It took a while, but
Happy 1000th fan!
If you aren’t following the list yet, you might discover a gem or two!
Archives For zhou xun
I ran into this video on YouTube from the Off the Great Wall channel, and they got a bit of flack over the fact that a vast majority of their picks (3 picks for each of the four speakers) were East Asians xD — only one South Asian pick, because Aishwarya has to be everywhere xD, and then there were the Asian-American (Lucy Liu, I don’t think she’s mixed… is she? And she makes it twice~), the Euro-Asian (but basically) Asian-Americans (Maggie Q + Olivia Munn), and (off the official list) the Euro-Asian (Thai-Swede Praya Lundberg).
The thing is beauty is such a subjective element- whatever floats your boat depends on who you are, cultural background, upbringing, etc. But I do agree with Dan (though he doesn’t apply his own rule when it comes to Munn) — especially when making lists — Staying Power is important.
So I do agree 100% that Gong Li deserves that spot. She’s fabulous and continues to be even more fabulous… In Bollywood talk, Gong Li basically started her career doing de-glam roles in banned Zhang Yimou movies. She was a villager so often, wife of gangsters; and in her 40s, she became an Empress. That’s the complete opposite of the typical Bollywood heroine. She hasn’t been acting much, but a couple of years ago she romanced Andy Lau in a sick powersuit, and just a year or two ago broke everyone’s heart as the wife of a writer during the Cultural Revolution. This year? She’s the baddie in one of the blockbusters on this season- The Monkey King 2. And yeah~ she still looks as fabulous as ever at 50 years old.
Besides staying power? Talent, especially when it comes to celebrities, you know? Someone that can do their job like no other? Interview (variety show appearace) perception is a big plus, but CV is important.
But sometimes, so it happens, I also break my own rules~ lol
Also~ my Pakistan, South East Asian, Middle East and Russian games are not strong. Neither is my Asian-Latino game. So forgive the lack of names there, and I do take suggestions (especially if they come with great movie recommendations~~~).
All below listed by seniority~
My limit for sap is through the roof, as I got all warm and fuzzy when I found this song Rene Liu recorded with mah gurls Zhou Xun, Kwai Lun Mei and Tang Wei (whom I’ve just recently warmed up). They’re all super cute and super dork and super sappy together. I love it.
The song is called Wish You Well (我要你好好的), a single of Rene’s latest album of the same name, but it’s one of the last songs to get a video. The song Murmur of the Hearts (念念) [MV] is also on this album. I thought maybe it was for a movie, but doesn’t seem likely.
Happy listening~ DORK AWAY!
I’m trying to wrap my head on the fact that Mario Testino photographed these Chinese perfections- (From Left to Right) Zhao Wei, Liu Wen, Carina Lau, Fan Bingbing, and Tang Wei. Li Bingbing, Du Juan, Zhang Ziyi, Chris Lee (Li Yuchun), and Zhou Xun.
Celebrating 10 years of Vogue in Mainland China.
Note, though, that Carina Lau (sitting in gold on the far left) is turning 50 this year. I’m just saying. She’s at least 8 years ahead of Li Bingbing (sitting in gold in between Tang Wei and Zhang Ziyi) and 10 years ahead of Zhou Xun and Zhao Wei. And Carina is sitting below model Liu Wen, who is 27. I’m just saying.
Carina Lau deserves our respect.
I, of course, also ended up finally watching Peter Chan’s Perhaps Love (如果·爱), which is China’s -possibly- only formal foray into the musical genre. They were probably so into Moulin Rouge! and Chicago at some point, they got Farah Khan to whip some of her Bollywood 90s magic. You can see all the influences.
But, of course, Chinese people don’t believe in happy endings… even in musicals! Farah Khan probably watched this and was bored out of her mind because she probably doesn’t get us tortured East Asian souls. I did buy into all the grown-up lamenting love story.
To misquote Ron- I want to suffer, but I want to be happy about it.
A couple of hours ago Zhou Xun updated her Weibo page with a photo that currently has more than 150k likes, over 90k forwards, and a little over 40k comments… and that’s only counting on her page without other people’s forwards (I’ve seen Leehom and Shu Qi well-wishing) and other media.
So Zhou Xun got married without fuzz [1], just like Gao Yuanyuan did with Mark Chao. Or maybe it seems without fuzz because I don’t bother reading celebrity gossip in Chinese… but I’ve seen people who do follow Chinese gossip surprised.
In any case… congrats Zhou Xun and Archie!
So this is the reason my Archie post [1] was popular a couple of hours ago. One of my fave Chinese biases is now officially [as per Weibo announcement] dating my teen (and not so teen) crush Archie Kao. I’ve never had such mixed feelings about celebrity couples… I love it and am madly jealous of each of them. LOL
Too much awesomeness into one.
What made it to the list and where it placed? Some of my biggest biases placed lower than expected, and some that I don’t want to be my bias placed high on there~
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.
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.
