Republic of Formosa
The Republic of Formosa (), was a short-lived republic that existed on the island of Taiwan in 1895 between the formal cession of Taiwan by the Qing Dynasty of China to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki and it being taken over by Japanese troops. The Republic was proclaimed on 23 May 1895 and extinguished on 21 October, when the Republican capital Tainan was taken over by the Japanese. Though sometimes claimed as the first Asian republic to have been proclaimed, it was predated by the Lanfang Republic in Borneo, established in 1777, as well as by the Republic of Ezo in Japan, established in 1869.
Formosa Betrayed (film)
With the help of Ming (Will Tiao), a Taiwanese activist, Agent Kelly discovers the unsettling truth about the island, once described as "Ilha Formosa" ("beautiful island") by the Portuguese sailors, leading to dangerous and painful consequences. Agent Kelly finds himself on a collision course with the U.S. State Department, the Chinese Mafia, and ultimately the highest levels of the Kuomintang, where this FBI agent discovers how a complex web of politics, identity, and power affects the lives and destinies of all the citizens.Filming began in March 2008 in Chicago, Illinois, and then moved overseas to Bangkok, Thailand, and finally Taiwan. Despite the film's events' taking place in Taiwan, and in the face of some criticism from the Taiwanese communities in America, the production chose to film in Thailand mainly for its established infrastructure for shooting film and television. The availability of film equipment, crews, and sets offered the production a more cost effective solution to filming than did Taiwan, where it would have been necessary to ship film equipment in from Japan. The producers also realized that Taiwan in present-day no longer resembles Taiwan in the 1980s, so another major production cost relating to set design that was avoided by shooting in Thailand.