Cleaner
A single father and former police officer (Samuel L. Jackson) makes a living mopping up after murders, but even this gruesome job can’t keep him from getting embroiled in police corruption, which sees a client go missing and a former partner (Ed Harris) enter the scene. Something must be wrong if a movie starring Jackson and Harris misses out on a theatrical release in the US. Maybe the problem lies with director Renny Harlin, who has struggled for more than a decade to make anything as entertaining as Cliffhanger.
Death Defying Acts
After The Prestige and The Illusionist comes another film dabbling in magic, trickery and drama. Guy Pearce plays Harry Houdini, who arrives in Edinburgh and enters into an intense relationship with a local woman (Catherine Zeta-Jones) set on a large sum of money the skeptical Houdini will give to anyone who can reproduce the dying words of his mother. With this effort, Aussie director Gillian Armstrong adds yet another title to her list of period pieces, though critics were unmoved by the romance angle on this occasion.
W∆Z
Veteran Swede Stellan Skarsgard stars as a cop hunting for a serial killer in this British production set in New York but shot in Belfast (!). The title and poster may invoke the Saw franchise (part 5 of which opens here next month), but the film itself is said to stand on its own, rising above the “torture porn” label and building generous amounts of atmosphere within an intelligent framework. The torture scenes are quite strong, though. The Taiwanese release was delayed for almost a year, but finally hits theaters today. Otherwise known as WAZ — for word processors that can’t handle triangles.
The Signs of Love
This is a Japanese romance from last year starring Nao Matsushita as a young woman with a dream boyfriend who has a thing for architecture. This takes the young fellow to Spain, which is only one problem threatening their idyllic relationship. Squeaky clean romance, angst and heartbreak for young viewers, this has a ready-made audience in Taiwan, not least because the plot is based on lyrics by the band Dreams Come True.
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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