In the 1930s, Taiwan had a lively, energetic, and plentiful record industry. But this history has been forgotten with the destruction and fragmentation of historical materials by the KMT...
Joshua: Teenager Vs. Superpower makes no attempts to hide that it is an attempt to lionize its titular character or that, as a documentary, it is a Hollywood-style film. And while capably produced, it has all the strengths and weakness of an attempt to make the chaos of a social movement into a Hollywood-style narrative...
Small Talk, directed by Huang Hui-Chen, is in many ways a remarkable film, but it is also an incredibly unsettling one. Small Talk is a highly personal film, as a documentary detailing Huang’s relation with her mother, Ah-Nu. In particular, Huang’s relation with her mother, who works as a Daoist priestess, is troubled because of Ah-Nu’s emotional distance, as well as that Ah-Nu, a lesbian, had two daughters from an abusive marriage...
A recent police raid in Hong Kong on the live house Hidden Agenda have provoked anger in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other parts of the Sinophone world. But it should also raise important parallels for music and arts venues struggling to survive under conditions of rising rents, gentrification, and targeting by politicians...
UnderU’s two-album compilation showcases a wide variety of talent from the country of Taiwan. Its considered selection has things in the favorite styles that you want to hear new works in as well as experimental tracks that break up the set and bring each track and collaborator’s unique character to the forefront...
SueAnn Shiah’s HuanDao is not only an able take on Taiwanese-American identity, but an impressive showing from a young documentary filmmaker, considering that the film was shot when Shiah was 22...
The live action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell evidences tone deaf attempts to deal with the whitewashing controversy and a dumbing down of the Ghost in the Shell franchise’s complex intellectual themes...
If the Chinese government wishes for Chinese films to circulate internationally, China simply needs to produce better films, which not only an international audience, but first a Chinese audience at home, will find enjoyable...
Now that The Great Wall is finally out, we can finally make our judgements about it as a film in and of itself, rather than basing our impressions on trailers. The film ultimately reveals far more complicated racial dynamics than simply just Hollywood "whitewashing"...
