The Taiwan Film Institute yesterday announced it has restored some classic Taiwanese films and they are ready to be shown in theaters across the nation.
The institute is a foundation established by the Ministry of Culture charged with restoring and promoting the nation’s film heritage.
Institute chief executive Lin Wen-chi (林文淇) said that following the 1955 end of a ban on producing movies in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), hundreds of movies in the language were produced every year until the end of the 1960s, when the move to color films undermined the competitiveness of independent Hoklo film producers.
The 1970s saw the emergence of romantic movies and a genre of “new wave” wuxia (martial arts, 武俠) films, which were commercially successful in eastern Asia, he said.
Time has not been kind to the older movies, which are only now beginning to be digitized and restored, Deputy Minister of Culture Joseph Chen (陳永豐) said.
He said that many films have already been lost or irreparably damaged due to poor preservation methods, adding that during Taiwan’s economic rise, discarded movie-film was often used as waterproof lining in the straw hats of factory workers.
He estimated that only 400 Hoklo films have been preserved.
Ten older films in either Holko or Mandarin have been fully digitized and restored by the institute.
The movie exhibition — set to tour the nation from next month through August — features six classic films from the 1960s and 1970s.
Films featured include Dragon Gate Inn (龍門客棧), the wuxia film that marked the beginning of the “new wave” pictures. The restored version was featured at the Cannes Film Festival last year.
The romantic drama The Young Ones (彩雲飛) — based on a novel by famous pulp-romance author Chiung Yao (瓊瑤) — similarly presaged a wave of successful romance films.
The exhibit includes Love in Chilly Spring (春寒), starring singer Feng Fei-fei (鳳飛飛), as well the three older Hoklo films: Back to Anping Harbor (回來安平港), Vengeance of the Phoenix Sisters (三鳳震武林) and The Fantasy of Deer Warrior (大俠梅花鹿).
All films feature English subtitles.
Showtimes, locations and ticket purchasing information can be found on the Web site of the Taiwan Film Institute: www.tfi.org.tw.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Monday called for greater cooperation between Taiwan, Lithuania and the EU to counter threats to information security, including attacks on undersea cables and other critical infrastructure. In a speech at Vilnius University in the Lithuanian capital, Tsai highlighted recent incidents in which vital undersea cables — essential for cross-border data transmission — were severed in the Taiwan Strait and the Baltic Sea over the past year. Taiwanese authorities suspect Chinese sabotage in the incidents near Taiwan’s waters, while EU leaders have said Russia is the likely culprit behind similar breaches in the Baltic. “Taiwan and our European
RSS