The unexpectedly huge box office successes of Cape No. 7 (海角七號) and Orz Boyz (囧男孩) are looked upon by defenders of Taiwanese cinema as a sign of revival. Audiences are being gradually drawn back to the theater to watch local productions, they say, since younger generations of filmmakers think of cinema not only as tool of personal expression but a medium through which to entertain.
If the three shorts that hit the screen at Spot — Taipei Film House (台北之家—光點) starting tonight are any indication of what can be expected in the near future, then the Taiwanese movie industry is in for a renaissance of sorts.
The End of the Tunnel (天黑) by Chang Rong-ji (張榮吉) is a genre-bending boy-meets-girl story about a talented young pianist who lost his eyesight when he was little. He meets a lovelorn schoolmate through music. The newly found friendship takes both of the characters out of their respectively closed cosmoses and into the world.
Ho Wi-ding’s (何蔚庭) Summer Afternoon (夏午) starts off as an innocent road movie with three friends arguing and bickering on their ride in the countryside. Things take a shocking turn when the annoying backseat driver takes control.
Family Viewing (闔家觀賞) by Kuo Cheng-chu (郭承衢) begins with a French TV crew barging into a family’s home in Taipei to document the life of a typical Taiwanese family for a French reality show. Agreeing to be followed by cameraman Pierre for the weekend, the father, mother and daughter hospitably show how they live and what they think in front of the lens, and in the process reveal family secrets that lead to an unexpected denouement.
Having co-directed documentary feature My Football Summer (奇蹟的夏天) with veteran documentary director Yang Li-chou (楊力州), young filmmaker Chang once again demonstrates his aptitude for blending the fictional and non-fictional genres in The End of the Tunnel where reality, memory, dreams and fiction are spun into an arresting swirl of emotions.
Featured previously in Chang’s documentary film about a group of visually impaired people, musician Huang Yu-xiang (黃裕翔) is the inspiration of the well-scripted The End of the Tunnel and plays himself in the film. Promising young actress Sandrine Pinna (張榕容) is well cast as the young woman, who turns in an admirably natural and seemingly spontaneous performance that is more in the league of documentary filmmaking.
Malaysia-born, US-trained and Taiwan-based Ho first came to the attention of international film circuit with his highly stylish, SARS-themed post-apocalyptic short Respire (呼吸). Summer Afternoon is another of the director’s filmic experiments with his cinematographer friend Jake Pollack. Comprising five long takes and shot in black-and-white, the film draws the audience into a deceptively simple story with Pollack’s fluid camera work that tracks, moves in and out of the car, circles and floats around the characters, engaged but unnoticed.
In Family Viewing, the camera never moves. It stands still as a quiet observer. The world Kuo and his steadfast camera capture is a seemingly stable and secure straight family that is at the same time stuffy and repressive.
Veteran actress Lu Yi-Ching (陸奕靜) is excellent, as usual, as the mom, matched by seasoned actor Li Tien-chu’s (李天柱) seemingly effortless performance. Taiwanese cinema’s new favorite Guey Lun-mei (桂綸鎂) dabbles in light comedy, with slight success. The biggest flaw of the film is its hasty ending, which may leave audiences unsatisfied.
March 10 to March 16 Although it failed to become popular, March of the Black Cats (烏貓進行曲) was the first Taiwanese record to have “pop song” printed on the label. Released in March 1929 under Eagle Records, a subsidiary of the Japanese-owned Columbia Records, the Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) lyrics followed the traditional seven characters per verse of Taiwanese opera, but the instrumentation was Western, performed by Eagle’s in-house orchestra. The singer was entertainer Chiu-chan (秋蟾). In fact, a cover of a Xiamen folk song by Chiu-chan released around the same time, Plum Widow Missing Her Husband (雪梅思君), enjoyed more
Last week Elbridge Colby, US President Donald Trump’s nominee for under secretary of defense for policy, a key advisory position, said in his Senate confirmation hearing that Taiwan defense spending should be 10 percent of GDP “at least something in that ballpark, really focused on their defense.” He added: “So we need to properly incentivize them.” Much commentary focused on the 10 percent figure, and rightly so. Colby is not wrong in one respect — Taiwan does need to spend more. But the steady escalation in the proportion of GDP from 3 percent to 5 percent to 10 percent that advocates
A series of dramatic news items dropped last month that shed light on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attitudes towards three candidates for last year’s presidential election: Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), Terry Gou (郭台銘), founder of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). It also revealed deep blue support for Ko and Gou from inside the KMT, how they interacted with the CCP and alleged election interference involving NT$100 million (US$3.05 million) or more raised by the
More than 100,000 people were killed in a single night 80 years ago yesterday in the US firebombing of Tokyo, the Japanese capital. The attack, made with conventional bombs, destroyed downtown Tokyo and filled the streets with heaps of charred bodies. The damage was comparable to the atomic bombings a few months later in August 1945, but unlike those attacks, the Japanese government has not provided aid to victims and the events of that day have largely been ignored or forgotten. Elderly survivors are making a last-ditch effort to tell their stories and push for financial assistance and recognition. Some are speaking
RSS