Eden Lake
Just in time for the global economic morass comes a pitiless British horror thriller that pits a well-to-do middle-class couple on holiday against nasty kids from the local working-class community who don’t limit themselves to throwing rocks and abusive language. Distressing images of fear and brutalization on the film’s posters should keep most adults away, but for anyone into horror or British cinema, this is the pick of the week. Comparisons have been drawn with Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left, a notoriously vicious horror milestone from 1972 that was never released in Taiwan. House’s inspiration, Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960), screened here a few weeks ago, however, and that title’s similarity to Eden Lake can’t be a coincidence.
The Midnight Meat Train
Clive Barker hit his bankable peak in the late 1980s when a number of his grim horror tales were turned into films, most famously Hellraiser, which Barker also directed. The Midnight Meat Train is a short story from his Books of Blood that started it all, and stars ex-soccer star Vinnie Jones as a beefy killer prowling an American subway late at night as a photographer tries to track him down. Like Eden Lake, this film has higher ambitions and attention to style (including an excellent poster), possibly thanks to the presence of Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura (Azumi, Versus). Also stars Brooke Shields.
Orochi – Blood
The week’s third horror outing is a more stately, elegant and restrained affair from Japan. Based on a work by horror manga specialist Kazuo Umezu, this film explores the sinister underpinnings of beauty as an actress mother takes a strange young female visitor into her home with a curse. Japanese gothic horror or baroque horror might be too crude a description, but the visuals are lush and detailed, and the satirical message of female physical decay from age 30 has resonance in Taiwan in particular. This Umezu adaptation comes courtesy of Hiroshi Takahashi, the writer responsible for the Ringu films, and horror director Norio Tsuruta.
Two-Legged Horse
Not quite horror, but close. A parable of political servitude sees a legless Afghan child from a comfortable family use a poverty-stricken child in the neighborhood as the “horse” of the title for a daily pittance. As time goes on, the brutalities mount and the “horse” ... becomes one. Robert Koehler, reviewing the film for Variety, lent the film some notoriety of his own when he wrote “anger is likely to be directed at [award-winning director Samira Makhmalbaf] herself rather than at her subject, totalitarianism. Pic will raise festival howls and walkouts, with distribs certain to consider it untouchable,” because of the apparent suffering of the actors. Aha, but not in Taiwan, Mr Koehler.
The Chaser
Not quite horror, but very close. A cop-turned-pimp searches for one of his hookers after she is tortured and left for dead by a hitherto reliable client. Problem is, everyone who is supposed to do this rescue work for a living is corrupt, incompetent or ill-willed. This is a serial killer thriller with horrific elements (and a restricted rating) from South Korea that treats the audience with keen intelligence and the establishment with utter contempt. It was a monstrous hit at home.
The Code
Morgan Freeman, who rejoins director Mimi Leder after their work together in Deep Impact, stars as an aging thief who returns from retirement for, all together now, one ... last ... heist. Antonio Banderas is his younger partner and foil who is attracted to Freeman’s goddaughter (Aussie actress Radha Mitchell) in addition to some almost priceless Faberge Eggs. The rest of the story writes itself. Also known as Thick as Thieves, this one is struggling to secure a US release date.
To Life
A troubled Mexican photographer reunites with her estranged father in Chile in this chirpy, warm drama about healing and renewal. While there, she falls in love with one of her father’s closest friends, a rabbi, who has a few problems of his own. It goes without saying that the backdrop is all gorgeous mountains, vineyards, lakes, rustic villages and quaint villagers. Spanish title: El Brindis (“The Toast”), and shot in 2006.
No Regret
Purportedly the first feature to be directed by an openly gay Korean director, this film from 2006 covers a lot of ground. A grown orphan moves to Seoul in search of work and a future but circumstances conspire against him and he ends up working at a gay bar. While there he falls in love with a smitten boss from a former workplace and their relationship blossoms. Seedy settings and intense sex scenes rarely engender happy endings, however, and in this case, as the Village Voice states, “Korean melodrama hell” and the underworld sting wait in the wings.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
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