Formosa Betrayed (2010)

From my favorite movies..

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It's 1983. University professor Henry Wen is killed in Chicago. FBI agents Jake Kelly (James Van Der Beek) and Tom Braxton (John Heard) are assigned the case. They join police detective Lisa Gilbert (Leslie Hope). Henry was rumored to be writing a book. His widow gives Kelly the name of Dr. Huang Li Pei at the National Palace Museum. The two suspects injure Gilbert and escape back to Taiwan. There is no extradition process but Kelly is allowed to assist. Susan Kane (Wendy Crewson) is the American liaison and Kuo (Tzi Ma) is the Taiwanese liaison. Superintenant Loh and Captain Chen are investigating. The country is under a rabid anti-communist military government who is pushing the local mob as the culprit.This is more a history lesson than an action thriller. There is a bit of international political intrigue but it's all pretty straight forward pro democracy stuff. It isn't much of a crime story. The tension never gets too high. There is action but this ain't no Jason Bourne. Van Der Beek is functional. Nothing is outstanding but there is a bit of local insights.

Spoilers ahead! In Formosa Betrayed producer and writer Will Tiao, a second-generation Taiwanese-American, offers us an unsettling yet emotionally gripping account of an American FBI agent (James van der Beek) accidentally thrust into a 1980s Taiwan in the grip of a police state nightmare, in hot pursuit of gangster hit men. Drawing in elements of police state conspiracy/political thrillers such as Hidden Agenda and Missing, Formosa Betrayed will also call to mind The Killing Fields.Formosa Betrayed opens with its bloody, shocking ending and is told in a series of flashbacks, returning again and again to the ending, then bouncing back to some point in the past to further elaborate. Like Agent Jake Kelly, the viewer has to immerse herself in the tale for a while before she finds a foothold in it. And like Agent Kelly, the viewer will find that much has been learned before the exit is reached.Back in 1983 when the idea that the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan was Free China still lingered like sewer stink on a Taipei street, Agent Kelly finds himself going to Taiwan due to a murder at a university in the US. A Taiwanese economic professor there has been killed in an unsubtle professional hit by gangsters. Sent to Taiwan to "assist" in the investigation though knowing nothing about the island, Kelly is met by Susan Kane (Wendy Crewson), who describes the ROC in glowing 1950s stereotypes of pro- and anti-Communism. While van der Beek does great work, it is Crewson's uncompromising ability to filter out the slightest rationality or sympathy from her character that in my opinion is the best acting job in this movie; she is the foil who enables van der Beek to credibly -- and understatedly -- portray the FBI agent with a conscience. The final shot of her in the movie is brilliant.The remainder of the supporting cast consists of experienced actors who turn in excellent performances. James Heard is especially enjoyable as Tom Braxton, Jake Kelly's shallow mentor. Director Adam Kane does outstanding work despite a modest $8 million budget.Aside from Susan Kane, Kelly moves through the mystery of 1980s Taiwan entirely without a foreign guide. Instead, he meets a series of Taiwanese who draw him ever more deeply into the authoritarian reality that lies behind the facade of ROC sophistication and Free China "democracy". The beauty of this approach is that it leaves Kelly, like the movie-goer, alone to fish for his own truths in this sea of competing representations of Taiwan. Though Formosa Betrayed is conventionally described as a thriller that also introduces some of the issues of Taiwan democracy and independence, and may certainly be enjoyed and understood that way, it is much more than that. What Tiao has done in this film is offered a homage to the history of Taiwan's democratization and the people who died to make it possible. Thus, the film presents not "real" history, but allegorized, sacred history. In the shooting of Professor Henry Wen, Tiao makes a double reference to the killer of writer Henry Liu in the US in 1984 by Taiwan gangsters, and to the killing of Professor Chen Wen-chen in 1980 under interrogation in Taipei. Viewers will also see a reference to the murder of activist Lin Yi-hsiung's mother and daughters in 1980. The film depicts a trip to the southern port city of Kaohsiung, where Kelly falls in with a peaceful democracy protest that is brutally assaulted by ROC troops, a clear reference to the watershed Kaohsiung Incident of 1979, in which a massive pro-democracy protest was attacked by the police. The brief reference to the Presbyterian Church recalls that it was a famous supporter of the democracy movement in Taiwan. Even the title, which refers to George Kerr's famous book of the same name, draws the reader into the beginnings of that world, to the 1947 massacre of thousands of Taiwanese who had risen up in revolt against the government, including the systematic killings of educated locals. Knowledgeable viewers will have many issues with its overwrought portrait of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) police state, though that is probably necessary for American audiences. The pro-KMT types are recognizable types, no doubt another necessity. Yet it should also be recalled, when the ROC officials smear Professor Wen (ridiculously) as a Moriarity-style gangster mastermind, that such claims were SOP for KMT disinformation campaigns. Recall too that during propaganda drive during the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident, claiming that 180 police but no protesters were injured. If what happens in the movie sounds stilted to certain US critics, it is probably because they lack experience with just how absurdly transparent such propaganda can be.But remember: if the politics get in the way, you can still sit down with that gargantuan tub of popcorn and an oversize coke that could water a small farm, kick back in front of the big screen, and spend a couple of hours savoring a solid, enjoyable thriller with some great moments of humor and pathos, enough blood to give it an "R" rating, and -- like Taiwan itself -- a shrouded, unsettled finish.Michael Turton

It is wonderful to see a film about the heroic struggle of the people of Taiwan for democracy and independence, even if I and my wife were the only people in theater at a 7:20 p.m. Saturday showing on the day of its release in Michigan. Unfortunately, the best thing I can say for it is that the backstory is basically true - there was a Taiwanese-American murdered in the U.S. by a Taiwanese gang, apparently at the instigation of Republic of China's government, possibly because he had embarrassed it by writing an unflattering biography of then R.O.C. President Chiang Ching-Kuo, and the atrocities portrayed in the film did largely happen, albeit at different times and under different circumstances. The film systematically garbles and almost trivializes a series of horrible crimes against the Taiwanese which actually occurred over a period of years by making virtually every crime of the late KMT period seem to occur within the same week as part of an effort to stymie an FBI investigation of the murder. Equally annoying was the gross parody of how actual criminal investigations in foreign countries are conducted. U.S. criminal investigators abroad always at least appear to cooperate (and show respect for) their foreign counterparts even when they suspect, as is often the case, that they are less than enthusiastic about the investigation. No FBI agent is going to charge into a foreign government's takedown of a suspect, and fight his way past a army of armed soldiers to try to get to the perpetrator first. The agent's other activities in the film are equally preposterous, going way beyond "cowboyish" to simply suicidal, both for himself and his informants. In short, the film provides a very garbled overview of recent Taiwanese history combined with the most absurd portrayal of a U.S. overseas criminal investigation since Rush Hour.

This movie talks about many real events fighting for freedom and democracy in Taiwan in 1947 - 1981. Because this is just a movie, it mixes up the time-line of the real incidents to make the movie more entertaining. People who know the incidents may feel that this movie does not reflect the truth. People who do not know the incidents may not really understand the underlying meanings/incidents of the scene. I strongly recommend that people who do not know the incidents can see the movie first, and then try to search relevant real incidents (like 228 and Kaohsiung Incident), and then see the movie second time to understand and feel more about this movie.