Funded by the Council for Hakka Affairs, 1895, a movie that tells the story of the resistance against the Japanese invasion in 1895 — the biggest war in Taiwan’s history — will be shown in theaters next month, director Hung Chi-yu (洪智育) said on Wednesday.
After losing the Sino-Japanese War in 1894, the imperial Chinese government signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki with the Empire of Japan, which ceded Taiwan and Penghu to Japan.
Upon hearing the news, Taiwanese decided to organize their own resistance and established the Taiwan Republic — the official English name printed on stamps issued at the time — with Chinese governor-general Tang Ching-sung (唐景崧) as the president.
However, only a few days after the Japanese military landed at a fishing village on the northeast coast, most high officials of the Taiwan Republic fled to China, and Taipei was taken with ease.
Left on their own, three young Hakkas, Wu Tang-hsing (吳湯興), Hsu Hsiang (徐驤) and Chiang Shao-tsu (姜紹祖) — who were in their teens or early 20s at the time — organized a guerrilla front to fight the Japanese.
They fought fierce battles against the Japanese from Hsinchu to Changhua.
Chiang was the first one to die. The Japanese captured him, and he committed suicide in prison. Wu and Hsu carried on the resistance until they finally died in battle on Bagua Mountain (八卦山) in Changhua County. The fighting killed roughly 4,700 Japanese soldiers and 14,000 Taiwanese.
“The entire budget [of the movie] was NT$60 million [US$1.8 million] and it was shot at more than 30 different locations across the country,” Hung said during an interview before a media pre-screening on Wednesday.
To shoot a fight scene between Taiwanese guerrilla forces and the Japanese army that took place in a sugarcane field, “the Taiwan Sugar Corp gave us 2 jia [1.9 hectare] of their sugarcane field, and we burned it all,” Hung said.
However, he said that the movie is not meant to be an epic, but a love story.
“In the movie, I consider these characters as ordinary people whose courage was inspired by love — the love for the island they were living on, the villages they were living in and for the families [they grew up with],” Hung said. “They [fought] because [they] wanted to defend what they loved against the invaders.”
The characters are not presented as superheroes. Rather, they are human beings who commit mistakes and are from time to time sad, happy and regretful.
Freddy Lim (林昶佐), lead vocalist in the heavy metal band Chthonic, was in the audience for the pre-screening on Wednesday and said he was touched.
The Taoyuan Flight Attendants’ Union yesterday vowed to protest at the EVA Air Marathon on Sunday next week should EVA Airway Corp’s management continue to ignore the union’s petition to change rules on employees’ leave of absence system, after a flight attendant reportedly died after working on a long-haul flight while ill. The case has generated public discussion over whether taking personal or sick leave should affect a worker’s performance review. Several union members yesterday protested at the Legislative Yuan, holding white flowers and placards, while shouting: “Life is priceless; requesting leave is not a crime.” “The union is scheduled to meet with
‘UNITED FRONT’ RHETORIC: China’s TAO also plans to hold weekly, instead of biweekly, news conferences because it wants to control the cross-strait discourse, an expert said China’s plan to expand its single-entry visa-on-arrival service to Taiwanese would be of limited interest to Taiwanese and is a feeble attempt by Chinese administrators to demonstrate that they are doing something, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) said the program aims to facilitate travel to China for Taiwanese compatriots, regardless of whether they are arriving via direct flights or are entering mainland China through Hong Kong, Macau or other countries, and they would be able to apply for a single-entry visa-on-arrival at all eligible entry points in China. The policy aims
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
RSS