Betelnut Beauty (2000)
This film falls squarely into the arthouse genre box, for those who like to pigeonhole their movies. For those who like to pigeonhole further, it could be categorised as “troubled urban youth meander...
View ArticleGoodbye Dragon Inn (2003)
If you like Taiwanese drama, then read no further, because you’re likely to be annoyed. For the rest of you, here’s my unvarnished opinion of Goodbye, Dragon Inn. Interminable. Almost unwatchable....
View ArticleAbout Love (2005)
There is always a sense of fondness when looking at the short film. Part of that has to do with being exposed too often to ideas and stories forcibly drawn out to meet certain time expectations, so...
View ArticleWayward Cloud (2005)
Ah, Tsai! You wonderfully sick individual. Tsai Ming-liang’s latest offering is an occasionally hilarious, frustrating, uncomfortable (in the good way and the bad way) and just slightly disappointing...
View ArticleCafé Lumiere (2003)
Hou Hsaio-hsien’s Café Lumiere, his plaintive tribute to the incomparable Yasujiro Ozu, is certainly sure to piss off large sections of its audience. I had the curious experience of seeing it with...
View ArticleThe Missing (2004)
Lee Kang-sheng’s The Missing is a sad and haunting film which builds very slowly to an obscure symbolic ending, making you want to watch it again right away in order to view it in a different light....
View ArticleMoon Child (2003)
This one is for the girls. Now, if while reading this you find that you’re not a girl, you can take my word for it or you can go ahead and watch it, but you’d better not say I didn’t warn you. I don’t...
View ArticleYi Yi (2000)
There is a disarming honesty to the way writer/director Edward Yang speaks of Yi Yi — A One and A Two, an honesty which is rarely — if ever — to be found in critical writing, so his words perhaps...
View ArticleBlue Gate Crossing (2003)
I’m now forced to take back every rash generalisation I’ve ever made about Taiwanese films. This one is brilliant, and I couldn’t help but love it. Blue Gate Crossing has the same slow pace, and is...
View ArticleDouble Vision (2002)
I really didn’t know what I was getting into before walking in on this one. I knew it involved a serial killer and had Tony Leung Ka Fai and David Morse in it. So pretty much I skipped along to my...
View ArticleThree Times (2005)
More accurately translated as ‘The Best of Times’, the latest picture from the most highly regarded formalist in world cinema is a delightfully structured and incredibly focused effort that breathes...
View ArticleBlack Sun: The Nanking Massacre (1995)
Taiwanese director T.F.Mou may not be a prolific film-maker but he is definitely a controversial one. Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre is the follow-up film to his grisly 1988 docudrama Man Behind The...
View ArticleMillennium Mambo (2001)
I first saw Millennium Mambo on my birthday at MIFF in 2002. As an admirer of all Hou’s films, it was a screening I was tremendously excited about. A couple of hours later, I was confused and left...
View ArticleThe Treasure Hunter (2009)
So let’s get some levels of expectation for Treasure Hunter out of the way first of all. Whilst I thought Jay Chou was fine in both Initial D and Curse of the Golden Flower, his performance in both...
View ArticleReign of Assassins (2010)
Sometimes the overwhelming success of a particular genre film can have an unfortunate effect on the movies following it. I’m talking here about Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which has become so...
View ArticleStarry Starry Night (2011)
Hardly ever do the diverse elements of film production blend so seamlessly and appeal to such a wide audience as they do in Starry Starry Night, a recent Taiwan-China co-production. Based on a...
View ArticleWill You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (2013)
If you enjoyed the award-winning debut feature of writer/director Arvin Chen’s Au Revoir Taipei from a couple of years back, then chances are you will like his second feature length venture from last...
View Article
