As Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite made Oscars history as the first foreign-language film to win the Best Picture award, some may start asking, what about Taiwan? With South Korea opening a new door for Asian cinema on the Western stage, will Taiwanese films ever have a chance to enjoy the same top honor?
Actually, that is getting way ahead of ourselves. Taiwanese need to first ask if they are even proud of their own film industry. The vast majority of moviegoers prefer Western, South Korean and Japanese productions, as evidenced by the scant showtimes allotted to Taiwanese films at local theaters and the empty seats during the screenings. It is quite common to speak to a Taiwanese who has not seen a single Taiwanese film all year.
Taiwan’s arthouse films have enjoyed success on the festival circuit for years, including at the Cannes Film Festival. While the creative merits of those films are indisputable, they are not very accessible to mass audiences. What Taiwan needs is a solid cinematic “superstar” on the level of pop diva Chang Hui-mei (張惠妹), better known as A-mei, that the nation can get behind.
While Taiwanese have been justly proud of director Ang Lee (李安), whose 2000 film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon swept the 2001 award ceremonies, including an Oscar for Best Foreign Film, one of four Oscars it won, his works in recent years have been more Hollywood, less Taiwanese. He had to leave Taiwan to find success.
Look at the situation in China. While its popular productions are primarily directed at domestic audiences and will probably not be winning any Oscars any time soon, its people at least adore them. Big budget Chinese productions that are virtually unknown outside the nation regularly compete with and at times surpass Hollywood productions in Chinese theaters.
This goes without saying in South Korea, as local hit Extreme Job beat out Avengers: Endgame to top last year’s box office sales. Taiwan’s highest grossing domestic film last year, Detention (返校), did not even make it to the top 10.
However, do not blame the industry. The talent seems to be there.
Taiwan has had a slower start than South Korea when it comes to entertainment, and while Koreans have been proud of their distinct culture for centuries, this notion of promoting “Taiwanese-ness” has only emerged in the past three decades or so.
Things are looking up. The quality of Taiwanese productions has improved significantly in the past few years and the government has been pouring more resources into supporting filmmakers.
The appreciation and interest in Taiwanese culture continues to surge and that is evident in all forms of entertainment, from games to comic books to television series. Perhaps it is just a matter of time before it becomes fashionable to go watch a local film.
However, here is the thing that needs balancing — making local films appeal to locals and stand out to foreigners by incorporating distinctly Taiwanese elements, while keeping the themes and the nuances, such as humor, universally appealing, so the films do not seem overly provincial.
There are so many local films that are still chock full of tired and crass Taiwan-specific gags (a good start would be to stop putting gangsters in every mainstream movie unless it relates to the story) that even locals are sick of them.
There is a reason people still prefer Hollywood, and Taiwanese cinema needs to find the right mix of both sides to be successful at home. Then we can talk about the Oscars.
Why is Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not a “happy camper” these days regarding Taiwan? Taiwanese have not become more “CCP friendly” in response to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) use of spies and graft by the United Front Work Department, intimidation conducted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Armed Police/Coast Guard, and endless subversive political warfare measures, including cyber-attacks, economic coercion, and diplomatic isolation. The percentage of Taiwanese that prefer the status quo or prefer moving towards independence continues to rise — 76 percent as of December last year. According to National Chengchi University (NCCU) polling, the Taiwanese
It would be absurd to claim to see a silver lining behind every US President Donald Trump cloud. Those clouds are too many, too dark and too dangerous. All the same, viewed from a domestic political perspective, there is a clear emerging UK upside to Trump’s efforts at crashing the post-Cold War order. It might even get a boost from Thursday’s Washington visit by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. In July last year, when Starmer became prime minister, the Labour Party was rigidly on the defensive about Europe. Brexit was seen as an electorally unstable issue for a party whose priority
US President Donald Trump is systematically dismantling the network of multilateral institutions, organizations and agreements that have helped prevent a third world war for more than 70 years. Yet many governments are twisting themselves into knots trying to downplay his actions, insisting that things are not as they seem and that even if they are, confronting the menace in the White House simply is not an option. Disagreement must be carefully disguised to avoid provoking his wrath. For the British political establishment, the convenient excuse is the need to preserve the UK’s “special relationship” with the US. Following their White House
US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has brought renewed scrutiny to the Taiwan-US semiconductor relationship with his claim that Taiwan “stole” the US chip business and threats of 100 percent tariffs on foreign-made processors. For Taiwanese and industry leaders, understanding those developments in their full context is crucial while maintaining a clear vision of Taiwan’s role in the global technology ecosystem. The assertion that Taiwan “stole” the US’ semiconductor industry fundamentally misunderstands the evolution of global technology manufacturing. Over the past four decades, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), has grown through legitimate means
RSS