Category: Chinese

  • The Show-Off Film Collection List~

    Oh, Happy Chinese New Year! Let’s start my (supposedly) bad-luck Goat Year with the now-mandatory Letterboxd list of my film collection~

    amys-film-collection-letterboxd

    I have a really weird history with films– born in the late 80s, you’d think I would’ve grown watching loads of 90s kids stuff, but I actually grew up with a lot of Silly Symphonies (which were released in the 30s) and loads of Disney 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s stuff, plus a lot of more grown up 80s movies. Poltergeist, The Thing, The Fly and The Stuff were particularly scary stuff (and I’m pretty sure I was scared of yogurt or white stuff at some point).

    I don’t ever remember buying any original VHS tape, except for the rare birthday gift of a Disney’s Sing-Along Songs chapter or that X-Men tape I have. My first DVDs buys were Coyote Ugly, She’s All That and Loser — you can’t blame me. I was a 15-year-old girl. The collection grew bigger, and possibly exploded during my years abroad. I’m nearing my 500th movie.

  • Mayday Can Always Hit You Right in the Feels~

    Oldie song, but new performance at… what seems, the Bird Nest Stadium in Beijing.

    Mayday has just released the Nowhere Concert Movie in four editions: 3D BR + Live in Live Making-Of the concert DVD, Simple BR, Free Region DVD, and the DVD with the Making-Of.

    They’ve also re-released their albums in Chinese versions, and I’ve seen (super expensive) Vinyls, as well.

    I still can’t believe Asian Blurays are so expensive compared to their US counterparts. Now we all gotta way for Asian movies to be released in America.

  • Carrchy’s Cloud~

    Last year, I fell in love with Carrchy’s (卡奇社) music. And honestly, their 2007 album Daylight Allure (日光倾城) is pretty good stuff [Xiami] [YouTube Sample], but they hadn’t been releasing ANYTHING for many MANY years. Last night, they surprised with the release of the single track Clouds (云, Yun), which you can get in Xiami (Sorry, those who Xiami is blocking). I don’t know anywhere else where you might listen to their music [Here’s some Douban demos].

    carrchy-yun-cloud

    Other than that, happy listening!

  • Occasionally Still Think of You

    Though I haven’t made successful contact with Milk@Coffee on Weibo, they’re still one of my favorite Chinese mainland artists, though I feel like they peaked with Give You a Little Color (给你点儿颜色) in 2010. Last year, they released Shine of Memory (时间的光) [Xiami] and though I picked Young Conviction (信仰年轻) as one of my pick songs of 2014 [1], Occasionally Still Think of You (偶尔还是会想起你) is the song that brought the most feelings ‘coz it made me think of my dad (even though it’s totally a love song).

    Milk@Coffee just released a music video for it.

    My dad’s bday is this Saturday.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U_kK1iamNE

    The lyrics go something like this:

    Occasionally still think of you
    in the middle of the night, when people are quiet.
    Maybe I’m still not used to being without you.

    Occasionally still think of you,
    repeating over the familiar scenario-
    similarly, I still can hear the sound of your voice.

  • Han Hong, You Are THE Singer~

    Happy 2015!

    Let’s begin the new year with the latest season of China’s version of I Am Singer, where THE VOICE Han Hong is participating… kicking ass and taking names in the evening, ugly crying [1] and all. She knows the stage.

  • Mavis is Immediately Back~

    Mavis Fan’s fans (no pun intended) rejoice! She’s got three songs out this year, making a comeback since 2009 with Immediately (當下, Dang Xia). Obviously, the East doesn’t give a flying fish about End of the Year lists or the Holiday season, that’s why they keep releasing stuff- business like usual. xD

    mavis-fan-dang-xia
    Sorry, US-based users. I was only able to find the songs on Xiami. I know, geoblocks suck. But, as far as I know, the songs aren’t available anywhere else -even on iTunes TW- because it seems like a Xiami exclusive release.

    –EDIT JAN 20–

    I wasn’t aware that Mavis had added this free download link on her website.

  • Crowd Lu’s Natural Is Best

    Crowd Lu’s back! Two years after his military service with Natural Is Best (天然的最好, Tian Ran de Zui Hao) as a Happy Chinese typical Crowd Lu type of music to say goodbye to 2014 and welcome 2015. It’s a digital single (so I suppose there’s no album… yet), but there was supposed to be a concert in Yangming Shan (陽明山).

    Actually, Crowd had released Becoming a Man (大人中) [clip] back in March, which you can get on iTunes.

    Anyway~ Happy holidays, everyone!

  • Top50 Songs of 2014

    I’m the crazy lady of Best Of lists~ so here’s another one.

    amys-top50-songs-of-2014

    Do your thing~

    But if you’re lazy, I’ve set up (almost) complete playlists on Xiami and YouTube.

  • Early 2014 Music Highlights~

    Last time it took me 2 years to get my 2012-2013 list out. LOL This year, I’m early. I’m pretty happy with my picks at the moment, so I hope nothing mind-blowing pops up in these last remaining weeks of 2014. In the meantime~ you know where to go.

    amys-2014-music-highlights

  • Guan Hu + Huang Bo’s Winning Cow Combo

    A country bumpkin (with a heavy Shandong accent, I suppose… with my level of Chinese, I can’t tell.) and a cow are the only survivors of a terrible Japanese airstrike during the Sino-Japanese War. I never thought I would ever say this, but that’s the best damn cow performance I’ve ever seen in my life. Alongside Dolly (the dog performance in Korean film Blind), it might be one of my favorite animal performances on film.

    guan-hu-cow-2009-huang-bo

    Even though it didn’t slay in any categories in my Best of 2013 post, The Chef, The Actor, The Scoundrel (厨子‧戏子‧痞子) was one of my favorite movies last year. After Cow (斗牛, Dou Niu), I’ve become a Guan Hu and Huang Bo fan.