New Taiwanese movie Our TImes (我的少女時代) in Pittsburgh from November 20.

The 2015 Taiwanese movie Our Times (我的少女時代) will play at AMC Loews Waterfront from November 20. A summary from a South China Morning Post review:

When the adult Truly Lin (Joe Chen Chiau-en) feels increasingly disheartened with her unrewarding office job, memories of her high-school years – during which her teenage self had fallen into the latter of what she terms the “popular” and “not pretty” camps before a belated makeover – flood her mind.

Back in the 1990s, the young Truly (Vivian Sung Yu-hua, star of the film adaptation of another Ko novel, Café. Waiting. Love) is initially smitten with handsome schoolmate Ouyang (Dino Lee Yu-hsi), but a zany run-in with the campus hoodlum Hsu Taiyu (Darren Wang Da-lu) dramatically changes the equation.

In the excessively saccharine will-they-won’t-they affair that ensues, Taiyu and Truly go out regularly on the pretext that they’re helping each other court their respective crushes. Plot twists: Taiyu used to be a wonderful student before a traumatic incident; Truly turns out to be a hottie.

Tickets and showtimes are available at the AMC Loews Waterfront website. The theater is located at 300 West Waterfront Dr. in the Waterfront shopping complex in Homestead (map), across the Monongahela River from Greenfield, Squirrel Hill, and the rest of Pittsburgh.

2015 film The Assassin (刺客聶隱娘) in Pittsburgh, from November 27.

The 2015 film The Assassin (刺客聶隱娘) will play at the Harris Theater from November 27. The Taiwan-China-Hong Kong co-production by Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien stars Chinese actress Shu Qi; a summary, from an October A.V. Club review:

Enigmatic and often mesmerizing, super-saturated with color, drawn like a still plain ripped by brief, unexpected gusts of wind—The Assassin is one of the most flat-out beautiful movies of the last decade, and also one of the most puzzling. Returning to features after a prolonged absence, Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-Hsien has made a martial-arts period piece like none other, keeping to the classic principles and conventions of wuxia—the storied Chinese genre of wandering warriors and codes of honor—while casting them in a mysterious light. Bold takes on popular genres generally set out to de-mystify, but Hou has accomplished the opposite. Washing away centuries of film and fiction, he envisions a tale from the Tang dynasty—about a deadly martial artist who must kill the man to whom she was once betrothed—as a window into the haunted otherworld of the mythic past.

Perhaps the most confounding thing about The Assassin is how much of a straightforward wuxia movie it is, at least in retrospect. Raised since girlhood to be a remorseless killer of corrupt lords and court officials, Nie Yinniang (Hou regular Shu Qi) spares a target on account of his young son, and is punished with an assignment that’s meant to wipe away whatever speck of compassion she has left: to kill Tian Ji’an (Chang Chen), the cousin to whom she was promised in marriage as a child, and who is now the governor of Weibo. It’s a given that Yinniang—largely silent and nearly invisible, despite her stomping gait—can strike at any moment; the question that shadows every scene is why she doesn’t. She is there behind every curtain in Tian’s palace and on every rafter, listening, hanging like smoke, materializing only to disappear again—the passive hero as threat.

Showtimes have not yet been released. The Harris Theater is located at 809 Liberty Ave. in the downtown Pittsburgh Cultural District (map).

In a piece reminding readers of the Korean Heritage Classroom dedication ceremony on Sunday, November 15 at the University of Pittsburgh, today's University Times has a few new photos of the room.

Northwestern Chinese food tasting in Shadyside, November 13.

The organizers of the Northwest Chinese Popup Restaurant events will host a food-tasting event on Friday, November 13, at Leaf and Plate in Shadyside. Organizer Shanning Wan passes along information and a menu:

For $10, customers can choose a baked bun, a sandwich and a salad(from the following list). Also appetizers and entreess are a la carte. It's a BYOB event.

BUNS/BAOZI
Baked Lamb Bun 羊肉烤包子 $4
lamb, onions, ginger, cumin with spicy sauce

Baked Beef Bun 薄皮包子 $3.5

cumin, carrots, onion, beef with spicy sauce

Steamed Vegan Bun 素烤包子 $3
bell pepper, zucchini, potato with spicy sauce


SANDWICH
(baked or steamed bread)
Cumin Lamb Sandwich 孜然羊肉夹馍 $4.5

lamb, cumin, green pepper, onion
Peanut Beef Sandwich 花生牛肉夹馍 $4

beef, green bean, carrot, tofu, peanut

Soy Sauce Pork Sandwich 红烧肉夹馍 $3.75

pork, soy sauce, green onion, traditional Chinese spice

Vegan Sandwich 素夹馍 $3.5

potato, red pepper, spinach, tofu strings

SALAD
(with homemade dressing)
Pi La Hong Salad 皮拉红 $5

green pepper, celery, tomato, onion, chickpea
Smashed Cucumber Salad 拍黄瓜 $4.5

cucumber, crushed peanut, spicy garlic dressing
Buckwheat Salad 甘肃凉菜 $5.5

buckwheat noodle, carrot, celery, red and green pepper
Mu Er Salad 黑木耳凉菜 $6

black wood ear mushroom, carrot, yuba(layered dried tofu)

Leaf and Plate recently opened at 5884 Ellsworth Ave. in Shadyside (map). The event runs from 6:30 to 9:30 pm.

