The Banquet

The Banquet (2006)

Directed by Feng Xiaogang

Starring Ziyi Zhang, Daniel Wu, Ge You, Ma Jingwu, Zhou Xun

Not a very good experience watching a Chinese film in a theatre that was 1/4 filled up and it didn't help that when the film began rolling, a few young Malay male audiences started to laugh at the opening scene of a few MASKed artists singing in a pretty operatic manner. I did not know whether they found it amusing or just being your average mediocre Malaysian audience who just happened to have nothing better to do than spent RM6.00 on a ticket to kill time - on a regular Wednesday afternoon at IOI mall GSC, just for the fun of it? Maybe humour is just cultural or simply contextual? Nonetheless, from the very beginning of the film, I was being served with a dish that is visually stunning and captivating - with loads of slow motion effects and stylized kung-fu fight sequences. I was thinking, "okay, looks interesting enough, let's see how the story goes..." As we move along, we are introduced to different characters in the film - Ziyi plays Empress Wan, vicious and dangerously ambitious, Daniel Wu is Prince Wu Luan, who just wants to run away and escape from the duty of being an emperor one day, Ge You the emperor, which he played it quite interestingly, Zhou Xun the lovely and forever forgiving and optimistic Qing Nu who falls head over heels for Prince Wu Luan...all these are quite 3 dimensional characters. The only one that is not so convincing was Zi Yi for I think she is a little too young for her role. I would imagine Gong Li a better choice for the role, but I would always remember Ziyi in this small film called The Road Home by Zhang Yimou. She truly stood out as a naive yet determined young village girl who strongly believes in her love for a school teacher and brave enough to fight for it. As for Banquet, I love the cinematography, but after a while, the slow mo effects sort of got to me. Nonetheless, I was very impressed with the art direction, the costume designs and the music. All in all, it did deliver as a film which is quite character and story driven. But I still prefer Zhang Yimou's approach to making films as such for I could always remember that very MOOD and the richness in COLOUR and overlaying of texture in terms of storytelling (multiple angles/ different point of views) it brought forward in HERO, a visual that is too strong to miss.

Gold Rain & Hailstones

Directed by Zahim Albakri

Starring Lin Jaafar and Jit Murad (also the playwright)

I went into the play without prior information about it at KLPac last Sunday afternoon, other than what Patrick had told me that it was very well received when they first staged it back in 1993. Repricing their roles, Jit is extremely funny and right on the dot in terms of his comedic timing while Lin Jaafar was equally stunning and captivating in delivering different roles all together. I particularly loved the script and how things unfold in the play itself. It touches upon issues that most Malaysians are familiar with - how are we to deal with our identities, our culture, and most of all, our root and the sense of belonging. Basically, it is all about our experience as a Malaysian. It hit a note in me, on some of the things said and felt by the characters that they were portraying on stage, as if I were the one up there, talking, but of course, if it were me, I would most probably be standing in the spotlight, talking to myself in an empty theatre for I have never been able to see myself as a performer on stage. I have always been the one behind it. The fact that Patrick and myself were able to be there enjoying the play was solely due to the fact that we owe our dearest friend, Sidney a big favour for getting us there. Sid and Crystal are also the two talented people who were responsible for the interesting projections we see during the play, the art direction to the whole experience on stage. My memory of Sidney dated way back in 1998 when he was the first friend I had made at work in my first job after graduation for he came into the office the day after me. The rest are history as they say but eventually he became Patrick's friend too. I missed those good old days where we used to talk about films over teh tarik sessions...but I guess we have come a long way and both of us are truly proud of his talents and work and will always be grateful to have such a friend like him. Thanks Sid...

