Seediq Bale 2 (賽德克‧巴萊 (下)
The legend of Sediq leader Mouna Rudo and his clans continues as the second part of Wei Te-sheng’s (魏德聖) epic hits theaters today. With the first part having filled in the necessary social and historical background, the second half concentrates on ingeniously staged action sequences and is interspersed with poignant moments, such as the scene where a group of tribeswomen hang themselves rather than be a burden to their fighting men. The English subtitled versions of both parts are showing at Showtime’s Shin-shin branch (欣欣秀泰影城), 247 Linsen N Rd, Taipei City (台北市林森北路247號), tel: (02) 2537-1889.
The Change-Up
It’s not surprising that The Change-Up has some major similarities to The Hangover. It was written by the same guys, and clearly they had used up whatever ideas they had in the first movie. The Change-Up is just a sequel to The Hangover with a stale body-swap angle. Remember Freaky Friday? Well, just add in references to body functions, sex games and lots and lots of swearing. Men drink too much, and then they revert to little boys. That said, the two boys, Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds, do a fine job with the second-rate material given to them, lifting the film out of the gutter for some good laughs, even when you’ve heard the joke before.
Womb
A film that tells the story of Rebecca (Eve Green), who falls in love with Tommy (Matt Smith) only to lose him in a random car accident. She then decides to give birth to his clone. It’s an intriguing premise, but it is handled with such self-conscious languor that even the gorgeous scenery of the North Sea coast and the beauty and talent of Green are not sufficient to hold the audience. This is the first English-language film by young Hungarian director Benedek Fliegauf, who has been much feted on the European festival circuit. Womb degenerates into a rather ordinary mother/son drama, leaving behind its more fantastic and exciting conceptual elements.
Apollo 18
High-concept space drama that fails to deliver. Decades-old footage of NASA’s abandoned Apollo 18 project provides suggestions of why the US dropped out of the space race. The conceit — laboriously established in the film’s publicity — that this is a documentary providing a factual insight into historical events fails to carry through effectively into the film, which is just a space-station horror flick with one or two good scares. Shades of The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, Cloverfield and a host of other films are just too obvious to ignore, and the jumpy, hand-held camera work not only fails to create any sustained sense of dread, it is just downright annoying. Despite some carefully crafted moments of suspense, the film collapses under the weight of its pretensions. Showing at Vieshow Cinemas (Xinyi) (威秀影城信義), Showtime Cinemas (Today) (秀泰影城今日), Showtime Cinemas (Shin-shin) (秀泰影城欣欣) and CINEMA7 (Spring Cinema Galaxy) (絕色影城). (Theater information on page 17.)
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
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,
Toward the outside edge of Taichung City, in Wufeng District (霧峰去), sits a sprawling collection of single-story buildings with tiled roofs belonging to the Wufeng Lin (霧峰林家) family, who rose to prominence through success in military, commercial, and artistic endeavors in the 19th century. Most of these buildings have brick walls and tiled roofs in the traditional reddish-brown color, but in the middle is one incongruous property with bright white walls and a black tiled roof: Yipu Garden (頤圃). Purists may scoff at the Japanese-style exterior and its radical departure from the Fujianese architectural style of the surrounding buildings. However, the property
RSS