"The Pleasure of Mourning: Korean War Blockbusters in Post-Cold War South Korea" at Pitt, November 19.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will present We Jung Yi and her talk "The Pleasure of Mourning: Korean War Blockbusters in Post-Cold War South Korea" as the next installment of its Asia on Screen series on November 19.

WE JUNG YI is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Comparative Literature at the Pennsylvania State University. Her book manuscript, entitled Remembering the Unfinished War: Literature, Film, and the Politics of Mourning in South Korea, engages with the cultural turn in Korean literary studies by tracing historical and aesthetic connections among diverse forms of Korean War memories. She is the author of “Between Longing and Belonging: Diasporic Return in Contemporary South Korean Cinema,” collected in Cinematic Homecomings: Exile and Return in Transnational Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2014).

And a description from the Pitt International Week website:

We Jung Yi's talk traces the ways in which the Korean War blockbuster has emerged as a form of remembering the unfinished war on the Korean peninsula, in tandem with neoliberal globalization in South Korea. She will review three Korean War blockbusters as works of mourning in transition and translation: Joint Security Area, Taegukgi, and Welcome to Dongmakgol. Her analysis focuses on how their spectacle-charged forms affectively move their audiences to engage with the traumatic legacy of their nation.

The talk begins at 3:00 in 4130 Posvar Hall (map), and is free and open to the public.

"The Long Defeat: Cultural Trauma, Memory and Identity in Japan" at Pitt, November 18.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will present Akiko Hashimoto, Professor Emerita of Sociology, and her talk "The Long Defeat: Cultural Trauma, Memory and Identity in Japan" on November 18. A description, from the Pitt International Week website:

In this talk, Dr. Akiko Hashimoto explores the stakes of war memory in Japan after its catastrophic defeat in World War II, showing how and why defeat has become an indelible part of national collective life, especially in recent decades. Divisive war memories lie at the root of the contentious politics surrounding Japan's pacifist constitution and remilitarization, and fuel the escalating frictions in East Asia known collectively as Japan's 'history problem.' Admission is free and open to the public with particular interest for Japan Studies, History, and Sociology majors. Pizza will be served.

The talk begins at 12:00 pm in 4130 Posvar Hall (map).

"Storytime: Japanese and English" at Carnegie Library in East Liberty, November 17.

The next installment of the monthly program "Storytime: Japanese and English" will take place on November 17 at the Carnegie Library in East Liberty.

Celebrate our city's diverse culture as we explore new words through songs, action rhymes and stories in both English and Japanese. For children ages 2-5 and their parents or caregivers.

It runs from 11:00 to 11:30 am. The library is located at 130 S. Whitfield St. (map).

Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie (攻殻機動隊 新劇場版) at Carmike 10 and Hollywood Theater November 10, Southside Works Cinema on November 12.

The Hollywood Theater in Dormont will show the 2015 movie Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie (攻殻機動隊 新劇場版) from November 10, as will Carmike 10 at South Hills Village (map), while Southside Works Cinema will show it from November 12. A plot summary, from the official site:

Set in a futuristic Japan after the end of a brutal world war, science has advanced by leaps and bounds giving humanity the choice to prolong life and reduce suffering with the use of sophisticated cybernetics. With all of humanity linked into one system of minds and personalities known as ghosts, the biggest threat to civilization is the cyber terrorists capable of hijacking people’s bodies and memories.

When a ghost-infecting virus known as Fire-Starter begins spreading through the system resulting in the assassination of the Japanese Prime Minister, Major Motoko Kusanagi and her elite team of special operatives are called in to track down its source. As they delve deeper and deeper into their investigation, they uncover traces of government corruption and a shadowy broker that bears an all-too-familiar face.

When your target can be anywhere and look like anyone, the only choice you have is to trust your ghost, and hope you aren’t infected too.

Tickets can be purchased online via links from the official website.

Vengeance of an Assassin free at Parkway Theater, November 17.

The 2014 Thai action movie Vengeance of an Assassin will play at the Parkway Theater on November 17 at 7:00 pm. The movie, like the others in the theater's Asian Movie Madness series, is free. The theater is located at 644 Broadway Ave. in McKees Rocks (map), a few miles west of the North Side.

Rashomon (羅生門) at Point Park University, November 13.

The Point Park Anime Club and the Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania will present the 1950 Akira Kurosawa film Rashomon (羅生門) at Point Park University on November 13. A synopsis of the film, from a 2002 Roger Ebert review:

The film opens in torrential rain, and five shots move from long shot to closeup to reveal two men sitting in the shelter of Kyoto's Rashomon Gate. The rain will be a useful device, unmistakably setting apart the present from the past. The two men are a priest and a woodcutter, and when a commoner runs in out of the rain and engages them in conversation, he learns that a samurai has been murdered and his wife raped and a local bandit is suspected. In the course of telling the commoner what they know, the woodcutter and the priest will introduce flashbacks in which the bandit, the wife and the woodcutter say what they saw, or think they saw--and then a medium turns up to channel the ghost of the dead samurai. Although the stories are in radical disagreement, it is unlike any of the original participants are lying for their own advantage, since each claims to be the murderer.

The movie starts at 7:00 pm in the JVH Auditorium in Lawrence Hall (map). For more information, visit the event's Facebook page.