Mahjong - 1996 - Taiwan

Mahjong - 1996 - 7/10
AKA - Ma Jiang  // 麻将

 
His string of kindergarten schools made money hand over fist.
And yet, he was indebted to criminals.  Who decide to kidnap his errant son.
The son leads a crime crew, two con men, a third who gigolos rich women.
A young Parisian arrives, looking for a wayward love, and the crew decide to turn her into a prostitute.
Complicated, confusing plot, at the core greed, avarice, obsession with profit.
Taipei is a pitiless background in often funny, often sad film.

Double Vision - 2002 - Taiwan

Double Vision - 2002 - 6/10
AKA - Shuang Tong // 雙瞳

 
The first victim died in his office, drowned or frozen to death.
Next one was incinerated in her apartment, nothing else was even scorched.
By victim three, a strange bacteria has been isolated.
Taiwan police, out of their depth, consult the FBI, who send a profiler.
Early on, the two sides barely tolerate each other, and that never subsides.
Strange murder mystery mixes scientific investigation with supernatural underpinnings.
Amidst the deaths are Taoist scriptures, a secretive cult, and immortality.
Alert: Two endings are out there.

Haunted House For Sale - 2024 - Taiwan

Haunted House For Sale - 2024 - 6/10
AKA - Xing fu fang wu shi jian bu // 幸福房屋事件簿

 
Fast-track, career relator, Lu An-Chi, and her rookie assistant, Yu Ta-chih, are assigned “stigmatized” properties.
Homes or buildings where a suicide or murder has left a lingering spirit.
Ta-chih is socially clumsy and slow, but he comes from a family of shamans.
He can see the dead, who are forever making requests.
Taiwan series filled with stand-alone episodes, funny, sad, dangerous.
Early episodes suffer awkward comic relief, which subsides midway as the overall arc darkens.
I appreciated the old-school special effects.  Color filters, visual distortions.
Also learned stigmatized property is a real thing in Asia.

Silk - 2006 - Taiwan

Silk - 2006 - 6/10
AKA - Gui Si // 詭絲

 
The investigator had been to New Zealand, Zimbabwe, London.
In Taipei, however, he strikes paydirt.  Or rather, the ghost strikes him – dead.
Now, the small team tries to understand why the spirit lingers.
Why does it now dissipate?  Why does it remain strong?  And malevolent?
The team’s research is actually anti-gravity, which leads into death and immortality.
Silk is the thread that connects this life with the afterlife, or the underlife.
Ingenious story, seldom dull, spilling ideas all over.
English subs = https://subsource.net/subtitle/silk-2006/english/10075064

Zombie Fight Club - 2014 - Taiwan

 
Zombie Fight Club - 2014 - 6/10
AKA - Shi Cheng  // 屍城

Could be the drugs were tainted, only how would that infect Taipei so quickly?
The tactical combat unit glides upwards into the tenement.
A weaponized drug gang, a partying rapper, trio of kidnappers, birthday celebrants, various lowlifes.
Plenty of females.  Must be summer as most are skimpily attired, if at all.
Then the dying starts.

 
Way too many side stories – except – these make for a banquet of unhappy meals.
Extraordinarily bloody and gory, this is full-on jet spray of splatter.
Deep into the film, the story shifts to an apocalyptic “after”.
Planet overrun, dwindling survivors underground, enduring arena combat.
Excessive, redundant, perhaps repellent, depending on your tolerance.

The Bridge Curse - 2020 - Taiwan

The Bridge Curse - 2020 - 6/10
AKA - Nü Gui Qiao // 女鬼桥

 
There is “found footage” (a style I detest) early, but that subsides after ten minutes.
Dual narratives.  An investigative journalist examines the deaths of five students four years earlier.
Weaving the activities of those same five on the night they died during a “courage test”.
At midnight, near the bridge where many students have died, 13 steps become 14.
This is heavy on suspense and tension, with little gore.
After the midway point, the plot grows increasingly twisted, and imaginative.
Stick with this – into and past the credits!
Hey, creative opening graffiti for producers.  Nice job.

English subs = https://subscene.cam/subtitle/3350843

The Ghost Bride - 2020 - Taiwan

The Ghost Bride - 2020 - 6/10

 
The Pan family are having hard times financially.
One solution is for daughter Li Lan to marry a recently deceased man from a wealthy family.
Down in the Underworld, dead son Tian Ching couldn’t agree more.
He lives a luxurious life, but wants an attractive consort.
Wait!  Then there is a Heavenly Guard, trying to bring the corrupt son to Judgment.
Attractive costumes, imaginative sets, but the story is young fantasy.
Juvenile at times, awkward, swoony romantic.  Better for young teens.

Millennium Mambo - 2001 - Taiwan

Millennium Mambo - 2001 - 6/10
AKA - Qian xi man bo  // 千禧曼波

 
Akin to watching an in-your-face trainwreck.
Vicky floats through the neon nights of Taipei.
Boyfriend Hao Hao, anxious she will outgrow him, ensures she will never have any sort of career.
Even after she meets and hooks up with small criminal Jack, hers remains a listless existence.
Shu Qi is remarkable as Vicky, other characters are peripheral support.
One of my favorite sections (apparently trimmed) is Hokkaido Japan during a retro film festival.

