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16 發光的城市 A R O U N D T O W N FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2010 • TAIPEI TIMES FILM REVIEW OTHER RELEASES orn and raised in a day of rest turns into an students at New York University. playing guitar on their couch as to whether the GIO wants COMPILED BY IAN BartHOLOmeW Malaysia, educated in adventure in which the two When Ho decided to bring to if they were taking a boat trip to encourage creativity or North America and wayfarers encounter various life an image inspired by Roman back to their seaside hometown. bureaucracy. We’d like to having worked and characters as they trek through Polanski’s 1958 short Two Men The film may be upbeat discuss with the [GIO] how The Cove lived in Taipei for the Taipei’s urban hinterland. and a Wardrobe through a tale in tone, but the prospect of to make the regulations more A documentary about an industry that Bpast nine years, Ho Wi-ding (何 Pinoy Sunday shows a of Filipino migrant workers, it reaching a great number of flexible for movies about new kills thousands of dolphins every year 蔚庭) knows what it is to be an different side of Taipei that is he embarked on an intense audiences is not. Despite the immigrants,” Ho said. that combines elements of the heist outsider. This no doubt is part foreign to most of the city’s year-long research project that favorable reviews the film has Foreign migrant workers movie with agitprop. National Geographic of the reason why the director inhabitants. Instead of Sogo involved hanging out with OFWs received after it premiered with ID cards can buy movie photographer Louie Psihoyos makes his spent the past four years department stores and Eslite at Taipei’s Little Manila and at the Taipei Golden Horse tickets at a discount price of filmmaking debut with this Oscar-winning preparing, raising money for bookstores, our protagonists similar communities. “It is like Fantastic Film Festival (台北金 NT$150. Visit pinoysunday. movie in which a team infiltrates a cove on the coast of Japan where and making Pinoy Sunday (台 visit St Christopher’s Catholic an ethnographic film project. 馬奇幻影展) last month, only two pixnet.net/blog/post/6207639 dolphins are captured for sale to aquariums, or slaughtered for meat. 北星期天), a humorous tongue- Church and Chin Wan Wan You go into a tribe, observe, movie theaters, Spot — Taipei to find out which six theaters Beautifully photographed using military-grade surveillance equipment, in-cheek peek at the life of (金萬萬) market, where OFWs collect facts and make a report,” Film House (台北光點) and Vie are screening Pinoy Sunday in and features Richard O’Barry, the dolphin-trainer from the Flipper TV overseas Filipino workers hang out, shop and seek Ho told the Taipei Times. Show Cinemas Xinyi (信義威秀影 Taipei, Jhongli (中壢), Tainan, series who is now a passionate dolphin activist. (OFWs) in Taipei whose stories entertainment. On their return But instead of making a slice- 城), have agreed to show Pinoy Douliu (斗六) and Kaohsiung. are rarely told. journey, they pass by junkyards of-life portrait or poignant social Sunday. Most movie theaters 鑑真大和尚 The film centers on Manuel and public housing complexes critique like film critic-turned- hung back when they heard the Venerable Jian Zhen ( ) (Epy Quizon) and Dado (Bayani in Taipei’s desolate outskirts director Rich Lee (李奇) does in story is about OFWs, and staff This animation, produced by DaAi Agbayani), two Filipinos who en route to their home in the Detours to Paradise (歧路天堂), at one theater went so far as Television (大愛電視台), a Buddhist work in a bicycle factory in city’s fringe, which is “far away Ho goes for a lighthearted and to say they didn’t want foreign broadcaster affiliated with the Buddhist a Taipei suburb. Their life at from Taipei 101,” as Bayani’s humorous tone, opting to depict migrant workers hanging PINOY SUNDAY Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation (佛 the plant entails six days of character points out. the sunnier side of the lives around in front of the theater, 台北星期天教慈濟慈善事業基金會), has already received drudgery. Then there is Sunday. Through the lens of American of migrant workers, who sing according to Ho. a huge reception in pre-release screenings, Like other Filipino migrant cinematographer Jack Pollack, karaoke, laugh, relax and can be Moreover, the dominant DIRECTED BY: admittedly mostly among the faithful. The story is interesting and little workers, the two friends make the image of two men carrying a themselves on their days off. Filipino language spoken by HO WI-DING (何蔚庭) known, dealing with the Tang Dynasty monk Jian Zhen (鑑真), who is long bus trips to Taipei’s “Little bright red couch against a sparse The discrimination and other the leading characters also