ive been meaning to post about this for quite sometime. stills from THE BANQUET. a chinese film based loosely on Hamlet. visually its a stunning film the colour palette of scenes are beautiful, looking regal without overdosing on the shiny metallics like in Curse of the golden flower, (a terrible film in quite a few aspects in my oppinion). the fight scenes and the way the film is filmed also adds a different quality, and nothing in particular feels too cliched or predictable, the whole film just flows very elegantly.
Ru guo ai (Perhaps Love)
At the core a love based film that is set in an environment that seems very disjointed with the world in general. It has some vague similarities to Moulin Rouge and the story is told as a story within a story. All in a all, beautiful get bitter.
[from now on rambles will be posted in grey] I really should watch more chinese films, theres that arthousey feel about these two movies dispite what appears to be a huge budget. Its good to see films that don’t conform to the hollywood fomulaic cliches that aim to make the story ‘whole’ by leaving very little to the imagination, having everyone holding hands by the end credits. [A rather long while back the BBC did a documentry looking into the somewhat corrupt world of cencoring. The big name movies that we see are over cencoring and heavy control. Its content and age ratings versus trying to appeal a wider audience and therefore higher profits. ] Watchmen caused a bit of stir. kind of fresh. Its extreme and should i say, rather unforgiving? [loved the movie, it was working with great raw materials, the graphic novel is fantastic. I guess you could also say the choice of music is extra special too] There are websites cropping up, hatesites that are in my oppinion a bit too touchy. In this internet age, everyone who has an opinion can have it voiced, people have gotten over fearing and some, oversensitive, with overthinking and overestimation of self importance and political correctness. Rather than easing our everyday existance the fear merely causes additional difficulties for everyday good people trying to get by. Laws and rules are made to serve a community, but when someone is selfish, and work for their own benefits, others suffer in return. This is a bit of a sudden outburst. I’ve been watching Liar Game. A story where unsuspecting members of the public are selected to participate in a game. At the start both players are presented with say, 100,000 each. the objective is not to be tricked out of your money, if you manage to trick the other players money then it is yours. The loser of the game must pay back the loss, a debt. Another words the loser of the game provides the prize money. however if both players do not aim to earn any money then they don’t profit but as a result neither is put into debt. Its just a game, but if you think about it. The society works the same way, as long as there are people out for themselves, laws and rules made to help and protect us will only be so effective. [http://www.mysoju.com/liar-game/ if youre interested, its a reasonabily short series and worth watching like me, you’re fascinated by how things work)
Oh i do love the BBC.. hell i am a BBC. watch it folks (before it expires!!), we’re a part of your comunity whether you like us or not. If theres one thing about chinese people is that some how our parents all end up behaving a similar fashion. i might have my cousins parents for mum and dad but there probably wouldn’t be that much difference. i love Britain and you crazy and rather ‘proper’ Brits, rain, your wonderful comedians, sunday roasts, apple crumble, british film, pies, queueing………. a nice cuppa tea!!
i must say.. the lady’s biggest selling dish…. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! thats like one large portion of chips paired with 3 medium (biggerthan the average small chipshop style) sausages (?!!) and gravy.. you could feed at least 2 people with that. crikey. yes mum was watching with me.. flabbergasted.. goodness knows how she makes profit…. On another note, i wish my parents were as out going as the family. and on ANOTHER note.. the daughter who married a welshman.. goodness cherub faced! a little like moi… face of a 10 year old
[pics taken back in december 2005 (that is A LONGGGGG time ago. taken with my first camera.. a no longer functioning canon that had a personality of its own doing crazy things with light and colour. i mishu dearly..)
