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A City Under Siege, in Body and Spirit

·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Inside the Brick Wall—a film that can no longer safely be safely screened in Hong Kong—will no doubt prove a worthy historical document of the Hong Kong protests.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

Diasporic Loss and Foreign Gods

English Film

·May 14, 2021·3 min read

The short film, “Kuroshio Current,” aims to tell a story of diasporic loss framed by traditional Taiwanese folk religion 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 Tale of Two May 4ths

English Life

·May 7, 2021·4 min read

A few years ago during the one-hundredth year anniversary of the May 4th Movement, when members of the pan-Blue camp, along with various Chinese nationalists, were outraged by the Tsai administration instead commemorating the date as “May the Fourth be with You”—Star Wars Day, I guess you could call it Read More

A World Imbued with Mystery, Love, and Beauty

English Film

·May 4, 2021·4 min read

Gunda is is the kind of documentary film that makes cinema art. The world Gunda created is imbued with mystery, love, and beauty Read More

Cursed by the Experience of Exile

English Film

·April 27, 2021·4 min read

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

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

Animatronic Hells and Goddesses with GPS

English Life

·April 20, 2021·5 min read

Temple festivals in Taiwan often seem to be a mixture of the sacred and the profane. Sure, temples are places of worship—but temple festivities often have elements of what would otherwise be considered “low” culture incorporated into them Read More

When in Taiwan: The Color of Your Skin

English Life

·April 13, 2021·18 min read

To be a child of globalization comes with an inconceivable sense of perpetual displacement—a disturbance of sort: the fault lines between distant societies or “civilizations” are deeply felt in the space you occupy, the people you interact with, and the commonplace cross-cultural misunderstandings you observe Read More

Queer Desire and Death

English Film

·April 8, 2021·3 min read

In the hands of a lesser director, Wrath of Desire would not be the sum of its parts. In fact, the film would be something of a train wreck. However, in Zero Chou’s capable hands, Wrath of Desire is not only a stylistically distinctive film, but one which is thought-provoking. The film is one of six about LGBTQ-related issues by Chou, which she plans to shoot in East Asian cities. Chou is one of Taiwan’s best-known contemporary queer film directors Read More

Haunted by the Ghosts of Taiwan’s Colonial Past

English Film

·April 6, 2021·4 min read

Green Grass, Pale Fire follows three Taiwanese runaway miners in 1935 who are on the run from the Japanese army. Stranded in the jungles of Iriomote Island, Okinawa prefecture, after having escaped from the infamous “Green Jail” coal mine, the three hope to find a way home by boat. Given this setting, the short film explores Taiwan’s Japanese colonial period, which lasted from 1895 to 1945 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