Popular reviews

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  Review by Justin Decloux ★★★½ 1

  A hyper-specific look at a wave of movies (113!) that was made in Taiwan from 1981-1983. The talking heads frame them as social-realist crime films, but 90% of the titles they discuss seem to be rape-revenge pictures. Happy to see Chu-Yen Ping (Director of FANTASY MISSION FORCE) expound on how the films quickly moved away from their social-realist roots into the realm of pure entertainment.

  The most frustrating part is almost none of these films are available anywhere with English subtitles. I would love to watch KING OF GAMBLER (1981), which was a huge box-office hit and spawned a sequel but nope, no dice.

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  Review by Gozu ★★★★½ 8

  Taiwans tapfere Filmindustrie und ihr Feldzug gegen die Zensur, soziale Ungerechtigkeit, Korruption und gegen das kommunistische China.

  Absolute Empfehlung.

  
  Filmliste:
  boxd.it/8A63K

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  Review by BrianNaas ★★★½ 2

  This is a one hour documentary that explores a very small and unknown slice of Taiwanese cinema that only lasted for a few years from the late 1970s to the early 80s. The Anthology Film Archives of NYC (where we at Subway Cinema began our festivals!) did a virtual fest of a few of these films last year along with a few interviews. They were downloadable so I was able to do so and am finally getting around to some of them. They are disreputable films - ignored in writings on Taiwanese cinema and with nearly all the prints having been destroyed. Of the 117 films that the documentarians think were made that fall into this category they could only…

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  Review by uncle_ben ★★★

  Hiding political content and system criticism in grindhouse cinema in the bodies of battered women or presenting it through them is by no means new, but it was completely unknown to me with regard to Taiwan and its film world.* As it turns out from this documentary, there were all kinds of films in this respect at the end of the 70s/beginning of the 80s - and thus somewhat later than, for example, blaxploitation, poliziottesco cinema or political pinkus/pinky violence - which would be worth rediscovering! I'll try to take a look at it...
  Apart from this circumstance, i.e. to open up a completely new view, the documentary is, however, quite difficult to watch, as it delivers content, interviews and…

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  Review by Blasma ★★★

  Yesterday marked the opening of the Taiwan Film Festival: Political Violence, Historical Trauma so I enjoyed a 1 hour panel discussion about this period of film and the community of Chinese communists deported from Malaysia.

  The following hour was a screening of this documentary.

  Highlights include:
  - the director of a gangster film (that had real gangsters acting in it) saying that it was better to pay them 5k NTD each for acting rather than risk them actually start killing people because you wouldn't be able to finish filming and make your deadline

  - Sometimes gangsters chased the director around with a knife if they weren't happy with how long they were waiting

  - "The nipples were visible for a…

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  Review by Georg Frank ★★★

  Impression Taiwan
  Taiwan Film Festival 2020 Online
  Online Screening

  Die Doku besteht fast ausschließlich aus Interviews und Film-Ausschnitten und wird recht zügig erklärt. Ich bin kaum mitgekommen - musste ich doch die Untertitel zu den Interviews und die Untertitel zu den Filmen teilweise parallel lesen und noch was vom Bild mitbekommen.

  Zwischen 1979 und 1983 wurden über 100 politik- und sozialkritische B-Movies und Sleazefilme produziert. An und für sich spannend - allein, mir fehlte der Kontext bzw. das Wissen um Taiwans Filmlandschaft und -geschichte. So war ich doch im Ganzen zwar angetan, aber auch überfordert. Hier wäre z.B. ein Off-Kommentar hilfreich gewesen, um z.B. zu Fotos aus der damaligen Zeit überzuleiten, Hintergrund-Wissen zu vermitteln oder einfach etwas zu entschleunigen.

  So…

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  Review by 島國拾影 Island Tapestry ★★★½

  「因為政治，電影沒辦法自由地去表達對於現實的批判，就必須去逃避。」侯季然這部著名的紀錄片，闡述「台灣黑電影」的興起與消亡，各種荒謬的情境非常震撼。加上「愛國」前提可以遮掩影片原意；愛耍花招的片商為逃避電檢，將暴力色情片段剪掉，放映時送到戲院把膠卷補回去，完整版則製成VHS銷售海外 (解了我《瘋狂女煞星》的疑惑)；靠《錯誤的第一步》大紅大紫的馬沙，怎能犯殺人重罪後又能那麼快出獄？一查馬沙罪名，實際上是「妨礙風化」。朱延平爆了很多料，讓我很想建議朱導快把自己被黑社會壓迫拍片的經歷寫成喜劇，一部充滿憶舊色彩、黑社會版《蒲田行進曲》將會給他一座金馬獎！

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  Review by DFvideodiary

  Great documentary about a series of movies produced in Taiwan. Interesting tales from directors and stars. Go watch LADY AVENGER (1981), GIRL WITH A GUN (1982) and WOMAN AVENGER (1981). Recommended.

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  Review by taiga ㊣ ★★★★

  侯季然的碩士論文，意圖攪亂作者論視角下的台灣影史論述，以工業角度填補影史空缺（「黑電影」之於「新電影」）。影片裡沒提到的事：本質是論文，因而對敘事的掌控度高。首尾呼應的結構：《錯誤的第一步》作為社會「寫實」類型濫觴，實則來自於一場謊言，但也反過來揭露社會寫實片之不寫實，其實反映了社會情緒的寫實，指向台灣社會在類型電影的餵養之下，對真實的需求。沒拍進去的是受訪者對這段影史的避而不談、社會寫實女星之後進入秀場、社會寫實片的泛東亞性質，從西方來，先進入日本（《女王蜂》），再來台灣、香港。試圖在商業導向的熱潮中加入風格的作者如陳耀圻、楊家雲。——《台灣黑電影》

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  Review by Steve Carlson ★★½

  Pretty thin even at an hour - a few good anecdotes and a lot of the handful of talking heads all covering the same ground.

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  Review by Andrew Moncrieff ★★★

  Available to watch for free on YouTube here (English subs included).
  They try sooo hard to make these exploitation movies seem like social realism, and apologise for any anti-communist sentiment, almost as if they’re afraid of being held to account in an upcoming Chinese invasion. Who knows. Lots of films that I wanna see though, especially Lady Avenger.

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  Review by Bowie

  Decent as far as these kind of hyper specific genre documentaries go. Does a good job of explaining the broad strokes of the production and political contexts, but never goes deep on any one topic or film.