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A little bit more than ten years ago, Anita Mui passed away leaving a legacy of music and movies that will be remembered. Even my dad knew Anita Mui (besides from Jackie Chan movies), he told me he knew her from her singing the Song of Sunset (夕陽之歌) [1][2], which he loved both in this version and its Japanese original.

Ten years after her passing, her (very famous) friends got together to put something really special… a super performance to remember her by. Titled Anita Mui. 10. Longing. Music. Concert (梅艷芳。10。思念。音樂。會), the event garnered an array of Hong Kong (and overall Chinese) best — of the best for a night of music and memories.

Jacky Cheng, A-Mei, HOCC was there, Miriam Yeung, Sammi Cheng. Eric Tsang being melancholic, Jackie Chan throwing a joke… Eason Chan with his hair~ Maggie Cheung was freaking there, Aaron Kwok swung his hips, and Carina Lau introduced her hubby Tony Leung, and Tony SANG! People cheered. At a point in the concert, I told my mom “the only one missing here is Andy Lau.” Lo and behold, who turns up for one of the last numbers~

The only one I missed was Faye Wong. Just coz.

Anyway, my dad would’ve been happy with this show. I hope he and Anita are sharing a drink together up above.

BiBi, Papa would’ve been proud of that performance. It brought so many feelings.

BiBi’s participating in the Chinese version of the Korean contest I Am a Singer, now in its second season. Last time, Laure Shang was in it and was eliminated fairly early on.

Let’s hope BiBi makes it through.

Happy new year, everyone!

Sorry for the lack of posts last month. To make up for it, here are five posts so you can catch up to my 2013 and to get you going this 2014.

amys-top50-songs-2013

It’s been nearly two months since my dad’s passing, and this Deserts Chang song came in my iPod’s playlist. Titled You Were Here with Me (我想你要走了) in English… it seems to be a contradiction with the literal translation. I know ‘wo xiang ni‘ means “I miss you” but wouldn’t the literal translation be “I want you to go“?

Loneliness is hovering over me
I watch clouds rising, rain falling
My mood is getting down
My mood is getting down

Perhaps at the exit of Dream
Peace has embraced outpouring of emotions
In the blink of an eye it dawns on me
In the blink of an eye it dawns on me

You’re about to go
You’ve said it all
((Your) life story is finished.)
You’re about to go, you’ll be happy

Perhaps at the exit of Dream
Peace has embraced outpouring of emotions
In the blink of an eye it dawns on me
You said you wanted a pillow that you could sleep to your heart’s content

credit: Semantic Nuance’s

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My Dad’s Mayday Playlist

October 6, 2013 — 1 Comment

For the past year, my dad had become a really big Mayday fan. I think this happened right after watching the concert film Mayday 3DNA, he used to show it to his friends and carry the film as well as their discography on his USB ALL THE FREAKING TIME. When I retrieved his USB, he had the discography on.

So… as a means to remember him, I made a short playlist with some of their songs.

[iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL7meHYcWQv4grFX0-edj4hW8TVGJf3tCN” /]

  1. 時光機 (Shi Guang Ji) – Time Machine
  2. 我們 (時時刻刻) (Wo Men (Shi Shi Ke Ke)) – Us/Moment by Moment
  3. 倔強 (Jue Jiang) – Stubborn
  4. 知足 (Zhi Zu) – Contentment
  5. 戀愛ING (Lian Ai-I-N-G) – Love-I-N-G
  6. 盛夏光年 (Sheng Xia Guang Nian) – Eternal Summer
  7. 擁抱 (Yong Bao) – Embrace
  8. 為愛而生 (Wei Ai Er Sheng) – Born to Love
  9. 離開地球表面 (Li Kai Di Qiu Biao Mian) – Leaving the Surface of the Earth
  10. 乾杯 (Gan Bei) – Cheers

I’m a little bit sad I have no one else to share this with. I think my dad would’ve loved seeing this clip of BiBi and Chris Lee together after all these years. It’s all gonna be so weird now, I have no one to share all my music with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR32RMUj4GI

More info here.

I remember the first time I got to watch Swallowtail Butterfly and found it interesting that Ayumi Ito spoke a couple of lines in Mandarin. Later I was surprised she was in the cast of The Go Master; it just seemed like Ayumi Ito had maybe some interest in working outside Japan. Interestingly, she’s also the one Japanese actress working in Kpop music videos [1], and I know for certain she speaks pretty good English.

Then again, Japan doesn’t seem to like its actresses trying to work in other markets [eg. Rinko Kikuchi, Koyuki xD]. I wonder if she hasn’t considered working in the US or Europe, or maybe they don’t consider her Japanese enough or hot enough. After all, US and European casting seems to be so random at times.

Anyway, while googling a photo of Ito for the previous post, I ended up running into this short film she did back in 2005 directed by someone called Nomura Yasuo (野村泰夫) titled Shanghai Lian Xiang (上海恋香) or translated to Shanghai Love Fragrance… or possibly referring to the smell of incense. The short that lasts 50ish minutes sees a Japanese young woman (I don’t think they mention her name) that arrives to Shanghai to deliver her grandmother’s ashes to the bay because she had spent the 1930s in the Japanese concession of the city. In there she met a young Chinese man and fell in love… and it’s all melancholy and sadness due to the events of the time.

[iframe height=380 width=580 src=”https://player.youku.com/embed/XNzkyMjg4NTY=” ]

There’s no much info except for this page.

