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my eyes were swollen from this morning. for no reason. i slept quite early last night, but i couldnt fully open my eyes since morning. hai. im back to sleeping late again, maybe hoping it will go away this way. and also because i usually cant sleep after watching a movie.

finally dug out one of those i-have-them-but-am-too-lazy-to-watch-them kind of film and watched it la. love it. woo. shiok.

and the ad on top. i have watched it a year ago, but watching it now does give a second layer to it.

三年五年以后，甚至更久更久以后，我们会变成什么样的大人呢？


and i've been watching a lot of taiwanese stuff recently. this is for what? this is preparation. ahh.

L: Back to your film and the process - Kelvin Tong wrote the script? How is it like working with him for your own short film, do you feel influenced?
K: He is more like a mentor to me. He tries not to influence my decisions so that the film will be more a Kat Goh film and not a Kelvin Tong film. But he gives me a lot of suggestions in the editing stage to make it more pacy.
L: So... no ghosts in this one?
K: LOL No.
L: No twist?
K: No it is not a thriller. It's not an arty, moody, angsty type of film.
L: No Benjamin Heng?
from SINdie.

hahahahhaaaa. i love the last line. my favourite lao-sai from men in white.


2:02 to 3:30.

Japanese Trailer

i kind of want to watch this. haha. maybe not that much because i didnt really like dare mo shiranai and it is during exams. 25 April want to watch also tell me la.

and yes, it reminds me of ozu's tokyo story too.

upcoming nuSTUDIOS production. aiyah. just watch the trailer la. tiam. and let it convince you. hahahahaa.

the second on my to-watch list. how should i start. this isnt a film which made me fall in love with it straight away. there are some films like sanchome or spirited away which make me love them all the way from maybe 15min into the film till days and days after. films which i cannot stop thinking about even after finish watching them.

i expected okuribito to be like this. not talking about oscars, but 10 japan accademy awards? wow. maybe i should not have went in with this idea. haha. not that i am expecting a lot from this film, but went the credits roll, i thought they had more to tell me, and i want to know more. there's a certain part of me which was not satisfied yet.

it is a good film. simply put it is a very typical simple japanese style melodrama with tinge of humor. some parts are rather predictable, maybe a little less predictable than our takeshi kaneshiro god of death story.

but i couldnt totally immerse myself into the film. in yogisha x, my eyes were following Shinichi Tsutsumi's every move. i was practically staring at his strands of white hair, his scarf, because it made me want to remember all the scenes. but somehow i could not really relate to daigo (haha. nice name. hi tiga). and yes i was still staring at him esp when he was at work, but somehow i had this certain distance from his character. and not to talk about the scene at the climax.

but everyone in the cinema was like *sniff sniff* *sniff sniff*. haha. esp how the film uses a lot of scenes without background music, so the sniffs became really loud. i could feel it was sad, but not to the extend in galileo which i feel really sad (omg. my bad english. haha) for Shinichi Tsutsumi's character. this film will make your nose turn sour, but galileo will make u think 'why? why? stop doing this!!' haha.

like always, i read iweekly's review on the film right after finishing it. and it made me see the many things i overlooked during the film. what the director was trying to say. in the process on focusing all on daigo's job and worry, i sort of neglected everything else that happened. the bath house. daigo moving back to yamagata. and salmons swimming against the current to go back home. people are all chasing after the newest, the best, and forgotten about where they have started from.

and the ceremony is so solemn yet beautiful. and how many people only come to terms at one's death. there's so much said, and i only neglected them.

and the funny thing is. the more i think about the minute details of the film, the more i love it. i am only starting to like this film 4hours after viewing? haha.

hai. now i want a second viewing.

and not to forget joe hisaishi's music. still so so so good.

haha. the galileo movie. yes. i went to watch it. i think for all the trash that i've been watching from fujitv-made-movies, finally one movie that made up for all the time wasted previously (looks at hero the movie). the first drama then movie film that made me want to clap when the credits came out. it is that good to me.

there were so many things going through in my head when i was watching.

