A report in the Financial Times earlier this week indicated that some in Washington DC were upset with DPP presidential candidate William Lai for suggesting that one day he hoped to see a Taiwanese president visit the White House. As the same article quoted an official stating that the White House had not been in contact with the Lai campaign over the remarks, those unhappy about Lai’s comments may not be from the White House, but could be from the State Department Read More
Therapy Dogs is a creatively stylized take on high school, following two friends in their senior year. Though the film is unlikely to appeal to all viewers, given its deliberately disjointed narrative, it manages to capture something of the nihilism–and violence–of wayward teenagers 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
Brian Hioe spoke to Alexmalism, who researches electronic music culture as a Ph. D candidate at the City University of Hong Kong, and is also a DJ, producer, and sound artist. The following article originally appeared on Electric Soul, a Hong Kong-based electronic music magazine and ticketing platform, on December 21st, 2021 Read More
“Shunyata” sets high ambitions, with a frame narrative suggesting religious or spiritual undertones. Likewise, the film aims to dazzle through sound and image. Consequently, it demands concentration in order to mine out meaning Read More
Brian Hioe spoke with Hojo about his recently taking up a post as music director of 23 Music Room in Taipei. The following article originally appeared on Electric Soul, a Hong Kong-based electronic music magazine and ticketing platform, on February 24th 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
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
The Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park in Taipei is one of the two White Terror sites managed by the National Human Rights Museum. Without knowing Taiwan’s history, this park would look like a quaint college campus from a bygone era, but as the name of the park implies, this was a historical site dedicated to the legacy of White Terror, the very place where victims of White Terror were interrogated, tried, and imprisoned Read More
Taiwanese horror-thriller film “The Funeral'' is more fittingly enjoyed as a family drama with scary elements Read More
Dealing With Dad has all the makings of a solid comedy about an Asian American family. Nevertheless, the film simply fails to come to life somehow. Maybe it’s because the entire movie feels tonally off-key. Perhaps it has to do with its near-complete lack of soundtrack, an odd choice outside of the art house genre . Or, it may have to do with how few of the movie’s jokes hit the mark Read More
Look back on the past year of Asian electronic music with the top ten articles from our partner publication Electric Soul! Electric Soul is a Hong Kong-based electronic music platform and publication Read More