Film
Random
Father is a standout documentary, whose strengths primarily derive from the revealing moments it manages to capture on camera. This is due to the fact that director Deng Wei is filming his father and grandfather as the documentary’s subjects. Read More
Twelve Nights, a 2013 documentary film about animal shelters, is probably one of the most influential Taiwanese advocacy films you have not heard about Read More
2021 Hong Kong comedy All U Need is Love is likely one of the earliest films in the world to make the COVID-19 the central focus of its story. The movie features a star-studded cast of Hong Kong actors and actresses, many of which reprise their best-known roles for the film. This is due to the fact that the movie was originally intended as a collaboration between ten major Hong Kong film companies to benefit a hard-hit domestic film industry. However, All U Need is Love is an insipid affair, which says more about the film industry in Hong Kong today than anything else Read More
My Missing Valentine surprised in 2020 when it swept the Golden Horse Awards, Taiwan’s top film awards. The movie took home not only Best Feature Film, but also Best Original Screenplay and Best Director. The film’s two leads, Liu Kuan Ting and Patty Lee, were nominated for Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively, but did not win Read More
Inside the Brick Wall—a film that can no longer safely be safely screened in Hong Kong—will no doubt prove a worthy historical document of the Hong Kong protests. Not only does the film document a key moment in the protests, but it proves a film encapsulating the dynamics of the protest in microcosm—and the subjective struggle faced by Hongkongers as a whole today Read More
Anima depicts the human effects of unfettered development in China, while also featuring elements of Chinese ethnic minority film. The final results are passable and the film’s technical merits are impressive, but the work does not break new ground Read More
In the hands of a lesser director, Wrath of Desire would not be the sum of its parts. In fact, the film would be something of a train wreck. However, in Zero Chou’s capable hands, Wrath of Desire is not only a stylistically distinctive film, but one which is thought-provoking. The film is one of six about LGBTQ-related issues by Chou, which she plans to shoot in East Asian cities. Chou is one of Taiwan’s best-known contemporary queer film directors Read More
Despite no international marketing blitz comparable to Island Nation or SEQALU, Gold Leaf proves the same kind of work, in seeking to dramatize a pivotal period of Taiwanese history. Based on the memoirs of Jiang A-hsin, the founder of the Yong-guang Tea Company, Gold Leaf focuses on the Zhang family, a prominent Hakka family of tea manufacturers in Hsinchu in the 1950s. The Jiang family was once Taiwan’s largest exporter of tea Read More
Based on Yoko Ogawa’s popular novel, “Hotel Iris” is the latest movie that highlights Taiwan-Japan relations through the lens of love and lust Read More
If you are like me and consider Crazy Rich Asians one of the worst Asian American films ever made, you might very well enjoy Minari Read More
《環保少女：格蕾塔》是一部講述關於格蕾塔·桑伯格（Greta Thunberg）身為 2018 年氣候變遷罷課運動中心人物的紀錄片。時為高中生的桑伯格，抗議政府對於氣候變遷的態度冷漠，開始每個星期五的罷課。這個簡單的抗議行動，一開始只有她一個人，慢慢得到其他學生注意，最後，這個為氣候變遷罷課的運動成為全球性的運動。桑伯格的名聲因媒體炒作，成為全球性知名人物，也因此，聯合國邀請她參與了許多關於氣候變遷的會議。 Read More