Archives For Chinese

Happy Chinese New Year, Zhou Shen and Juan Diego Flores

January 28, 2025 — Leave a comment

Wild things happened at this year’s Spring Gala. Faye Wong awoke from her hibernation for a performance of What the World Gifted Me (世界赠予我的), which CCTV only has in this pre-recorded video presentation. [Edit: CCTV did eventually post the clip.]

Ni Ni showed up in this segment on Wuxi Scenery and National Feelings (无锡景 家国情), showcasing Jiangsu as a province. Ni Ni, and I suppose everyone involved in the segment, were born in Nanjing or other Jiangsu province cities.

However, most shocking and most improved was the unexpected collaboration between Chinese vocalist Zhou Shen (周深), Peruvian opera singer Juan Diego Flores and Peruvian multi-instrumentalist Lucho Quequezana for a remix of Lan Hua Hua (兰花花) and the lyric version of El Condor Pasa for The Condor and the Orchid Flower (山鹰和兰花花).

Many would remember Zhou Shen breaking through pop culture in the 2014 season of The Voice of China (中國好聲音), which led to different hits and numerous inclusions in soundtracks like his first ever Big Fish (大鱼) for the Big Fish & Begonia (大鱼海棠) animated film, which is one of my favorite Chinese animation projects.

In Celebrity, Chinese, Clips, English, Fun, Music, Screencaps, Sharing, Spanish, Television , , , , , , ,
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Miss You, Zhao Wei

You’re often on my mind.

Thank you for giving us Two Tigers (兩隻老虎) and its theme song Ke Yi (可以) [1].

And off-topic, this amazing commercial.

Posted on July 7, 2024 In Celebrity, Chinese, Clips, English, Films, Music, Sharing , , , , ,
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The Film Library Is Shaping Up~

Buying physical media has been a chore lately, you gotta keep an eye out so you make sure you don’t miss your delivery because, for some reason, people cannot just leave your package any longer.

Plus, distributors are doing physical media less and less. The whole of the Indian Cinema industry has decided to phase out physical media in favor of going all in on OTT and VOD. Even enormous hits like RRR are left with no physical release, even in the West. Even Disney is letting Sony handle its physical media, which seems like the end of an era. Then there’s the whole thing about editing and disappearing media from libraries.

So these are some of the most recent -and not so recent- films that have been added to the physical library. I wish I had more disposable income because there are a bunch of titles (and upgrades) that had been added to the wishlist.

These on top of some Bluray upgrades like Sion Sono’s Love Exposure, Kalatozov’s The Cranes Are Flying, brand new Criterion’s for Los Otros and Laberinto del Fauno. Some random BR UK release for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Also, this post makes it so that this year is the most I’ve blogged since 2020. I’m coming for you 2019. Four posts in Feb’24 is the most continuous blogging since Aug’18.

Posted on February 21, 2024 In Chinese, DVD/BR, English, Films, French, Japanese, Misc., Rants, Screencaps, Sharing , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Isabella Leong for Condé Nast Traveler China

Isabella Leong has been on and off since she made her official film comeback back in 2015 with Murmur of the Hearts, which is an amazing film. Se also had small roles or almost cameos on 12 Golden Ducks that same year, and got back together with Pang Ho-Cheung for a small role in Missbehavior in 2019.

From her recent interview on A Date with Luyu (鲁豫有约), you can tell that she enjoyed or had fond memories of her debut film Isabella, which Pang directed almost 20 years ago— which also amazes Leong when she realizes how fast/much time has passed. I was also amazed at how she remembered the tracking of the shot, all the more amusing when both clips were put together for contrast.

In 2020, she appeared on Ann Hui’s Love After Love, which was available to watch on MUBI in some territories, and might be available on places like Netflix or Prime, depending on your territory. Now, she’s part of the most recent Dante Lam HK film starring William Chan and Nick Cheung, titled Bursting Point (爆裂點) [Trailer], which I’ve mostly heard positive things about.

Since her teenaged (!!!) sons already give her enough time to move about life, she’s been a lot more active at events and, if you follow her on Instagram, photoshoots. Which finally gets me the reason I was writing this post- she’s the first cover of 2024 for the Condé Nast Traveler China edition, which is a luxury travel magazine based in New York.

I checked their website to see who was the photographer of the shoot, but it looks like they haven’t updated that since their May 2023 issue was published (relatable). Editorial director Shawn Ong only mentions their collaboration with Eastern & Oriental Express Southeast Asia in prep for the launch of their luxury train in two different seasonal routes. The train interiors look (and photograph) amazing. They’re elegant, colorful and textured without looking overwhelming [1][2][3].

However, this is not a travel blog. I took these bad screencaps of some of my favorite shots.

