Summer Times
(夏天協奏曲)
A squeaky-clean love story filmed on Kinmen and subsidized by the Kinmen County Government? Buyer beware. A local lad (Bryant Chang, 張睿家) meets a pretty young pianist (Shara Lin, 林逸欣) on holiday — not just any budding young pianist, mind you, but a contest blitzer — and falls in love like any number of besotted puppies. Pity for him that she doesn’t live there. What’s remarkable about this scenario is that despite the travelogue opportunities, a chunk of time is apparently spent on our lovebirds using e-mail, instant messaging, cellphone cameras and other IT applications. Could subsidies also have come from communications firms in exchange for distracting product placement? Plonk down your money and find out.
Case 39
Renee Zellweger is a family services officer who gets way too close to the subject of “Case 39” — a little girl apparently at grave risk of harm from her own parents. Now why would parents want to do such a thing? (Ask Gregory Peck). Zellweger, her colleagues and other clients end up on the receiving end of all sorts of supernatural violence and shock therapy. Finally enjoying worldwide theatrical release after an eternity in limbo, this feature is from the director of Pandorum, which opened here only a few weeks ago.
The Fourth Kind
A titular reference to Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and some overlap with the vastly more successful Paranormal Activity (opening here in two weeks) seem to be trying to pull in at least two generations of moviegoers. Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil) is presumably meant to pull in all the rest of the fanboys. In this pseudo-documentary she plays a “real life” psychiatrist who revisits shielded memories to discover that something extra-terrestrial may have played havoc with her ill-fated loved ones. All hell then breaks loose when the forgotten visitors start visiting others in Jovovich’s professional clique (she obviously never saw Case 39). Few critics got into the spirit of this derivative effort.
Ninja Assassin
Korean heartthrob Rain has come a long way. A few years ago his face appeared in local convenience stores in advertisements for skin care products. Now, in Ninja Assassin, he would rather slice the skin from your face with pieces of sharp metal. He plays a trained ninja who comes to the rescue of a pesky investigator (Naomie Harris) targeted for termination by the criminal group she is probing — and which happens to be the same group that gave him his fighting skills. Body parts cover the screen as the plot develops. Gone are the days when Tom Savini might have received a special effects credit for such bloodletting; most of the slaughter comes courtesy of sterile computer effects. From the director of V for Vendetta and the producers of the Matrix trilogy.
It’s always a pleasure to see something one has long advocated slowly become reality. The late August visit of a delegation to the Philippines led by Deputy Minister of Agriculture Huang Chao-ching (黃昭欽), Chair of Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association Joseph Lyu (呂桔誠) and US-Taiwan Business Council vice president, Lotta Danielsson, was yet another example of how the two nations are drawing closer together. The security threat from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), along with their complementary economies, is finally fostering growth in ties. Interestingly, officials from both sides often refer to a shared Austronesian heritage when arguing for
Nov.10 to Nov.16 As he moved a large stone that had fallen from a truck near his field, 65-year-old Lin Yuan (林淵) felt a sudden urge. He fetched his tools and began to carve. The recently retired farmer had been feeling restless after a lifetime of hard labor in Yuchi Township (魚池), Nantou County. His first piece, Stone Fairy Maiden (石仙姑), completed in 1977, was reportedly a representation of his late wife. This version of how Lin began his late-life art career is recorded in Nantou County historian Teng Hsiang-yang’s (鄧相揚) 2009 biography of him. His expressive work eventually caught the attention
Late last month the Executive Yuan approved a proposal from the Ministry of Labor to allow the hospitality industry to recruit mid-level migrant workers. The industry, surveys said, was short 6,600 laborers. In reality, it is already heavily using illegal foreign workers — foreign wives of foreign residents who cannot work, runaways and illegally moonlighting factory workers. The proposal thus merely legalizes what already exists. The government could generate a similar legal labor supply simply by legalizing moonlighting and permitting spouses of legal residents to work legally on their current visa. But after 30 years of advocating for that reform,
Cheng Shao-shu (鄭少書) was advancing alone through a smoke-filled corridor in Miaoli, when he suddenly realized he couldn’t breathe. The firefighter tore off his mask, only for the hot air to scorch his lungs. Gasping, he snapped the mask back on and scrambled out of the inferno. Cheng says he survived the fire only because he was near a door; had he been deeper inside the building, he wouldn’t have made it out. “It may not be the toughest job, but it is certainly one of the most dangerous,” Cheng says. Over the past two decades, 77 firefighters have died in the
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