Justin Lim Momentum Solo 2006

It was a Thursday evening and it started drizzling when I reached this art gallery called Taksu, somewhere in the busy small meandering streets within Dato' Keramat kampung area off the main road of Jalan Ampang. It was also my first time around this small packed area. If it weren't for Justin, Patrick's cousin's invitation, I would have discovered this place much later. Nonetheless, as I approached a corner dead end road, what greeted me was this mysteriously green garden and porch, with a funny shoe rack shaped piece of work mounted on the wall leading to the main entrance. Once I stepped in, Justin straight away greeted me with a grin and said, "You are the second first person to arrive..." I was delighted for I knew I could explore the place much better without the crowd. Truly, it was a unique place to be. I met Wan, the owner of the art gallery and also spoken to him briefly. This bungalow unit turned art gallery is quite spacious and intriguing. It has quite a few interesting pieces of sculptures lying around the house, not too imposing yet significant enough to catch your eyes. They even have a small swimming pool outside the garden. Of course, friends gradually piled in and everybody started to settle into the food, drinks and the pieces of Justin's paintings on displayed that night. I was truly impressed with how far Justin has gone in his work of art and the things which he loves to do - playing music and all. A fine young guy with heaps of artistic juices flowing in his brain. Secretly, I was even glad that he is our relative, and a close one too, to begin with for I felt so proud and happy for his achievements. Some of my favourite paintings include Elements, The first Clash of Silence, World Wide Web 1 and The Polystructural Method. I love the way bold colours were used and with such passionate strokes and lines. Definitely a night out worth escaping into.

Origami

Written, directed and edited by Jack Wung

Starring Harada as Kana, Mory as Antoine

Director of photography - Wutthitrai Piriyapakdeekul

Costume Design - Justin Kwok

Production Design - Mariana Thome

You can't even tell that this is a student work, the same when I watched Patrick's thesis film EXIT more than 8 years ago - such maturity in terms of their understanding of the language of film itself. As Dr. Anuar Nor Arai puts it in his film review on EXIT, "At the age of 22, Patrick Lim grabs very early the subject of alienation. Quite independently creative with his materials, Patrick Lim takes on a conceptual fling at expressing the motivated style of space and time and tries to recreate them in terms of the mind..."

Patrick brought home a copy of this short film called ORIGAMI on dvd and said that I have to watch this. The minute the film started, I was immediately impressed by the clarity and the look of the film. It is so beautifully shot that it almost seemed unreal for a student work. You could see that much care was taken into the consideration of what goes in the frame and what not - great mise-en-scene. The same goes to the creative use of the colours RED and BLUE. I love the mood the whole film evoked though it was only a mere 10 minutes. Good use of colour and the fact that dialogue were so minimal that only visuals speak for themselves make the film even more memorable. Definitely a well done piece of work! I am sure by looking at these images you would be able to guess what the story is about already, right?

Picture Perfect Sunset

Sometimes you will be amazed by how beautiful mother nature can be. I was there at that point in time and got the boys out to our front porch to take a glimpse of this little surprise. We would normally be in the house during that time of the day, but that evening, I just happened to walk out for a minute and there it was, this fantastic sight caught my eyes right away. It was truly breathtaking. No wonder they called it the "magic hour". The clouds looked like small fluffy white cotton balls which hung right out from the purple tinted orange sky, and it seemed to taste like pink sugar candy floss on a stick! Really spectacular but it only lasted for a while and disappeared into the night...

