Wei Te-sheng and his production company gave us historic epics such as Seediq Bale and Kano in the past. Ever since he wrapped Seediq Bale, Wei has been planning to make a film set in the Dutch colonial era, based on Tó-hong-lāi-hái (To-hong Lagoon) a 1997 historical novel by Wang Jia-hsiang (王家祥).
In the past, the sets of Kano and Seediq Bale became tourist attractions but had to be taken down because the sets don’t meet building codes. So this time, Wei is planning to build a theme park while filming his Teyouan Trilogy.
The theme park is going to feature an exact replica of Fort Zeelandia. The project seems like a massive undertaking, and like his movies, I can’t begin to image how he sees them through. However, if it has authentic 17 century fort and Aboriginal villages, and a Dutch warship plus a couple of junks, I’m sold.
Well it won’t be any worse than Hongmao Cheng. That surely is the saddest tourist site I’ve ever seen. Shabby as all get-out and the rooms are mostly empty. Cool cannons though.
Some theme parks have non-local performers already. Although, they are usually a part of touring groups. I don’t know if Taiwan will able to attract performers to play 17 century Dutch colonials… Most Dutch people today are too tall to play their ancestors anyway…
If they want this to be authentic, they need to find at least one Swede. The guy in charge of this Dutch fort when it was lost to Koxinga was apparently Swedish!
I’d do it if the pay was right…and they didn’t make me stand out in the hot sun all day. Although I guess profuse sweating would make my performance as a Dutchman in the tropics all the more convincing.
I want to know more about the Dutch women that were forced to stay and mix with locals.
One of these Sundays I caught a local movie about a ghost Dutch man, who needed the protagonist’s help to find out who murdered him. The protagonist had been seeing ghosts since he was a child and the Dutch man had been a faithful companion from the beginning.
I wish they could use the wax figures and historical copies from the Cinema World that is/was kitty corner of the National Palace Museum. Those were really cool.
but Koxinga died rather early, so what happen to them next? Did they have Koxinga’s children? Were they forced to serve Koxonga’s son after his death? When Koxinga’s grandson surrendered to Qing, were they placed under house arrest in Beijing with the rest of the Zheng family? Or did they stay in Taiwan or eventually make their way back to Holland?
Wei is still pulling his Taiwan Trilogy project forward. He has a crowd funding going on for this epic period piece. I got the ring and will probably put it on display. The Dutch coin EasyCard looks really nice and I kind of regret not getting that one.
I saw on facebook that there’s a casting call for Bandanese looking people. Apparently the Dutch brought a bunch of Bandaese from Banda islands with them to Taiwan. Not really sure why they did that. The Spanish brought Cagayan soldiers but it was obvious why they did that.
I kind of doubt whether or not Badanese would look and dress like that 400 years ago. A Portuguese painting from that period showed them dressed up like this: