David on Formosa

I reviewed Tears (眼淚) last year after I saw it at the Golden Horse Film Festival. The movie is officially released in Taiwan today. The movie tells the story of Guo, an old policeman who employs some unethical policing methods and eventually has to face up to his past.
The movie is being widely discussed in [...]

Paris, Taipei: Bicycles Forever (巴黎.台北 單車萬歲) is a documentary directed by Jean-Robert Thomann (尚若白). It looks at the experience of bicycle commuters in Paris and Taipei. I went to the premiere screening at Eslite Dunnan Bookstore today and it will screen on PTS (公視) tomorrow.
The documentary explores the attitudes of those who have chosen to [...]

Monga (艋舺), directed by Niu Chen-zer (鈕承澤), is a classic gangster tale. The scene is set when Mosquito, played by Mark Chao (趙又廷), a new boy in the high school finds himself being picked on. His brave response catches the attention of Dragon, played by Rhydian Vaughan (鳳小岳), who is the son of Geta, [...]

I saw the short film Msgamil: Once Upon a Time (泰雅千年) while visiting Smangus in August last year. I then saw Through Thousands Years* (走過千年) at the Ethnographic Film Festival. Msgamil is a short film produced by Chen Wen-bin (陳文彬) about the historical migration of the Atayal. Through Thousands Years, by the Atayal director Pilin [...]

After a resurgence in 2008 on the back of the success of Cape No. 7 (海角七號), Taiwanese cinema quietly consolidated in 2009. While there were no great successes at the box office there were a number of quality films released.
The Taiwanese films I saw and reviewed in 2009 were Detours to Paradise (歧路天堂), Beautiful Crazy [...]

Miss Kicki (霓虹心) directed by Hakon Liu (劉漢威) is a tale that brings a Swedish mother and son to Taiwan. Kicki, played by Pernilla August, is a Swedish woman with a wild past and her son Viktor, played by Ludwig Palmell, has been raised by his grandmother. Kicki leads her son to believe that the [...]

Tears (眼淚) directed by Cheng Wen-tang (鄭文堂) is a tough and gritty police drama. The style is quite a contrast to Cheng’s previous film, the teen romance Summer’s Tail (夏天的尾巴), which I reviewed earlier.

Formosa Betrayed, a political thriller set in Taiwan in the 1980s, now has a worldwide distributor and is set for a release in 15-20 North American cities in February 2010. A tweet from @TaiwaneseAm_org on Twitter said the film will be released on the February 28th weekend. A press release from Taiwanese American.org says the [...]