Formosa Betrayed the movie is on its way and in search of a distributor. A local newspaper article has the skinny, along with a doozy of a historical error:Wait, what's that last part, you ask? Well, Van Der Beek plays Jake Kelly, an FBI agent, in the movie. He's looking into the murder "of a Taiwanese-American professor at a Midwestern college in the early 1980s," says the movie's Web site.Against their Communist Chinese rulers! Beijing can only dream...
But there's more: It's based on actual events on college campuses here, involving both Taiwanese and Chinese student-spies. The clash between Taiwanese citizens and their Communist Chinese rulers began in 1946 and comes to a head in this film.
"Taiwanese-Americans have been waiting for this story to be told for generations," says Evita Huang, a spokeswoman for Formosa Films.
Apparently a large number of Taiwanese-Americans in St. Louis, Kansas City and other spots in the Midwest invested in the film and it's being shown as a courtesy to them on Saturday. Huang couldn't characterize how much of a role Taiwanese-Americans living in St. Louis had in getting the movie made. She did say a "pretty good chunk" of investors are from the Midwest.
The film company is still shopping for distribution. Formosa Betrayed premiered on February 28 at the WGA West in Beverly Hills, an important date for Taiwanese-Americans and for anyone who cares about basic human rights. It was the anniversary of the "228 Incident," in which between 10,000 and 30,000 Taiwanese were killed in a revolt against their Communist Chinese rulers.
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If I were more charitable, I'd say it's a deep insight to label the KMT as Communist Chinese rulers, since the KMT and CCP really are just twins cut from the same cloth. They both control/controlled society in large part through a one-party system, through thought control (control of media, education and the monster bureaucracy that it is in China and Taiwan), through paramilitary/police forces...
ReplyDeleteCommunism really wasn't communism so much as it was a authoritarian total control of society that was only sometimes communist/socialist/progressive in substance. Redefining communism properly as the structure of the control of society rather than an economic system never really truly implemented (and not incompatible with a democratic system) may not be such a ridiculous idea actually.
Finding a distributor could be a real problem.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually a effect of long time propaganda menifistation of KMT. It's just amusing...or sad, that a lot of people don't realize what kind of monster Chiang and KMT were. Even a lot of Taiwanese today still can't turn their heads around.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people around the world, by human nature, would sympathize with Taiwan's situation...but they lack the understanding to support it in the proper way...so a lot of time they are totally confused between KMT and Taiwan, and ending up supporting KMT without knowing what the heck they are actually supporting...I think. Basically KMT used propaganda to turn those sympathy to KMT instead. Plus the complicated history of Taiwan helps in creating this confusion.
Anon, I think you are correct on saying KMT and CCP are similar. They have a lot of similarities. However, I would strongly disagree on the compatibility of Communism and Democracy. And here is why:
ReplyDeleteCommunism is a control of economy and indeed a structure of economy. It was not meant to be the control of society. But it turns out to be one. Why? Because to control economy, to completely redistribute wealth (so basically everyone gets the same thing), to assign people's profession (because it's a planned economy, you have to tell people if they should work in the farm or steel mill so you get certain ammount of food or steel required), the government has to have total control of the society. The government has to tell its people what to eat and what to work on etc (because our government only planned to produce 100 chicken this year, you cannot have more than half of a chicken etc).
Such government by its very nature is incompatible with democracy. Because such government has to make decision on everything, but a democratic government is known to be very slow at decision making. You can just imagine in a decmocratic communist country, some will say we should produce more chickens while others say we should produce more beef instead. In the end, they cannot decide on anything and everyone is unhappy.
Economic control by government leads to social control by government...I think that's the nature of things.
Thing is, Dixteel, I can name off the top of my head three democratically (and not corrupt-like, but really democratically) elected Communist governments. All of them are states in India, but still. Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura have all elected Communist leaders through a democratic process. All three have been re-elected at least once. I am not sure which ones are still in power, but at least in Kerala the Communists continue to be a major force...in a democratic system.
ReplyDeleteSo, ahh, no.
Perhaps, Jenna, they can exist. Even if there are none now, there might be some in the future.
ReplyDeleteBut I just don't think they are compatible. In another word, they won't work well together. The country is most likely going to be in a total mess. And if those states are independent countries, it is highly likely they will either loss democracy or loss communism. They have to pick one way or the other eventually I think. Coexistence of these 2 IMO is just way too difficult.
The 3 examples are part of India, and that I think makes a huge difference. India's economy is capitalistic in nature, and even a few states inside it elected communist parties to govern, I doubt they can actually implement full communist economy and control, because they are part of India, not independent countries.
India used to be a socialism democratic state indeed. But that didn't work out too well at all. That's why they changed their economic structure.
And check out North Korea's full name: Democratic People's Republic of Korea. They wanted to be democratic, but look how it turns out.
oh, and just to get the terminology correct...when I said India was socialism I meant they have a planned economy, similar to communism. I think nowadays when you say socialism people might confuse it with other type of stuff like welfare state...so just to be clear.
ReplyDeleteAfter multiple reminders by commenters and what appears to be at least two edits by the author, the information in the article has now been fixed.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the author still hasn't responded to my question about where he got such wrong info.
Tim Maddog