16 發光的城市 A R O U N D T O W N FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2009 • TAIPEI TIMES

Other releases

Compiled by Martin Williams

There’s a new IMAX theater in town: the Vieshow Sun multiplex in Wuchang Street, Ximending. With luck, IMAX moviegoers will get to enjoy varied programming instead of month-long block Colorful Mind bookings, but for now, it seems, we will have tandem schedules (新魯冰花：孩子的天空) with the Miramar IMAX. And the first film to be screened? It’s:

DIRECTED BY: Kun-ho (陳坤厚) Monsters vs Aliens STARRING: Wu Chun-kai (吳浚愷) as This animated 3D film will be a founding figure of Gu Aming, Shown Chen (陳至愷) as smash hit with the kids. A luckless New Wave cinema, director- Guo Yun-tien, Chou Yu-ting (周幼婷) An old tale learns new bride grows very large after contact A cinematographer Chen Kun-ho as Lin Hsuan-fen with an extraterrestrial object (陳坤厚) begin his distinguished career and gets locked up with various by collaborating with Li Hsing (李 Language: in Mandarin and monsters in a secret government 行) and later Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝 Taiwanese with Chinese and facility. But when some aggressive aliens ignore immigration English subtitles 賢) in films such as The Story of a procedures and start causing havoc, the monsters are let out 小城故事 Small Town ( , 1979), The Boys RUNNING TIME: 95 MINUTES to save the world. Well, America, anyway. It’s a real spectacle, From Fengkuei (風櫃來的人, 1983) and this film, but the plot is for the birds. Screening in English or A Summer at Grandpa’s (冬冬的假期, TAIWAN RELEASE: TODAY Mandarin at IMAX and regular theaters. 1984). He started directing his own features in 1979 and made several hardships of the area’s farmers. tricks important films including Growing Up The world in the story is divided Knowing (小畢的故事, 1983), His Matrimony (結 into two parts. In one, the landowners Talent and perseverance vie with power and Back in 2D movieland, Nicolas Cage continues his series of 婚, 1985) and Osmanthus Alley (桂花 and local government have wealth and privilege in Chen Kun-ho’s return to the cinema hernia-inducing roles in this apocalyptic tale from Aussie director 巷, 1987), before shifting to television power to spare but are reluctant to help Alex Proyas (I, Robot, Dark City). An elementary school time production toward the end of 1980s. those in need. In the other, the poor By Ho Yi capsule from the 1950s is dug up to reveal a strange sheet of Twenty years later, Chen returns to tea farmers toil relentlessly to earn a Staff Reporter paper with nothing but numbers, which a bereaved professor the director’s chair with Colorful Mind meager living and cannot even afford to (Cage) learns is a code of catastrophe for the past, the present (孩子的天空), a sober story about the pay their children’s medical bills. and the future. This film has divided critics more sharply than any short life of a talented child and the Stepping beyond Chung’s two other in recent memory, but Cage’s fans should be satisfied. latest big-screen adaptation of Hakka worlds, Chen updates the former’s literary heavyweight Chung Chao- simple, straightforward tale with an cheng’s (鍾肇政) 1960 novel Lupinghua emphasis on art education for children, New in Town (魯冰花). and incorporates the real-life story of Renee Zellweger is the star of the Set during the 1970s, the film begins art teacher Wu Hung-tsang (吳鴻滄), who show here. She’s a ruthless executive with art teacher Guo Yun-tien (Shown promoted art education in an elemen- who travels to Minnesota to axe Chen, 陳至愷) arriving at an elementary tary school in rural Tainan County. local jobs, but gets more than she school in the mountains. There, he Child actor Wu Chun-kai catches bargained for professionally and meets Gu Aming (Wu Chun-kai, 吳浚愷), most of the attention with his natural romantically. As a romantic comedy, a fourth-grader in his class, and is imme- onscreen manner and heartfelt laughter. this change of pace might impress Zellweger devotees, but anyone diately drawn to the boy’s unrestrained But Shown Chen and Chou Yu-ting who has seen Local Hero will hear the machine of Hollywood imagination and creativity. flounder in their roles as the two adults color-by-number filmmaking start up at the opening credits. Born into a poor family of tea grow- leads, and the villain, the director of the Instead of Scottish wile, Zellweger must deal with locals as pure ers, Gu loves to draw but often has to school, is a poorly designed character as snow — and who reminded critics of the cast of Fargo. skip school to help his parents with whose accent comes across as their work. He never paints according to more confusing than anything else. the lifelike color-scheme and propor- Colorful Mind is solid effort by a Fireflies in the Garden tions he has been taught, which for Guo director after a 20-year-long hiatus from A big cast (Julia Roberts, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson, Carrie- is the mark of a truly talented artist. the cinema, but it fails to live up to the Ann Moss) star in a small movie about family troubles in The two quickly become friends, and standard set by Chen’s 1980s oeuvre. Photos courtesy of Sky Films sub-suburban America. Roberts is the mother and Dafoe seems the young art teacher promises to send to have used his evil genius character in Spider-Man as a Gu to a county painting contest. But the template for his cruel husband and father. As so often happens powers-that-be have other ideas, and Gu in these types of dysfunctional family dramas — even if they’re is replaced by an honor student from an autobiographical — an accident is the trigger for much fighting, influential family. Deeply frustrated with fraying of nerves and gnashing of teeth. the establishment, Guo, who is leaving the school, asks another teacher, Lin 親密 Hsuan-fen (Chou Yu-ting, 周幼婷), to Claustrophobia ( ) help enter Gu’s work in a international In probing relationships within competition. constrained social circumstances, The news of Gu winning the top prize this drama from first-time writer- at the competition reaches the village. director Ivy Ho (岸西) turns to Sadly, the boy has contracted pneumo- the office setting, with all of the nia and can’t even hear his friends cheer- barriers and quiet communication ing as he lies dying on a hospital bed. that this implies. An apparently unconsummated attraction For many older members of the between Karena Lam (林嘉欣) and her married boss Ekin Cheng audience, director Yang Li-kao’s (楊 (鄭伊健) is gently probed, but like Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, 立國) 1989 adaptation Dull Ice Flower the story is told backwards, challenging the viewer to look for (魯冰花) is the definitive cinematic hidden clues. Warm reviews greeted this production. version of the tale and will forever be remembered for its heart- rending plot. In Colorful Anpanman: The Secret of Fairy Mind, director Chen spares Rin-Rin contemporary audiences Here comes the 20th feature the tear-jerking moments, starring the much-loved, bun- though he remains faithful to and-bean-paste children’s hero novelist Chung’s acute social Anpanman (“Bread Superman”) commentary on the lives and from . In this entry, the secret ingredient that gives Anpanman his courage is discovered and damaged, leading to an odyssey in search of the flower from which it derives, but the evil Baikinman (“Germ Man”) has other ideas. As always, the program starts with an Anpanman short.

