Random Asian movies
Yay! I met up with tatterpunk over the weekend and sicced many Taiwan food recs to her and then took her to Page One for English books.
For anyone interested, my 2008 picks for Chinese and Korean media is up at the Aqueduct Press blog.
Short write-ups of random Asian (mostly Chinese) movies I have watched while in Taiwan:
海角七號/Cape No. 7 - This is the little movie that apparently took Taiwan by a storm; currently, it's the second-highest grossing movie here ever, with only Titanic beating it. Aga left Taipei to go back to his rural hometown Hengchun in southern Taiwan after not being able to make it as a rock star. There, he works as a postman, and one day he gets a package from Japan addressed to a place that no longer exists.
The package contains love letters from a Japanese man to a Taiwanese woman named Tomoko, written after the two were separated when Japan lost WWII and was forced to leave Taiwan. While we get bits of the story from the letters, in the present-day, another Japanese woman named Tomoko is trying to prepare the small town for the arrival of a Japanese star, only the head of the town insists that the opening act for the star consists of a local band. Except, there is no local band...
This isn't a particularly deep movie, but I can see why it was so popular. It's great getting a look at non-Taipei Taiwan life, especially of Taiwanese and Taiwan aboriginal people of all ages, and the rock band set up is easy comedy. The love story between present-day Tomoko and Aga is completely out of the blue and gets no set up or development, but I just love the characters and the band. It helps that the main song is very catchy.
Fun and frothy.
梅蘭芳/Forever Enthralled - This is Chen Kaige's (of Farewell, My Concubine fame) latest film, about the Peking opera star Mei Lanfang, one of the most famous dan in opera. Mei lived through the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the establishment of the Republic of China, the Japanese invasion, and the Communist Revolution, although the film stops when WWII ends. My favorite parts of the film were the earlier bits, since I am a total sucker for costume drama, and the actor playing young Mei is fantastic, as is the guy playing his rival/mentor, 13 Yan.
I've gotten increasingly interested in Peking opera lately, particularly its similarities and differences with kabuki (currently, I am only picking up on very surface things, since I do not know Peking opera or kabuki very well). Plus, gender bending! I desperately want to know if there's a similar rhetoric surrounding the dan as there is about the kabuki onnagata. The particular awesomeness about the movie is that I found out about the existence of Meng Xiaodong, a woman who was famous for playing the main male roles. I did not even know women could do that! (I mean, clearly after laws forbidding women on stage were repealed.) I really want to see a recording of Mei and Meng performing together (her as the hero, him as the heroine). Also, there clearly needs to be manga written about Peking opera gender bending.
Alas, the last part of the movie is about the Japanese invasion of China, and while I am of course anti-Japanese-invasion, the heavy-handedness and nationalist rhetoric of the section totally turns me off. Plus, I feel if one mentions the Japanese invasion and its role in determining that Peking opera was essentially Chinese (something else that needs a whole paper, since it was basically lower-class pop culture when it started), one must by necessity mention the Cultural Revolution and the banning/destruction of Peking opera. It's especially ironic that this comes from the guy who directed Farewell, My Concubine, which is all about the Cultural Revolution and Peking opera (and repressed homosexuality and love triangles).
Oh Chen Kaige, why have you joined Zhang Yimou in being 5th Generation directors who have now sold out to Communist China? Why? (Okay, so being jailed and having your movies banned is a very good incentive to sell out, but still! I hated watching your depressing movies about the horrors of Communist China and the Cultural Revolution, but they're better than chest-thumping, unthinking nationalism!)
Still, a neat movie if you want to know more about Peking opera, with good performances.
花吃了那女孩/Candy Rain - A tiny indie movie with several segments, each concentrating on a young lesbian couple in Taipei. I, uh, half watched this while checking email because otherwise the slice-of-lifeness would have put me to sleep. Not that it was boring! I was just sleep deprived.
This is so cute! It is totally sweet shoujo manga about teenaged (or early 20s) Taiwanese lesbians. It reminds me a lot of Chungking Express for some reason. The last segment alas made no sense to me, but I love the first three.
Like the name, this isn't necessarily deep, but it's sweet and lovely.
