In 2010, a group of Puyuma Aboriginal musicians from Taitung’s Nanwang Tribe (南王部落) performed On the Road (很久沒有敬我了你) at Taipei’s National Concert Hall (國家音樂廳). Unusual for a musical performed at Taiwan’s top venue for classical music, it blended tribal sounds and dance with contemporary music and a Western orchestra.
But the ambitious project, a collaboration among record label Taiwan Colors Music (TCM, 角頭音樂), the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO, 國家交響樂團) and National Theater & Concert Hall (NTCH, 國家兩廳院), didn’t end when the curtain dropped. Kara-Orchestra (很久沒有敬我了妳), a cinematic complement to the musical, opens in theaters nationwide today.
Directed by Wu Mi-sen (吳米森) and produced by TCM President Zhang 43 (張四 十 三), the film examines topics — why and how Aboriginal music is altered or made palatable for a more sophisticated audience, what it means to be Taiwanese — that its theatrical counterpart only hinted at.
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Company
Incidentally, The Making of On The Road (很久), a 2011 documentary by Amis director Lungnan Isak Fangas, raised many of the issues addressed in Kara-Orchestra. That film featured interviews with artists and musicians who participated in the musical, including Hu, Hao-en, Pau-dull (陳建年) and music producer Cheng Chieh-jen (鄭捷任), and takes a deeper look into the question concerning indigenous music and its admission to the Han-Chinese centric system.
CONVENTIONAL STRUCTURE
Those familiar with Wu’s poetic and cinematic vocabulary, so eloquently shown in Fluffy Rhapsody (起毛球了, 2000) and Amour-Legende (松鼠自殺事件, 2006), will be surprised at the conventional three-act structure of this new offering. A young female musician, Feng Huo-yun (Youki, 侑紀), is appointed by NTCH director Chang San-lang (Tsai Chen-nan, 蔡振南) as the NSO’s new conductor. Conflicts erupt between Feng and principal violinist Tung jen-to (Leon Dai, 戴立忍) because Tung doubts the young conductor’s ability to lead the orchestra.
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Company
THE PRANK
During a rehearsal, an Aboriginal woman appears in the audience. She sings for a brief moment, and then disappears. It later turns out to be a joke by Tung and his friends, played by the legendary Kimbo Hu (胡德夫), Samingad (紀曉君) and Yangui Yasiungu (安歆澐), meant to show that Aboriginal music is as good as any show.
Tung’s mischievous prank, however, inspires Chang. Feng and Dai are then sent to the Aboriginal village to collaborate on a work. The two meet villagers and musicians such as Hao-en (昊恩) and the Nanwang Sisters (南王姐妹花). Feeling excluded at first, Feng gradually earns her place and reconciles with Tung.
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Company
Back in Taipei, Chang loses his job to a wealthy Chinese businessman, amusingly played by exiled Chinese dissident Wang Dan (王丹). It’s promptly replaced with a Chinese music production.
The makeshift group of musicians, however, are determined to retake the stage.
SOCIAL ISSUES
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Company
While promising, the film lacks structure and dramatic nuance. The initial antagonism and later reconciliation between the two leads are less narratively cogent. Japanese-Taiwanese actress Youki might be good for a role that metaphorically reflects Taiwan’s past and present, but there is little intensity in her portrayal of an over-achieving young woman searching for her roots.
The film succeeds when it adopts humor to tackle serious issues. The question of whether tribal music and dance should be performed in a national theater is playfully touched on in a sequence where tribal villagers, who have no understanding of musical notation, happily use a karaoke machine to practice.
The presence of many indigenous musicians showing off their singing prowess is one of the movie’s many pleasures. Cameo appearances by public figures such as architect Roan Ching-yueh (阮慶岳), writer and former Taipei mayoral candidate Neil Peng (馮光遠) and Lin Wen-yi (林文義), a well-known novelist and social critic, suggest that the film’s non-Aboriginal characters are on their own kind of inner journey while discovering the nation’s indigenous heritage.
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Company
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Company
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Company
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Company
July 1 to July 7 Huang Ching-an (黃慶安) couldn’t help but notice Imelita Masongsong during a company party in the Philippines. With paler skin and more East Asian features, she did not look like the other locals. On top of his job duties, Huang had another mission in the country, given by his mother: to track down his cousin, who was deployed to the Philippines by the Japanese during World War II and never returned. Although it had been more than three decades, the family was still hoping to find him. Perhaps Imelita could provide some clues. Huang never found the cousin;
On Friday last week, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency very excitedly proclaimed “a set of judicial guidelines targeting die-hard ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists” had been issued “as a refinement and supplement to the country’s ‘Anti-Secession’ law” from 2005, with sentencing guidelines that included the death penalty as an option. At the same time, 77 People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) aircraft were flown into Taiwan’s air defense identification zones (ADIZ) in just 48 hours, a high enough number to indicate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was peeved about something and wanted it known. What was puzzling is that the CCP always
Once again, we are listening to the government talk about bringing in foreign workers to help local manufacturing. Speaking at an investment summit in Washington DC, the Minister of Economic Affairs, J.W. Kuo (郭智輝), said that the nation must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high end manufacturing by 2040 to offset the falling population. That’s roughly 15 years from now. Using the lower number, Taiwan would have to import over 25,000 foreigners a year for these positions to reach that goal. The government has no idea what this sounds like to outsiders and to foreigners already living here.
David is a psychologist and has been taking part in drug-fueled gay orgies for the past 15 years. “The sex is crazy — utterly unbridled — which of course is partly down to the drugs but also because you can act out all your fantasies,” said the 54-year-old, who has been in a relationship for two years. Chemsex — taking drugs to enhance sexual pleasure and performance — “has opened a whole world of possibilities to me,” David added. “Sex doesn’t have to be limited to two people... There is a whole fantasy and transgressive side to it that turns me on. It