this is one film that every single scene, every single dialogue is propelling the story forward. the cause and effect thing. every single cause is waiting for its effect to come. there isnt a scene or a dialogue which is there to fill time, or to show how superior their filming skill is. they are there to tell the story.130min of them. and i am absorbed the whole 130min.

and it is not a whodunit. which was the format for its drama. for the movie, you know who's the killer from the start. what we are looking at is how 2 geniuses pit against each other; one to hide the truth and the other to find it out. i think confession of pain tried to do this too; but it was not brought out so well. (sorry alan mak and andrew lau) the thing is, even though you know who is the killer, every moment you are at the edge of your seat, rooting for both the police to find out the truth, but yet u want to protect the killer.

i think what the director or writer did well was that they could gauge what to give and what to keep well. there are some detective genre kind of movies where you just can guess the killer from the start. and there are those that are so ridiculous and they refuse to tell u any clue on the way (think kindaichi or voice). but galileo kept me thinking for the 130min and the ending very satisfying. it's not like hero the movie, which for quite some parts, i kept picking out logical problems in the storyline. galileo makes u feel everything is so real.

and the talents. masha as always, suave, smart, minus the cringing physics equation scribbling and fleming left hand rule. kou shibasaki still kou shibasaki. though her character is quite insignificant. Shin'ichi Tsutsumi steals the show totally. he is like the L of this movie. i love him in sanchome, here too.

there was this certain line in the film which kind of reminds me of a certain similar line in IA. it goes something like 'is it more difficult to invent an unsolvable puzzle or to solve one?' which was masha trying to highlight the situation then. when i watch i didnt really understand what he was saying, but now to look at it, hey that line is kind of cool.

but disclaimer. i can get quite illogical when it comes to what movies that i like. i mean my 'i just love these movies' list includes tokyo raiders, and i hate you so and the twins effect; my taste isnt all that universal.

it was box office top for 4 weeks when it was out in japan. if u have watched the drama and want to see masha on the big screen, then try watching. if u want a movie with a really really strong plot, try departures.

from masha's 2009 countdown concert,
最愛 - 福山雅治


like last year when he sang kiss shite for the countdown, this time sai ai. his hair is... hahahahahahaa. is he preparing for his sakamoto ryoma role or is he doing this because he likes it?

a list to remind myself what i want to watch. and if u find a film that u want to watch too, tell me. haha.

films i have to watch
Suspect X
Departures [trailer above]
Slumdog Millioniare
Forever Enthralled
Look for a star

It will be okay if someone wants to watch but not on my 'must' list
Valkyrie

I will watch when i am free and have too much cash
K-20

see 0:56 "dai ga gam wa" hahahahaha.

i will definitely watch this series when im free. together with all's well ends well. haha. and it's really strange to see matt-sir here. with his long hair. haha. ekin cheng ah. and anthony wong with long hair.

i think me and my sis are the last few in this world to watch nana. haha. finally. actually both of us heard abt the film, knew it was famous but somehow i think Mika Nakashima's punk look scared us away. but still we picked it up during the cny period, and woah we were blown away. yay. love it.

matsuda ryuhei, matsuyama ken'ichi, narimiya hiroki; the cast alone attracted us. and it's adapted from a shojo manga. haha. how rare right. a shojo manga adapted film without dreamy looking guys with huge eyes and ugly hair. haha.

we didnt read the manga so we cant say it didnt live up to its manga. but the film alone i thought was good enough. like most other japanese films by tbs, the shooting style i thought was very tv like, but i guess the good acting helped a lot.

and on the story. it's so dangerously similar to the one i had in mind all this while. and just when i tot 'yesh. finally an idea that is new!!'. oh man. haha.

ENDLESS STORY 徳永英明×伊藤由奈


this song is so over-sung. so over-used. and so. hai. and now i remember where i heard this song before. engin o week. oh man.