Ito plays both characters of the woman and the young version of her grandmother, with dialog in different levels of Mandarin and Japanese. It gets a little confusing when you have to read Japanese for big chunks of Mandarin, and Chinese characters for most chunks of Japanese dialog xD But I think you get the point across.

You gotta get your Ayumi Ito fix any way you can.

There’s also a song that plays throughout~

春天来了树发芽
冬天来了飘雪花
你等的人等来了吗
我还在等我还在等
我还在等他
千山越过到你家
万水越过到我的家
你找的人找到了吗
我在寻找我在寻找
我在寻找他
夏天来了花儿美
秋天到了云追月
你等的人等来了吗
我还在等我还在等
我还在等他

This year’s season of The Voice of China is a bit on the meh side compared to last year’s. Some good talents, but not as awing as some of last year’s. This battle for Wang Feng’s team, though, from Simon Chung (鐘偉強) of Hong Kong singing it out with Beijing-based Bi Xia (毕夏) with the classic Hey Jude was pretty emotional.

The whole father/daughter interaction going on, because Simon took the time to guide Bi Xia through the song and Bi Xia’s knowing what he’d done for her makes the whole elimination process all the more painful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzTgyORzEAA

Other battle highlights~

From Na Ying’s team:
Yi Guang Nian (毅光年) Vs. Sheng Yin Yue Tuan (声音乐团) – I Surrender (没离开过)

From Amei’s team:
Zhang Xin (张新) Vs. Liu Zi Chen (刘籽辰) – What’s the Trouble in your Mind (你在煩惱什麼) + We Are Young

When I was little — maybe between the ages of 4 and 6 — I used to watch a really worn out tape (maybe transferred from a Betamax tape to a VHS one) about a huge furry green alien whose name was Muzzy- Big Muzzy. Many years later, many courses of English after and once the internet became a reliable search tool, I came to learn that the movie… a BBC educational video, was called Muzzy in Gondoland, though I knew it as “The Big Muzzy Story.”

As a Spanish speaker, I don’t recall ever understanding English growing up. Though I had some games and watched some animated shorts and movies in English, I don’t think the language ever registered as a language. I recall I was dreadful at it in school until I turned 10 or so and began attending classes after school. I’ve been speaking English more than half my life already, and it’s the language I primarily work in. I read, write, listen to… and consume most of my media in English. I don’t think I dream 100% in the language, but I’m known for having dreams I don’t understand — I don’t think I’ve dreamed in Mandarin, but I’ve had chunks of them in Japanese and most notable in Korean, even though my Korean abilities reach the levels of greetings, the random “I miss you,” or “this is my friend,” as well as the very helpful “I’m hungry” or “my tummy hurts.” I can also request things with the very useful three-year-old Korean level phrase of “item- chuseyo” LOL

The preferable term would be “cookie” though I’m sure Muzzy would prefer clocks or parking meters.

Anyway, I found two copies of Muzzy in Gondoland. The one that’s split in 8 segments has the original audio I remember as a child. While this version that lasts 2.30hr seems to have different voices for Sylvia, Bob The Gardener and Covax. I’m 50/50 on the voice of the Queen.

Apparently there are updates in different languages like French, Mandarin and Spanish redone in basic 3D with segments in Flash. Have been watching the French one, and they’ve omitted the fact that the Queen is fat. Obviously because it’s not politically correct to call someone fat nowadays, and the Queen does so in the adjective section. Plus, the King flatly calls her fat with the exclamation “You are fat!” which obviously is kind of ridiculous. LOL

Also, the AEIOU song doesn’t translate well.

I also found the original animation in Esperanto.

I really can’t remember exactly when I started out the Top Flicks About Chicks list on MUBI, but it must have been around the same time I wrote how Chick Flicks was a doomed genre in regards of critics. So it might be almost 4 years… and I’ve finally reached 300 titles in the list!!!

A Chick Flick should center on little girls, girls, young women and women… as students, as neighbors, as friends, as daughters, as granddaughters, as sisters, as mothers, as lovers. They are simply women. With that alone, we can tell all sort of other stories that have little to do with romantic comedies.

The purpose of the list, of course, was to encompass an array of female character — not only in the binary sense, since the list also includes men/boys who identify as women/girls… and viceversa — of various cultural, ethnic, social backgrounds. Not favoring one genre over the other, not valuing dramas over comedies… just simple stories about different women.

Though I’m sure the list could be longer, that’s 300 feature length films out of the 2896 (counting shorts) currently rated on the site- that’s roughly 10% so I suppose the list could expand to up to 500 or maybe 1000 once I reach 5000 or 10000 rated films on the site.

top-flicks-about-chicks

1. Treeless Mountain 2. Welcome to the Dollhouse 3. Juliana 4. Labyrinth 5. Fuckin’ Amal 6. Mirrormask 7. Gun Hill Road 8. Pariah 9. Bend it like Beckham 10. Swing Girls 11. The Land of the Deaf 12. Sunny 13. Whip It 14. Stoker 15. Maria Full of Grace 16. Breaking the Waves 17. My Marlon and Brando 18. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days 19. Dil Bole Hadippa! 20. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 21. Kotoko 22. Violeta Went to Heaven 23. Skin 24. Raise the Red Lantern 25. Incendies

I picked 25 of the 300 films to illustrate some of the variety (I hope it’s AS varied as I intend the list to be), though I ran out of picks and couldn’t include any of the ‘older’ female characters. If I could pick 5 more, they’d be: Lemon Tree, Frozen River, Late Bloomers, Mother, For 80 Days.