While a wide-spread recession in Taiwan's film industry has prodded Hong Kong producers to seek co-production costs in China, Hong Kong-based Teddy Chen (
With Jin Chuan Pictures (
PHOTO COURTESY OF JIN CHUAN PICTURES
Apart from Hidden Track, Jin Chuan has also recruited Taiwanese writer/director Su Chao-pin (
"When my Hong Kong colleagues knew about my plan [to produce films in Taiwan], seven out of 10 said I was nuts, two wanted to see how I'd fail and one decided to wait and see," Chen said during the Pusan International Film Festival last week.
Set up at the end of 2001, Jin Chuan Pictures' first production in Taiwan was Twenty Something Taipei (
Chen, the director of movies starring Jackie Chan -- in Accidental Spy (2001) and action movie Purple Storm (1999) -- said the aim of Jin Chuan is to make good quality and entertaining films for the Chinese-language market.
Having spent his youth in this country, Chen said he had "special feelings about Taiwan."
Taiwanese audiences do like to watch movies, he added. "But they are seldom offered local films with more entertainment and less moral or political burden."
Hidden Track, whose Chinese title translates as "looking for Jay Chou," tells about a Chinese girl's fantastic journey looking for Mr. Right. Lamenting a failed romance, the girl, played by first-time Chinese actress Po Le-tung (
After she finds a hidden track on Chou's album (which kicks in seven minutes after the "last" track) , she decides to go from her hometown Wuhan to Hong Kong, to look for Jay Chou.
It is the adventurous setting of Hong Kong that a string of romantic encounters begins to take place. Po's Mr. Right in the film will be played by Hong Kong actor Yu Wen-le (
"We wanted the film to emanate a beautiful and delicate quality, sort of like Amelie (The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain, 2001). So we spent some more money on visual effects," Chen said.
The film's budget of HK$9 million (US$1 million) is slightly higher than most Chinese-language romance dramas.
The film is directed by Hong Kong-based Aubrey Lam (
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
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
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,
RSS