2mths to perfect cut 2. yes. and the engineering channel 8 drama is starting soon too. taypinghui works in a waffer fabrication plant. woo. and alvinng the aeronautical engineer. quoting my friend, how possible can engineers be so good looking? bluff one la.

haha. i just realised the shot above has raymond cho on the left. hi, you are getting famous ah. hahaha.

this opened on 26jan in hongkong. so i guess other than all well ends well 2009 they had another alternative. hai. we have the jack neo one or the Christopher lee one. and i seriously thought their ratings should have been swapped. jackneo's one as PG and christopher lee's one as NC16. hai but still. i hoped for better movies this cny but the 2 local ones are just rather disappointing.

talking about all well end well. haha didnt watch it but i saw this in the trailer!!



the feet without bird. eh no. the bird without feet. (watch the leslie cheung's one here)

and when i rewatched mcdull alumni i realised they made a reference to days of being wild too.



alex fong asked the girl to look at the clock for a minute. (watch the leslie cheung(why also him!!)'s one here)

haha. nice.

李克勤-自作自受


no, this is not yet another IA post. this is an IA3 post, which i have not blogged about before. haha. i think a lot of people, including myself, does not know that Hacken Lee actually sang the theme song for Infernal Affairs III. part one was so famous so everyone knew it was by the leads themselves, the second by Beyond is not that well known(i mean the song, Beyond is really well known la) but at least i knew. ha. but part three? I knew this very much later.

i've been bathing very late recently (it's holidays!!) and so each night while waiting for my hair to dry i'll just take out a random issue of iweekly to browse through. and yesterday night, i took out the IA3 issue and apparently there were some unhappiness which arose over who to sing the theme song. haha. so andy lau recorded his part (this can be found on youtube) then i dunno what tony leung didnt want to sing with leon lai and then leon lai was only willing to sing if all 3 were okay with singing the theme song. and in the end there were also problems with andy lau's record company and tada, they got hacken lee in the end.

but. this is an IA3 post. haha. so in the last 24hrs i managed to watch 3 films: kurosagi (hai. that was disappointing..), days of being wild (previous post!!) and yay Infernal Affairs III. initially i wanted to go on with Happy Together but that film is really very heavy, so i gave up and started watching IA3 instead.



IA3 is the first film of the trilogy that i watched. yesh. which i did not understand at all (naturally). haha. so after i finished IA3 (which is also the only IA film i watched in cinemas), i went to buy the IA and IA2 VCDs. IA2 is the one which i watched the most number of times, IA ranks second and i think i've only watched IA3 thrice, including today. the first time i didnt understand at all what was happening, the second time on my mandarin dubbed vcd and today, the cantonese dvd version. finally. i think i understood this movie.



from the iweekly interview with andrew lau and alan mak, they answered this question on what's the motive of IA3. so they said IA2 they were playing with time and IA3 with character development. but i dont really see it that way la. IA1 is very obvious, its focus is on the plot. but on the other hand, i think IA2 plays with character development, while IA3 the focus is on the stars, 明星魅力. seriously, part3 other than andy lau, dont u think the other characters are quite underdeveloped. the story dont attempt to tell u something, but base it on that u have watched the first 2 films, and at the same time understands the actors themselves well; and then see how they try and outshine each other.



like how i dislike charmaine sheh, i dont really like leon lai too. but i like Yeung Sir. he is outright evil, he is a cop nonetheless, but he will go into extends to get what he wants. and i like this character. if they have chosen someone whom i dont dislike that much, the effect might have been dilluted. tony leung as a cheeky mole, andy lau's quest for redemption, the odd but strangely smart chen dao ming, the always suspicious mob boss eric tsang and cool kelly chen; i thought the character and the actors themselves have emerged into one. i think the only pity is Anthony wong, he is mia for almost the whole movie.



it's a good tie-up for the trilogy. esp i like the very last scene for IA3 where tony leung went into the hi-fi shop and then he took out a few bags of white powder from a speaker before we see andy lau entering the hi-fi shop, which is exactly the classic scene in IA1 when andy lau's character first met tony leung's character. the quality of this scene (it has those marks which often occurs in those older hk films) matches more to IA1, so i guess it could have been a deleted scene from IA1. but this actually makes the ending of IA3 connect directly to IA1. so it's sort of like an IA1->IA2->IA3->IA1.. cycle. and this coincides with the theme of the trilogy, right.



