No Halloween trickery is involved in this announcement: The Little Vampire is a treat.
Not often does a family film come along that is literate, clever, mischievous and just plain fun. Directed by Uli Edel Christiane F and Last Exit to Brooklyn) and based on the popular Little Vampire novels by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg, this delightful juvenile adventure upsets the all-too-familiar autumn applecart in various ways.
First of all, the vampires, though tormented, are sweet. They'd really rather be humans, and rather than sup on their own previous species, they turn to cows, though not for the milk. This preference leads to scenes in which some hefty bovines, having joined the undead, spurn the sunlight of the field and choose the darkness of the barn, where they hang head down from the rafters, much to the bemusement of Farmer Mclaughlin (Jake D'Arcy).
PHOTO COURTESY OF HUACHAN
And what fun it is to hear Anna (Anna Popplewell), a pouty-lipped little vampire, tell Tony Thompson (Jonathan Lipnicki), a nine-year-old human, "If you ever need me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you?"
And to hear Anna's brother Rudolph (Rollo Weeks) speak the king's English when he bids Tony goodbye, saying, "I suppose I must take my leave."
Anyway, pleasures of all sorts are to be found in The Little Vampire, which revolves around Tony, uprooted from his home in San Diego to move with his parents to Scotland, where his father is designing a golfing resort for Lord Mcashton (John Wood), whose family has a few secrets. Tony, played with un-self-conscious charm by the actor who portrayed Rene Zellweger's little boy in Jerry Maguire, has been having repeated nightmares about a cliffside vampire ceremony involving a comet, an amulet, an incantation and the untimely intervention of a vampire killer. In the manner of adults, his parents (Pamela Gidley and Tommy Hinkley) are concerned but dismissive. To make Tony's life more difficult, Lord Mcashton's grandsons are bullying him.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HUACHAN
But Tony's dreams are portents of reality, and soon he has encountered and been befriended by Rudolph. And through Rudolph, he meets Rudolph's parents, Frederick and Freda, played with stylish comic spirit by Richard E. Grant and Alice Krige.
With the comet set to reappear, the time is ripe for Frederick to restore his vast clan to human form. But with the vampire killer Rookery (Jim Carter) lurking in the darkness and the amulet still missing after hundreds of years, it will be up to Tony to save the day. Sorry. Save the night.
June 9 to June 15 A photo of two men riding trendy high-wheel Penny-Farthing bicycles past a Qing Dynasty gate aptly captures the essence of Taipei in 1897 — a newly colonized city on the cusp of great change. The Japanese began making significant modifications to the cityscape in 1899, tearing down Qing-era structures, widening boulevards and installing Western-style infrastructure and buildings. The photographer, Minosuke Imamura, only spent a year in Taiwan as a cartographer for the governor-general’s office, but he left behind a treasure trove of 130 images showing life at the onset of Japanese rule, spanning July 1897 to
In an interview posted online by United Daily News (UDN) on May 26, current Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) was asked about Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) replacing him as party chair. Though not yet officially running, by the customs of Taiwan politics, Lu has been signalling she is both running for party chair and to be the party’s 2028 presidential candidate. She told an international media outlet that she was considering a run. She also gave a speech in Keelung on national priorities and foreign affairs. For details, see the May 23 edition of this column,
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on May 18 held a rally in Taichung to mark the anniversary of President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20. The title of the rally could be loosely translated to “May 18 recall fraudulent goods” (518退貨ㄌㄨㄚˋ！). Unlike in English, where the terms are the same, “recall” (退貨) in this context refers to product recalls due to damaged, defective or fraudulent merchandise, not the political recalls (罷免) currently dominating the headlines. I attended the rally to determine if the impression was correct that the TPP under party Chairman Huang Kuo-Chang (黃國昌) had little of a
At Computex 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) urged the government to subsidize AI. “All schools in Taiwan must integrate AI into their curricula,” he declared. A few months earlier, he said, “If I were a student today, I’d immediately start using tools like ChatGPT, Gemini Pro and Grok to learn, write and accelerate my thinking.” Huang sees the AI-bullet train leaving the station. And as one of its drivers, he’s worried about youth not getting on board — bad for their careers, and bad for his workforce. As a semiconductor supply-chain powerhouse and AI hub wannabe, Taiwan is seeing
RSS