The 25th edition of the Taipei Film Festival opened on Thursday evening with the premiere of writer-cum-director Giddens Ko’s (九把刀) new romantic comedy, Miss Shampoo (請問,還有哪裡需要加強).
Speaking with reporters, Ko said he was thrilled that his latest movie, an adaptation of his 2010 novel Precisely Out of Control (精準的失控), premiered at the Taipei Zhongshan Hall, where he made his directorial debut in 2011 with You Are the Apple of My Eye (那些年,我們ㄧ起追的女孩).
Miss Shampoo tells a romantic story between an aspiring apprentice hairdresser, played by Vivian Sung (宋芸樺), and a passionate gang leader, played by Hung Yu-hung (洪瑜鴻), who is better known as a member of Taiwanese hip-hop group Nine One One (玖壹壹).
Photo courtesy of the Taipei Film Festival via CNA
Another movie that premiered last night at the festival was One Second Ahead, One Second Behind, a Japanese adaptation of the 2020 Golden Horse Best Feature Film winner My Missing Valentine (消失的情人節).
The film’s director, Nobuhiro Yamashita, and lead actor, Masaki Okada, were to attend the premier last night and interact with movie fans after the showing.
As part of the festival’s “Filmmaker in Focus” program, five movies by German writer-director Angela Schanelec are to be shown, including I Was at Home, But..., which bagged the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2019.
Four movies by Belgian director Bas Devos will be screened under the same program, including Ghost Tropic and Hellhole.
The two-week festival will be followed by the Taipei Film Awards ceremony on the evening of July 8, when the grand prize, featuring a trophy and NT$1 million (US$32,342) in prize money, is to be presented to a Taiwanese film nominated for best feature film, best documentary, best short film or best animation.
Eye of the Storm (疫起), director Lin Chun-yang’s (林君陽) movie inspired by the 2003 SARS outbreak in Taiwan, leads this year’s awards with 13 nominations, including best feature film, best director and best screenplay.
Other movies that are up for best feature film are last year’s Golden Horse Awards Best Feature winner Coo-Coo 043 (一家子兒咕咕叫), as well as Gaga (哈勇家), The Abandoned (查無此心) and Bad Education (黑的教育).
Lin, known for his TV series Wave Makers (人選之人—造浪者) and The World Between Us (我們與惡的距離), is also competing for best director alongside documentary filmmaker Tsai Tsung-Lung (蔡崇隆) and Laha Mebow (陳潔瑤), who won at last year’s Golden Horse Awards for Gaga, among others.
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
FATAL ILLNESS: Untreated symptoms can rapidly worsen to complications such as high fever, seizures and loss of consciousness, and can be life-threatening, a doctor said Hospitals have been reporting dozens of people with heat-related illnesses every day over the past week, given continuous high daytime temperatures, so recognizing the early signs of heatstroke is crucial in preventing serious complications, a Taipei City Hospital emergency physician said. The Central Weather Administration yesterday issued a heat alert for 19 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures in New Taipei City, Miaoli County and Pingtung County likely to exceed 38°C, and temperatures in 12 cities and counties likely to exceed 36°C for three days straight. More than a dozen people were taken to hospitals for heat-related illnesses every day from
The annual Taipei Summer Festival, which starts today, is to tone down its fireworks displays, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said on Monday. Fireworks displays are to be held at the riverside site in Datong District’s (大同) Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area on four days at this year’s festival, with the first today, and then on Wednesday next week, July 31 and Aug. 10, the department said. There were eight displays last year, with the reduction aimed at minimizing inconvenience to local residents, it said. The first three shows, which are all on Wednesdays, are to last for five minutes, while the final