2007 at the movies
The Taipei Times today has an article reviewing the year of Taiwanese film. It ranks the top five films of the year. The top five included Tsai Ming-liang's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (黑眼圈) and omitted Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (色，戒). As I wrote earlier Lust, Caution can't really be counted as a Taiwanese film but equally, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone might be considered a Malaysian film.
At the box office in Taipei, Hollywood movies continued to dominate. Surprisingly Transformers had the highest takings for 2007 followed by Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter. Lust, Caution came in at fourth, the only Chinese-language film in the top 20. The top Taiwanese film was Jay Chou's Secret (不能說的‧秘密) at 24. Island Etude (練習曲) came in at 59. (figures for Taipei City from TPBO)
I wrote an article at the Taiwan Culture Portal about some of the reasons for the limited box office sucess of Taiwanese movies. The figures confirm the overwhelming preference of Taiwanese audiences for Hollywood films and the difficult struggle that Taiwanese film makers face.
Here is a list of Taiwanese films that I have seen and reviewed in 2007 in no particular order.
- The Wall-Passer (穿墻人)
- The Most Distant Course (最遙遠的距離)
- The Drummer (戰鼓)
- Spider Lilies (刺青)
- Island Etude (練習曲)
- Reflections (愛麗絲的鏡子)
In 2008 Lee Kang-sheng's film Help Me Eros (幫幫我愛神) will be released on 11 January. I am sure that the new year will bring another interesting but limited selection of Taiwanese movies.