credited as one of the most important transmitters of Buddhist teaching Manila” on Zhongshan North rural/urban backdrop delivers forms of injustice inflicted on made the film, a recipient of STARRING: to Japan. His epic six attempts to get to Japan, in which he lost his Road (中山北路) where they go a visual contrast that is both them by Taiwanese society the government’s Subsidy EPY QUIZON (MANUEL), sight and a number of close followers, is regarded as second only to the to church, hang out with their amusing and absurd. do lurk beneath the surface, For Film Production (電影輔導 BAYANI AGBAYANI (DADO), journey of Tripitaka to India in the annals of great sojourns made by fellow countrymen, have fun “To me, this image is very nevertheless, and are often 金), run into trouble with the ALEssANDRA DE ROssI (CECILIA), Buddhist monks. The production is based on five years of painstaking and flirt with girls. third-world-country, and it can rendered in comic absurdity. Government Information Office MERYLL SORIANO (ANNA) research, and features more than 130 characters, many based on original On one particular Sunday, happen anywhere in the world. One example can be found in (GIO, 新聞局), which issues descriptions, all in an effort to give as accurate an historical account as RUNNING TIME: Manuel and Dado discover a Imagine two Mexicans or a the film’s most poetic moment, the money. Because one of possible. In addition to bolstering Buddhism as part of Japan’s religious 85 MINUTES sofa that’s been discarded on a couple of poor foreign students when Manuel and Dado, lost the subsidy’s rules states that establishment, Jian Zhen is credited with inspiring the formation of sidewalk. Excited about how the carrying a sofa on the streets and exhausted on a riverside Chinese dialects should be the Language: Japan’s Ritsu school of Buddhism and introducing many aspects of Tang couch could bring a measure of of Los Angeles,” said Ho, who at dusk, panic over the thought dominant languages spoken TAGALOG, ILONGGO, ENGLISH, Dynasty science and culture to Japan. comfort to their drab dormitory has also made two shorts with of missing the factory’s curfew, in government-funded films, TAIWANESE AND MANDARIN WITH life, the pair decide to carry, on Pollack, Respire (呼吸, 2005), which could lead to them being an additional copy of the film CHINESE AND ENGLISH SUbtITLES foot, their precious find across which won two awards at deported. A dreamlike musical was dubbed in Taiwanese, and Ricky town, out of the city and back to Cannes, and Summer Afternoon sequence follows, showing the several commercial screenings TAIWAN RELEASE: A film about a child who sprouts wings TODAY the factory. (夏午, 2008). The two have two friends floating down the of it are required. might sound like a comedy, but in the case What is supposed to be been friends since their days as river, singing, drumming and “I think it comes down of Ricky, by art house director Francois Ozon, it is anything but. With Ricky, Ozon, who has created dense and thoughtful work such as 8 Femmes (2002) and The Swimming Pool (2003), pushes further off into the deep end. The director’s attempt to blend a gritty, realist portrait of working-class parenthood and an allegorical tale of a child who is forever taking off for the freedom of the skies is not without some very grave problems, Hidden in plain sight yet its sense of ambiguity and some fine acting makes Ricky appealing. ‘Pinoy Sunday’ will most likely not be playing at a theater near you because its subject is Taiwan’s Hot Tub Time Machine migrant workers — a topic most cinemas think will be of little interest to mainstream audiences This week sees a number of comedy releases, but not many laughs. The best BY HO YI of the bunch is probably Hot Tub Time STAFF REPORTER Machine, which might get the votes of the type of audience members who got off on The Hangover. Hot Tub Time Machine returns to the 1980s, and nostalgia for the clothes, haircuts and music of that period could work for the over 30s revisiting their misspent youths. John Cusack, among others, gets to do just that, as the filmmakers exploit virtually every paradox and social awkwardness that can be generated from a well-worn time travel scenario. This is far from the height of Cusack’s generally strong track record, but for a buddy movie over a couple of beers, you could do worse. Bayani Agbayani, left, and Epy Quizon star in Pinoy Sunday, directed by Ho The Backup Plan Wi-ding. Jennifer Lopez is still trying to make it PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOD DAYS FILM back into mainstream cinema, but this new release reveals that she is in more need than ever of a backup plan to kick-start her celluloid career.

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