Movies

Or How to Render Metaphysics in Film

Rounding Up the Year in Taiwanese Film with New Bloom and Cinema Escapist

THE SOUL (緝魂) stands out among recent Taiwanese film as an effective and well-executed commercial thriller.

A love letter to the Tiki Adult Theater: "When it’s gone, where will all these lost souls go?" While Los Angeles used to be a hot spot for smut shacks, the Tiki is now the last show in town — the Studs, née Pussycat, Theater down Santa Monica Boulevard was, for years, the only other holdout, but no longer plays skin flicks. The Tiki, however, continues, in spite of it all, to screen three “very recent” ones on an endless loop, operating 24 hours a day. Time is purchased in four, eight, and 12-hour blocks; bottles of poppers, the only concessions, are sold at the box office for $20.

The Accidental President recycles the same tired messages that media pundits have been repeating since 2015.

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.

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

Zombies infiltrate Taiwan's legislature in this clumsy political satire