[a post from the first week of january that i never really put up. yes im still sifting through my holiday snaps ]
the great thing about living in 3 different places is that when you’re finally back you sort of appreciate it more, and then notice things you never noticed before.. i took the time to rummage through every room in the house.. found some lovely herbs… mums into her TCM (traditional chinese medicine) all the soupy mixes .. look at all the textures.. total novelty..
awesome way of packaging dried peel.. it doesn’t show clealy but the fruit is cut in three places before being peeled and the three bits of peel help it to be bound neetly together. which reminds me, been meaning to buy this book. I originally came across it in the uni library, its got mind booggling clever and traditional ways of wrapping various things. I think the cover says it all really.
and this is how its used.. cut into shreds and sprinked on fish before being steamed.. takes off any unfresh taste. this is a john dorey.. by far the coolest fish in all the land. looks like its been chewed up a bit but its really yummy.
although ive never really been a huge fan of chinese foods.. theres some stuff thats really special. soups.. homey and simple brothy goodness.. and also jellys.. a rarity even in london unfortuantely. this is oxtail and papaya and peanut soup. i might steal the colour palette later..
chinese herbal soup, or whatever its called. really yummy.. the twig like things are very sweet roots i think.. and on the spoon you have dried dragon eyes and also dried goji berries. looks horrible, but tastes great. chinese soups are more liquidy and brothy compared to western soups, and usually the things used to flavour the soup aren’t eaten, of course me and dad are greedy and don’t like to waste so we eat it anyway.
and for pudding, these are glutinous rice balls. these are home made with only glutinious rice flour and water and then boiled in a sugar syprup with ginger, so easy to make. you can buy them with red bean centers, or sesame or peanut. a bit similar to japanese dango and korean rice cakes.
hellu. a bit snot faced lately.. my body’s way of telling to slow the fuck down. lovely. its funny how being ill always reminds me of home. its always the same sensation (dispite losing the sensation of pressure taste and giving a crap alltogether.) other the lack of sensation and the ability to think to work its really quite a nice feeling. today has been the longest day in a very long while. just taking a break… and really its the perfect time to catch up with a little bitta telly really, even better when you get your parents permission to do so. mum has a pretty clear idea of how overworked we all are.. ‘ just get some rest.. dont worry about work. you can’t force these things. sometimes what you really need is a bit of relaxation, watch some tv for inspiration.. go buy a few things!’ yep don’t you wish your parents told you that a little more often!
i was watching this
truth be told, not the greatest film.. but there were bits that made you thing.. ‘hmmm.. ahh .. humgums’ . just another little milestone in my quest to find other people with a mixed cultural background, a bit of research for Chris (a story i want to write but claim i never have time to)
just a few things from my collections… .. 1_ stuff i should be doing more of. 2_things i don’t wear often enough. 3_ sweeties.. tasted horrible.. but love the illustrations 4_ just a few bits and bobs from my printed papers collection
night! my bedtime is long overdue.. damn you david tennant..
hmm.. this years been a bit of an odd one so far.. haven’t get created, or come up with any ideas that i feel happy about. there seems to be a lot of emphasis on how this year is supposed to drain us.. it starting to become extremely annoying how i judge everything to such a severe level and ive sort of become really stuck up about pretty much everything.. im really no fun to be around atm.
ive sort of really struggled with the last two projects… and whined about the whole thing.. but i guess im somewhat glad actually… glad that im not really moving forward.. its sort of nice to have one or two set backs once in a while just to put you back in your place… and know where you stand in the grand scale of things.
ive been reading lately.. (a huge step forward… i know..) unfortunately i haven’t really progressed on the html learning.. its great our graphic novels, comics and manga section in the library has increased.. and is looking very respectable now.. hurrah!
ive almost finished reading V for vendetta. i really wanted to see the movie.. but of course the original should come first! its has a few ideas from 1984.. the monitoring of people.. but the narrative plays out very much like a movie.. its as if it was written to be a movie.. this change of scenes.. the flash backs and forwards.. the way the story unravels like a detective story. ive never read alan moore.. but i assume this is what most older comics are like.. its wonderful… sophisticated narration that loses me here and there unlike the comics of today.
