Taiwanese director Fu Changfeng’s (符昌鋒) The Shooting of 319 (幻術, “Deception”), which revisits the shooting of then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) on March 19, 2004, the eve of the 2004 presidential election, opens in theaters on Friday.
The movie trailer bills it as “the nation’s first political thriller” and promises to “blow the minds” of audiences.
The film is not allegorical. Actors portray the politicians central to the 2004 presidential election, including Chen, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), Lu, former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜).
Photo: Wu Wan-ting, Taipei Times
The trailer shows a recreated scene of the shooting, as well as a scene portraying Lee, lying on a bed surrounded by men in suits and raising an index finger to indicate his support for Chen, who had come out on top in the Central Election Commission’s raffle that year and was candidate No. 1 on the ballot.
While the story of alleged shooter Chen Yi-hsiung (陳義雄) is recounted in the movie, the plot includes a “mysterious shooter” named “A-Bu” (阿布), the trailer shows.
The trailer, which juxtaposes footage of an actor playing former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) with what appears to be the office of former premier Lee Huan (李煥), promises that the movie’s viewers will be taken on a journey through “30 years of Taiwanese politics.”
Several questions surrounding the “319 shooting” remain unanswered to this day, even though Taiwanese-American forensic scientist Henry Lee (李昌鈺) was brought in to investigate the incident.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) believes it was a case of attempted assassination, while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) believes it was a ruse orchestrated by the DPP to influence the election.
Although the film has been promoted as an “experimental” approach and “a marriage between fiction and facts,” the trailer contains slogans such as: “Police say Chen Yi-hsiung alone did it... Do you believe that?” and “Many magic tricks could not be debunked ... until now.”
Lee Teng-hui is portrayed by veteran actor Shih Feng (石峰), while Bobby Dou (竇智孔) plays Soong and Husky (陳家逵) plays Chen.
Wang Yan-chun (王燕軍), Lee Teng-hui’s office director, has threatened legal action if the film implies that Lee participated in planning the shooting.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said