Director Ong’s post features many more pictures, in case anyone’s interested. My favorite is this out of focus one. lol

Posted on January 25, 2024 In Celebrity, Chinese, English, Photoshoots, Screencaps, Sharing , , , , , , ,
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It exists! It’s alive!

The original latino dub of my Operación Dragón de Bruce Lee memories. After years searching, several copies acquired (The first thing I did when I bought my Special Edition DVD was check the dub). I even had to go through several copies of Spain’s Spanish, only to find out that the Latino version had a do-over, and that the original Latino dub of Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon was probably lost media.

I even wrote to OG Hector Lee, who was the original Bruce Lee voice in the film.

It has not been lost. These are my memories. I will cherish them.

Posted on January 14, 2024 In Celebrity, Chinese, Clips, English, Films, Sharing, Spanish , , , , , , ,
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Happy 1000th Top Flicks Fans

It took a while, but

Happy 1000th fan!

If you aren’t following the list yet, you might discover a gem or two!

Posted on June 27, 2021 In Chinese, English, Films, French, Fun, Japanese, Korean, Misc., Russian, Screencaps, Sharing, Spanish, Swedish , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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My 2020 Letterboxd Year in Review + More!

January 16, 2021 — 4 Comments

My only Letterboxd anticipated message came in the other day, but I took a little bit longer to post because the better side of my OCD got to me.

But here it is!

I went on a Stephen Chow binge, and got to watch a bunch of Hrishikesh Mukherjee films for MUBI. Not to be the Debbie Downer of the terrible 2020, but I hope 2021 picks up. This is the first time in my movie-watching history that I only have one single 4-star rating in my Year Films Ranked list. Two titles if you consider Marona’s Fantastic Tale.

This 2021, I have decided to shut off social media and restart blogging once again. It doesn’t matter if it’s into a blackhole of information. I’ve started with this Spanish translation of a review for Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do, since the film is in rotation at the Indian entertainment channel ZeeMundo. We also have a proper Spanish title for Haider (!).

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So Long, My Xiami

January 6, 2021 — Leave a comment

Greetings, my fellow lurkers, if you are lurking still. Knowing that I haven’t updated anywhere and I’m hardly active on social media, I just wanted to say that I haven’t died and haven’t been swallowed by the Earth. I hope 2020 didn’t wreck you, and that 2021 finds you in a more… calm path.

As I sit here making plans of wanting to do a lot of things, and then getting nowhere, I reminisce the days of internet freedom when roaming through websites was like the wild west. And that’s when I discovered Xiami— according to WP word search find, the earliest mention of the music site on the blog dates back to 2010… with an even older mention of forgotten HaoTing. lol Since then, over a decade ago and many an indie Chinese music discovery, Xiami had been part of my daily life for thousands and thousands of days.

I took a screencap for posterity! My Xiami account was supposed to last until the end of the year, and then an extra 4 months.

So it is with great sadness, but hardly any surprise, that I report that Xiami will be no more… on February 5th this year, to mark my 35ths birthday, nonetheless. End of an era for my music streaming, end of the era… of my youth, I suppose. With my only consolation prize that a lot of Chinese music is already available on not only iTunes and Spotify, but also on YouTube. I just need to re-find them and subscribe to whatever their channels are. It will be, of course, a lot more difficult to discover brand new Chinese music.

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And so it begins~

It’s unbelievable how quickly the year has come to an end. And though there’s still so many hours of un-watched films, we must all begin sharing our End of the Year lists.

As per tradition, here’s my 2018 music highlights. As Jocelle pointed out, might change drastically midway through 2019. LOL Remember when Su Yunying released an album on December 31st? Chinese people got no chills.

Happy listening!

Posted on December 14, 2018 In Chinese, English, Fun, Graphics, Japanese, Jobs, Korean, Music, Sharing, Spanish , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Ni Ni: Expectation vs. Reality

I’m a Ni Ni stan now, have I mentioned it before? No? I really REALLY enjoyed watching Mo Zhang’s Suddenly Seventeen (28岁未成年). The ending is a bit straight rom-com, but Ni Ni— Woah. She was amazing.

Cfensi has always loved Ni Ni, so she’s also gushing about this new photoshoot for The New York Times Travel Magazine by photographer Yin Chao (尹超), centered on Nanjing Girls and also featuring actresses Hai Qing, Yang Zishan and Mei Ting, as well as model Bonnie Chen.

The favorite shot, tho, the watermelon one~ xD

You can also follow Yin Chao’s activities on his studio’s Weibo— SUPERSTUDIO.

Also, I haven’t even gone through 5 episodes of Lost in 1949 (脱身), but I’m looking forward to Rise of the Phoenixes (天盛长歌) :)

Posted on August 15, 2018 In Celebrity, Chinese, English, Photoshoots, Sharing , , , ,
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