The skywalk is gone; How can my two actors encounters each other? seems to be the question being asked by director Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮) in the sentimental short film, The Skywalk is Gone (天橋不見了), which will be screening at Taipei's Cinemark cinema at the Living Mall (京華城喜滿客) today.
This is the first time that a 22-minute short is having an independent cinema release.
For the director's many fans, the language of Tsai's films continues lucid and rich in this short work, even though Taipei remains a cheerless place and his characters rarely have a chance of happiness. He does not, however, cater so well for those coming to his work for the first time.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TSAI MING-LIANG
In fact, Skywalk is really an extension of What Time is it There? (
In What Time is it There? the female protagonist, Hsiang-chi (
She hangs around Taipei Railway Station and the Mitsukoshi Department store, walking aimlessly. She comes across a woman who drags a huge suitcase. Hsiang-chi follows her. Then both are stopped by a policeman for jay walking. The woman argues that she wanted to take the skywalk, but it is no longer there.
And Hsiang-chi continues searching for Hsiao-kang, but can find no trace of him.
For director Tsai, Taipei is a rapidly changing city. Every 10 years, old memories are wiped away and places acquire a new look. Perhaps it is not too much of a coincidence that each of Tsai's films have landmarks that have since disappeared.
"It seems that many places that I shot for my films have vanished. This is kind of worrying!" said Tsai jokingly.
It's self-referential natures makes Skywalk somewhat difficult to understand, but Tsai maintains high production values and the short film is filled with precise shots, beautiful photography and good performances.
July 1 to July 7 Huang Ching-an (黃慶安) couldn’t help but notice Imelita Masongsong during a company party in the Philippines. With paler skin and more East Asian features, she did not look like the other locals. On top of his job duties, Huang had another mission in the country, given by his mother: to track down his cousin, who was deployed to the Philippines by the Japanese during World War II and never returned. Although it had been more than three decades, the family was still hoping to find him. Perhaps Imelita could provide some clues. Huang never found the cousin;
Once again, we are listening to the government talk about bringing in foreign workers to help local manufacturing. Speaking at an investment summit in Washington DC, the Minister of Economic Affairs, J.W. Kuo (郭智輝), said that the nation must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high end manufacturing by 2040 to offset the falling population. That’s roughly 15 years from now. Using the lower number, Taiwan would have to import over 25,000 foreigners a year for these positions to reach that goal. The government has no idea what this sounds like to outsiders and to foreigners already living here.
Lines on a map once meant little to India’s Tibetan herders of the high Himalayas, expertly guiding their goats through even the harshest winters to pastures on age-old seasonal routes. That stopped in 2020, after troops from nuclear-armed rivals India and China clashed in bitter hand-to-hand combat in the contested high-altitude border lands of Ladakh. Swaths of grazing lands became demilitarized “buffer zones” to keep rival forces apart. For 57-year-old herder Morup Namgyal, like thousands of other semi-nomadic goat and yak herders from the Changpa pastoralist people, it meant traditional lands were closed off. “The Indian army stops us from going there,” Namgyal said,
A tourist plaque outside the Chenghuang Temple (都城隍廟) lists it as one of the “Top 100 Religious Scenes in Taiwan.” It is easy to see why when you step inside the Main Hall to be confronted with what amounts to an imperial stamp of approval — a dragon-framed, golden protection board gifted to the temple by the Guangxu Emperor that reads, “Protected by Guardians.” Some say the plaque was given to the temple after local prayers to the City God (城隍爺) miraculously ended a drought. Another version of events tells of how the emperor’s son was lost at sea and rescued