i think the hardest thing to get in this film is the confusing timeline. every other 15min, there is a shift in time and it gets really frustrating to follow on first viewing. what's worse is that some things did not happen at all, it was just what andy lau was imagining. so sometimes u just get lost in the narration. but once u sort of know where u are at now and know that andy lau is going to develop schizophrenia, everything actually quite falls into place.



there's a scene which i like a lot too. it is when kelly chen has realised that andy lau is not that okay, because he was behaving like tony leung, or at least he was attempting to be like tony leung. the bgm was a Debussy kind of piano piece and then andy lau started repeating everything that tony leung said and the alarm clock suddenly rings. it's almost like A beautiful Mind already. that man is siao!! haha. but it does create that claustrophobic feel.

Finally i finished this. after watching it for the third time. haha. the first time i gave up after 20min and the second time after 40min. and the last time i watched this was already one sem ago.

nice. actually i really like this film. i guess for the first 2 times i was trying too hard to find the plot? because there was no obvious plot and i was very stubborn to try and find one. this time i just heck the plot and just enjoy the sound, the cinematography; and it's really not bad.

i like the last 3 minute of the film, which i guess quite a lot of people brought up on imdb. stephen chow made a paraody on this scene too. there are some angles in which he does look like tony leung.

Japanese Trailer
Another scene with Leslie Cheung

though this is my favourite scene(from 6:01). leslie cheung went to Philippines to find his mother; his mother refused to see him but tried to peek at him from her window. so he chose to not turn back at all, because he felt that since his mum decided not to give him a chance to see her, he too will not give her a chance too. and then he just keep walking without turning back.

I think another interesting thing to note is that the chinese title, 阿飛正傳, is the chinese title for Rebel Without a Cause when it was shown in hk.

my love for things is very much like koreans, i realise. the love for everything original; the classic/original version of everything. lays classic, ruffles original, ipod classic, original coke, original pringles, original ripped cd (no radio rip or pv rip, thanks) and only to watch films in their original languages. i just dislike a variation of something that is already well done. like how my mum used to play around with the food she cooks, like adding something special to the meat dumplings she makes but i will tell her that there must be a reason why food/things are in a certain form today. because people have realised that this much be the best way, and variations will only make it worse. haha. 不孝！！

i am a super loyal buyer once find something that suits me. my brand for pens, erasers, pencils and correction tapes have not changed since my secondary school days; i just change for a new one of the exact model once my old one cant function anymore. almost the same goes for my slippers and my sneakers.

and my love for things that strangely have received cultish love elsewhere. my constant interest to look at new crumplers. my love for nike dunk. my love for eason chan's and mr children's music? my earlier love for mac and my most recent one: love for moleskine.

my current craze? you know this thing which u can use to emboss words onto a strip of tape and then u cut the tape and paste it onto anywhere u like. haha. and also GTD.


2 good news. for the okto sunday art film on 28Dec, they will be showing takuya kimura's Love and Honor (武士の一分). yes!! haha. and second. they are bringing in Yogisha X no Kenshin next Feb, the movie version of galileo. i know this drama-SP-movie trend [hanadan, kurosagi] is getting super boring. but who ask Yogisha X no Kenshin to be a box-office hit. now i want to watch it too.

and nodame's making a movie too. code blue's working on its SP.

still watching Catch Me Now. u know like how brad pitt seems to be constantly eating in the oceans trilogy, BT seems to be constantly drinking. haha. check out where he was drinking from in episode 13.




if u are a mr children fan like me. yes. their new album Supermarket Fantasy is out. which means a round of publicity on national tv. more live performance. yay.

