Review | Tales of Taipei movie review: Sammi Cheng, Wu Bai in anthology that’s a mixed bag
Also featuring Karena Lam and Stephy Tang, Tales of Taipei doesn’t have much to do with that city nor its 10 component films with each other
2/5 stars
In Tales of Taipei, 10 up and coming filmmakers direct 10 stand-alone vignettes, all set in the Taiwanese capital and tenuously woven together by a newspaper delivery driver played by rock singer Wu Bai.
While anthology films often bring together an array of talent in front of and behind the camera, they rarely make for a gratifying viewing experience.
Like the telling of a good joke, the short films that comprise them must be executed with precision, setting up characters, situations and dramatic pay-offs in just a few minutes. Failure can make the briefest of narratives drag, or feel inconsequential.
