Fresh
The sturdy political thriller Formosa Betrayed is laudable for adding the voice of native Formosans to the usual two-sided debate that reaches the American media.
Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Formosa Betrayed
2010 · 1h 43m · R
Action, Adventure, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Directed by
Adam Kane
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Formosa Betrayed
Overview
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 and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
33%
Tomatometer
Fresh
It's a passionate labor of love that pointedly criticizes the U.S. government's failure to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation, independent of mainland China.
Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times
Rotten
Formosa Betrayed is a history lesson dressed up as an action movie. The lesson is pretty interesting; the movie is just the far-fetched plot it hangs on.
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail
Rotten
A movie that shows us the desperation and danger of living under martial law in Taiwan during the early '80s, yet somehow never delivers the emotional gut punch the subject matter deserves.
Jen Chaney, Washington Post
Rotten
Formosa Betrayed, a ho-hum college history lecture about modern Taiwan awkwardly disguised as a political thriller, has its heart almost in the right place.
Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer
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