Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Rise of the Planet of the Apes back in 2011 was a hugely successful reboot of an old movie property, and this sequel takes the franchise to a whole new level of sophistication. The story picks up from the first movie 10 years on with the Alpha chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis) leading a community of genetically enhanced apes who inhabit a simian utopia in the erstwhile San Francisco area. Humans have effectively been removed from the scene by a global virus until the arrival of an exploratory group that enters the area. Mutual distrust leads inevitably to conflict, though Caesar’s affection for human kind creates deep rifts within the chimp community. Serkis does a splendid job bringing Caesar to life, and the power of this motion capture holds its own, or even surpasses, that of the human cast that includes Gary Oldman and Jason Clarke as the leaders of the human intruders. Dawn is fundamentally a war movie, with some really amazing combat set pieces, but it is enlivened by the emotional sympathy that the careful crafting of the ape characters generates. Female speaking roles on either side of the species divide are rudimentary, and the emotional turmoil is primarily masculine, with the themes of brotherhood, betrayal, and patriarchal responsibility at the fore.
22 Jump Street
Another big-budget sequel, this time on the comedy front, with 22 Jump Street following the non-too-competent officers Schmidt and Jenko as they are moved from the undercover operation in high school to an eerily similar operation in college. Once again they are to pose as students to roust out a drug distribution network. Inevitably, college proves to be a place of self-discovery, and the bromance between the two comes under pressure when new friendships develop. None of this is taken too seriously, but there is just enough heart to give the gags a slight emotional tug. The action and the raunchiness have been upped considerably, and while not everything works in this ambitious comedy, the film is much better than it has any right to be. Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are a hugely effective comic duo, and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller let the zaniness of the script follow its own logic. 22 Jump Street doesn’t want to do anything more than entertain, and its mix of adolescent silliness, salaciousness, knowingness and energy ensures that despite the occasional misstep, there is more than enough laughs to fill its 112-minute running time.
Under the Skin
This is Scarlett Johansson stepping out from her blockbuster Natasha Romanoff persona and taking on something much more arthouse. Director Jonathan Glazer has already won a reputation for bold, unconventional movies with the likes of Birth and Sexy Beast, but with Under the Skin, he is taking on the greats of cinema, and has even earned some comparisons with Stanley Kubrick for this atmospheric, enigmatic gothic horror story about alien predators who lure humans, through the suggestion of sex, into a secret lair where their skin is harvested. One day, an emotionless alien sees her human form in a mirror and she experiences human emotions and feelings, and subsequently makes a terrible discovery. There is a lot more atmosphere than action, and the story unfolds through hints and suggestions. The overall effect has had some critics raving at Glazer’s skill, while others see little beyond a wacky avant-garde sensibility at work. It is generally agreed that Johansson owns the movie, with a strong if strange performance. You might get to the end of the movie without really knowing what you have seen, but images and ideas are inclined to linger after the credits have rolled.
As Time Goes by in Shanghai
A documentary that focuses on the Old Jazz Band which has its home at the Peace Hotel in Shanghai. Established in 1980 from veteran jazz musicians who had survived the turmoil of China’s Cultural Revolution, and with an average age of 75, the band became a public relations success story, delighting many visitors to Shanghai, including many heads of state. The old men of the band have many tales to tell, but the film is undermined by the sheer charm of the band members, who never see it as their place to be anything more than delightful raconteurs, even when touching on difficult historical times past. The film offers few insights, but fortunately, the repertoire of jazz favorites performed by these delightful old times means that this is not really missed, and they do what they have done so well for so many years: taking the focus from the real world and into a softer, cozier world of entertainment.
Dancing in Jaffa
Renowned ball-room dancer Pierre Dulaine takes his program, Dancing Classrooms, back to his city of birth, Jaffa, to teach Jewish and Palestinian Israelis to dance and compete together. The format is predictable, as the children, under the guidance of an openminded and sympathetic mentor, work their way toward a dance competition, overcoming prejudice and fear along the way. But the documentary, by director Hilla Medalia, is tackling intractable questions of mistrust, not just between young boys and girls whose conservative upbringing have given them little contact with the opposite sex, but also with the constraints of conflicting political ideologies embodied in the conflict between Islam and Judaism, and between Palestinian and Jewish racial identities. The film is probably not as deep as it thinks it is, brushing over complexities in the interests of a dubious warm cozy feel that is at odds with the harsh reality of the ongoing disputes between Palestinians and Jews, but all the same, it is hard not to feel uplifted by the transformation in the children, who find a new way of understanding themselves and each other as they learn to dance.
The primaries for this year’s nine-in-one local elections in November began early in this election cycle, starting last autumn. The local press has been full of tales of intrigue, betrayal, infighting and drama going back to the summer of 2024. This is not widely covered in the English-language press, and the nine-in-one elections are not well understood. The nine-in-one elections refer to the nine levels of local governments that go to the ballot, from the neighborhood and village borough chief level on up to the city mayor and county commissioner level. The main focus is on the 22 special municipality
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) invaded Vietnam in 1979, following a year of increasingly tense relations between the two states. Beijing viewed Vietnam’s close relations with Soviet Russia as a threat. One of the pretexts it used was the alleged mistreatment of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam. Tension between the ethnic Chinese and governments in Vietnam had been ongoing for decades. The French used to play off the Vietnamese against the Chinese as a divide-and-rule strategy. The Saigon government in 1956 compelled all Vietnam-born Chinese to adopt Vietnamese citizenship. It also banned them from 11 trades they had previously
Hsu Pu-liao (許不了) never lived to see the premiere of his most successful film, The Clown and the Swan (小丑與天鵝, 1985). The movie, which starred Hsu, the “Taiwanese Charlie Chaplin,” outgrossed Jackie Chan’s Heart of Dragon (龍的心), earning NT$9.2 million at the local box office. Forty years after its premiere, the film has become the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute’s (TFAI) 100th restoration. “It is the only one of Hsu’s films whose original negative survived,” says director Kevin Chu (朱延平), one of Taiwan’s most commercially successful
Jan. 12 to Jan. 18 At the start of an Indigenous heritage tour of Beitou District (北投) in Taipei, I was handed a sheet of paper titled Ritual Song for the Various Peoples of Tamsui (淡水各社祭祀歌). The lyrics were in Chinese with no literal meaning, accompanied by romanized pronunciation that sounded closer to Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) than any Indigenous language. The translation explained that the song offered food and drink to one’s ancestors and wished for a bountiful harvest and deer hunting season. The program moved through sites related to the Ketagalan, a collective term for the
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