'The Firmiana Rain' shows that not only are Asians taking an increasingly prominent role in the classical music scene, they are also placing their own stamp on the genre
By Ian Bartholomew
The story is old - the action takes place in the Tang Dynasty over 1,000 years ago and was first immortalized on stage by the poet Bai Pu (白樸, 1226-1306) during the Yuan Dynasty - but the form it will take in Chen May-tchi's (陳玫琪) opera The Firmiana Rain (梧桐雨), which will have its world premiere at the National Theater Taipei on Thursday, is avant-garde.

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Halloween bashes are popping up faster than zombies in a George Romero movie. See today's Vinyl Word for the lowdown on the dance parties, or continue reading for a list of other events at bars and clubs from Taipei to Kaohsiung.
By Ron Brownlow
TAIPEI

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By Noah Buchan
Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) seems to have unwittingly educated Hong Kong's glitterati on personal hygiene and public etiquette. The Apple Daily earlier this week published images of Hong Kong diva and actress Coco Chiang (蔣怡) with her finger up her nose having a good rout at a shopping mall.

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A man tries to solve the mystery of his son's murder in this critically-acclaimed film, but finds no easy, clear-cut answers
By A. O. SCOTT
Viewed from one angle - straight on, from the ground level of its busy plot - In the Valley of Elah might be mistaken for a tidy crime procedural. A retired military police officer named Hank Deerfield (played by Tommy Lee Jones with his usual brisk, gruff economy) learns that his son Mike (Jonathan Tucker), an Army specialist recently returned from Iraq, has gone AWOL from his base in New Mexico.

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'Grand Hotel' meets 'Towering Inferno' in Emilio Estevez's ambitious drama
By A.O. SCOTT
With Bobby, Emilio Estevez, writer and director (as well as one of a huge ensemble of actors), sets himself a large and honorable task. It is important to appreciate this in spite of his movie's evident shortcomings.

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Not even grapefruit sex and Jessica Alba can make this immature, poorly executed 'comedy' entertaining
By A.O. SCOTT
I've occasionally heard Dane Cook, one of the stars of Good Luck Chuck, described as a comedian. I find this confusing, since my understanding is that comedians are people who say and do things that are funny. Perhaps Cook is some new kind of conceptual satirist whose shtick is to behave in the manner of a person attempting to be funny without actually being, you know, funny. Or maybe he answered an ad in the back of a magazine and sent away for a mail-order license to practice comedy.

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Sympathy for the devil, a little at least
By MATT ZOLLER SEITZ
John Carpenter's original 1978 Halloween was a slumber-party spook tale about a mask-clad bogeyman hacking his way through a sleepy Illinois suburb. Rob Zombie's remake wants to be all that and a case study as well, devoting its first act to the childhood of the future serial killer Michael Myers, a chubby, sweet-faced, socially awkward boy whose mental illness is transformed into murderous rage by school bullies and a home life of Dickensian squalor.

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'11th Hour' combines reason and bold imagery to inspire earth-friendly action
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the environment, blah, blah, blah, melting ice caps. To judge from all the gas-guzzlers still fouling the air and the plastic bottles clogging the dumps, it appears that the news that we are killing ourselves and the world with our greed and garbage hasn't sunk in. That's one reason The 11th Hour, an unnerving, surprisingly affecting documentary about our environmental calamity, is such essential viewing. It may not change your life, but it may inspire you to recycle that old slogan-button your folks pinned on their dashikis back in the day: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

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By MANOHLA DARGIS
In Scoop, his not especially funny yet oddly appealing new comedy, Woody Allen manages to act his age and prove there's life in those old jokes yet. Like his last outing, the pitch-black drama Match Point, the new one revisits a number of Allen's favorite themes, including money, conscience and luscious young women ripe for the plucking, this time for laughs. As in the earlier film, Scarlett Johansson plays the succulent morsel, though with a performance set in the key of screwball rather than noir. Her sweaters are looser, as is her smile. The film, in turn, is positively slack, which turns out to be one of its virtues.

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By Ian Bartholomew
When the star-crossed lovers of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream are named Hang (Lysander), Byuk (Hermia), Ik (Helena), Ru (Demerits), Kabi (Titania) and Dot (Oberon), it's clear that this well-worn favorite has morphed into something else all together.

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By NATHAN LEE
Starting with the title and extending everywhere else, Peaceful Warrior is blatantly ludicrous. A didactic enlightenment parable couched as a heroic sports flick, the film stars Scott Mechlowicz as Millman, an arrogant gymnast in Berkeley, California, who is learning New Age life lessons from a pseudo-Buddhist gas station guru played by Nick Nolte. Mindlessly espousing principles of "no mind" and evidently capable of teleportation, this gravel-voiced fortune cookie suggests the missing link between Grizzly Adams and Yoda.

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By Ho Yi
When China was caught in the grip of civil unrest in the 1930s, cultural and artistic society was flourishing in Taiwan. Fashionable members of the emerging middle class savored their newly acquired lifestyles, while the literati and artists participated in cultural movements that explored the island's distinct identity. Such is the version of history re-created in the multilingual musical April Rain (四月望雨), which returns to the stage this weekend just a few months after it premiered in June to an enthusiastic reception.

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Compiled by Martin Williams
Rainbow Song

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By Ho YiStaff reporter
Kaohsiung Film Festival (KFF, 高雄電影節) shines the limelight on art-house and mainstream movies this year to distinguish itself from other festivals in Taiwan and to draw maximum crowds. Previously, the festival covered new producers and indie themes similar to those of the Taipei and Pusan film festivals.

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by Ho Yistaff reporter
Set on a South American island, Amour-Legende begins with Oshima (Yowusuke Kubozuka), a Japanese man, waking up in a middle of a desert, unable to remember anything. A multilingual woman who calls herself Coco (Rachel Ngan) fills in his memories by telling him her version of what has happened.

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By Tom Leeming
This weekend, three of the country's biggest promoters are throwing some huge Halloween parties. So, after a summer of weekend typhoons and seemingly endless pool parties, Halloween offers the chance for some ego-free partying, save for those desperate to win the best costume competition.

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agencies
Ang Lee's (李安) Lust, Caution cannot qualify for the major categories at the Hong Kong Film Awards because not enough Hong Kong residents worked on it.

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By Ian Bartholomew
A large aquarium, replete with reef fish and live coral, establishes the seaside theme at Ocean Blue, a new restaurant-cum-lounge bar on the fringe of the trendy Dinghao (頂好) district.

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By Ron Brownlow
The area south of National Taiwan Normal University along Shida Road (師大路) is full of restaurants, but surprisingly few of these serve Japanese food. So it came as a nice surprise to find Wanda, a cozy, no-frills establishment located in an alley between Longquan Street (龍泉街) and Taishun Street (泰順街), across the street from Cafe Bastille and the Notting Hill boutique.

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Theater

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