Director Chang Yi-ching's (張伊青) new documentary, 《做自己的條件》Be Myself, made its world premiere last night at the 25th annual Taipei Film Festival. Be Myself documents video editor Hsin-yu’s (欣嶼) journey through gender affirming surgeries and changing his legal gender from female to male. Chang’s new full-length documentary, running at 138 minutes, is the first of its kind, providing viewers with a detailed portrayal of female-to-male (FTM) transition and achieving new heights in FTM transgender representation in Taiwan. However, Be Myself suffers from a severe lack of sensitivity and accountability on the part of the director, as well as a narrative arc that ultimately centers Hsin-yu’s family members rather than himself and inadvertently perpetuates subtle forms of transphobia Read More
With its laughably inconsistent plot and confusingly selective use of CGI, "Detrimental" could be Hong Kong’s contribution to the "so-bad-it’s good" genre Read More
Reminiscent of Tsai Ming-liang’s "Stray Dogs", "In the Morning of La Petite Mort" follows the lives of three working class individuals at the edges of Taiwanese society Read More
With bigoted depictions of Kazakhs and an uninspiring plot, “Dauren’s Wedding” spoils its chance to elucidate an otherwise intriguing premise Read More
Get the Hell Out is an absurdist zombie comedy that starts out well enough Read More
Wuhan Wuhan, directed by Yung Chang, is a humanistic look at everyday residents and medical workers in Wuhan at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. The documentary begins shortly after the peak of cases in the city, and follows residents of Wuhan until the end of the city’s lockdown in April 2020 Read More
“We Don’t Dance for Nothing” is a dance and theatrics filled “love letter” to a Fillipina migrant worker’s life in Hong Kong Read More
Tiong Bahru Social Club, Tan Bee Thiam’s solo directorial debut, is a satirical comedy that follows a man who leaves his humdrum routine office job to become an “Agent” for a data-driven project aimed at creating the “happiest neighborhood in the world” Read More
The Story of Southern Islet, the debut of Malaysian director Chong Keat Aun, is a stunning film on every level. It is a film that is not only technically accomplished but which has an intricate and distinctive beauty to it Read More
Discover the top Taiwanese movies of 2023 across genres like comedy, romance, thriller, LGBTQ, comedy, and more—streaming links included when available Read More
"Eye of the Storm" dramatizes the infamous 2003 lockdown of Taipei’s Heping Hospital, providing a COVID-influenced historiography of the event Read More
Tortoise Under the Earth, described as somewhere between a documentary and fiction by director Shishir Jha, takes a mostly fly-on-the-wall approach to its subjects. This would be an elderly couple in a remote area of Jharkhand, India. While the two are dealing with the loss of their daughter, they are also about to be driven off of the homes that their families have inhabited for generations due to uranium mining Read More