Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang is, I think, one of the world’s most interesting filmmakers. It is not simply that he produces interesting and deepful artful narrative features including Rebels of a Neon God and Goodbye, Dragon Inn. He also makes a broad range … Continue reading REVIEW: Walker (2012)
Yinniang (Shu Qi) was taken from her home at the age of ten and trained to become a master assassin. Now an adult, she fails to undertake her latest mission when she sees her target cradling his infant son. As … Continue reading REVIEW: The Assassin (2015)
Mini and Poni (Huang Pei-Chia) are twin sisters enrolled in their senior year of high school. They’re both star players on the basketball team. When Mini begins to be pursued by one of the boys in their school, and then … Continue reading REVIEW: Cha Cha for Twins (2012)
Ying-juan (Tsai Jia-yin) is a 30 year-old woman, still living with her mother and working as a cook at her mother’s child care centre. She is overweight: the children at her workplace tease her, neighbours resent and bully her, and … Continue reading REVIEW: Heavy Craving (2019)
A run-down Taipei cinema screens its final movie: King Hu’s legendary wuxia film Dragon Inn. While the film plays the cinema’s disabled cashier (Chen Shiang-chyi) slowly goes about her work, young gay men awkwardly use the theatre as a place to … Continue reading REVIEW: Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)
Ho Chih-wei (River Huang) lives in a Taipei apartment with his grandmother Shu-fang (Liu Yin-shang). He works as a junior real estate agent while dating his girlfriend of five years, Shen Yi-chun (Tiffany Hsu Wei-ning). His aunt Shui has gone … Continue reading REVIEW: The Tag-Along (2015)
There seems to be a specific sub-genre of documentary film dedicated to rolling aerial vistas of landscapes. Slow drifting shots of mountains and fields, crashing oceans, lush forests, and so on. They are usually edited together with rich musical scores, … Continue reading REVIEW: Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above (2013)
Written by Travis Johnson Capitalism ruins everything – that’s the message I took away from this Taiwanese slice-of-life drama from first time feature director, Chan Ching-lin*. It’s a message that seems to have resonated with the home crowd and the … Continue reading REVIEW: The Island That All Flow By (2016)
Elderly widower Chin-mao (Hsiao Hou-tao) lives alone in his family house in Pingxi. When a painful accident sees him admitted into hospital, his middle-aged children begin argue over whether or not to send him to a nursing home in Taipei. … Continue reading REVIEW: Dad’s Suit (2018)
Manawei (Golden Horse winner Si Pangoyod) is a young boy living with his grandmother (Feng Ying-li) on Orchid Island, south of Taiwan. His father (Ou Lu) is largely absent, having left the island to work in the southern Taiwanese city … Continue reading REVIEW: Long Time No Sea (2018)
