The Vagina Monologues'and 'A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer' will be staged in Taiwan in an effort to bring awareness to female sexuality and violence against women
By Noah Buchan
Nothing raises eyebrows in Taiwan quite like references to female genitalia. [ FULL STORY ]

By Ian Bartholomew
Huang Chun-ming (黃春明), who published his first story in 1956 and has since established himself as a major proponent of Taiwan's "nativist literature movement" (鄉土文學), will lead a production of Strawmen and Sparrows (稻草人與小麻雀), which opens tonight at the National Theater in Taipei.

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By Ho Yi
Does a bunch of drag queens bursting into song and dance, cabaret-style, and spouting witty, sometimes risque quips sound like promising weekend entertainment? If it does, The Great Escape of Prostitutes (胡BB風月救風塵), the latest production by the Snow White Entertaining Troupe (SWET, 白雪綜藝劇團) is the show for you.

[ FULL STORY ]

By Ian Bartholomew
Edison Chen (陳冠希) has left the building, but the storm he has stirred up is likely to rage a while longer. After all, it's all grist to the media mill. Next magazine plumbed new depths this week with its feature story on one of the hookers who reportedly provided services for the former Canto-crooner.

[ FULL STORY ]

Feb. 22 to Feb. 28

By Ron Brownlow
Three grand might sound like a lot to splash on a night out at The Wall (這牆) - which is roughly how much it will cost if you see Broken Social Scene on Tuesday and consume two drinks in the process - but think about it this way: pretty much every notable Canadian indie band has members in this sprawling 20-musician collective, or, if not, then they are probably somehow closely related to it. Another way of saying this is that Broken Social Scene, whether as the collective itself or through the side projects and solo acts of members such as Emily Haines and Leslie Feist, can claim responsibility for some of the best indie-music records of recent years.

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By Queen Bee
It might have been unusually cold in Taipei, but LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad made ladies night at Luxy the hottest action in town last Wednesday, also their best gig in Taiwan since 2004. Conrad did a lot more singing this time, adding jazzy, soulful and sometimes dubby layers to LTJ's specialty-blend of deep and grooving drum 'n' bass with his mesmerizing voice. The energy level was roaring high from start to end. It's hard to believe a drum 'n' bass party kicked off to such an extent in Taiwan. [ FULL STORY ]

By Ho Yi
A few months ago, Witch Cloud (巫雲), a cultural fixture frequented by artists, writers, vagabonds and wannabe rebels in the Shida (師大) neighborhood, quietly moved to a brighter and more comfortable location in the Taida (台大) area. The Yunnan cuisine, the collection of vinyl records and the long-haired, bearded proprietor nicknamed Lao Wu (老五) - who grew up in Myanmar but has called Taipei home for the past 30 years - remain the same.

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By Ian Bartholomew
Back in 2006, the local media was awash with news of the sensational split between the young owners of I Pin Huatiao Chicken (一品花雕雞), a hot pot restaurant that routinely required patrons to wait well over an hour for a table. The convoluted legal case led to the creation of the "Original" Huatiao Chicken restaurant by Wang Chun-hwa (王春華), which continues to draw big crowds at its three locations. I Pin Huatiao Chicken can still be found at 207, Civil Blvd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市市民大道四段207號) and the foodie blogosphere is replete with comparisons between the two.

[ FULL STORY ]

'The Wall,' an award-winning drama,hits a few political nerves at home
By Ho Yi
Film editor and multi-award-winning TV director Lin Chih-ju's (林志儒) first full-length feature, The Wall (牆之魘), a human drama that revisits the tumultuous White Terror era, adheres to the humanitarian heritage passed down from his New Wave mentors such as Ko Yi-cheng (柯一正), Li Tao-ming (李道明) and Wan Jen (萬仁).

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By Ho Yi
Based on short stories penned by director Pang Ho-cheung (彭浩翔), Trivial Matters (破事兒) is a series of vignettes on love, sex, friendship and as the title suggests, all the Trivial Matters in life. Entertaining, witty and sometimes downright absurd, the seven segments assemble several of Hong Kong's pop idols, who seem - from the delivery of the project - to be having a big, A-list ball.

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The threat of an actors' strike in the months ahead has put movie studios in a tenuous situation. Filmmakers are reluctant to launch any production that cannot be completed before the expiration of the Screen Actors Guild's (SAG) major film and TV contract ends on June 30.

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Taipei's Top Five

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'Kite Runner' fails to take flight

Marc Forster's screen adaptation of ‘The Kite Runner' boasts none of the realism for which the book is famous

By Manohla Dargis
Much like the best-selling novel on which it's based, The Kite Runner tells the story of an Afghan refugee who, long after arriving in the US, sifts through memories of his cosseted childhood, his emotionally remote father, his devoted best friend, the kites they flew and the stories they shared. The back of my paperback copy of this Khaled Hosseini novel is sprinkled with words like “powerful” and “haunting” and “riveting” and “unforgettable.” It's a good guess that this film will be rolled around in a similarly large helping of lard.
[ FULL STORY ]

There are matters of state between Turkey and Germany in this film, but the bigger issues are between individuals
By Peter Bradshaw
The Turkish-German director Fatih Akin's new film has been given a poetic English title for its UK release, but the German original, Auf der Anderen Seite, or On the Other Side, is better. This is an intriguing, complex, beautifully acted and directed piece of work, partly a realist drama of elaborate coincidences, near-misses and near-hits, further tangled with shifts in the timeline — and partly an almost dreamlike meditation with visual symmetries and narrative rhymes.
[ FULL STORY ]

Theater
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