Lump of Sugar The next South Korean release at Ximending’s Baixue theater is an unusual family film from 2006. Up-and-coming actress Lim Su-jeong (A Tale of Two Sisters, Happiness) plays a horse lover with a tragic past. Horse racing and effective scenes of human-horse bonding punctuate this drama.

Life, death, love and the family Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda crafts a beautiful story of a family brought together by the memory of a deceased son By Ian Bartholomew overlooks a precipice separating into the darkness behind her of his characters and acknowledges Staff Reporter the two generations. As we get to simpering smiles and the elaborate their frailties without ever laughing Family reunions are fruitful know the Yokoyama family, we courtesy of a Japanese matron. at them. Each small step toward material for meditations on life, find each of them inhabiting an Toshiko’s second son, Ryota, understanding one another is death and love, and Still Walking isolated outpost on the shifting Still Walking visits with his new wife, Yukari a major triumph, though these (Aruitemo Aruitemo) follows in sands of their own memories and (Aruitemo Aruitemo) (), a widow with a victories are transitory, quickly this long and well-worn tradition. expectations, unable, except for young son. Ryota is prepared for overtaken by life’s onward flow. A simple story of a family the briefest moments, to cross DIRECTED BY: Hirokazu Kore-eda a day of bickering with his father Kore-eda’s previous work in the reunion to commemorate the death over. When contact is made, the about his career and his marriage. highly acclaimed Nobody Knows of an older brother, the narrative principals don’t always realize it. STARRING: You (Chinami Kataoka), Yukari puts her best face on, not (Dare mo Shiranai, 2004), about brings together two aging parents The themes of memory (Ryota Yokoyama), helped by her husband’s sullen four children who survive in a and a brother and a sister, each and abandonment, explored (Kyohei refusal to engage with his parents. apartment for six months Yokoyama), Ryoga Hayashi (Mutsu with their own families. The action in Kore-eda’s earlier and more Kataoka), (Toshiko Ryota’s father (played by Yoshio after being abandoned by their takes place in the family home. experimental work, are all there, Yokoyama), Yui Natsukawa Harada), a retired doctor missing mother, revealed his enormous The setup could not be simpler, but they have been subsumed (Yukari Yokoyama), Hotaru the professional heyday of his past skill at coaxing natural per- but from these simple ingredients, into a conventional form that Nomoto (Satsuki Kataoka) and endlessly comparing the son formances from his actors. In director Hirokazu Kore-eda has serves to reduce the background he still has with the one he lost, stepping away from the overtly created a work of such nuance and noise to a minimum, allowing his The setup is simple, but the feelings in Still Walking are complex and run deep. Language: In Japanese with is too real a person to completely dramatic situation and documen- depth that the first thing you want beautifully crafted yet naturalistic Chinese subtitles lose the viewer’s sympathy. tary-style treatment in favor of a  Photos courtesy of Atom Cinema to do on leaving the cinema is to screenplay to shine. The family There is a pervasive humor that highly crafted script (also written walk right back in and watch it all eat and talk, the undercurrents of Nobody shouts, nobody cries, yet In saving this young man, Junpei RUNNING TIME: 114 MINUTES is both muted and rather dark in by Kore-eda) and conventional over again. their thoughts occasionally bubble there is a pervasive sadness about lost his life, and Toshiko never Still Walking, but Kore-eda steers dramatic structure, the director TAIWAN RELEASE: TODAY The film opens with a scene up to the surface, revealed by a the simple fact that life goes on, wants him to forget it. He sits clear of comedy just as assiduously is proving his credentials and of Chinami (You) helping her word or gesture, then sink back whatever else may happen. uncomfortably as he is served with she feels obliged to put him through as he keeps away from melodrama. is either consciously or uncon- mother Toshiko (Kirin Kiki) in down again. The beauty of the The single set piece within the tea and cakes, each courtesy an this ordeal every year, as some The director’s view of life is one sciously staking a claim to the the kitchen grating radishes for a film is that everything is revealed drama is the arrival of an awkward indictment against his physical and small compensation for her loss. filled with what might be described inheritance of Yasujiro Ozu, the family meal. Their inconsequential through everyday actions, from young man to pay his respects to living presence. Toshiko, brilliantly Her bitterness is spine-tingling, for a as a life-affirming sorrow. He acknowledged master of the chatter opens up a window that grating radishes to eating sushi. Junpei, the Yokoyama’s eldest son. played by Kiki Kirin, admits that brief second opening up a peephole delights in the imperfect goodness Japanese domestic drama.