There is nothing intrinsically vicious about a tearjerker movie, and going to the movies for a good cry has a long and distinguished tradition. I Wish (奇妙的旅程), the new celebrity vehicle featuring TV host Blackie (陳建州) and model Cheryl Yang (楊謹華) sets out to move its audience to tears, but unfortunately, instead of tugging at the heart strings, it launches into an assault on the tear ducts that flagrantly disregards all sense of good taste and common decency. It's an act of emotional battery that has all the subtlety of a blow to the head from a blunt instrument.
The plot is not without potential. Blackie (陳建州) plays Lee Bing, a gifted music student who has become a bitter and emotionally stunted grown-up who scraps a living singing in pubs. One day, he finds a child at his door who claims to be his son by his estranged wife Qi Li (Cheryl Yang, 楊謹華). The kid leads him on a journey of self-discovery that involves a deathbed wish (hence the title) and a little girl struggling with terminal leukemia. Without giving away the plot twist that wrings a few more tears from the audience, there are shades of Ghosts, Sixth Sense and the host of movies about innocent childhood redeeming the misdirected lives of grown-ups.
Blackie's narrow range of emotional expression (mostly he simply looks constipated) in a film that tries to show the nuances of suffering is the first strike against I Wish. Wang Cheng-wei (汪政緯), who has also come of age through TV variety shows, is cute as the child of the story, but heavy-handed cuteness wears down audiences' patience. Strike two. A deathbed scene with Yang leaning forward while wearing a low-cut V-neck was just the most heinous instance of director Hsu Guo-jhih's (徐國誌) lack of taste. Strike three. An intrusive musical score that felt the need to underline every emotional moment. Strike four. A Sunday-school theme of the wish-fulfilling properties of a Christian god was seriously annoying, and made the film, packed with a young generation of TV personalities, strangely dated and preachy. Strike five ... wait. You only get three strikes.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF JETTONE FILMS LIMITED
I Wish is a commendable effort of Taiwan's film industry to break out of the art house and establish a relationship with the mainstream movie-going public. Leveraging the appeal of well-known TV personalities, and linking with variety show Blackie's Teenage Club (我愛黑澀會) and the talent show One Million Star (超級星光大道), is a device of proven worth, distasteful as it may be. It is unfortunate that ham-fisted direction and workaday acting undermines any serious cinematic pretensions and the whole thing comes off rather like an extended public service advertisement for loving thy neighbor.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built
RSS