His ambition is to create films that can be seen by the entire world, director of Missing Johnny (強尼.凱克) Lin Cheng-sheng (林正盛) said, in response to allegations that China has banned the film amid claims on Chinese social media that its male lead, Lawrence Ko (柯宇綸), supports Taiwanese independence.
The Chinese distributor of the film, China Film Co, on Monday said in a statement that the movie, originally scheduled for release on April 14, has been put on hold until further notice.
China Film did not give a reason for the delay, but the announcement followed a public outcry in China over an online article accusing Ko of supporting Taiwanese independence.
In response, Lin on Thursday said that without the Chinese market, it would be relatively difficult to find funding for films, but added: “[We] do not have to make big-budget films.”
“If [we] work hard and come up with a solid story and script, even if the budget is smaller, [we] can still create a good work of art and show the film to the entire world,” he said.
Lin said he does not want to comment further on a totalitarian country that reviews the ideology behind works of art and people, adding that this kind of issue happens repeatedly and doing so would be a waste of his time.
Even protesting would be excessive, he added.
It is the government that should express its opinion, Lin said.
Apart from protesting, the government should create a cultural policy and industry environment that facilitates development in diverse ways and markets works of art to the rest of the world, Lin said.
For society to be strong, the government first needs to build a good environment, he said.
Works of art should be geared toward a global audience and cultural works should be encouraged, Lin said.
Foreigners enjoy seeing Taiwanese culture in films, he added.
“If [we] cannot showcase the value of Taiwan, we will remain in China’s shadow,” he said.
Lin also called the 31 measures that China’s Taiwan Affairs Office announced on Feb. 28, which it billed as “incentives” for Taiwanese, are a “united front” strategy.
The public should not judge entertainers who have turned to the Chinese market, because those are their choices and they are finding ways to survive, he said.
Do not engage in an ideological war within the industry, he said, adding that it is more important to build a good environment.
It is useless to simply participate in events and give a warm and moving speech, former Public Television Service president Sylvia Feng (馮賢賢) wrote on Facebook.
People have long felt nothing toward political acts ridden with ornate and decorative language, Feng wrote, adding that politicians should promote counterpolicies and action.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching