Arts & Culture


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2022/10/28 | CJ Sheu

‘August at Akiko’s’ Calmly Reflects on Hawai‘i’s Colonial Trauma

Trauma and dispossession are at the heart of ‘August at Akiko’s’. But a soaring jazz score and sweeping cinematography suggest new directions and the possibility of moving on.

2022/09/20 | Graham Oliver

A Vivid Future, Rooted in Legend: Red Candle Games and the Making of Nine Sols

A successful crowdfunding campaign has delivered ‘Nine Sols’, a new title from Taiwanese game developer Red Candle. Its Taoist-cyberpunk imagery and action gameplay is a major break from previous hits ‘Detention’ and ‘Devotion’.

2022/09/15 | CJ Sheu

‘Mama Boy’ Is an Excellent Film With the Wrong Tone

A talented cast with an intriguing story of a sex worker and her client is undermined by a rmismatched tone of romantic fantasy.

2022/08/19 | CJ Sheu

‘Formosa Betrayed’ Barely Scratches the Surface of Taiwan’s History

‘Formosa Betrayed’ tries to build a political thriller around a mystery in an unknown land ruled with an iron fist. It’s empty didacticism — and less than thrilling.

2022/08/11 | The Conversation

Part of the Japanese Revolution in Fashion, Issey Miyake Changed the Way We Saw, Wore, and Made Fashion

Issey Miyake rejected terms like “fashion,” but his work allowed much of the world to reimagine itself through clothing.

2022/06/22 | CJ Sheu

‘After Yang’ Is Infused With Asian Americanness

‘After Yang’ is a sci-fi grounded in a plausible future history, conveying an uncanny sense of frisson familiar to Asian Americans, American Asians, or indeed anyone caught between two cultures in hard-to-delineate ways. The film is part of the 2022 Taipei Film Festival.

2022/06/22 | Graham Oliver

From Folk Hero to Video Game Character: ‘The Legend of Tianding’

Based on a Taiwanese folk hero, ‘The Legend of Tianding’ is a game with stunning period aesthetics, engrossing action, and political relevance.

2022/05/26 | CJ Sheu

‘Ink & Linda’ Celebrates Artistic Kismet

Two completely dissimilar people bond over a common project. The result is a radical story of artistic creation.

2022/04/23 | CJ Sheu

Zhang Yimou Crafts an Unusual Propaganda Film with ‘Snipers’

‘Snipers’ is an unapologetic Chinese patriotic melodrama. It’s not for everyone, but there were times that it was able to hint at a more multifaceted story.

2022/03/29 | CJ Sheu

What’s in a Slap?

Smith was wrong to slap Rock, in public or in private. And Rock and ABC were wrong for approving the joke. But commentators are also wrong for treating this incident the same as they would had all three people involved been White.

2022/03/28 | CJ Sheu

‘Microhabitat’ Is an Ozu Adaptation in Both Story and Heart

No matter how desperate Mi-so’s situation is, she’s always more concerned for those around her. Our view of her suggests that the critique is not just of modernity, but of contemporary capitalism.

2022/03/21 | CJ Sheu

‘The Dawn of Everything’ Is a (Qualified) Masterpiece

‘The Dawn of Everything’ not only shows that there are alternatives to neoliberal patriarchal settler capitalism. It tells a compelling story of how we “got stuck” where we are now.

2022/02/19 | CJ Sheu

Boredom Gives Rise to Experimentation in ‘The Cloud in Her Room’

Films in the quarter-life crisis genre often treat the drifting ennui of young adulthood as an aberration, or at most a regrettable rite of passage. But what if the ennui itself is what gets you through?