Rated R, directed by Jim Gellespie, with Sylvester Stallone (Jake Malloy), Charles Sutton (Chuck Hendricks), Polly Walker (JennyMunroe), Tom Berenger (Hank), Sean Patrick Flannery (Conner), Christopher Fulford (Frank Slater), Kris Kristofferson (Dr John Mitchell), running time: 92 minutes.
Known as Eye See You in the US, D-Tox stars Sly Stallone as a cop whose wife has recently fallen victim to a serial killer -- an incident which leads him to the bottle. Following her murder, he heads to a remote outpost where a retired cop helps other cops with their work-related problems. Soon this sorry bunch of guys start dropping like flies and Stallone realizes it's the same man who killed his wife. Can he pull himself together and get the killer before the killer gets him? You might guess. Nonetheless, D-Tox is noteable for mixing the cop-thriller and slasher genres, although not to any noteworthy effect. You might have guessed that, too.
PHOTO: UIP
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
Toward the outside edge of Taichung City, in Wufeng District (霧峰去), sits a sprawling collection of single-story buildings with tiled roofs belonging to the Wufeng Lin (霧峰林家) family, who rose to prominence through success in military, commercial, and artistic endeavors in the 19th century. Most of these buildings have brick walls and tiled roofs in the traditional reddish-brown color, but in the middle is one incongruous property with bright white walls and a black tiled roof: Yipu Garden (頤圃). Purists may scoff at the Japanese-style exterior and its radical departure from the Fujianese architectural style of the surrounding buildings. However, the property
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