The Final Destination
Part 4 of this fading series of gory match-ups between Death and heavily disadvantaged Spunky Young Things brings back Part 2 director David R. Ellis. The veteran stuntman delivered a fantastic freeway disaster premonition in the earlier film’s opening scene, but it’s hard to see how he can top it here, especially given that the carnage takes place at a (sigh) NASCAR meet. Car racing? If the producers had explored the determinism of Death’s design with a little more wit, they might have focused on Death hunting down stock brokers and bankers who survived last year’s crash. Screening in 3D in select theaters.
Che: Part One and Che: Part Two
This four-hour Steven Soderbergh biography of the Latin American revolutionary is being screened in two parts under the titles The Argentine and Che (also titled Guerrilla), so you’ll have to fork out twice to see Che Guevara preside over the Cuban Revolution before finding oblivion in Bolivia. Many critics didn’t know what to make of this idiosyncratic production, while others took turns attacking and praising it. But for those who know little about modern Latin American history, this could be a splendid introduction. Stars Benicio Del Toro as Che.
Lady Cop & Papa Crook (大搜查之女)
This Hong Kong/Chinese crime drama was made before another Alan Mak (麥兆輝)/Felix Chong (莊文強) feature, Overheard, which was released here last week. The Infernal Affairs (無間道) buddies like mixing right and wrong, and in this case the police work with crooks to solve the kidnapping of the young child of a triad heavy. The filmmakers had to make compromises of their own: Variety reports that the Chinese government ordered sanitizing material be added (scenes were also deleted, no doubt) to secure a much-delayed release.
Sophie’s Revenge (非常完美:奪愛大作戰)
The dynamic Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) is the main draw for this stylish, crowd-pleasing, slightly surreal comedy set in a very spruced-up Beijing. Zhang is Sophie, a cartoonist whose good-looking Korean beau (So Ji-sub) falls for a movie star (Fan Bingbing, 范冰冰). The walls come crashing down, almost literally thanks to computer animation, as Zhang seeks a way to get back on her feet and get her man back. Enter Taiwanese Peter Ho (何潤東), who agrees to help Sophie in her quest but is not without his own baggage — including a growing desire for Sophie herself (subtext alert!).
April Bride
In Japan, if you make a movie about a gorgeous bride with terminal breast cancer and cast the hottest young actors, you can make a lot of money. Whether or not it will encourage female viewers to have their breasts checked regularly is another matter. Nana Eikura is the unfortunate woman, whose diagnosis and a mastectomy send her fleeing from her perfect boyfriend (played by Eita), who manages to track her down in time to propose. Based on a true story.
Franklyn
Eva Green, so memorable opposite Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, is in a cast of seeming thousands in this dark fantasy of a future gone wrong and the present that leads there. It’s set in London and a sinister somewhere in the future called Meanwhile City that may or not be the same place. Splendid visuals are offset by likely confusion and dislocation for many viewers. But the cast is handsome, including the wonderful Art Malik.
Puccini and the Girl
What is it about composers and their romantic misadventures that gets filmmakers going? Ken Russell remains the king of composer biopics, but this unusual effort from Italy has a similar spirit, with dialogue heavily trimmed in a stylized yarn about the death of a maid at the Puccini home. Like Franklyn, style reigns over substance, but for most music buffs there’s substance enough in the sound track.
2009 Escents Film Festival
The cosmetics firm Escents is behind this two-day festival that hopes to raise money for victims of Typhoon Morakot. There are six films, each screened twice: The Mistress of Spices (2005) from the US, the Greek-Turkish co-production A Touch of Spice (2003), the award-winning Taiwanese documentary Chronicle of the Sea: Nan-Fang-Ao (南方澳海洋紀事) from 2004, and two more recent releases: The Grocer’s Son from France and the excellent Lemon Tree from Israel. The highlight for many, though, would be the 170-minute director’s cut of Cinema Paradiso. Get in quick: The festival starts today and finishes tomorrow night.
Love Twisted
Late last year we previewed Man, Woman and the Wall (2006), a Japanese erotic thriller steeped in voyeurism. Love Twisted was made in Japan two years earlier, but shares the theme, as well as crossover porn star Sora Aoi in one of her first non-porn roles. Imagine Fatal Attraction with more nudity and set in a really depressing housing complex. Starts tomorrow.
Into the Faraway Sky
Taiwanese actor Chang Chen (張震) has a supporting role in this 2007 film set in Hokkaido about offbeat villagers standing in the way of an airport project and the government man sent to fix the problem. The Taiwanese distributor, ahead of a DVD rollout, has changed the Chinese title to link it to the otherwise unconnected Taiwanese production Orz Boyz! (冏男孩). Starts tomorrow.
On Jan. 17, Beijing announced that it would allow residents of Shanghai and Fujian Province to visit Taiwan. The two sides are still working out the details. President William Lai (賴清德) has been promoting cross-strait tourism, perhaps to soften the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) attitudes, perhaps as a sop to international and local opinion leaders. Likely the latter, since many observers understand that the twin drivers of cross-strait tourism — the belief that Chinese tourists will bring money into Taiwan, and the belief that tourism will create better relations — are both false. CHINESE TOURISM PIPE DREAM Back in July
Taiwan doesn’t have a lot of railways, but its network has plenty of history. The government-owned entity that last year became the Taiwan Railway Corp (TRC) has been operating trains since 1891. During the 1895-1945 period of Japanese rule, the colonial government made huge investments in rail infrastructure. The northern port city of Keelung was connected to Kaohsiung in the south. New lines appeared in Pingtung, Yilan and the Hualien-Taitung region. Railway enthusiasts exploring Taiwan will find plenty to amuse themselves. Taipei will soon gain its second rail-themed museum. Elsewhere there’s a number of endearing branch lines and rolling-stock collections, some
Could Taiwan’s democracy be at risk? There is a lot of apocalyptic commentary right now suggesting that this is the case, but it is always a conspiracy by the other guys — our side is firmly on the side of protecting democracy and always has been, unlike them! The situation is nowhere near that bleak — yet. The concern is that the power struggle between the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and their now effectively pan-blue allies the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) intensifies to the point where democratic functions start to break down. Both
This was not supposed to be an election year. The local media is billing it as the “2025 great recall era” (2025大罷免時代) or the “2025 great recall wave” (2025大罷免潮), with many now just shortening it to “great recall.” As of this writing the number of campaigns that have submitted the requisite one percent of eligible voters signatures in legislative districts is 51 — 35 targeting Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus lawmakers and 16 targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The pan-green side has more as they started earlier. Many recall campaigns are billing themselves as “Winter Bluebirds” after the “Bluebird Action”
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