Scholar cinema closes
It’s never good news if a theater closes, even if it doesn’t have the best reputation. The Scholar multiplex on Changchun Street in Taipei was one such place, its owner apparently deciding that China offers better business. No one will miss the cramped interiors or sullen staff, but Scholar did show fringe and low-budget product no one else would touch. How else would we have seen Wolf Creek and Five Across the Eyes in cinemas? A moment’s silence ... and on to this week’s other titles:
The Lucky Ones
Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams (The Time Traveler’s Wife) and Michael Pena (Nicolas Cage’s co-survivor in World Trade Center) are US soldiers home from Iraq with various personal problems — sexual, financial, familial — who share a car trip across the US. This road movie with a difference scored mixed reviews, but few were left cold by the three leads, who might make this one worthwhile for audiences who are feeling lucky.
Gamer
If you loved the Crank films, which were generously off the wall for anyone who could stay the distance, then you might find something to admire in this chaotic movie from the same writer-directors. Gerard Butler (300) is a death row prisoner of the future and participant in a video game in which he and his fellows are manipulated by paying players. He’s about to win yet another bout and secure his release, perhaps to liberate his child and wife, who is in a vile sexual game environment of her own, but he might know too much about the people who run the show. After all these years, Tron still seems to rise above the pack of video-game movies — without cuss words, sex or nasty violence.
Let the Right One In
An award-winning Swedish horror film with a sense of humor and a willingness to play in the dark (though not as much as the book on which the film is based, according to Variety), this is possibly the strongest release of the week. A bullied young boy makes the acquaintance of a strange girl of the same age whose apparent father figure runs strange errands for the pallid-looking creature. Just when you thought vampirism had nowhere left to go ...
Tsunami
The timing is unfortunate, or perhaps fortunate from the distributor’s point of view, but this first-ever South Korean disaster epic was scheduled for release before the Samoan tsunami occurred. So audiences can watch this odd mixture of Irwin Allen and Korean character ensemble with a clear-ish conscience. An ensemble of wave fodder — including the obligatory character with a tragic past — take up a good part of the running time before Mother Nature sends one crashing home. From Yun Je-gyun, the formerly lowbrow director of Sex Is Zero and Crazy Assassins. Korean title: Haeundae, which is where the movie is set.
Time Lost, Time Found
As heartrending plots go, this one rends with the best of them. A Japanese first-time mother-to-be in her late 30s is diagnosed with cancer and must make the impossible choice of starting treatment and losing her baby or keeping the child and likely condemning herself to the grave. Expect bawling audiences with this one (i.e., the same people that went to see terminal illness weepie April Bride last month), but if you don’t want to know the ending, for goodness’ sake don’t look at the poster. Features a song called Get a Life ~Again~. If only Takashi Miike had been the director ...
Tear This Heart Out
Sprawling yarn covers a subject little touched on by Hollywood: lust and political intrigue in early-to-mid-20th-century Mexico. A teenager beds and weds an ambitious general in some detail (hence the restricted rating) before the relationship between the two develops into a political asset — and an emotional liability. Largely a love story and a melodramatic study of a woman’s travails in Mexico’s always stormy history, those interested in slightly more nuanced treatments of gender relations in Mexico might be better off renting Frida with Salma Hayek. Spanish title: Arrancame La Vida.
Sappho
The first of two DVD promotional releases this week is a curio. A Ukrainian production set in Greece with a British director, American leads and many other nationalities in the cast, its successful release in its home country was accompanied by inexplicably angry protests by local Christians who objected to homosexual scenes between a newly married American woman and a Russian. But this is not a sex film, as such, even if it is showing at the Baixue theater in Ximending. Starts tomorrow.
Necessary Evil
Two of the grimmest-looking and hardest-working actors anywhere, Lance Henriksen (Aliens) and Danny Trejo (Desperado), star in a demonic tale involving a pregnant woman researcher, her lethal doctor and lots of mumbo jumbo (not to mention shades of The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby). This went straight to DVD in the US. 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
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
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
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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