The Killer Elite
Not to be confused with the Sam Peckinpah film of the same name, The Killer Elite directed by Gary McKendry and starring Jason Statham, Robert De Niro and Clive Owen, is a fast-paced action film about a vigilante group of SAS soldiers who decide to take things into their own hands after the assassination of members of their unit. The film, which is based on a novel by Ranulph Fiennes, flaunts its credentials as being based on real events, even though the book, The Feather Men, released in 1991, was described by the UK Ministry of Defence at the time as “just another example of the Special Forces’ reputation being exploited for commercial gain.” The film is full of highly improbable tough guy action, but high production values and the attractive cast make it a more than adequate action flick.
Abduction
The release of Abduction will delight fans of Taylor Lautner, who rocketed to fame after taking his top off in the Twilight Saga series of films to show off his six-pack. He now has a starring role in an action-packed adventure by director John Singleton, who is also responsible for such forgettable dross as Shaft and 2 Fast 2 Furious. The film has managed to keep a remarkably low prerelease profile, which suggests that the makers may well have something to be ashamed of. The story, about a regular teen who discovers himself listed on a missing persons Web site, tries to find out about his past and unleashes bloody mayhem as a result, is no more improbable than you might expect, but Lautner’s thespian talents don’t seem likely to make him the next Jason Bourne.
Love in Space 全球熱戀
Tony Chan (陳國輝) and Wing Shya (夏永康) scored a huge hit with Hot Summer Days (全城熱戀 — 熱辣辣) last year. They return with a similar rom-com starring many of the same cast members and featuring the same lighter-than-air romance. Three stories are woven together: Rene Liu (劉若英) plays an astronaut assigned to the same space station as an ex-boyfriend; Guey Lun-mei (桂綸鎂) is an obsessive-compulsive living in Australia; and Angelababy (楊穎) is an actress researching the role of a waitress. Everything about Love in Space is a million miles away from the real world, and that is exactly where it wants to be. The dialogue shifts from Mandarin to Cantonese to English, and while the film has an unmistakable Hong Kong groove, it is an international release under the Warner Bros label.
The First Beautiful Thing (La prima cosa bella)
Nostalgia, pathos and a love of the small things in life pervade Paolo Virzi’s The First Beautiful Thing. There are elements of Cinema Paradiso and other similar broad market tragicomedies that cast a sentimental eye on living through tough times, in this tale of Italian family life. There is an appealing performance by Stefania Sandrelli as a beautiful and promiscuous single mother who attempts to give her kids a normal life, but who in the end alienates them. An aging and misanthropic son returns to her bedside when she is dying of cancer, making peace with his past and coming to an understanding of the forces that shaped her life and his. At 122 minutes, the film feels too long, and the sentimentality gets cloying long before the end. Showing at SKC (新光影城, Shin Kong Cineplex), 4F, 36 Xining S Rd, Taipei City (台北市西寧南路36號4樓), tel: (02) 2314-6668. On the Net: www.skcineplex.com.tw.
Nora’s Will
Comedy from Mexico about suicide in a Jewish family that sounds improbable even for the alternative film circuit. But Nora’s Will, by first-time writer-director Mariana Chenillo, manages to find humor in the most improbable circumstances, and without undermining the powerful emotions felt by the characters. Jose, played by septuagenarian Mexican TV star Fernando Lujan, is an aging, erudite Jewish atheist and all-around sourpuss. One afternoon, he discovers that the ex-wife he left 30 years ago has finally succeeded in committing suicide, a few days before her elaborate annual Passover dinner. This presents serious emotional and logistical problems that are ripe for a formulaic laughter-and-tears movie.
Once Upon a Time in Tibet 那一年在西藏
Big emotions and bigger landscapes feature in this Chinese film by Dai Wei (戴瑋) about an American airman during World War II who crash-lands in the wilderness of Tibet’s high plateau during a flight over the Himalayas. The aviator, played rather stiffly by male model Joshua Hannum, inevitably falls in love with his rescuer Yongcho (played by Song Jia, 宋佳), who is accused by her own people of being a witch. The romance comes under threat when a foreigner is accused of killing a local woman. The acting quality is uneven, and the real star of the show is Taiwan-born cinematographer Mark Lee (李屏賓) for making great use of the splendid backdrop to this otherwise conventional romantic melodrama.
Point Blank (A bout portant)
Highly praised thriller that pushes the boundaries of improbability but manages to hold things together all the way to the end. Bearing some similarities to John Boorman’s trippy noir movie of the same title, Point Blank goes for breakneck pacing that hardly lets the audience draw breath from the first scene to the last. There are corrupt cops, assassination, brutal violence and also the requisite heroics from the star Gilles Lellouche, who embarks on a 90-minute roller-coaster journey to save his wife from execution.
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,
RSS