Director Gavin Lin (林孝謙), who is known for his romantic movies, tries his hand at comedy with Welcome to the Happy Days (五星級魚干女), an uplifting story about how an unlikely couple save a family-run guesthouse from going out of business.
Set in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), the film initially feels like promotional material, with American backpacker Allen (Andrew Chau, 周厚安) commenting how Taiwan is a wonderful place to live.
But the plot takes a promising turn when Allen arrives at a hot spring guesthouse named The Happy Days. However, there are no lodgers inside the quaint, Japanese-style house, only a wacky desk clerk and Fanju (Alice Ko, 柯佳嬿), who is temporarily taking charge of the guesthouse after her grandmother broke her leg.
Photo courtesy of Swallow Wings Films
Allen volunteers to work there in exchange for accommodation and Fanju reluctantly accepts. Together, they attempt to woo back customers, but instead, end up discovering a long-buried secret of Fanju’s grandmother.
The biggest surprise is Ko’s high-energy performance, who plays Fanju. Ko makes a smooth transition from drama to comedy by playing the goofy heroine in one of her most memorable performances to date.
Ko’s gratifying blend of slapstick and humor makes the Nintendo-games-playing slob a lovable heroine.
Local films seldom offer memorable roles for women, and Ko’s performance suggests that Taiwanese cinema may finally have its own funny leading lady, who can hopefully go on to have a career like Hong Kong’s Sandra Ng (吳君如) or Sammi Cheng (鄭秀文).
Equally energetic is Chau, the son of Mando-pop icon Wakin Chau (周華健). Simple, fun-loving and easily excited, his character is like an overgrown boy.
Co-writers Lin and Hermes Lu (呂安弦) neatly tap into Taiwan’s hybrid culture and elicit humor from multi-linguistic wordplays.
The dramatic side, however, is the film’s weakest point. The romance between Fanju and Allen comes too little, too late and the plot, written so as to push the characters to change and grow, sometimes feels contrived.
For those who wonder why there are so many scenes taking place by Xinbeitou MRT Station (新北投捷運站), the film is part of a series of movies made under the rubric of Metro of Love (台北愛情捷運).
Produced by Yeh Tien-lun (葉天倫), each film tells a love story, has a different director and is filmed at different MRT stations.
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?
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
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
RSS