【SONGS】 Mr.Children － 少年

i think based on my previous post, it would be easy to guess what im going to blog about. it's going to be a super long post. some of my ramblings.

and yes. i have finished the whole manga series, including 21st century boys. started reading last last wk or is it last wk? i really really dont like reading mangas. the only manga that i've ever finished was death note, which had 12 books i think? and 20th century boys + 21st century boys, 24 books, i finished them in a shorter amt of time than death note.

we cannot compare death note[dn] with 20th century boys[20cb]. quoting from iweekly, death note belongs to gen-y, while 20th century boys belongs to gen-x. it's rather strange that the movie for death note came out earlier. but as the manga artist has requested, that the movie can only come out after he is done with the manga series. 24 books which span over 7 years, that is a very long story.

first, some thoughts on the manga. there is no good looking people, no character extremely smart, no character perfect. everyone is just a normal person, in a not very normal situation. there are some online who compared 20cb with dn, and a few had commented that dn is very much better than 20cb. dn is one that shines, that will shout in your face 'im a wonderful manga. so cool. so special.', but 20cb is like an old friend who u will want to sit down and listen to.

like 20cb, i finished dn in a very short amount of time, but after L died, i thought the story lost its direction? maybe they should have just killed raito after L died? so i was quite scared that it will be the same for 20cb. it of course did not disappoint me. the story got a little too ambitious towards the last quarter, but thank goodness, i felt that it managed to pull it off with an okay ending. maybe not an all too satisfying ending, but did make me think so much even after the story had ended.

if i am to compare this to another piece of work, i will choose harry potter. the theme of 20cb is very simple, good vs evil but are the evil so evil? arent everyone born wanting to be a good person? somehow 20cb can satisfy what i felt was lacking in harry potter. if the hp series focused on hp, 20cb is like hp but we are now looking at the story of the adults: james, lily, snape, sirius..



so we see a bunch of middles-aged men and women who are childhood friends, coming together to help protect earth from destruction from an evil organisation. sounds sci-fi? but i feel that the whole sci-fi thing is just a tool to tell the story of a bunch of people, grown-up and forgotten their past, come to see what they have done as kids have come to affect each other.

i like how they made a lot of references to popular culture, i guess like how our lecturer likes pompoko because it is so rich in japanese culture [but i really really didnt enjoy pompoko. hahahaha].

read this review on the manga, but the person somehow didnt like the manga. that it was scary because it's so cult-ish. it attempts to brainwash you. the characters are too 2D and so on. i guess there are people who hate this manga like how some disagree to harry potter? this manga does talk about prophecies, the pope playing an impt character, several priests, cult leaders, terrorists, aliens and the hero who mysteriously go missing and u know. do people hate infernal affairs because it talks abt karma and hell? i guess so.



okay on the film. it's really a pity that how this film is marketed in spore. this film came out on 30aug in japan and 16 oct in spore, which is only 2 mth after it was released in japan. so very likely the distributor has high hopes on this. as compared to other japanese films like tokyo tower which they took so long. and kurosagi. and even korean film king and the clown which was released a whole 6mths after it opened in korea.

but. i think the distributors, thinking that sporeans will probably go for the hollywood style, marketed it as a sci-fi film, and in the end attracted a bunch of people who doesnt really like this film and left many who might have liked the film to not watch. u know like how the trailer they showed on tv has like monsters, big robots and a bunch of people coming to save the world, it seems like a bad imitation of power ranger. but no. the film is on the other hand, strangely character driven, not plot driven. it is not a sci-fi movie. not an action movie. but rather how should i categorise this film. hai. a bunch of people, too driven by their busy lives, come to see that there are more impt stuff? hahahaha.

so go watch this film. even if u hate sci-fi because it is not one. went to watch it with my sis on the day it came out. but we could feel that the rest in the cinema did not really enjoy the film? i could feel the grp of people beside me was so bored. a good 3 quarter left after the credits started rolling. and in the end only me and my sis stayed to listen to karasawa toshiaki's bob lennon and to chceck out the trailer for the 2nd part after the credits ended. hai. come someone. if u think this film is good. speak up too. i felt that the director made a very decent and faithful remake of the manga. but those who came were obviously there to watch a action packed, hollywood style sci-fi drama. and the film must have disappointed them so much.