Stories of Friendships

It was purely a coincident to watch two films based on almost the same theme, with only a one-word-title for each of the film, on the very same fateful day. It was more than two weeks ago. This one is completely way overdued but I am so compelled to include this in my blog. Two films - DORM (Thai film) and MUKHSIN (Malaysian film). The first one was at GSC Midvalley and the latter, my husband and I were graciously invited to a private screening by the director, Yasmin Ahmad herself. I have to thank her for that as we got to watch it even before the press does! DORM, directed by Songyos Sugmakanan, was very much grounded by the matured acting of this rising Thai young actor, Chalee Trairat. Even though it was marketed as a horror film, the main crux of the film was suprisingly nothing but haunting or scary, rather it was more about a deeply moving relationship between the character that he plays, Chatree and a ghost friend, Wichien (played by Sirarath Jianthavorn) whom he had come to befriend in the dorm, the boarding school that he was forced to attend by his father. I love the mood, the acting and the interesting use of music in the film. Of course, there were some spine chilling moments but the fact that the whole film was so much weighed down by emotions between the main characters that you feel for the "ghost" rather than being afraid by it. Excellent themes of coming of age, forgiveness, courage, honesty, redemption and more. MUKHSIN was very much an auteur piece, if one had seen her earlier works. I only saw RABUN, SEPET but not GUBRA. Though one could see what and why this film was made, I could only share some sentimental elements of it - the serene and simple life in the kampung (village) with kids running around, playing games in front of the house, riding bicycle down the padi fields, flying kites and such, but I personally found certain scenes contrived. Nonetheless I have to say that both lead actors, Orkid and Mukhsin hit it off pretty well. I especially like this tomboyish nature of young Orkid and Mukhsin is not a bad looking young lad himself to begin with. I especially appreciate the smaller details in life that Yasmin manages to capture on film, that most others would tend to deem them unimportant to the whole story to even care to include them in (for instances, a hole in the socks of a young school boy, the act of putting extra padding on the bicycle for the one he adores, etc.) My most favourite scene of all is the scene in the movie poster where Mukhsin dreams of himself floating away! Maybe I was already exhausted by the end of the day, or it could be just that two films were too much for me to handle, but somehow, I walked off feeling more satisfying watching the earlier film. But having said that, I would definitely watch Mukhsin again on big screen to see what I have actually missed out in my first viewing!

A Family Birthday Gathering

Last Sunday we went over to OneU for a special gathering - Uncle Ming Lee's birthday dinner. We arrived earlier, Ryan and Aidan managed to persuade their "yeye" (grandfather) to buy them burger king before the actual dinner. As always, they usually get what they wanted for the grandpa loves them dearly! Ryan even sweet talked the "kakak" at the counter to give them each a free "burger crown" to put on! It is amazing to discover what a big family we have from the Moey's side, and that was not even everybody! Nonetheless, two of Patrick's aunties from Australia were here for holiday and one came with her family too. So, we had quite a number of adults and loads of kids to fill up the two tables. As usual, kids will always be kids. They had a great deal of fun running around and we adults had a great and fulfilling dinner all together. I was just glad that we could all come together and see each other again, amidst our busy schedule.

My Favourite Animations On TV

Animations these days have gone beyond what the mind can imagine, and further. Of course, I watch a little more cartoons on TV nowadays then some other programmes simply because my two boys are glued to their favourite channels on ASTRO - Ryan his Cartoon Network, Aidan his Playhouse Disney and interchanging between Nickelodeon and Disney Cartoon Channel most of the time. As much as I have turned adult myself, I too adore what the exciting world of animation today has to offer - slick illustration, cool actions, interesting characters and at times, pretty adult and complicated issues and situations in certain animations. The one which top my list of all time favourite will have to be SAMURAI JACK. I love the way how music and visuals are used in this one. Minimal dialogues but packed with cool actions and I just like the use of split screens and the way tensions are built in each scenes. Of course, I just loved that whole notion of a lone hero fighting evil to uphold justice and finding his way back to his own time. My other favourites include:-

Justice League - interesting interplay of subtle adult themes

Batman - cool animation of my ultimate action super hero

Xiolin Showdown - interesting chinese elements and a twist to the approach of the martial arts

Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends - love the character of BLUE, so simple yet amazingly captivating

Pokoyo - Really cute

and some others

Now who says I am all grown up and can't speak the language of my kids? I guess there is always a kid in every adult :)

Blogger...Madness

Blogger should seriously look into improving their services...it has happened way too frequent these days - failure to upload images with the post in a blog. Why bother to put the feature in in the first place when it fails to function appropriately most of the time, I wonder?

Excruciatingly exhaustive

Kitchen extension is quite a straightforward and simple thing but the cleaning up right after is the most tiring thing that I have to go through everyday for the past one and a half month and would still be doing so until next week or so...am really looking forward to an end to this!