Hercules: The Thracian Wars
Greek mythology is getting a heavy workout in Hollywood these days. As yet, apart from the visual inventiveness of Zack Snyder’s 300, this sub-genre of the swords and sandals epic, enhanced with massive quantities of CGI, has produced no particularly good movies. And it is not for want of trying. The character of Hercules features in two movies this year alone, and Hercules: The Thracian Wars, starring that outstanding specimen of prime beefcake, former WWE wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, should not be confused with The Legend of Hercules, starring Kellen Lutz, whose main claim to fame is playing the buff Emmett Cullen in the Twilight franchise. Johnson is a perfectly acceptable screen presence, and has been effective in various supporting roles movies such as The Mummy Returns and Luke Hobbs in the Fast and Furious series. Sadly, he is not really up to a leading role, and despite support from the likes of Ian McShane and John Hurt, as well as a host of scantily clad beauties, Hercules: The Thracian Wars is utterly silly and not very engaging. The script is clunky, often undermining the epic tone it seeks to achieve, and occasionally stumbling in unintended humor. It has none of the cheekiness that made films such as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s early Conan movies so much fun.
Cruel and Unusual
Weird psychological fantasy from Canada by Merlin Dervisevic in his debut feature film. The story centers on a shabby everyman named Edgar (David Richmond-Peck) who may, or may not, accidentally have killed his Filipina wife (Bernadette Saquibal), and who then finds himself in a group therapy session in which he is forced to relive the murder for eternity. Through the process of endless confession, a kind of murderous Groundhog’s Day, he realizes that it may actually have been his wife who was trying to kill him. It is all quite cleverly constructed, and Richmond-Peck does an outstanding job of portraying the bemused protagonist struggling toward some understanding of his situation. For all its qualities, Cruel and Unusual has a self-serious earnestness that drags the whole thing down, drawing it toward film school territory and making this relatively compact package (running time 95 minutes) into something of a drag.
7500
The sort of horror flick that deserves to go straight to DVD and then into the trash. 甀 is devoid of scares, and its attempts at creating character and exploit psychological thrills falls flat. Flight 7500 departs Los Angeles International Airport bound for Tokyo. As the overnight flight makes its way over the Pacific Ocean, the passengers encounter what appears to be a supernatural force in the cabin. But do we care about what happens to the cardboard cutouts on the flight? Do we discover why they are there in the first place, or how the snippets of backstory enhance the audience experience of their plight? Do we ever jump out of our seats? The answer is a uniform no. If you must watch people have a bad time on an airplane, watch the DVD of Snakes on a Plane instead.
A Thousand Times Good Night
English-language film by Norwegian director Erik Poppe tells the story of a female war photographer passionately committed to her dangerous profession and caught up in her family’s fear that her job, which brings her to some of the most dangerous locations on the planet, will almost certainly get her killed. The film is anchored by a strong performance from Juliette Binoche, who plays photojournalist Rebecca, who has a compulsion to make others see what she sees through her photographs. The story focuses more on her inner compulsion rather than conflicts of journalistic values as in such Hollywood classics with a similar set up as Under Fire. Binoche is ably supported by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (from Game of Thrones) as Rebecca’s marine biologist husband, and Lauryn Canny as her daughter, who is torn by the abandonment consequent on her mother’s work, and the vocation, or addiction, it represents. Deftly sidestepping both melodrama and family-values messaging, director Poppe, who worked as a photojournalist in the 1980s, imbues the film with enormous emotional resonance.
The Ghost Festival (盂蘭神功)
Written, directed and starring Hong Kong cinema’s tough man Nick Cheung (張家輝), The Ghost Festival sports a veteran cast that includes Carrieng Wu (吳家麗) and Taiwanese-Canadian actress Annie Liu (劉心悠). With Cheung at the helm, the film has garnered considerable press attention, and its mix of regular horror tropes with a story set against the operation of a Chinese opera troupe ensures that there is a strong element of the exotic to flesh out a horror story that follows genre conventions without too much imagination. Cheung plays a businessman who has returned from China to Malaysia after a failed venture and is forced to take over his father’s opera company, as well as manage the intense family feuding with his younger sister. With the advent of Ghost Month, strange things begin to happen, and the installation of a CCTV system reveals that this paranormal activity seems closely related to the troupe’s star performer. Production values are above average and Cheung elicits some committed performances from his cast.
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.
On April 17, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) launched a bold campaign to revive and revitalize the KMT base by calling for an impromptu rally at the Taipei prosecutor’s offices to protest recent arrests of KMT recall campaigners over allegations of forgery and fraud involving signatures of dead voters. The protest had no time to apply for permits and was illegal, but that played into the sense of opposition grievance at alleged weaponization of the judiciary by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to “annihilate” the opposition parties. Blamed for faltering recall campaigns and faced with a KMT chair
Article 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) stipulates that upon a vote of no confidence in the premier, the president can dissolve the legislature within 10 days. If the legislature is dissolved, a new legislative election must be held within 60 days, and the legislators’ terms will then be reckoned from that election. Two weeks ago Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed that the legislature hold a vote of no confidence in the premier and dare the president to dissolve the legislature. The legislature is currently controlled
Dull functional structures dominate Taiwan’s cityscapes. But that’s slowly changing, thanks to talented architects and patrons with deep pockets. Since the start of the 21st century, the country has gained several alluring landmark buildings, including the two described below. NUNG CHAN MONASTERY Dharma Drum Mountain (法鼓山, DDM) is one of Taiwan’s most prominent religious organizations. Under the leadership of Buddhist Master Sheng Yen (聖嚴), who died in 2009, it developed into an international Buddhist foundation active in the spiritual, cultural and educational spheres. Since 2005, DDM’s principal base has been its sprawling hillside complex in New Taipei City’s Jinshan District (金山). But
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