also read two other some what auto biographical books.. American Born Chinese by Gene Yang is a pretty awesome graphic novel. I first heard of it when jen told me about it during foundation.. it was probably one of the first books of its kind talking about asians living in a western society. there was a news paper article about it.. it won a few awards. you’ll be able to plough through it in less than 2 hours, but its wonderful.. 3 narratives to join together to one ending (although not the most satisfying of endings). reading it really made me finally see the wonders of graphic novels over comics. with graphic novels, youre not bound to a particular format or story development per issue.. theres a lot more room to experiment with things like pacing. (now im just reciting things ive learnt from my elective: comics and visual narrative) anyway its a wonderfully funny graphic novel.. with that little element of truth in certain situations which i can relate to..
also read through guy delisle’s Shenzhen a travelogue from china. guy delise is works as in animation but its interesting to see his narration. He gets sent over to china to over see some work.. and i guess its exposed a bit of the dark side of animation as well as china. so here’s a few things to take with your tea and biccies:
- if its a tv series.. animation quality is less important..
- work is forwarded to china since labour is cheaper
- quality takes a lower priority to the turnover..
- work often failed.. delisle’s standards… there was one situation where little details like the eyes that people kept getting wrong.. (they weren’t aligned so it looked like the charecter wasn’t paying attention) after the third attempt.. and he decided to do it himself..
the art style is fantastic.. the charecters are so minimalistic.. but unmistakeabily chinese.. and he makes us look so diverse rather than just black hair and slanted eyes.. another interesting thing to pick up is the use of repetition in his narrative.. good stuff.. this is also perfect for the commuting.. since its hard to lose your place.. its a compilation of many little stories..
as a continuation ive also gone crazy on amazon.. ive spent over 100 pounds on art books.. maybe i’ll post and review them when they’ve arrived.. there are about 14 books on the list.. on top of that.. ive brought a new monitor partially to accomodate photoshop and partially to sort out this problem of blurry pixels.. two columns of blurry pixels.. roughly one inch wide each.. it’ll be good for comparing colours i guess… also after reading through a pile of reviews.. and mulling over it extensively.. ive decided not to buy the nikon coolpix p6000.. i can’t justify the amount it costs for the gps system that i dont really need.. decided not to buy the p5100 either since the canon G9 had better reviews.. which is what i eventually and slightly reluctantly brought. (it also had a few decent night shots with no flash which seems to be something noone does reviews on.)
also i read Harrison Bergernon which is a very short story.. with a very interesting concept. http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html
a feast for eyes and ears.. the music is by kronos quartet… they made me fall in love with the sound of a cello even more..
i guess the idea made me feel somewhat special.. it would be an exceptionally dull world if there wasn’t the natural variety of human abilities, talents and limitations and i guess i feel fortunate that i do have one thing that im half decent at. having said that i think i offended one of my friends a few days ago. recently i met up with 3 friends i haven’t seen in over a year.. probably a year and a half.. . all three are very good artsy visual people. we all did art together in our class of 7 and it was tight knit group.. we’d go down in lunch breaks or if we were bored.. or we’d skip games to paint and chat. the work they did was brilliant.. much better than anything i achieved. well.. now only me and one other from our original class are actually pursuing art art.. and i was thinking.. its odd that most of us have gone into something more serious. ‘ yeah El. its not those days anymore, i miss that feeling, but ive moved on to something else. we’re not all as lucky as you.’ yep.. i sort of understood what she was saying.. she came from a chinese family.. that pretty much comes hand in hand with undertaking a ‘proper’ degree to get a decent job in the world to support your family. its her choice .. and i guess i respect her for taking it so far and really working hard.. ive always had the naive belief that.. if you like something enough.. you’ll inevitability work hard for it.. thus growing in scale.. and with luck people will come to you and pay you because you are good at what you do.
on a final note as i tuck into my takeaway.. the overly people folk down there always mistake me for someone.. thinking they’ve seen me at certain places .. or thinking that i had some kind of sister… hmm. i wonder.. since it apparently happens so often.. i wonder.. what these people who look like me are like.. but i bet they don’t have a vocabulary like mine.
@laydee_sara that' probably definitely true :P btw if your battery ever goes low, switch the back light off or to the lowest setting. works 16 hours ago
@JennieGyllblad their work tends to not be mainstream. The fact that they work alone is different to the mainstream and so are the stories. 17 hours ago