ラブ＊コン/Lovely Complex - Why did no one tell me Love Com was a movie? (Also, so is Mushishi, though I am trying to see if I can rent the DVD before deciding if I want to buy it.) I have only read one volume of the manga, so I don't know how faithful or not the movie is. But it is so cute! And they managed to find actors with an actual height difference. It also helps that the guy playing Otani is very cute. I cannot actually say if this is a good movie or not, but if you like shoujo manga, I'm pretty sure you will like it. It has all the shoujo manga effects in movie format!
My absolute favorite part of the movie was when Risa goes on about her crush on Otani, which makes everything he does sparkle. He sparkles as he falls asleep in class! He sparkles when he plays basketball! He sparkles when he sneezes! Even his sneezes sparkle! (By this point, I was trying very hard not to fall out of my seat laughing.)
The downside is the poking fun at Risa's older sister, who is (I think) played by a male actor; I dislike the way the movie makes her grotesque and mocks her romantic notions (does the manga do this?).
Still, I laughed and laughed at Teacher Heartthrob Maity and his "Yoroshu... QUEEN!" and pretty much at all the shoujo-ness.
So shoujo manga!
I am also going to watch Red Cliff II, which is coming out the day before I leave. I do not care if almost everyone dislikes Red Cliff I and nothing happens in it and really it's just name-checking the key scenes in Romance of the Three Kingdoms! It has Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhu Geliang and Tony Leung as Zhou Yu and they bond over military strategies and trying to outsmart each other! And all the awesome Zhu Geliang stories I grew up on are in the second part (borrowing arrows, stealing the east wind, etc.).
Also, even though Lin Chiling gets all the fame for being a supermodel and playing the Love Interest (Xiao Chiao), I want more of Sun Shangxiang, who reminds me of Eowyn. She paralyzes pigeons and Liu Bei with some sort of qigong thing! She has an army of women attendants! And she secretly has some sort of relationship with Zhu Geliang in my head, as he is the only one (so far) who sees how awesome she is. I must remember to file this away as a possible Yuletide request.
I am also sad that part one of the 20th Century Boys movie seems to have come out in Taiwan, but is not out on DVD yet.
And I am SUPER SAD that the new Miyazaki movie is coming out after I leave! ARGH!
For anyone interested, my 2008 picks for Chinese and Korean media is up at the Aqueduct Press blog.
Short write-ups of random Asian (mostly Chinese) movies I have watched while in Taiwan:
海角七號/Cape No. 7 - This is the little movie that apparently took Taiwan by a storm; currently, it's the second-highest grossing movie here ever, with only Titanic beating it. Aga left Taipei to go back to his rural hometown Hengchun in southern Taiwan after not being able to make it as a rock star. There, he works as a postman, and one day he gets a package from Japan addressed to a place that no longer exists.
The package contains love letters from a Japanese man to a Taiwanese woman named Tomoko, written after the two were separated when Japan lost WWII and was forced to leave Taiwan. While we get bits of the story from the letters, in the present-day, another Japanese woman named Tomoko is trying to prepare the small town for the arrival of a Japanese star, only the head of the town insists that the opening act for the star consists of a local band. Except, there is no local band...
This isn't a particularly deep movie, but I can see why it was so popular. It's great getting a look at non-Taipei Taiwan life, especially of Taiwanese and Taiwan aboriginal people of all ages, and the rock band set up is easy comedy. The love story between present-day Tomoko and Aga is completely out of the blue and gets no set up or development, but I just love the characters and the band. It helps that the main song is very catchy.
Fun and frothy.
梅蘭芳/Forever Enthralled - This is Chen Kaige's (of Farewell, My Concubine fame) latest film, about the Peking opera star Mei Lanfang, one of the most famous dan in opera. Mei lived through the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the establishment of the Republic of China, the Japanese invasion, and the Communist Revolution, although the film stops when WWII ends. My favorite parts of the film were the earlier bits, since I am a total sucker for costume drama, and the actor playing young Mei is fantastic, as is the guy playing his rival/mentor, 13 Yan.
