Film reviews

A Single Photograph, An Infinitude of Moments

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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.

From No Man Is an Island
On June 11, 2021
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A Cacophony of Migrant Workers

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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.

From No Man Is an Island
On June 8, 2021
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What Happens When Activists Run For Office in China?

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LOST COURSE (迷航), a 2019 documentary covering nearly ten years of the protests in Wukan village in China, is a tour de force.

From No Man Is an Island
On May 28, 2021
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The Hotel Between Life and Death

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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.

From No Man Is an Island
On May 25, 2021
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Transitions, Articulated and Experienced

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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.

From No Man Is an Island
On May 21, 2021
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Staying True In a World Bombarding You With Constant Influences

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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.

From No Man Is an Island
On May 21, 2021
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A City Under Siege, in Body and Spirit

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A Review of Inside the Red Brick Wall (理大圍城)

From No Man Is an Island
On May 18, 2021
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Diasporic Loss and Foreign Gods

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THE SHORT FILM, “Kuroshio Current,” aims to tell a story of diasporic loss framed by traditional Taiwanese folk religion.

From No Man Is an Island
On May 14, 2021
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A Glimpse at Democracy in Motion

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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.

From No Man Is an Island
On May 11, 2021
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Gunda: A World Imbued with Mystery, Love, and Beauty

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Gunda is the kind of documentary film that makes cinema art, a world imbued with mystery, love, and beauty.

Gunda
From No Man Is an Island
On May 4, 2021
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Minari And The Asian American Working Class

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While the characters in Crazy Rich Asians aspire to whiteness, the family in Minari simply wants to survive and live in their realities.

From No Man Is an Island
On April 23, 2021
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Review: Minari (夢想之地)

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If Crazy Rich Asians is about the 1 percent, Minari is about the remaining 99 percent.

From No Man Is an Island
On April 15, 2021
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Queer Desire, Queer Death

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Wrath of Desire (愛・殺) aims a poetic lens at gender fluidity and transformation.

From No Man Is an Island
On April 8, 2021
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