A Chinese movie sharply critical of deteriorating morals amid the country's rapid economic growth will finally hit theaters later this week after being heavily censored and delayed for a key Communist Party meeting, its producer, Fang Li (方勵), said.
Director Li Yu's (李玉) Lost in Beijing (蘋果), which describes the fallout after a Beijing foot massage parlor owner rapes an employee from the countryside, will be released today and is expected to show at about 500 movie theaters, the producer said.
In its uncensored form, Lost in Beijing is a damning indictment of greed and lust in modern Chinese society.
PHOTO: AP
Explicit sex scenes were cut from the movie, Fang said. He also cut out a side character, as well as scenes showing dirty streets, gambling, the Chinese flag and Tiananmen Square.
Fang said the film has also been sold to distributors in North America, Europe, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and South Korea.
A quixotic look at the life and times of legendary singer Bob Dylan was nominated for four Spirit Awards, the Oscars of the independent film world.
I'm Not There, which features Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere and four others playing incarnations of the enigmatic singer, was nominated for best feature; supporting actress for Blanchett; supporting actor for child performer Marcus Carl Franklin; and best director for Todd Haynes.
Also nominated for best film were A Mighty Heart, The Diving Bell and Butterfly, about paralyzed French author Jean-Dominique Bauby; Juno, about a pregnant teenager and others.
Nominees for best actress include Angelina Jolie for her role in A Mighty Heart, Ellen Page for her Juno, and China's Tang Wei (湯唯) for Lust, Caution (色,戒).
Foreign film nominees included Romania's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, an Israeli film called The Band's Visit, an Irish drama Once, Lady Chatterley and Persepolis from France.
The prizes are open to movies that cost less than US$20 million to make and which played in theaters for a week or at a top festival.
Sundance, the main US showcase for independent film also announced nominees this week. Winona Ryder, Nick Nolte, Anjelica Huston and Paul Giamatti will be among those competing for top honors at the festival.
Also included were documentaries on writer Hunter S. Thompson, musician Patti Smith and filmmakers Roman Polanski and Derek Jarman.
Taking place Jan. 17 to Jan. 27 in Park City, Utah, Sundance has chosen 16 films in its dramatic competition for American fictional films, including director Geoff Haley's The Last Word, starring Ryder, Wes Bentley and Ray Romano in a romance about a reclusive writer who crafts suicide notes for other people.
Also competing in a lineup heavy on tales of families at odds are: Rawson Thurber's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, the story of a young man with a gangster father who embarks on a soul-searching summer after college; Clark Gregg's Choke, a mother-and-son tale; and Paul Schneider's Pretty Bird, a dark comic narrative of entrepreneurs trying to invent a rocket belt.
The bombing of Mumbai's commuter train network that killed nearly 200 people last year has inspired a new Indian film.
Directed by Nishikant Kamat, Mumbai Meri Jaan, will recount the death and devastation through the eyes of a female journalist, a witness to the carnage.
"The film is inspired from what happened during and after the blasts," said actress Soha Ali Khan, who plays the reporter.
"It not only tells the audience about the horror but also takes them into the aftermath of the tragedy. It is not gory in its presentation and has a humane angle to it."
Seven bombs went off within 15 minutes on packed commuter trains during the evening rush-hour in July last year, killing close to 200 innocent people and one of the bombers and injuring many more.
Police say the attack was triggered by disaffected Indian Muslims at the behest of Pakistan-based Islamist militants.
Bollywood made a critically acclaimed film based on India's worst bombing, also in Mumbai, in 1993 in which 257 people were killed. But it failed at the box office.
Mumbai Meri Jaan is set to open in February.
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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