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.)
June 9 to June 15 A photo of two men riding trendy high-wheel Penny-Farthing bicycles past a Qing Dynasty gate aptly captures the essence of Taipei in 1897 — a newly colonized city on the cusp of great change. The Japanese began making significant modifications to the cityscape in 1899, tearing down Qing-era structures, widening boulevards and installing Western-style infrastructure and buildings. The photographer, Minosuke Imamura, only spent a year in Taiwan as a cartographer for the governor-general’s office, but he left behind a treasure trove of 130 images showing life at the onset of Japanese rule, spanning July 1897 to
In an interview posted online by United Daily News (UDN) on May 26, current Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) was asked about Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) replacing him as party chair. Though not yet officially running, by the customs of Taiwan politics, Lu has been signalling she is both running for party chair and to be the party’s 2028 presidential candidate. She told an international media outlet that she was considering a run. She also gave a speech in Keelung on national priorities and foreign affairs. For details, see the May 23 edition of this column,
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on May 18 held a rally in Taichung to mark the anniversary of President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20. The title of the rally could be loosely translated to “May 18 recall fraudulent goods” (518退貨ㄌㄨㄚˋ！). Unlike in English, where the terms are the same, “recall” (退貨) in this context refers to product recalls due to damaged, defective or fraudulent merchandise, not the political recalls (罷免) currently dominating the headlines. I attended the rally to determine if the impression was correct that the TPP under party Chairman Huang Kuo-Chang (黃國昌) had little of a
At Computex 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) urged the government to subsidize AI. “All schools in Taiwan must integrate AI into their curricula,” he declared. A few months earlier, he said, “If I were a student today, I’d immediately start using tools like ChatGPT, Gemini Pro and Grok to learn, write and accelerate my thinking.” Huang sees the AI-bullet train leaving the station. And as one of its drivers, he’s worried about youth not getting on board — bad for their careers, and bad for his workforce. As a semiconductor supply-chain powerhouse and AI hub wannabe, Taiwan is seeing
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