i love the shots in the film. almost everyone of them. ozu's film are made up of still shots, while 20cb almost had no still shots. even of close-up of the characters, the camera will slowly pan towards one side. sometimes the character even have half of their face out of the shot while they speak. there is one big weakness in the manga, which is that the climaxes are not dealt properly. too much emphasis is placed on character development, the most impt parts of the fighting parts are not well explained. on the other hand, the film improved on those parts. made the action parts feel more realistic and devoted more time on that than the manga.



oh ya. and the film has a very star-studded cast. kenji is acted by karasawa toshiaki. not a fan of him till some time ago. i just knew he existed but didnt watch a single of his films/dramas. 2 wks ago, i started watching a few of his films. loved him in 'welcome back, mr. mcdonald' which is a compulsary film in my module. went on to watch wow choten hotel, not bad too. and re-watched galileo ep1 which he is the killer. oh man. now i get why so many people chose to watch galileo not because of masha but because of him. he does have the thing to make u want to keep looking at him. the cast they assembled for 20th century boys includes many actors who were more active in the 90s, which is sort of like the peak of japanese drama in spore then. it's nice to see them once again and it sort of brings us into the mood of 20th century boys too, which is set in the late 90s to 2000.

so go watch the film. and read the manga. and then come discuss it with me.

an intro to the film


20th Century Boys part2 trailer

i think this (whole part) has to be my fav part of the movie. there are other stronger, better scenes, but this few scenes sort of prepares u for what's going to come at the back and is the start of everything.

from movie 'Silent Love' (聽不到的說話). classic!!

i cant really differentiate now that whether we are feeling so tired because recess week is coming or because we are so tired, we need recess week. oh man. i am so looking forward to it. feeling super tired both physically and mentally. i need to catch up with EE2012 and EE2006. seriously.

i've been thinking some time ago that i am really screwed up this sem in terms of my school work. but to think again. im only screwed up in that 2 subjects. the others i felt they were okay. i like JS and CS naturally so shall not count that. science of music is still okay till now though im kind of worried abt the essay and the midi piece we have to compose. ee2009 im okay. but i guess it has to do with the lecturer a lot. he is really good.

must.mug.hard.

oh the other hand. im totally not the studying mood this wk and spent most of my time in central library watching films whenever im free. my fav seat's one that is sufficiently out of view and the tv's great. but a lot of the time there will be someone there before me.



so my first Hayao Miyazaki's film. Spirited away. love it to bits. im kind of shocked too. cos i really really do not watch anime. i have only watched one. one single uno. which is ouran high school host club. haha. most of the time i prefer reading the comic books. and have never watched a single japanese anime film[i have only watched the tw grandma-who-catch-ghost movie]. cos i just feel that it's not my sort. all the crazy fantasy stuff. siao. hahahaha.but im totally blown away by spirited away. the plot is so good. i love chihiro/sen although she is 2D, but she felt so 3D. quoting from somewhere else, why Hayao Miyazaki's films sell because when we watch we believe that the characters are real and what happening to them are real when they are so obviously 2D.

so spirited away follows the story of a girl called chihiro. she and her parents accidentally went into the god/spirit world and met a series of adventure. haha. in that world, chihiro met haku who helped her.

久石讓Joe hisaishi Live - One Summer's Day (from Spirited Away)

this kind of makes me want to watch howl's moving castle too.

got this from wiki 'Miyazaki has been deeply influenced by another French writer, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He illustrated the Japanese covers of Saint-Exupéry's Night Flight (Vol de nuit) and Wind, Sand and Stars (Terre des Hommes), and wrote an afterword for Wind, Sand and Stars.'

interesting.

on the other hand. this wk's film, Heisei Tanuki Gassen Ponpoko, is strange strange strange and strange. it follows the story of thie bunch of racoon dogs who want to prevent human from destroying nature. because it's their home. very strange. they do crazy stuff. a lot of tribute/reference to other films. but strange lor. haha. im starting to rank this together with tokyo story. haha.

HANABI-Mr.Children [Live from MS SP]

誰も皆 悲しみを抱いてる
だけど素敵な明日を願ってる

and im back to watching moonlight resonance. haha. good la.

林峯 - 愛不疚