Movie: 茉莉花开 Jasmine Women (Mo Li Hua Kai) (Zhang Zi Yi)
I picked up a dvd the other day which I haven't watched yet but it looks quite interesting although it's possible that this is one of those premature posts and after I watch it I end up hating the movie :) The movie is called Jasmine Women and it's a Chinese movie starring Zhang Zi Yi. The blurb is as follows:
"A story of love and loss over three generations of life in a single family in Shanghai. Jasmine Women tells of the family's struggle to overcome its tragic history, as each daughter repeats the mistakes of her mother. Zhang Ziyi plays mother, daughter, and granddaughter as the film moves from the 1930's to the 1950's to the 1970's. Jasmine Women was filmed in 2003 and first shown at the Shanghai Film Fesival in 2004 where it won the Jury Prix Prize. Despite being shown to acclaim at numerous film festivals around the world, its release in China was delayed for two years until April 2006. Ziyi won Best Actress at the prestigious Golden Rooster awards for her performance".
Jasmine flower in Mandarin is pronounced 茉莉花 mòlihuā, which is why the director is calling the 3 generations of women Mo Li and Hua separately :)
I found these descriptions:
Mo's Story (1930's)
The young and beautiful Mo (Zhang Ziyi) gets a chance to realize her dream of being a film actress, but soon becomes the mistress of Boss Meng (Jiang Wen), an influential film investor. For a brief time, all is well, but soon Mo's dream of movie stardom is destroyed by Japan's invasion of China. Boss Meng abandons her to flee to Hong Kong, and Mo, pregnant and alone, has no choice but to return home to her mother (Joan Chen), where she gives birth to her daughter Li. But she blamed Li for everything she had lost…
Li's Story (1950's)
Against her mother's wishes, Li (Zhang Ziyi) marries working class Zou Jie (Lu Yi). But, unable to get along with Zou Jie's family, Li feels wronged, and decides to return home to live with her mother. Zou Jie, deeply in love with Li, moves in with them as well. But soon her mother's attentions to the gentlemanly Zou Jie inspire Li's jealousy. Feeling unsafe, Zou Jie believes that a child is the only way to ensure his family's stability. Zou Jie therefore adopts an orphan child for the infertile Li, a young girl name Hua. But as Hua grows up, her mother begins to experience hallucinations, and suspects that her husband is having an affair with their adopted daughter. In order to prove his innocence, Zou Jie commits suicide. Because of this, Li goes insane and runs away from home.
Hua’s Story (1970’s)
Li disappeared when Hua (Zhang Ziyi) was still very young and she grown up with her grandmother Mo (Joan Chen). Mo treated her own daughter very badly but found comfort on taking care of her granddaughter. Mo encourages Hua to get married to her boyfriend Xiao Du (Liu Ye), but Hua insists on waiting until he graduates from university. Unfortunately, by the time Xiao Du graduates, he has fallen in love with another women. He marries Hua but carries on an affair with someone else. On her deathbed, Mo tells Hua the unforgettable story of her past. Unexpectedly, Xiao Du returns from Japan, and he and Hua are finally able to become a family. But like her grandmother, Hua gives birth to a baby girl to raise by herself.
Here are some images:
The theme song from the movie is the traditional Chinese song 茉莉花 mòlihuā - Jasmine Flower :) I have so many versions of this song it's not funny. I'm such a geek!
This version is very 'traditional' with that kind of high pitched female voice one associates with Chinese music but not quite so bad as Beijing opera :)
This version is actually a more modern song that kind of segues into the traditional song at the end. It's pretty.
Anyway, the movie is very pretty-looking. More about it here. After I actually watch it, I'll post my thoughts.
The problem is, I'm kind of juggling recreational activities right now. I've already started reading the The Magician's Guild by Trudi Canavan which is the first book in the Black Magician Series.
I really like it so far and the writing style is very reminiscent of the Garth Nix's Old Kingdom Series which I adore. Isobelle Carmody is similar. Maybe there's something about the way Australian authors deal with sci fi and fantasy - they tend to write about it quite matter-of-factly without much flowery language. A lot of the reason why I don't like a lot of sci fi fantasy books is that the authors go overboard with the fruity language, what Josephine Tey calls 'speaking forsoothly' and sometimes the Stupid Name Syndrome becomes positively distracting.
In other news, last night I met some nice people at the dumpling party and we're going to go to a nice restaurant near me. The restaurant is called "My Humble House" and it is apparently originally from Singapore. There's one in Singapore, one in Tokyo and now there are two in Beijing. It was really nice the last time I went - I've been once before with colleagues.
I hope it's as nice this time because I was the one who picked it and people will blame me if it's bad. I always feel kind of stressed if I'm the one who picks the restaurant :P