Ten Nights of Dreams
Back in 1990 the late Akira Kurosawa made a film called Dreams, a compilation of good dreams and nightmares the director had had over the years. This film has the same idea - a bunch of dreams tagged together - but uses different directors for each of the 10 entries. Contributors include Takashi Shimizu (director of the Grudge series) and veteran Kon Ichikawa.
Vengeance
Get your grindhouse fix with this 2006 flick from Thailand, screening in tandem with its DVD release. A cop and his team hunt a prison escapee in a forest teeming with dangerous and strange creatures and unknown evil forces. Could this be a metaphor for the Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand? Either way, the basic set-up and the location are in debt to Predator and maybe Jurassic Park, with some mysticism thrown into the pot.
Purple Ribbon Film Festival
You could be forgiven for feeling worn out by all the film festivals at the moment. This one, however, deserves a late mention. The Purple Ribbon Film Festival in Taipei County is again promoting dialogue
on how to deal with domestic violence and child abuse and includes some fine titles. Still to be screened are Cristina Comencini's Don't Tell, Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin, Pedro Almodovar's Volver, Ghyslaine Cote's The Five of Us and Kay Pollak's As It Is in Heaven. Screening at Aletheia (Tamsui campus), Shih Hsin and Fu Jen Catholic universities from Tuesday to Thursday next week, then concluding at Tamkang University from Oct. 22 to Oct. 24 and the National Taiwan University of Arts on Oct. 23. Web site: blog.yam.com/purpleribbon.
June 23 to June 29 After capturing the walled city of Hsinchu on June 22, 1895, the Japanese hoped to quickly push south and seize control of Taiwan’s entire west coast — but their advance was stalled for more than a month. Not only did local Hakka fighters continue to cause them headaches, resistance forces even attempted to retake the city three times. “We had planned to occupy Anping (Tainan) and Takao (Kaohsiung) as soon as possible, but ever since we took Hsinchu, nearby bandits proclaiming to be ‘righteous people’ (義民) have been destroying train tracks and electrical cables, and gathering in villages
Dr. Y. Tony Yang, Associate Dean of Health Policy and Population Science at George Washington University, argued last week in a piece for the Taipei Times about former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) leading a student delegation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that, “The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world” (“Ma’s Visit, DPP’s Blind Spot,” June 18, page 8). Yang contends that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a blind spot: “By treating any
Swooping low over the banks of a Nile River tributary, an aid flight run by retired American military officers released a stream of food-stuffed sacks over a town emptied by fighting in South Sudan, a country wracked by conflict. Last week’s air drop was the latest in a controversial development — private contracting firms led by former US intelligence officers and military veterans delivering aid to some of the world’s deadliest conflict zones, in operations organized with governments that are combatants in the conflicts. The moves are roiling the global aid community, which warns of a more militarized, politicized and profit-seeking trend
This year will go down in the history books. Taiwan faces enormous turmoil and uncertainty in the coming months. Which political parties are in a good position to handle big changes? All of the main parties are beset with challenges. Taking stock, this column examined the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) (“Huang Kuo-chang’s choking the life out of the TPP,” May 28, page 12), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (“Challenges amid choppy waters for the DPP,” June 14, page 12) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (“KMT struggles to seize opportunities as ‘interesting times’ loom,” June 20, page 11). Times like these can
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