The Divergent Series: Allegiant
There’s nothing more to say about the final chapter of a teen-oriented film series being split into two long, drawn out three-hour indulgement fests only for fans. It is the norm now, and they do not question norms in Hollywood. After all, to quote the bosses at Lionsgate, the final book in this dystopian trilogy by Veronica Roth is “ideally suited to two strong and fulfilling movies.” The problem is that Divergent simply has not been as strong a franchise as Hunger Games or, unfortunately, Twilight. The only watchable star in the film, Kate Winslet, was executed in the previous film (okay, there’s also Naomi Watts), but her main villain replacement of Jeff Daniels is not so shabby either. We finally find out what led to this version of dystopia — but that’s about it. You’ll have to wait til next year to find out what happens in the end.
Colonia
Set during of the Chilean military coup of 1973, this film is about the Colonial Dignidad, a colony often described as a cult where no one can escape. The colony has been rocked with scandals, from serving as a torture center and prison for political dissidents to massive weapon caches to child abuse. The drama by German director Florian Gallenberger stars Emma Watson as a young woman who decides to join the colony to save her boyfriend, who was hauled off by the dictatorship under suspicion of supporting the opposition. The film solves the problem of casting Europeans in Chile by setting Watson’s character as a Lufthansa flight attendant and her husband being a German artist visiting the country. The weird thing, as many reviewers point out, is that the Europeans speak English in the film, and so does the rest of Chile. Then it goes into the atrocities of the camp, if you’re still interested at this point.
Labyrinth of Lies
First screened during the “human rights movie screening” portion of the Memorial Foundation of 228’s ceremony this year, Labyrinth of Lies was Germany’s submission for the Academy Award’s Best Foreign Language Film category this year, though it wasn’t nominated. Set in the 1950s, a time when Nazi atrocities were not publicly discussed, the story follows a young and idealistic prosecutor (who doesn’t even know what Auschwitz is) who learns more about the Holocaust and World War II through the trial of an Auschwitz guard caught working as a schoolteacher. He soon starts pursuing other Nazi remnants, and finds out more than he ever wanted to know. Many films cover the Holocaust itself and the later international pursuit of Nazis in hiding, but the first trials of them in their own country after the war is a relatively obscure topic.
Mole of Life (黑白)
Another hot-blooded film about the Taiwanese underworld, Mole of Life is inexplicably described as “Taiwan’s first gangland epic” (yeah, let’s pretend Monga (艋舺) does not exist). The story is hardly imaginative — set in 1998 Kaohsiung, we have a man who just got out of jail for murder and wants to come clean, and his brother who just happens to be a cop. Their fates surprisingly intertwine as they are sucked into the power struggle between the mob and law enforcement, where things are less clear cut than they seem. Like all Taiwanese commercial flicks, it emphasizes that it has “touching themes of love and family.” We are not trying to slam every local commercial film that we come across, but this one is just not convincing.
Senior
Continuing the outrageous promotional claims, this latest Thai horror film promises to “change your perspective on ghosts forever.” We have two spirit detective buddies, both high school seniors, working together to solve a murder that happened 50 years ago. One of the detectives is a ghost who apparently died in the 1980s, and they apparently can work together since the other one can, um, smell ghosts (nope, can’t see ‘em). His identity becomes one of the main plot drivers as the two dig up witnesses and encounter vengeful spirits on their way to uncovering the truth.
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
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
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
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would