In one of the more dramatic scenes from Infernal Affairs, Tony Leung (梁朝偉) and Andy Lau (劉德華) face off on the roof of a Hong Kong skyscraper trading barbs on their respective treasonous ways. But in an on-line Taiwanese-dubbed version of the scene being sent around in mass e-mails, Lau is an audiophile gearhead lamenting his inability to find products with CD-Pro2 technology. In the clip, Lau wants to buy a stereo with the new sound module and Leung taunts him by saying he's already got two, and even knows someone who has 20 CD-Pro2 systems. Then Leung says he'll sell one system for an exorbitant $200,000, to which Lau responds that he's a "real bastard."
A second clip features the two in a stereo store enjoying the perfect response of CD-Pro2 stereos. What is in the original version another tense encounter between the two stars is transformed through the new overdub into a pair of tech geeks having knee-tremblers over superior sound quality. The voices and dubbing are uncannily well done. Check the clips at: http://myweb.hinet.net/home6/shoda/cdpro2.wmv, http:// myweb.hinet.net/home6/shoda/cdpro2-2.wmv and myweb.hinet.net/home6/shoda/cdpro2-mtv.wmv.
Lau is also starring in Magic Kitchen (魔幻廚房), which is currently playing in Taiwan, but if you blink it may already have left the theaters. The movie co-stars Sammi Cheng (鄭秀文), Maggie Q and Jerry Yen (言承旭) of the boy band F4, but even that much star power hasn't been enough to help the flick break the NT$1-million mark in ticket sales over two weeks. Nevertheless, its take at the box office is considered a fairly good result for Chinese-language movies these days, sad as that may sound.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Competition is just as fierce on the little screen these days and the past week has seen a raft of new TV shows take to the air.
Momoko Tao (陶晶瑩) is back on Azio TV, Monday through Wednesday, at 10pm, with a fashion commentary show after her racy talk show was discontinued late last year for offending the community standard through its blunt treatment of, well, mostly just sex. This time the topic up for discussion, with a long list of celebrity guests already lined up, will be fashion -- which should be easy enough to lead into the jucier subject of sex.
Formosa TV (民視) and SET-TV (三立台) have squared off this week in a head-to-head prime-time battle with two new shows in the hotly contested 8pm time slot. On Monday, Formosa TV's Life of Desire (慾望人生) pulled ahead of SET-TV's Taiwan Tornado (龍捲風) with a modestly higher rating, according to an AC Nielsen poll. The following day Life of Desire's producer Cheng Chao-cheng (鄭朝城) gloated over the superior rating, telling reporters he had already bought a one-way ticket for Taiwan Tornado's script writer Cheng Wen-hua (鄭文華) to go back to Hong Kong. Reports in several local papers had the two men going for the jugular in the week leading up to their shows' face-off, calling each other's scripts garbage and "daring" the loser to retire from the business.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Chinese-language movies didn't appear on the Oscar radar screen on Sunday, but at least Wong Kar Wai (王家衛) got a shout out from Sophia Coppola, who credited the director with providing inspiration for the script for Lost in Translation, which won best screenplay. Hong Kong's Apple Daily (蘋果日報) reported on Wednesday that Wong hadn't watched the ceremony nor Coppola's movie, because he's too busy filming his sci-fi drama 2046, but said he'd get around to it "soon," which might suggest that the filming of the movie is finally nearing completion after innumerable delays.
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,
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