Formosa Betrayed
2009
Action / Thriller

Formosa Betrayed
2009
Action / Thriller
Plot summary
In the early 1980s, an FBI Agent is assigned to investigate the murder of a respected professor. Through his investigation, he unearths a spider web of international secrets that has been thriving within college campuses across America for decades. His investigation takes him across the Pacific to the island nation of Taiwan, where with the help of the outspoken widow and an unlikely spy, he learns that the Professor's killing was not a random act, but a desperate move by a scandalous government intent on keeping its nefarious activities under wraps. Our detective soon finds himself on a collision course against the U.S. State Department, the Chinese Mafia, and the Nationalist Chinese Government - in a land where the truth is not what it seems and the only people he can trust, cannot be trusted at all. Inspired by actual events.
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLUMovie Reviews
Made in Taiwan
Garbled history - absurd investigation
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.