The Game Plan
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays a quarterback upended by an eight-year-old girl claiming to be his offspring. This set-up sounds terribly familiar, but even the sternest critics couldn't help admitting that The Rock brings a lot of charisma to his films, including this one. If you're a sucker for movies where beefy tough guys get domesticated by cute kids (think Arnie in Kindergarten Cop and Vin Diesel in The Pacifier), then you'll probably get clucky and weepy over this one, too.
Everyone's Hero
This animated baseball feature for children was co-directed by Christopher Reeve and co-voiced by his wife, Dana Reeve, before both passed away. However, the selling point in Taiwan - for all those Wang Chien-ming fans, at any rate - is the New York Yankees connection. "Everyone's Hero" is Yankee Irving, a youngster who sets off to recover a bat stolen from Babe Ruth and ends up helping his namesake team win the World Series. The movie features a big name cast (Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Forest Whitaker and spurned Yankees coach Joe Torre), but most critics thought it struck out.
Rise: Blood Hunter
Lucy Liu stars as a reporter-turned-vampire in a sexed-up horror effort with toothless box office in the US. Reminiscent of the Blade series, she then exacts revenge on her own kind, but not before copious coupling. It's notable for Liu's no-holds-barred performance, cameos from the likes of Marilyn Manson, and for being a B movie with an A crew - Oscar winner John Toll (Braveheart, The Last Samurai) was cinematographer.
Singapore Dreaming
This film's distributor is not doing itself any favors by releasing this breezy drama with comic touches in a week packed with new titles. That's a shame, because this multilingual tale of an unhappy middle class family and their travails in an all-too-materialistic "5Cs" society could strike a chord with many here. It was produced by plastic surgeon, 10-pin bowler, snooker player, painter and actor Woffles Wu.
Bleach: Memories of Nobody
First the bestselling manga, then the anime TV series, now the film. Bleach is the tale of a Japanese schoolboy who can see apparitions and a female death spirit who befriends him. In Memories of Nobody, our heroes are beset by sinister creatures that lack the capacity for memory. This film could further unnerve Taiwanese educators rattled by Japan's Death Note films, which were also aimed at adolescents. The second Bleach feature opens in Japan next month.
Crazy Assassins
This is a 2003 action-comedy-period piece from South Korea's budding answer to lowbrow movie icon Lloyd Kaufman, Yun Je-gyun, who made the gross-out farce Sex is Zero, also released here. The inept "assassins" of the title are charged with finding an AWOL concubine, only to get themselves tied up with some female ghosts. The Kung Fu Cinema Web site says the film "makes Dumb and Dumberer look smart." Screening at the Baixue grind house in Ximending.
L'Amour Retrospective
Taipei's Spot theater is offering a romantic two-week program of films by acclaimed husband-and-wife directors Jacques Demy and Agnes Varda. The titles are Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg and Le Bonheur, and two films by Varda about Demy: Jacquot de Nantes and L'Univers de Jacques Demy.
When nature calls, Masana Izawa has followed the same routine for more than 50 years: heading out to the woods in Japan, dropping his pants and doing as bears do. “We survive by eating other living things. But you can give faeces back to nature so that organisms in the soil can decompose them,” the 74-year-old said. “This means you are giving life back. What could be a more sublime act?” “Fundo-shi” (“poop-soil master”) Izawa is something of a celebrity in Japan, publishing books, delivering lectures and appearing in a documentary. People flock to his “Poopland” and centuries-old wooden “Fundo-an” (“poop-soil house”) in
For anyone on board the train looking out the window, it must have been a strange sight. The same foreigner stood outside waving at them four different times within ten minutes, three times on the left and once on the right, his face getting redder and sweatier each time. At this unique location, it’s actually possible to beat the train up the mountain on foot, though only with extreme effort. For the average hiker, the Dulishan Trail is still a great place to get some exercise and see the train — at least once — as it makes its way
Jan 13 to Jan 19 Yang Jen-huang (楊仁煌) recalls being slapped by his father when he asked about their Sakizaya heritage, telling him to never mention it otherwise they’ll be killed. “Only then did I start learning about the Karewan Incident,” he tells Mayaw Kilang in “The social culture and ethnic identification of the Sakizaya” (撒奇萊雅族的社會文化與民族認定). “Many of our elders are reluctant to call themselves Sakizaya, and are accustomed to living in Amis (Pangcah) society. Therefore, it’s up to the younger generation to push for official recognition, because there’s still a taboo with the older people.” Although the Sakizaya became Taiwan’s 13th
Each week, whenever she has time off from her marketing job, Ida Jia can be found at Shanghai Disneyland queuing for hours to spend a few minutes with Linabell, a fluffy pink fox with big blue eyes. The 29-year-old does not go empty handed, bringing pink fox soft toys dressed in ornate custom-made outfits to show the life-sized character, as well as handmade presents as gifts. Linabell, which made its debut in Shanghai in 2021, is helping Disney benefit from a rapidly growing market in China for merchandise related to toys, games, comics and anime, which remained popular with teenagers and young
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