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Today, the 27th Taipei Film Festival unveils this year’s opening and closing films. Starring Austin Lin and Vivian Sung, the opening film, “96 Minutes“, is director Huang Tzu-hsuan‘s latest feature. It is such a surprising coincidence that Lin was the Taipei Fim Festival ambassador last year and Sung is the ambassador this year. In 96 Minutes, they play a detective couple; together with Wang Po-chieh and Lee Lee-zen, they not only race against time but compete against each other’s wit and strength in this thrilling disaster action movie. The closing film is Marching Boys, a passionate teen film directed by Ray Jiang, who is best known for the Gatao series. With two Supernovas Rosen and Yu Jie-en as well as the rising young actor Liu Yu-ren as its leads, Marching Boys shows how a youth marching band fights to pursue their dream on the big screen. In addition,...

Taiwanese cinema has lofty global ambitions, as evidenced by the deployment of the country’s biggest stars and the presentation of international co-production plans at Hong Kong Filmart this week.

Taiwanese talents Lee Lee-Zen, Yao Yi-Ti and Jacob Wang brought their much-anticipated big-budget actioner 96 Minutes — set around a bomb crisis on a high-speed rail train running between Taipei and Kaohsiung — to a special spotlight showcase event Tuesday that featured three new Taiwanese films and a TV series. Meanwhile, one solo production and six co-productions involving filmmakers from the island have been part of the Hong Kong event’s ongoing film-financing sidebar.

Fresh on the heels of a similar promotional push at the Berlinale and at SXSW, the signal that the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (Taicca) wants to share with the filmmaking world is that the country is looking to make deals.

“At Taicca, we are committed to fostering the...

Taiwan’s film industry is out in force at Filmart with a slew of new projects, including upcoming feature films Penguin Girl, That Burning House and 96 Minutes and ten-episode series A Controversial Entertainer.

Taiwan Creative Content Agency (Taicca) is presenting these projects, along with their key creative teams and cast members, at a showcase in Filmart today.

Penguin Girl, from first time feature director Yuyu Yang, is a fantasy romance starring Charlize Lamb and Hua Chen who will both be attending today’s showcase. The film, which premiered as the opening film of last year’s Kaohsiung Film Festival, follows a young woman who studies the marital life of penguins and believes humans can also find true love. Distribution Workshop is handling international sales.

That Burning House, directed by Tsai Yin-chuan, delves into social issues surrounding child protection and juvenile crime. Currently in post-production, the film is produced by...

Japanese cult filmmaker Sabu is known to spice things up in his work. The kooky mix of violence, fantasticism and humor sometimes leads to unwatchably ridiculous results as with Chasuke’s Journey, his last film to make Berlinale competition. His latest feature is not nearly as weird, though still very much certifiably schizophrenic, compromising a strong premise that had the potential for a cool, kick-ass ride.

Blood starts to spill not five minutes into the movie as we meet the titular Mr. Long (played by Chen Chang) in the basement of a temple somewhere in the southern Taiwanese metropolis Kaohsiung. Employing efficient, no-frills stabs and jabs inspired by Japanese swordsmanship, the contract killer finishes the job almost as soon as he begins. On his next assignment in Tokyo, however, the mission fails and the quiet hitman is left for dead. In a twist to the familiar genre storyline, we find out that Mr.