The death of David Bowie in January sent shockwaves through the music world. But if there is any consolation, fans in Taipei now have a chance to see a youthful Bowie playing the evil Goblin King in Labyrinth.
The 1986 cult classic will be screened as part of the Golden Horse Fantastic Film Festival (金馬奇幻影展), a popular spin-off of the established Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (台北金馬影展).
Now in its seventh year, the festival features a lineup of over 50 genre movies and cult films as well as unorthodox works by some of the world’s best known cinema masters.
Photo courtesy of Golden Horse Fantastic Film Festival
A good example of the festival’s wacky taste can be found in the retrospective on English director Ben Wheatley, noted for using violence and black humor to reveal cruelty in everyday lives.
Wheatley’s period drama, A Field in England (2013), offers an occult, psychedelic exploration of a group of deserters wandering the countryside during the English Civil War. The entire group is under the influence of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
The film ridicules the UK’s class system, a motif recurring in the director’s latest tale of dystopia, High Rise (2015), in which a pathologist strives for his place in the collapsing social strata of the high-rise he lives in.
Photo courtesy of Golden Horse Fantastic Film Festival
Hardcore Henry, an action movie from Russia that is shot using a first-person perspective, allows the audience to see through the eyes of a cyborg on a killing spree. Spy Time, a Spanish version of a James Bond movie, features a secret agent who not only needs to save the world but also deal with budget cuts to his missions and a loser son.
Art-house movies include Cemetery of Splendor by Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The hypnotic drama revolves around a group of soldiers who have fallen into a mysterious coma at a small clinic, where spirits and deities intermingle with the living.
Audiences looking for fun, the festival presents the sing-along version of Walt Disney’s 2013 animated blockbuster Frozen. It is a perfect excuse to sing and dance in the theater — something viewers can do during the showing of the festival’s fixture, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Photo courtesy of Golden Horse Fantastic Film Festival
Classic movies such as Labyrinth are grouped under the Fantastic Cult section. Those who like what they see in the new Mad Max movie may want to check out George Miller’s Mad Max trilogy, starring a young Mel Gibson.
Starting this year, organizers will screen films selected from a list of most wanted movies.
Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner was among those chosen. The director’s final cut, which has been digitally restored, will be shown in Taiwan for the first time. It is literally a cinephile’s dream come true.
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