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“I Throw Everything into a Blender When I DJ”: An Interview with Misty Penguin

·October 5, 2021·6 min read

No Man is an Island presents the first of a set of collaborations with Electric Soul, a Hong Kong-based electronic music magazine and ticketing platform. For our first cross-posted article, we spoke with Beatrice Wong, who DJs as Misty Penguin. Apart from being one of Hong Kong’s few transgender DJs, Wong is also a stand-up comedian and filmmaker. The following article was originally published on Electric Soul on September 10th Read More

A Beat Ahead or Behind of the World

English Film

·July 9, 2021·3 min read

My Missing Valentine surprised in 2020 when it swept the Golden Horse Awards, Taiwan’s top film awards. The movie took home not only Best Feature Film, but also Best Original Screenplay and Best Director. The film’s two leads, Liu Kuan Ting and Patty Lee, were nominated for Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively, but did not win Read More

A Cacophony of Migrant Workers

English Film

·June 8, 2021·3 min read

Gubuk, directed by So Yo-hen, is a unique look at the experiences of “runaway” migrant workers in Taiwan, mixing fact and fiction, realism and the fantastical. As an experimental documentary that hopes to highlight the experience of migrant workers, the film is highly Brechtian Read More

A City Under Siege, in Body and Spirit

English Film

·May 18, 2021·3 min read

Inside the Brick Wall—a film that can no longer safely be safely screened in Hong Kong—will no doubt prove a worthy historical document of the Hong Kong protests. Not only does the film document a key moment in the protests, but it proves a film encapsulating the dynamics of the protest in microcosm—and the subjective struggle faced by Hongkongers as a whole today Read More

A Competent but Problematic Adaptation

English Film

·August 17, 2021·5 min read

SEQALU: Formosa 1867 has been widely discussed in Taiwan in past few days, following its premiere last week. As the title implies, the television drama is set in Taiwan in 1867. SEQALU is the latest historical drama offering from PTS Taiwan depicting Taiwanese history. This follows suit from last year’s Island Nation, another big-budget work that dramatized the political history of Taiwan’s democratic transition Read More

A Cross-Genre Thriller About Life After Death

English Film

·July 27, 2021·4 min read

The Soul stands out among recent Taiwanese film as an effective and well-executed commercial thriller. Though the film fails to stick the landing, with its convoluted and messy conclusion undoing some of the movie’s other merits, The Soul proves an entertaining watch—even a rather evocative one Read More

A Feel-Good Story About Two Gay Dads and Their Son

English Film

·June 18, 2021·3 min read

Swingin’ aims to be a charmful, cute, and playful story, even as it touches on contemporary social issues still debated in Taiwanese society. The short film tells the story of eleven-year-old elementary schooler Qiu Qiu, who has two gay fathers, one of which is his biological father. However, the film focuses more on Qiu Qiu’s relation with his non-biological father, Wu Jia-hao. Read More

A Film About the Asian American Working Class

English Film

·April 23, 2021·5 min read

If you are like me and consider Crazy Rich Asians one of the worst Asian American films ever made, you might very well enjoy Minari Read More

A Forgotten Period in Taiwanese History and Its Last Witness

English Film

·March 24, 2021·4 min read

Green Jail is a documentary that chronicles the twilight days of Hashima Yoshiko, the last living Taiwanese resident of Iriomote Island, the second-largest island of Okinawa Prefecture Read More

A Glimpse at Democracy in Motion

English Film

·May 11, 2021·4 min read

Taking Back the Legislature, produced by the Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers group, is a powerful document of one of the most dramatic events of the Hong Kong protests of summer 2019 Read More

A Glimpse into the Life of a Hong Kong Everyman in the Midst of Protest

English Film

·April 1, 2021·4 min read

The short film, Night is Young, directed by Kwok Zune, follows a Hong Kong taxi driver on one night in 2019, sometime during the protests that broke out in reaction to a proposed extradition bill that allowed for the deportation of criminal suspects to China. It was feared that this bill would be deleterious to political freedoms in Hong Kong, with the bill used to deport pro-democracy advocates to China to face charges Read More

A Humanistic Look at How the Outbreak Was Brought Under Control in Wuhan

English Film

·August 31, 2021·3 min read

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