Taipei’s rocketing real estate prices and growing wealth gap occupy a central place in Love in Vain (獨一無二), Alex Yang’s (楊順清) first feature film in 10 years.
The drama explores the difficulties faced by younger generations in the money-driven metropolis of Taipei. The story is actually more audience-friendly than it sounds, but the less-than-perfect execution renders the film mediocre.
The film opens with a business tycoon, played by acclaimed actor Chin Shih-chieh (金士傑), and his subordinate urinating in the pool of a luxury apartment. They rave about a big investment in China, while several young women carouse in a nearby suite. The first five minutes of the film effectively introduces the world we are about to enter, in which houses are not built for living but making a profit, and where vileness and depravity lurk beneath the glitz.
Photo courtesy of Good Day Films
Then things get a bit messy, moving on two parallel plots. Both feature newcomer Yen Tsao (曹晏豪), who plays two characters that look alike but lead completely different lives. A-yan is an innocent country boy trying to make it in Taipei, while the cynical and manipulative Xiao Yu runs a modeling agency and thirsts for celebrity.
The fates of the two strangers intertwine, evolving into a modern allegory of corruption and moral confusion in contemporary Taiwanese society.
In 1991, Yang co-wrote Edward Yang’s (楊德昌) A Brighter Summer Day (牯嶺街少年殺人事件), and has since been known for his cinematic commentary on how Taiwan’s changing society impacts its urban residents. Like his award-winning Taipei 21 (台北二 一) in 2004, Love in Vain contains plenty of sharp observations and social criticism. A-yan’s Taipei residence, for example, is merely an empty, temporary space which is later sold as a piece of premium real estate.
But such moments of insight are rare and often overshadowed by the prosaic, uneven narration.
The character studies remain largely superficial, and the criticism is cursory and sketchy.J.C. Lei’s (雷婕熙) performance is an example of how the inexperienced leads do not have the strength and experience to carry out the emotional and narrative weight. It is almost embarrassing to watch her overact her role as a sultry young woman, while awkwardly delivering pretentious lines.
While Tsao and Lei struggle, accomplished veterans such as Chin and Leon Dai (戴立忍) handle their supporting roles with ease and charm. There is no balance in between.
In the end, Love in Vain does not live up to its ambition. And to film buffs familiar the director’s works since his Edward Yang days, prepare to be disappointed.
The tropic of cancer bisects the city of Chiayi (嘉義). The morning heat is, predictably, intense. But the sky is blue and hued with promise. Travelers brave the heat to pose for photos outside the carriages lined up at the end of platform one. The pervasive excitement is understandable. HISTORIC RAILWAY The Alishan Forest Railway (阿里山森林鐵路) was engineered by the Japanese to carry timber from the interior to the coast. Construction began in 1906. In 1912, it opened to traffic, although the line has been lengthened several times since. As early as the 1930s, the line had developed a secondary function as
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) National Congress tomorrow will potentially be one of the most consequential in the party’s history. Since the founding of the DPP until the late 2000s or early 2010s, the party was riven with factional infighting, at times getting very ugly and very public. For readers curious to know more about the context of the factions and who they are, two previous columns explore them in depth: “The powerful political force that vanished from the English press,” April 23, 2024 and “Introducing the powerful DPP factions,” April 27, 2024. In 2008, a relatively unknown mid-level former
Like many people juggling long hours at work, Chiharu Shimoda sought companionship via a dating app. For two months, he exchanged messages with five or six potential partners, but it wasn’t long before he was seeking out just one — a 24-year-old named Miku. Three months later, they got married. The catch: Miku is an AI bot. And Shimoda knew that from day one. The 52-year-old factory worker is one of over 5,000 users of Loverse, a year-old app that allows interaction only with generative artificial intelligence. Shimoda’s also among a much bigger cohort of people who’ve either given up or
July 22 to July 28 The Love River’s (愛河) four-decade run as the host of Kaohsiung’s annual dragon boat races came to an abrupt end in 1971 — the once pristine waterway had become too polluted. The 1970 event was infamous for the putrid stench permeating the air, exacerbated by contestants splashing water and sludge onto the shore and even the onlookers. The relocation of the festivities officially marked the “death” of the river, whose condition had rapidly deteriorated during the previous decade. The myriad factories upstream were only partly to blame; as Kaohsiung’s population boomed in the 1960s, all household