Peril and Politics

16 發光的城市 A R O U N D T O W N FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2009 • TAIPEI TIMES FILM REVIEW Peril and politics Childlike robot Astro Boy has his work cut out for him in this computer- animated feature, which starts from the beginning as he discovers his powers and love for his scientist ‘father’ and ends with combat against evil forces and hostile robots BY STEVE PERSALL NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, St PETERSBURG, FLORIDA ’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Dr Evil’s personality plus weaponry, Dad rejects this is Astro Boy’s screen debut, each Frisch’s Big Boy rocket ship! the replacement. character and situation seems familiar It No, it’s only Astro Boy, another Astro Boy, as he’s called, becomes from other movies, as if The Iron Giant, Japanese anime hero with fans in high a wanted robot, hunted by a hawkish Monsters vs Aliens and Robots already enough Hollywood places to get an president (Donald Sutherland) for use bled Tezuka’s legacy dry. Americanized movie version made. Didn’t as a weapon of mass destruction. Any they learn anything from Speed Racer? resemblance to a former US president Well, maybe that it’s wiser to animate isn’t coincidental, along with the fact cartoons rather than turn flesh and blood that robot power sources are either actors into them. blue (good guys) or red (bad guys), like Astro Boy is the holy grail of anime, states on election day. Political allegory ASTRO BOY created by Osamu Tezuka in the 1950s is a staple of anime but seldom so as a manga comic book then turned heavy-handed. into a 1960s TV series, inventing the Astro Boy escapes from floating DIRECTOR: Japanese animation genre. I know that Metro City to Earth below, a wasteland DAVID BOWERS only because I looked it up on Wikipedia, of refuse that WALL-E couldn’t clean up. which isn’t entirely reliable, but anime Earth is where only the poorest humans WITH THE VOICES OF: KRISTEN BELL (CORA), NICOLAS cultists won’t stand for misinformation. live, including a juvenile gang scavenging CAGE (DR TENMA), SAMUEL L. Such obsessives are the best audience for parts for Hamegg (Nathan Lane) to JAckSON (ZOG), BILL NIGHY (DR Astro Boy while masses already gorged assemble and sell as rock ��’��em, sock ’em’em ELEFUN), DONALD SUTHERLAND on better ��’��toons this year shrug it off. robots. Eventually all of these issues (GENERAL STONE) The setup is a high-tech reverse take converge in an admittedly spectacular on Pinocchio, with a precocious boy climax. Getting there is the rub. TAIWAN RELEASE: named Toby (voice of Freddie Highmore) Director and co-writer David Bowers TODAY dying in a laboratory accident and then (Flushed Away) lovingly crafts a kinetic being reincarnated as a robot by his tribute to Tezuka’s source material, RUNNING TIME: scientist father (Nicolas Cage). Although filled with whooshing action and finely 94 MINUTES PHOTOS COURTESY OF VIEVISION uploaded with Toby’s memories and detailed backgrounds. But even though OTHER RELEASES COMPILED BY MartiN WILLiams E. SHA Age (藝霞年代) Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky Kitaro the Movie: Japan Explodes!! PLUS Digimon Savers the Movie: Ultimate The only Taiwanese release Within a matter of weeks, out comes Power! Activate Burst Mode for this week is a documentary another film about Coco Chanel. Gegege no Kitaro, the ancient that looks back at — and This one delves not into her rise to boy spirit who labors to keep the recreates — the exploits of the top ranks of the fashion world, human world free of supernatural the famed E. SHA song and but with her subsequent affair with strife, is back in this animated dance troupe, which folded the famed (and married) composer. film for kids after a run of two in 1984 after more than two Unlike Coco Before Chanel, this one live-action pictures. Kitaro decades of performances and is liberally spiced with sex scenes answers a request for help from international tours. This is a as the scheming Coco gets her man. a female spirit, which doesn’t real trip down memory lane The rather unsympathetic Stravinsky bode well given the film’s subtitle. for older viewers; younger folks smitten with boy and girl band ephemera is played by Mads Mikkelsen, who Accompanying Kitaro is a short could do worse than check out what their parents and grandparents were was simply perfect as James Bond’s Digimon film with a long title enjoying at a difficult time in Taiwan’s history. Screening at Cinema 7 絕( gambling, bleeding-eye foe in Casino in which our heroes face an evil being that sends masses of people to sleep with 色影城) in Ximending, the Sun theater (日新大戲院) in Taichung and the Royale. mysterious thorns. Vieshow complex in Tainan from today, then at the Vieshow complex in Kaohsiung from next Friday. Halloween II The Admiral The Man Who Loves Michael Myers is back in this Rob Zombie- The relentless hunt for European The man here is a forlorn chap who directed sequel to his sociologically angled product by Taiwan’s small can’t seem to sustain a relationship, a remake from a few years ago, though it is not distributors this week brings us problem worsened by the model love a remake of the 1981 sequel (sorry, hospital an apparently revisionist Russian life of his gay brother. This Italian horror fans). As subtle and as sophisticated epic that turns monarchist naval film is a sincere attempt to depict as two kicks to the throat, escaped lunatic commander Alexander Kolchak the frailties of men in relationships Michael continues his rampage in search of into a nationalist hero for 21st and offers a few name stars (Monica his sister who escaped his clutches in Part century viewers. The good admiral Bellucci, whom the hero breaks up 1. The violence in this one is so brutal and starts the film in a battle against the with, is the most familiar to Taiwanese metronomic that it will sorely test those who Germans during World War I and audiences), but its critical reception think they’re watching a scary movie; the continues by repelling Bolshevik has been so-so. Starts tomorrow. dreamlike glimpses inside Michael’s mind forces on land. Meanwhile, this heroic fellow has taken to lusting after could send others into fits. There is, however, the wife of one of his colleagues. Sounds like a real charmer. Still, if a welcome and muscular cameo by Margot Kidder. you’re into period frocks and taboo romance ... Fame Sing, Salmon, Sing! Cross-Straits Films Exhibition Another remake, this time of the iconic “Salmon” would appear to be Here’s another mini-festival of six Chinese films, this performance film of the early 1980s, targeting the unkind nickname given to time at the Xinyi Vieshow in Taipei from Monday to an audience that wasn’t even born at the an enthusiastic but insecure Wednesday next week and the Vieshow Durban in time; in Taiwan, many will never have heard Japanese schoolgirl who loves Taichung from Wednesday through Friday. The titles are of the original. A bunch of talented kids singing in her school choir. the disaster flick Super Typhoon (超強颱風), which Variety learn the ropes at the New York City High Unfortunately, she flips out described as “low-rent” camp and whose hero is a mayor School of Performing Arts; some will make it, when an unflattering photo (sounds like a must-see); Wild Horse From Shangri- others won’t, but it all ends in a big number of her appears in the school La (命懸800公里), Apology (道歉), The Ring of Rainbow that won’t be selling albums or (these days) rag and, despondent, quits the Flower (夏天有風吹過), Old Fish (千鈞一髮) and Wheat generating massive iPod downloads, despite group. Musical rehabilitation (長平大戰之麥田). The last two open separately next week the talent on show. Generally, this was follows when she falls in and the week after. Some of the films will introduce the poorly received, but it might play better for with a group of “punks” who director and actors after the screening. those who never saw the original and harbor are musically inclined. This family-friendly fare comes with generous fantasies of making it big in showbiz. amounts of music. Remarkably, it doesn’t seem to be based on a manga. Japanese title: Utatama..

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