Tsai Ming-liang (
Prior to the film's departure for Venice, Homegreen Films, Tsai's own production company, has decided to open a one-week screening in Taipei from today until next Thursday, with screening each day at 7pm at Galaxy Cinema. The film will be officially released in Taiwan at the end of the year.
Goodbye, Dragon Inn makes use of many of Tsai's favorite actors such as Lee Kang-sheng (
PHOTO COURTESY OF HOMEGREEN FILMS
The story of Goodbye, Dragon Inn take place in an old movie theater, a few hours before it is destined to close for good. On this very last day the theater plays a martial arts classic, King Hu's (
Two old men appear at the theater, shocking the Japanese man, for they are Miao Tien and Shih Chun (
Tsai, with his dark sense of humor, pays tribute to the old movie theaters that were part of his childhood days. "When I heard that the Fuho Theater [in Taipei] was to close, I had an impulse to shoot a film about it. Now I look back, it was actually the theater calling to me, saying `come and film me!'" Tsai said. The theater makes an appearance in Tsai's What Time is It There?
London-based film critic and scholar Tony Ryans describes the film as "what may be Tsai's most brilliant metaphor yet." "A lament for the death of feelings framed as a valediction to an entire era of Chinese cinema and an obituary to film-going in general.
Goodbye, Dragon Inn will be Tsai's second entry in the Venice Film Festival. The last time Tsai joined the event was with his second film Vive L'Amour (
Seven hundred job applications. One interview. Marco Mascaro arrived in Taiwan last year with a PhD in engineering physics and years of experience at a European research center. He thought his Gold Card would guarantee him a foothold in Taiwan’s job market. “It’s marketed as if Taiwan really needs you,” the 33-year-old Italian says. “The reality is that companies here don’t really need us.” The Employment Gold Card was designed to fix Taiwan’s labor shortage by offering foreign professionals a combined resident visa and open work permit valid for three years. But for many, like Mascaro, the welcome mat ends at the door. A
Last week gave us the droll little comedy of People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) consul general in Osaka posting a threat on X in response to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi saying to the Diet that a Chinese attack on Taiwan may be an “existential threat” to Japan. That would allow Japanese Self Defence Forces to respond militarily. The PRC representative then said that if a “filthy neck sticks itself in uninvited, we will cut it off without a moment’s hesitation. Are you prepared for that?” This was widely, and probably deliberately, construed as a threat to behead Takaichi, though it
Nov. 17 to Nov. 23 When Kanori Ino surveyed Taipei’s Indigenous settlements in 1896, he found a culture that was fading. Although there was still a “clear line of distinction” between the Ketagalan people and the neighboring Han settlers that had been arriving over the previous 200 years, the former had largely adopted the customs and language of the latter. “Fortunately, some elders still remember their past customs and language. But if we do not hurry and record them now, future researchers will have nothing left but to weep amid the ruins of Indigenous settlements,” he wrote in the Journal of
If China attacks, will Taiwanese be willing to fight? Analysts of certain types obsess over questions like this, especially military analysts and those with an ax to grind as to whether Taiwan is worth defending, or should be cut loose to appease Beijing. Fellow columnist Michael Turton in “Notes from Central Taiwan: Willing to fight for the homeland” (Nov. 6, page 12) provides a superb analysis of this topic, how it is used and manipulated to political ends and what the underlying data shows. The problem is that most analysis is centered around polling data, which as Turton observes, “many of these
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