THE WITCHES
We had a pretty good version of Roald Dahl‘s The Witches in 1990, but that was a whole generation ago. Now the story gets a redo with Anne Hathaway taking over from Anjelica Huston as the leader of the witchy cause. The whole thing has been relocated to 1960s Alabama; Robert
Zemeckis directs.
Photo: AFP
MULAN
Disney’s latest live-action reboot seems a shameless ploy to penetrate the lucrative Chinese box office, now rivalling the US’s in size. Inspired by a Chinese poem about the female warrior Hua Mulan, the new version looks more of a straight-ahead martial arts film than the 1998 cartoon, but hit a controversy pothole when lead actor Liu Yifei (also known as Crystal Liu, 劉亦菲) came out in support of the crackdown on Hong Kong pro-democracy activists.
ONWARD
Next up from Pixar: a magic-stuffed comedy about a pair of elves — voiced by Tom Holland and Chris Pratt — trying to bring their dead dad back to life. Hilariously, they mess it up and only get his legs — and they have just 24 hours to conjure up the rest of him.
THE SECRET GARDEN
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s evergreen children’s classic — last revisited cinematically in the early 90s — gets another adaptation, this time with Colin Firth as shut-down Archibald Craven and Dixie Egerickx as Mary Lennox, the orphan who arrives at Craven’s moribund Yorkshire home and wakes things up.
JUNGLE CRUISE
Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt lead the line in this Disney theme park ride turned movie. He’s a boat captain, she’s a scientist, and together they are heading upriver to find the tree of life. Jack
Whitehall, of all people, is along for the ride as Blunt’s little brother.
DOLITTLE
The Robert Downey Jr remake of the talk-to-the-animals musical (one of Hollywood’s legendary flops, but never mind) has been floating around since reshoots were ordered last year. But it will emerge in the New Year, with Downey’s Dolittle discovering a colony of talking CGI animals while trying to find a cure for Queen Victoria’s illness.
SOUL
Pixar’s second of the year looks like a jazz version of Coco: a music teacher ( Jamie Foxx ) loses his soul to some sort of limbo (the “You Seminar”), where it has to teach other souls in order to get back to the human world. Tina Fey plays a grump.
ARTEMIS FOWL
The super-intelligent 12-year-old — descendant of a long line of criminal masterminds — gets his own film in what no doubt is hoped to be the start of a series. Based on the books by Eoin Colfer and directed by Kenneth Branagh, this looks a good bet.
MINIONS: RISE OF GRU
A follow-up to Minions, the fun Despicable Me spin-off that did massive business in 2015. This is a sort of origins story, with Gru on his march to supervillaindom. Steve Carell is back to voice the spindly-limbed boss of the little yellow creatures.
COME AWAY
Brenda Chapman, best known for her pioneering directing work on ThePrince of Egypt and Brave, is making her live-action debut with this fun-sounding fantasy that crosses Alice in Wonderland with Peter Pan. The title characters are posited as a brother and sister (children of Angelina Jolie and David Oyelowo ) whose respective fantasylands come alive after the death of an older sibling.
RAYA THE LAST DRAGON
Disney are positioning this for a Thanksgiving/Christmas release: it’s pitched as a mix of classic Disney and kung fu movies. Raya is a kid hunting for the world’s last dragon; Awkwafina is the top name on the cast list, as the voice of the dragon.
THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE ON THE RUN
This is the third feature spin-off from the popular animated TV show, following 2015’s Sponge out of Water. Here, SpongeBob and his starfish pal Patrick go looking for Gary after he has been “snail-napped.” Keanu Reeves and Snoop Dogg have cameo voice roles.
The Lee (李) family migrated to Taiwan in trickles many decades ago. Born in Myanmar, they are ethnically Chinese and their first language is Yunnanese, from China’s Yunnan Province. Today, they run a cozy little restaurant in Taipei’s student stomping ground, near National Taiwan University (NTU), serving up a daily pre-selected menu that pays homage to their blended Yunnan-Burmese heritage, where lemongrass and curry leaves sit beside century egg and pickled woodear mushrooms. Wu Yun (巫雲) is more akin to a family home that has set up tables and chairs and welcomed strangers to cozy up and share a meal
Dec. 8 to Dec. 14 Chang-Lee Te-ho (張李德和) had her father’s words etched into stone as her personal motto: “Even as a woman, you should master at least one art.” She went on to excel in seven — classical poetry, lyrical poetry, calligraphy, painting, music, chess and embroidery — and was also a respected educator, charity organizer and provincial assemblywoman. Among her many monikers was “Poetry Mother” (詩媽). While her father Lee Chao-yuan’s (李昭元) phrasing reflected the social norms of the 1890s, it was relatively progressive for the time. He personally taught Chang-Lee the Chinese classics until she entered public
Last week writer Wei Lingling (魏玲靈) unloaded a remarkably conventional pro-China column in the Wall Street Journal (“From Bush’s Rebuke to Trump’s Whisper: Navigating a Geopolitical Flashpoint,” Dec 2, 2025). Wei alleged that in a phone call, US President Donald Trump advised Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi not to provoke the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over Taiwan. Wei’s claim was categorically denied by Japanese government sources. Trump’s call to Takaichi, Wei said, was just like the moment in 2003 when former US president George Bush stood next to former Chinese premier Wen Jia-bao (溫家寶) and criticized former president Chen
President William Lai (賴清德) has proposed a NT$1.25 trillion (US$40 billion) special eight-year budget that intends to bolster Taiwan’s national defense, with a “T-Dome” plan to create “an unassailable Taiwan, safeguarded by innovation and technology” as its centerpiece. This is an interesting test for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and how they handle it will likely provide some answers as to where the party currently stands. Naturally, the Lai administration and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are for it, as are the Americans. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not. The interests and agendas of those three are clear, but
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