Following the great success he achieved with the movie Cape No. 7, film director Wei Te-sheng (魏德勝) is now more confident about restarting his ambitious shoot for the film Seediq Bale.
Wei and his team spent four years researching the topic before finishing the script, selecting the locations and shooting a preview film.
“We couldn’t go any further because we were short of money,” Wei said, adding that the budget for the movie would be about US$10 million.
However, with the recent success of Cape No. 7 — ticket sales amounted to NT$60 million (US$1.8 million) within three weeks of its release — Wei is now more confident he can complete his ambitious project.
“Before, I was a nobody, now many people know my name and this should make it easier to get sponsorship,” he said yesterday in a phone interview with the Taipei Times.
However, Wei stressed that he would not compromise on certain things in order to get sponsorship.
“All the actors have to be Aborigines and the dialogue has to be in Sedeq [and Japanese],” he said. “If a company tells me that they would give me a lot of money on the condition that I have to hire some famous non-Aboriginal actors, I’d rather not take the money.”
A couple of years ago when the five-minute preview film titled Seediq Bale was posted on the Internet, it created a lot of discussion on the Internet, although at the time not many people had heard of the director’s name.
The Sedeq are an Aboriginal tribe that live mostly in Nantou and Hualien counties.
The film title, Seediq Bale, means “the real person” in their language.
The movie Seediq Bale tells the story of Sedeq warrior Mona Rudao who led a large-scale uprising against the Japanese in present-day Wushe (霧社) in Nantou County.
On the morning of Oct. 27, 1930, Mona led a group of more than 300 Sedeq and launched a surprise attack as the Japanese gathered to participate in a local sports event, killing 125 and wounding 215.
The Sedeq then cut the telephone lines and occupied Wushe for three days, before retreating to their strongholds deep in the mountains.
The Japanese colonial government cracked down on the Sedeq, using more than 2,000 military and police officers, and even used poisonous gas banned by international law.
After being under siege for months, Mona, along with about 300 other Sedeq warriors, killed himself.
“Inspiration from ancestral spirits plays an important part in their resistance, therefore I think the Sedeq were searching for spiritual freedom, rather than corporal freedom,” said Wei, explaining why he wanted to make the movie. “That makes the story very unique and interesting.”
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
Nipah virus infection is to be officially listed as a category 5 notifiable infectious disease in Taiwan in March, while clinical treatment guidelines are being formulated, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. With Nipah infections being reported in other countries and considering its relatively high fatality rate, the centers on Jan. 16 announced that it would be listed as a notifiable infectious disease to bolster the nation’s systematic early warning system and increase public awareness, the CDC said. Bangladesh reported four fatal cases last year in separate districts, with three linked to raw date palm sap consumption, CDC Epidemic Intelligence
US climber Alex Honnold left Taiwan this morning a day after completing a free-solo ascent of Taipei 101, a feat that drew cheers from onlookers and gained widespread international attention. Honnold yesterday scaled the 101-story skyscraper without a rope or safety harness. The climb — the highest urban free-solo ascent ever attempted — took just more than 90 minutes and was streamed live on Netflix. It was covered by major international news outlets including CNN, the New York Times, the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal. As Honnold prepared to leave Taiwan today, he attracted a crowd when he and his wife, Sanni,
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
RSS