The Wayward Cloud - 2005 - Taiwan

The Wayward Cloud - 2005 - 6/10
AKA - Tian bian yi duo yun // 天邊一朵雲

Half sibling to 1999’s The Hole.  In the earlier film, torrential rain, in this one drought.
Water flows briefly each day, residents rely on melons to slack thirst.
A seemingly abandoned apartment building houses a film crew making porn videos.
Tenants wander listlessly, engage in bored sex, browse the empty video shop.
This is mostly wordless.  While there may be meaning, I did not think too hard.

As with The Hole, the favorite parts for me were the weird-beyond-belief musical numbers.
Prudes, beware numerous mid-core pornographic sequences.  γνῶθι σεαυτόν
Subs = https://subsource.net/subtitle/the-wayward-cloud-2005/english/2997328

Hole - 1998 - Taiwan

Hole - 1998 - 6/10
AKA - Dong  //  洞

The infection has turned into an epidemic.
Whole neighborhoods are quarantined, then residents are ordered to leave.
Meanwhile, it rains, and it rains, and it rains.
The humidity overpowers, leaks develop, trickling from one floor to the next.
In this case, opening an ever widening hole.
Where upstairs and downstairs tenants begin looking at each other, wondering,
Much of the film is the banal existence in an emptying apartment building.

 
Highlights are musical interludes performed by Grace Chung.
Daydreams?  Fantasies?  Nothing is explained.

The Tag Along - 2015 - Taiwan

 
The Tag Along - 2015 - 5/10
AKA - 紅衣小女孩

 
Individuals are being haunted, then carried away in Taiwan.
Forest demons, their woodlands being felled, hunt souls in the city.
Film launches with inventive opening credits.
The “disappeared” one realizes are those who are forgotten or neglected.
Elderly grandma, for example.
Another plus is the two part construction.  First is in the city, second is deep in the woods.
The story is narrative driven, though a couple usages of found-footage are effective.
Biggest problem is the moralizing.  Coupled with “guilt" the story grows preachy.

Vengeance Of The Phoenix Sisters - 1966 - Taiwan

Vengeance Of The Phoenix Sisters - 1966 - 6/10
AKA - San Feng Zhen wu Lin  //  三鳳震武林

Escaped convicts attack the compound, killing everyone, but specifically the man who had sent them to prison.
Wife, too.  They searched for the children, but they had escaped.
Oh, well, they are just little girls.
Fifteen years on, those little girls are grown, and now seek revenge.

 
Compelling Taiwan swordplay actioner boasts stylish camerawork and an imaginative score.
The fight choreography, and there are numerous conflicts, pales next to Shaw Brothers.
On the other hand, the cinematography compensates.
Tight closeups, handheld work, chaotic battles.  Ingenious and creative.
Recommended for wuxia fans who have seen ’em all, here’s a recent rediscovery.

Goodbye Dragon Inn - 2003 - Taiwan

Goodbye Dragon Inn - 2003 - 6/10
AKA - Bú sàn  //  不散

 
Deliberately misleading / baffling last night inside a vintage Taipei movie house.
Few customers fill the rows for a final showing of 1967's Dragon Inn.
Men wander back halls and storage rooms, smoking cigarettes throughout.
Are they are ghosts - or lost souls?
The ticket taker limps from one empty area to another, performing nightly duties.
Little transpires in this haunted environment, allowing viewers - this one, at least - to reflect on the passing of movie palaces.
I recall entertainment shrines being filled with SOLD OUT audiences.
In recent times, however, attendance plummeted.
The cast of this is intriguing, containing members of the 1967 Dragon Inn, influential Taiwanese martial arts classic that I somehow have not caught.
Goodbye Dragon Inn is pretentious twaddle or quietly insightful.  Mix of both.

Z-108 - 2012

Z-108 - 2012 - 6/10
AKA - Zombie 108 or Qi Cheng

 
Every time I worry Asian films have become slick, mainstream, middle-of-the-road bores, along comes a demented throwback to previous times.
Escaped virus turns Taipei into Deadsville.
SWAT team joins gangsters against hordes of lurching, running zombies.
Meanwhile, most of the strippers are captured by sex psychopath and his pet octopus.
Drug use, rampant nudity, chaotic plot, carnage, gore, silliness.
Great scene where obnoxious reporter questions girl, 
"Your whole family has been murdered!  Tell our viewers how you feel. How sad are you?  Oh, were you bitten?  Aaarrrgggh!!!"
 

Who Killed Cock Robin? - 2017 - Taiwan

Who Killed Cock Robin? - 2017 - 6/10
AKA - Mu ji Zhe // 目擊者

 
Neo-Noir from Taiwan works slowly, but is hard to disengage from.
High flying journalist, taken down a notch, suffers a car crash.
When he takes the car to be repaired, he is told the vehicle had been in a previous wreck.
The reporter has a flashback to an incident a decade earlier - an accident he had witnessed.
With persistent digging, he begins unearthing one version after another.
An uneasy tale that steps straight into darkness, before jumping into the pit.