Genre melding Fish and the Bedroom Riot is about 'destruction, sex, and breaking the law' with plenty of masturbation metaphors thrown in for good measure
By Ron Brownlow
Clad in a woman's dress, long hair dripping with sweat, Chiu Sheng (秋生) had a statement for his Chinese audience.

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By Diane Baker
The new music director of the Taipei Chinese Orchestra (臺北市立國樂團, TCO) is shaking things up at the long moribund city government institution. Tianjin-born En Shao (邵恩), who joined the orchestra earlier this year, has ambitious plans for the group this season with a wide variety of local and foreign musicians and singers.

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By Noah Buchan
Hong Kong theater director Edward Lam (林奕華) has gained a reputation for his hard-hitting plays adapted from classical literature, which tackle contemporary themes while pushing performers to the limits of their acting ability.

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By Ho Yi
Women obsessed with high-heels beware, if you feel obliged to wear the torturous footwear on a daily basis and can dance and do splits with those babies on, the odds are you will one day suffer a bad back like Mando-pop queen A-mei (阿妹) does.

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By Ho Yi
For fashionistas and couture junkies in the Taipei area, the government's "Branding Taiwan" initiative is a boon. The project aims to promote Taiwanese brands on the international market. One current effort is Taipei in Style, (TIS, 台北魅力國際時尚展), a fashion fair in its second year, which will host over 120 fashion-related companies.

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By Ho Yi
The Taipei International Chopin Piano Competition (國際台北蕭邦鋼琴大賽) is calling for applications for its 12th tournament slated to take place at National Concert Hall (國家音樂廳) and National Recital Hall (國家演奏廳) from Sept. 7 to Sept. 21 next year. Organized by Frederic Chopin Foundation Taipei (中華蕭邦音樂基金會), the event has long been regarded as Taiwan's foremost international piano competition and a nurturing ground for young pianists as many of the participants have gone on to become distinguished musicians.

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By Marcus Aurelius
Nine years ago, the calling of an exotic land, Isla Formosa, prompted me to pack my bags and leave the banal confines of Columbus, Ohio. Dreams of traveling halfway around the globe and getting rich by teaching English for a year danced through my head as I leafed through the Lonely Planet guidebook and examined Web sites about Taiwan. At the end of 1998, Ja Rule was a popular rapper, Sega Dreamcast was just hitting the shelves and Titanic fever was finally dying down.

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Jet Li and Jason Statham have teamed up to save movie audiences the bother of watching two flaccid flicks
By Wesley Morris
You could fill a small junkyard with the films Jet Li (李連杰) and Jason Statham have made separately. Perhaps to cut down on waste, they've teamed up for a single trip to the dumpster. The occasion is War, a title the movie never quite lives up to. Spat or Tiff might be more accurate.

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Buried somewhere within the bipolar extravaganza that is 'The Invasion' is an awfully good movie that got away
By Ty Burr
The Nicole Kidman thriller is the fourth film version of the alien-paranoia classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers - previously filmed in 1956, 1978, and 1993 - and to understand its problems, you have to know some Hollywood back story.

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Chinese director Feng Xiaogang's (馮小剛) new war story The Assembly will debut as the opening movie at Pusan International Film Festival in October, organizers said Tuesday.

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'My DNA Says I Love You' and 'Keeping Watch' indicate a rise in the status of female directors in Taiwan
By Ho Yi
Female film directors are on the rise in Taiwan, as evidenced by two Mandarin movies released today. My DNA Says I Love You (基因決定我愛你), Lee Yun-chan's (李芸嬋) second movie, and Keeping Watch (沉睡的青春), Zheng Fen Fen's (鄭芬芬) first, both offer romantic stories starring local pop stars. Although the themes of both movies are similar, the directors have achieved different levels of success.

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By Ho Yi
In a quiet alley behind Taipei City Hospital, Heping branch (台北市立聯合醫院和平分院) lies an inconspicuous restaurant known to all food connoisseurs. Outside the traditional establishment, diners - drawn to its praise-worthy Yangzhou cuisine and bargain prices - stand in long lines every day.

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By Ron Brownlow
La Casita is different than other Mexican restaurants in Taipei - its food actually tastes like Mexican food.

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Highlight

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