Archives For china

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

… or dusting off my lacking Chinese skills xP, so I ask anyone reading this to 1. Take these with a big grain of salt… and 2. If you’ve got a better translation/tips/corrections/etc. let me know. But… in the age of the internet, where fandoms translate songs en masse, I felt a little “left hanging” with Faye Wong lyrics.

So here are my tries. My mother tried to help, but she gave up. LOL

After much deliberation, I think I like Cong Cong Na Nian (匆匆那年) a bit more, though I didn’t like Ai Bu Ke Ji (爱不可及) on the first go, it’s really grown on me as a song.

Common courtesy for credits and/or link-ups, please.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcVZ4jVile8
Continue Reading…

Wait, what? Are you telling me Faye Wong smiles in pictures? [1]

Faye Wong graced the October cover (in three versions) of Elle China for the 26th Anniversary, with a photoshoot by Chen Man. She’s always glorious when shot by Chen Man.

faye-wong-elle-china-oct2014-chen-man

You can check more of the photos and a brief (Chinese) interview with Faye at the Polysh. I tried the Elle website, but it’s not happening for me.

She also has two new songs out this year [1][2].

Only ONE of them can make it to my list. I need translations of the songs for that. At the moment, Fleet of Time is winning… mainly because I liked translating the title with such nostalgia feelings. lol

— EDIT Nov 7 —

Better quality photos at Fashnberry.

I’m terrible with timing, aren’t I?

I’m always dissatisfied with my end of the year lists, but I supposed a WHOLE year of catching up is good enough for me to have a proper idea of what I like, right? I managed to squeeze in 227 movies, the rest is history. I hope you like it, that you don’t hate on me for not including some of your faves, that you celebrate that we loved some of others, and that you love me for introducing you to one title you missed.

experiment-awards-2013

Do your thing.

After the Razia Sultan movie starring Hema Malini back in 1983, the story needs a modern international-money-backed re-vamp… and Tabu should play her, am I right or am I RIGHT?

tabu-for-razia-sultan-right

Tabu is practically aching to do heavy action on a film (she just wants an action film really… I would put her as Wonder Woman if I could), and though ideally you’d pick an Indian director (Ashutosh Gowariker and Santosh Sivan come close to grand-scale production without the Sanjay Leela Bhansali masala), I’d like to see a full-on international production maybe at the hands of John Woo (enormous scale and grand battles a la Red Cliff are of his fancy nowadays) or have Tabu back with Ang Lee, or go the Korean route with Kim Han-min (War of the Arrows), Kang Je-Gyu (Tae Guk Gi) or Kim Sung-su (The Warrior).

I know Tabu chooses projects at times with set comfort in mind, and I don’t know how the others are on set (you don’t want one that’s as extreme as Von Trier… or such an asshole as David O. Russell LOL), so Lee would be a safe bet. Or… we could go the American-Indian, British-Indian or Indo-Canadian way. Asif Kapadia is looking like a good choice.

Historical political action drama sounds good, avoiding to outright do a dancing sequence unless it’s a court sequence and it’s not Tabu doing it. LOL

Ever since she said she wants to do an action film, I’ve been trying to think of a project for her to do… even though she wouldn’t be my first choice of an action star. But if she wants to put in the work for it, who are we to deny her wishes, right?

They got you, didn’t they? You thought, woah~ Ayumi Ito is playing a spy. But no~

Ayumi Ito items in English are often hard to come by because her (mostly) English fandom is non-existent. However, I did ran into this photo of her for the Mata Hari collection that Annie Lee did four or five years ago alongside Josie Ho and Hilary Tsui. I don’t know much about fashion… but all in the name of Ayumi Ito xD

annie-lee-mata-hari-ayumi-ito