Butterfly on a Wheel
This thriller barely got released in the US before going to cable (under the name Shattered), but Pierce Brosnan completists might get a kick out of seeing him abduct a couple's daughter and subject all three to various torments.
Ghost of Mae Nak
A British cinematographer helms this Thai ghost story set in present-day and early 20th century Bangkok. A man lies comatose after an accident, and his wife must dig deep (literally) to uncover the secret of the ghost that protects and threatens their lives. Film Threat magazine likens the death scenes to those in the Final Destination series.
Doraemon: The Movie 2007
This, the latest in the decades-old series of animated films for kids featuring our best blue friend, involves a dinosaur egg. Released last year in Japan as Doraemon: The Movie 2006.
Memories of Tomorrow
Ken Watanabe of The Last Samurai fame was the driving force behind this Japanese drama. He stars as an advertising executive who succumbs to Alzheimer's disease as his family struggle to adjust. A weepie, to be sure, but by most accounts very well done.
Nightmare Detective
The most brutal entry for the week comes from director/cinematographer Shinya Tsukamoto, perhaps best known for Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Pop star Hitomi is a detective probing a series of suicides; with the help of a mysterious man who analyzes dreams, she faces her own demons and the demonic killer. Variety describes the film's style as "recalling David Lynch at his most perverse." A sequel is in production.
Photo Album of the Village
This Japanese drama from 2004 is set in a mountainous town threatened by construction for a dam. An aging photographer calls his son back from the city to help him make a record of the people of the community before it is destroyed. In so doing, their troubled relationship changes.
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
The latest Formosa poll released at the end of last month shows confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) plunged 8.1 percent, while satisfaction with the Lai administration fared worse with a drop of 8.5 percent. Those lacking confidence in Lai jumped by 6 percent and dissatisfaction in his administration spiked up 6.7 percent. Confidence in Lai is still strong at 48.6 percent, compared to 43 percent lacking confidence — but this is his worst result overall since he took office. For the first time, dissatisfaction with his administration surpassed satisfaction, 47.3 to 47.1 percent. Though statistically a tie, for most
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
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