Film reviews
A Single Photograph, An Infinitude of Moments
A Review of Last Year When the Train Passed By (去年火車經過的時候). According to director Huang Pang-chuan (黃邦銓), the motivation for shooting the short film began with a whim—he took a photo while passing by a town on train one day and later began to wonder about the inhabitants of the houses that he had photographed.
A Cacophony of Migrant Workers
GUBUK (工寮), directed by So Yo-hen (蘇育賢), is a unique look at the experiences of “runaway” migrant workers in Taiwan, mixing fact and fiction, realism and the fantastical. As an experimental documentary that hopes to highlight the experience of migrant workers, the film is highly Brechtian.
What Happens When Activists Run For Office in China?
LOST COURSE (迷航), a 2019 documentary covering nearly ten years of the protests in Wukan village in China, is a tour de force.
The Hotel Between Life and Death
A Review of Taipei Suicide Story (安眠旅舍). The hotel is one in which guests spend one night; either they decide to kill themselves at the end of that night, or they decide to give life another chance.
Transitions, Articulated and Experienced
A Review of "injector after NULL," Hsien-Yu Cheng’s Solo Exhibition at Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), through July 4, 2021. A NULL pointer in computer memory points to nowhere. It often doubles as a delimiter separating the useful data from the undefined space.
Staying True In a World Bombarding You With Constant Influences
NOMADLAND, a film that won Chloé Zhao an Oscar for Best Director, is a film that follows a woman named Fern who takes seasonal jobs to make ends meet as she drives across the country in her minivan after her husband’s death.
Diasporic Loss and Foreign Gods
THE SHORT FILM, “Kuroshio Current,” aims to tell a story of diasporic loss framed by traditional Taiwanese folk religion.
A Glimpse at Democracy in Motion
TAKING BACK THE LEGISLATURE (佔領立法會), produced by the Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers group, is a powerful document of one of the most dramatic events of the Hong Kong protests of summer 2019.
Gunda: A World Imbued with Mystery, Love, and Beauty
Gunda is the kind of documentary film that makes cinema art, a world imbued with mystery, love, and beauty.
Minari And The Asian American Working Class
While the characters in Crazy Rich Asians aspire to whiteness, the family in Minari simply wants to survive and live in their realities.
Review: Minari (夢想之地)
If Crazy Rich Asians is about the 1 percent, Minari is about the remaining 99 percent.
Queer Desire, Queer Death
Wrath of Desire (愛・殺) aims a poetic lens at gender fluidity and transformation.