Director Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖) was 25 when he stepped into the movie business wanting to tell good stories. For the following 14 years, he worked with masters such as Edward Yang (楊德昌) and Chen Kuo-fu (陳國富), and is best known as the wild man who took NT$2.5 million out of his own pocket to make a five-minute demo in a bid to attract investors for his yet-to-materialize epic about the Seediq Aborigines and their anti-Japanese revolt in 1930.
Wei has put himself further into debt, this time to the tune of NT$30 million, to make Cape No. 7 (海角七號), his feature film debut. If nothing else, it is likely to establish him as a more than competent storyteller and maker of warmhearted movies.
The story goes something like this: 60 years ago, a Japanese teacher was forced to leave his Taiwanese lover in the town of Hengchun (恆春) when the repatriation of Japanese nationals began following the end of Word War II. Back at home he wrote a letter each day to the lover he would never see again.
Sixty years on, a young man named Aga (Van Fan) returns home to Hengchun after his dream of becoming a rock musician in Taipei falls flat. Reluctantly, Aga takes up a job as a substitute for Uncle Mao (Lin Tsung-ren) after the old postman breaks his leg.
Equally reluctantly, Tomoko (Tanaka Chie) from Japan is asked to stay in Hengchun to supervise a warm-up act scraped together at the last minute for an upcoming concert by Japanese superstar Kousuke Atari. The newly enlisted band members seem, however, less than promising: the reckless Aga, hot-tempered Aboriginal policeman Laoma (Min-Hsiung), auto mechanic Frog (Clipper Xiao Ying) who has a thing for his big-breasted lady boss, elementary school student Dada (Mai Tzu), and Uncle Mao, a yueqin (月琴) master.
With the concert just three days away, Uncle Mao is still having a hard time figuring out how to pluck his bass. Aga has yet to write something for the band to play. In fact, the band looks verge of breaking up even before its first gig. There is also the parcel of letters, posted 60 years ago, which Aga is not able to deliver, as the mailing address no longer exists. Amid all of this, a romance begins to bud between Aga and Tomoko.
Though the narration feels forced and stretched at times, Wei does a commendable job weaving together stories of characters from different generations and diverse ethnic and social backgrounds. He has a fine command of the vernacular and the troupe of musicians, including pop singer Van Fan, Aboriginal crooner Min-Hsiung, indie musicians Clipper Xiao Ying and Ma Nien-hsien, and real-life beiguan (北管) wizard Lin Tsung-ren, share an explosive onscreen chemistry. The weakest link is the romance between Aga and Tomoko. Although Van Fan is reasonably charming as the reticent, bitter teenager Aga, Tanaka Chie is excessively irritated and grouchy, so that even a night of intimacy fails to make the pair into plausible lovebirds.
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
On April 17, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) launched a bold campaign to revive and revitalize the KMT base by calling for an impromptu rally at the Taipei prosecutor’s offices to protest recent arrests of KMT recall campaigners over allegations of forgery and fraud involving signatures of dead voters. The protest had no time to apply for permits and was illegal, but that played into the sense of opposition grievance at alleged weaponization of the judiciary by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to “annihilate” the opposition parties. Blamed for faltering recall campaigns and faced with a KMT chair
Article 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) stipulates that upon a vote of no confidence in the premier, the president can dissolve the legislature within 10 days. If the legislature is dissolved, a new legislative election must be held within 60 days, and the legislators’ terms will then be reckoned from that election. Two weeks ago Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed that the legislature hold a vote of no confidence in the premier and dare the president to dissolve the legislature. The legislature is currently controlled
RSS