I've gotten increasingly interested in Peking opera lately, particularly its similarities and differences with kabuki (currently, I am only picking up on very surface things, since I do not know Peking opera or kabuki very well). Plus, gender bending! I desperately want to know if there's a similar rhetoric surrounding the dan as there is about the kabuki onnagata. The particular awesomeness about the movie is that I found out about the existence of Meng Xiaodong, a woman who was famous for playing the main male roles. I did not even know women could do that! (I mean, clearly after laws forbidding women on stage were repealed.) I really want to see a recording of Mei and Meng performing together (her as the hero, him as the heroine). Also, there clearly needs to be manga written about Peking opera gender bending.
Alas, the last part of the movie is about the Japanese invasion of China, and while I am of course anti-Japanese-invasion, the heavy-handedness and nationalist rhetoric of the section totally turns me off. Plus, I feel if one mentions the Japanese invasion and its role in determining that Peking opera was essentially Chinese (something else that needs a whole paper, since it was basically lower-class pop culture when it started), one must by necessity mention the Cultural Revolution and the banning/destruction of Peking opera. It's especially ironic that this comes from the guy who directed Farewell, My Concubine, which is all about the Cultural Revolution and Peking opera (and repressed homosexuality and love triangles).
Oh Chen Kaige, why have you joined Zhang Yimou in being 5th Generation directors who have now sold out to Communist China? Why? (Okay, so being jailed and having your movies banned is a very good incentive to sell out, but still! I hated watching your depressing movies about the horrors of Communist China and the Cultural Revolution, but they're better than chest-thumping, unthinking nationalism!)
Still, a neat movie if you want to know more about Peking opera, with good performances.
花吃了那女孩/Candy Rain - A tiny indie movie with several segments, each concentrating on a young lesbian couple in Taipei. I, uh, half watched this while checking email because otherwise the slice-of-lifeness would have put me to sleep. Not that it was boring! I was just sleep deprived.
This is so cute! It is totally sweet shoujo manga about teenaged (or early 20s) Taiwanese lesbians. It reminds me a lot of Chungking Express for some reason. The last segment alas made no sense to me, but I love the first three.
Like the name, this isn't necessarily deep, but it's sweet and lovely.
ラブ＊コン/Lovely Complex - Why did no one tell me Love Com was a movie? (Also, so is Mushishi, though I am trying to see if I can rent the DVD before deciding if I want to buy it.) I have only read one volume of the manga, so I don't know how faithful or not the movie is. But it is so cute! And they managed to find actors with an actual height difference. It also helps that the guy playing Otani is very cute. I cannot actually say if this is a good movie or not, but if you like shoujo manga, I'm pretty sure you will like it. It has all the shoujo manga effects in movie format!
My absolute favorite part of the movie was when Risa goes on about her crush on Otani, which makes everything he does sparkle. He sparkles as he falls asleep in class! He sparkles when he plays basketball! He sparkles when he sneezes! Even his sneezes sparkle! (By this point, I was trying very hard not to fall out of my seat laughing.)
The downside is the poking fun at Risa's older sister, who is (I think) played by a male actor; I dislike the way the movie makes her grotesque and mocks her romantic notions (does the manga do this?).
Still, I laughed and laughed at Teacher Heartthrob Maity and his "Yoroshu... QUEEN!" and pretty much at all the shoujo-ness.
So shoujo manga!
I am also going to watch Red Cliff II, which is coming out the day before I leave. I do not care if almost everyone dislikes Red Cliff I and nothing happens in it and really it's just name-checking the key scenes in Romance of the Three Kingdoms! It has Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhu Geliang and Tony Leung as Zhou Yu and they bond over military strategies and trying to outsmart each other! And all the awesome Zhu Geliang stories I grew up on are in the second part (borrowing arrows, stealing the east wind, etc.).
Also, even though Lin Chiling gets all the fame for being a supermodel and playing the Love Interest (Xiao Chiao), I want more of Sun Shangxiang, who reminds me of Eowyn. She paralyzes pigeons and Liu Bei with some sort of qigong thing! She has an army of women attendants! And she secretly has some sort of relationship with Zhu Geliang in my head, as he is the only one (so far) who sees how awesome she is. I must remember to file this away as a possible Yuletide request.
I am also sad that part one of the 20th Century Boys movie seems to have come out in Taiwan, but is not out on DVD yet.
And I am SUPER SAD that the new Miyazaki movie is coming out after I leave! ARGH!