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Ilha Filmosa

Taiwanese cinema in review

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A taxi approaches

Godspeed

Godspeed begins with an expletive, voiced feelingly by a panicked man, his face bathed in red light. The choice of words is understandable: with a pair of shears being closed around his neck and a menacing crowd of heavies standing by, Da Bao is having a day he would rather forget.

Monga

The Early Train From Taipei

Cities of Last Things

God Man Dog

A taxi approaches

Godspeed

April 12, 2023 Rhys

Godspeed begins with an expletive, voiced feelingly by a panicked man, his face bathed in red light. The choice of words is understandable: with a pair of shears being closed around his neck and a menacing crowd of heavies standing by, Da Bao is having a day he would rather forget.

Small Talk

March 8, 2023 Rhys

This brave piece of filmmaking explores the director’s own troubled relationship with her mother and the family secrets that lie behind it.

Gezaixi & Cinema

March 1, 2023 Rhys

A brief introduction to gezaixi (Taiwanese opera) and its role in the early cinema of Taiwan.

Cities of Last Things

February 26, 2023 Rhys

Touching a number of genres – crime, sci-fi, murder mystery, romance – and by turns sad, sexy, funny and dark, Cities of Last Things is ultimately a modern fable of pessimism, of being the victim of circumstance, of illusory happiness achievable now only in drug-enhanced artifice.

Pushing Hands

February 26, 2023 Rhys

Pushing Hands is a well-paced and sensitively-handled exploration of conflict. What initially appears to be a clash of East-and-West is quickly overshadowed by universal questions of generation gaps, family obligations, identity and ageing.

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