Painted Skin: The Resurrection (轉生術)
Films with the word “resurrection” in their title often suggest a lifeless remake or extension of a franchise. In the case of Painted Skin: The Resurrection this is undoubtedly the case. Gordon Chan’s (陳嘉上) Painted Skin (畫皮) in 2008, was a huge success and this second film tries to get a little more mileage out of the classic story taken from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (聊齋誌異). Directing duties have been taken over by the hyper-stylish Mongolian-born director Wuershan (烏爾善), who came to prominence with the Golden Horse-winning The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman (刀見笑). Wuershan has created a luscious effects-driven movie. As with the original, the film stars Chen Kun (陳坤) and Zhou Xun (周迅), but they have no chemistry as general and a fox demon intent on benefiting from his star-crossed romance with the disfigured Princess Jin, played by Zhao Wei (趙薇). Visually stunning, but without heart.
Rebirth
Based on a popular novel by Mitsuyo Kakuta with a screenplay by Satoko Okudera, this Japanese psychological drama shows the skill of director Izuru Narushima, who manages to take sensational and melodramatic material and present it in a flat, almost documentary style that heightens rather than blunts the emotions on display. A number of fine performances, particularly from Hiromi Nagasaku, who plays a young woman who steals the young child of her married lover and engages in a long-distance rivalry with the child’s birth mother (played by Yoko Moriguchi) before she is finally tracked down by police and put on trial for kidnap. Told in a complex arrangement of flashbacks, the film also tells the story of the child, Erina, who becomes deeply attached to her kidnapper, who shows her nothing but affection and love during their four years together. Narushima, despite the title, refuses to provide any kind of easy redemption for all the emotional suffering that he depicts.
Bliss
Based on an account in the novel Crime by attorney/novelist Ferdinand von Schirach, Bliss tells of love on the harsh Berlin streets between two of society’s disenfranchised: Irena (Alba Rohrwacher), an illegal immigrant who has seen her parents killed and has herself been gang raped during ethnic conflicts in Macedonia, and Kalle (Vinzenz Kiefer), a hard-living, but disconcertingly philosophical, German punk who sleeps rough. Director Doris Doerrie mixes harsh realism with moments of cloying sentiment in a manner that can be profoundly irritating, and resorts to heavy-handed use of the soundtrack and stylistic tricks to build up the emotions in a story that would be quite powerful enough without such enhancements.
Beloved
Director Christophe Honore works from his own screenplay about Madeline, a shopgirl who earns a few extra dollars as a call girl. She meets the man she loves while on the job, gets married, gives birth to a daughter, watches her marriage fall apart, and then sees her daughter making the same sort of mistakes that led her to her current lot. Madeline is played by Ludivine Sagnier as a young girl, and by Catherine Deneuve as a mature woman. Her daughter is played by Chiara Mastroianni, who is a real revelation in this role. There are hints of Pedro Almodovar in Honore’s delight in watching the ways women define themselves; then there are also songs, which can be off-putting if you expected to watch a drama and find yourself floundering in a musical. The quality of the cast makes up for much, but watching Deneuve burst into song produces the same kind of dissonance as Meryl Streep getting lyrical in Mamma Mia!.
Ice Age 4: Continental Drift
The delightful cast is back, but are they beginning to wear out their welcome? Ice Age 4: Continental Drift has many of the same elements that made its predecessors such solid entertainment, including the core characters of Manny (Ray Romano), Sid (John Leguizamo), and Diego (Denis Leary), who continue to entertain. There are even a couple of good ideas in the story, but as with so many franchises, the producers have felt an overpowering need to up the ante, creating an avalanche of new characters (including Jennifer Lopez as a feisty white tigress), ratcheted up the silly scale to include pirates on an ice-boat powered by narwhals and an army of Ewok chipmunks. One can’t help but sigh in weary appreciation at the producers’ efforts, but ultimately, it is the almost silent and wholly iconic Scrat the squirrel who reminds us of the spark that gave life to Ice Age.
On April 26, The Lancet published a letter from two doctors at Taichung-based China Medical University Hospital (CMUH) warning that “Taiwan’s Health Care System is on the Brink of Collapse.” The authors said that “Years of policy inaction and mismanagement of resources have led to the National Health Insurance system operating under unsustainable conditions.” The pushback was immediate. Errors in the paper were quickly identified and publicized, to discredit the authors (the hospital apologized). CNA reported that CMUH said the letter described Taiwan in 2021 as having 62 nurses per 10,000 people, when the correct number was 78 nurses per 10,000
As we live longer, our risk of cognitive impairment is increasing. How can we delay the onset of symptoms? Do we have to give up every indulgence or can small changes make a difference? We asked neurologists for tips on how to keep our brains healthy for life. TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH “All of the sensible things that apply to bodily health apply to brain health,” says Suzanne O’Sullivan, a consultant in neurology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, and the author of The Age of Diagnosis. “When you’re 20, you can get away with absolute
When the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese forces 50 years ago this week, it prompted a mass exodus of some 2 million people — hundreds of thousands fleeing perilously on small boats across open water to escape the communist regime. Many ultimately settled in Southern California’s Orange County in an area now known as “Little Saigon,” not far from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, where the first refugees were airlifted upon reaching the US. The diaspora now also has significant populations in Virginia, Texas and Washington state, as well as in countries including France and Australia.
May 5 to May 11 What started out as friction between Taiwanese students at Taichung First High School and a Japanese head cook escalated dramatically over the first two weeks of May 1927. It began on April 30 when the cook’s wife knew that lotus starch used in that night’s dinner had rat feces in it, but failed to inform staff until the meal was already prepared. The students believed that her silence was intentional, and filed a complaint. The school’s Japanese administrators sided with the cook’s family, dismissing the students as troublemakers and clamping down on their freedoms — with
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