TAIWAN: TAIWANESE DIRECTOR CHEN KUO-FU BREAKS NEW GROUND WITH THRILLER MOVIE "DOUBLE VISION"

Record ID: 391893

  • Title: TAIWAN: TAIWANESE DIRECTOR CHEN KUO-FU BREAKS NEW GROUND WITH THRILLER MOVIE "DOUBLE VISION"
  • Date: 10th August 2001
  • Summary: TAIPEI, TAIWAN (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR CHEN KUO-FU SAYING: "I don't think we started to write a story to convey a message. No, we try to tell an entertaining story, but I think the end we cannot avoid telling a story about Taiwan."
  • Embargoed: 25th August 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: TAIPEI, TAIWAN
  • Country: Taiwan
  • Topics: General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAEO8Z9U9PQZ8IHV7UGK5HV30CC
  • Story Text: Taiwanese director Chen Kuo-fu is breaking new ground with "Double Vision", a suspense thriller movie that is a real departure for Taiwanese films - which are traditionally reality-based and message-driven.
    The film-setting looks like it could be built for the sequel to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon": a temple complete with burning incense, stone statues and the feeling that a kung-fu fight to the death might break out at any minute. But the place is really Taipei in the summer of 2001. And the cast, a modern mix of actors from America, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
    Taiwanese director Chen Kuo-fu's latest film, Double Vision, offers a big break from the typical Taiwanese film.
    To date, films made in Taiwan have been noted for their stoic, almost bland, portrayal of daily life. Chen's past offerings like The Comedy of Manners and The Personals certainly fit that mould.
    "Double Vision", though, centres around a serial killing in Taipei - a premise more easily handled by Hollywood and one that is extending Chen's signature style. Many are even seeing "Double Vision" as more than just Chen outdoing himself in terms of subject and style - but also as him entering the realms of politics with an oblique look at the relationship between Taiwan and mainland China.
    "I don't think we started to write a story to convey a message. No, we try to tell an entertaining story, but I think the end we cannot avoid telling a story about Taiwan," said Chen.
    The movie revolves around three murders with one gruesome thing in common - a rare fungus found growing on all the corpses. Against a backdrop of traditional Chinese religious beliefs and superstitions, an FBI agent played by David Morse is roped in to help Taiwanese police with their macabre enquiries.
    Morse is a veteran actor who has acted in U.S. box office hits like The Negotiator, The Rock, and most recently, Proof of Life.
    He says his feeling out of place on his first visit to Taiwan has definitely helped him get into character.
    "I guess what's interesting about him is he's probably a very familiar character in some ways to movie audiences, and to myself, because I have played men who have similar kind of responsibility and similar background. But he's taken out of his element and brought here to Taiwan. I'm sharing the same kind of experience as the character is sharing and experience his work and what he thinks is familiar in a very unfamiliar way."
    Morse is flanked by Hong Kong veteran actor Tony Leung, and Taiwan's hottest film property Rene Liu.
    Leung, who is best known to international audiences when he bared his buttocks in the French film, "The Lover", says the storyline unsettled him.
    "It's terrifying, this is a horror story, it's terrifying, it never happened in my life, this kind of things that never happen in my life," said Leung.
    Liu, on the other hand, has collaborated with Director Chen in "The Personals" which was shown at Cannes Film Festival in 1999. And she's feels it's the humanism in the story that makes the film attractive.
    "We put some ghost and then different religions in this film but we still believe human beings in this film is the most important thing," said Liu.
    Besides the famed cast, Double Vision also has a hidden weapon in art designer Tim Yip. He was the art designer for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" which won him an Oscar this year.
    And his experimental use of black and white and accentuated colours serves as a frame for the moods of the story.
    "You can see everything is real as what you see in daily life but I change all the colours and how the positions, a little bit change, a little bit change. And certainly when you have some events happens, like the killers happen, the colours will jump out like a bomb," said Yip.
    Double Vision is the first Hollywood-backed film to be set in Taipei. And it's one of four Asian projects this year the Columbia Tristar company has invested in, following the international success of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
    Shooting for the film has been completed and it's set to premiere at the end of this year.
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