Watched Taiwan's 2011 Eye of the Storm (1:59:04). A SARS outbreak occurs in Taipei City Hospital, and the entire complex of buildings is locked down and placed under quarantine. Among the ensemble of characters who are trapped inside is general surgeon Dr. Xia Zheng, who is unable to go home and be with his daughter on her birthday; male nurse Ang Tai-He, who signed up for Doctors Without Borders and is scheduled to leave for Hong Kong; Tai-He's girlfriend, who is a doctor; Yu Zhong Jing, a journalist who sneaks into the hospital to document the extent of the infection; a doctor whose father is terminally ill of cancer; a taxi driver who gets caught in the lockdown; and a little girl who is searching for her mother, Wong Li-Zhen, who is a head nurse at the hospital. The protagonists are tasked to save the lives of those infected with the virus--and to trace the original carrier. 

This is a disaster movie, but, maybe because it was produced more than a decade ago, is ten notches above the slew of pandemic and zombie movies that came to being in its wake. The screenplay and direction are superb. As the film progresses, we become confident that the writers and director have a mastery of medical procedures. Like all movies produced in China and Taiwan, the production design and the editing are fabulous, the crowd scenes well-managed, and the long, trucking shots breathtaking.   

On top of everything, the casting and ensemble acting are highly commendable. There are many emotional scenes, none of them melodramatic. The pace is slow and lyrical, leading to a poignant, low-key ending. The intention is never to scare the audience; it is consistently to showcase the dangers of a virus and the sacrifices many hospital personnel make in the practice of their profession.

Kudos to Edison Wang, Tseng Ching-Hua, and Chloe Xiang for their credible performances. This is a timeless film, not only because of the recent CoVID pandemic that opened the eyes of the world, but simply because it is a real gem of a movie.