after he’s released from prison, but what are her true intentions? Most critics have denounced this film, mostly along the lines of Roger Ebert, who says it’s a “sleazy exploitation film that is all the worse because it has somehow convinced itself that it is thoughtful and profound.” Yet, many agree that Pike’s performance is great as usual as she walks on the darker side, and is the lone bright spot of the film.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist