I'm Back

Apart from being lazy, I've been very busy this semester at Film School. I haven't been watching as many films as I like to but I have been making quite a few. As of now I made a total of 12 films, with me either as an actor, cameraman, director, etc. I'm currently working on my final film for production II class. Along with one from image design and a few more for optical printing. Anyway today as I was walking down the street trying to avoid working on my films I decided to go into "Borders". I only went because I knew the comic shop downtown was closed. So I went in looking for the New Issues of Giant Robot and AsianCultCinema.















Well I found them, and like always I was quite pleased with the new Issue of Giant Robot, and again disappointed in AsianCultCinema. The more I learn about film the more I learn that the guys who write AsianCultCinema magazines don't know what the hell they're talking about, and what they really like to do is look at nude Asian women. In the current issue of AsianCultCinema they have an interview with actress Maggie Q, and they just happen to have a pic of her topless there. Also in her interview they ask if she has any nude scenes in her upcoming film "The Tourist".

One thing I noticed about Giant Robot is that it's has a lot more adds then before, which I guess is a good thing because it means that people are reading the magazine and they get more money with more adds which means more magazines in the future. If you never read Giant Robot I say get on it. It's a magazine about asian pop culture with a stong focus on Asian American artist/art and culture experience. This is their 50th issue which is kinda a big thing for them considering their first magazine was made entirely by hand.

Death Note

(sorry I couldn't find a big movie poster)

I saw Death Note (デスノート) over the weekend, part 1 and 2. I never seen the anime or read any of the manga. Actually I thought the films were pretty good. The film stars Tatsuya Fujiwara (藤原 竜也) as Yagami Light and Ken'ichi Matsuyama (松山 ケンイチ) as L. First I want to talk about the bad stuff of the film. It seemed to me like it was a medium budged film, and some of the acting from some of the other actors wasn't that good. It seemed more like a TV show movie, I mean like a Sentai or Kamen Rider movie. Where they just add more effects to make it look different from the show. (gotta go right now I'll rewrite this post later)

Am I crazy?

After I first heard RIP SLYME I started to look for Bathing Ape Clothing or BAPE for short. Some of the T-shirts I found on line cost as much as $50 and I thought I had to be crazy to pay that much for a shirt, But I would pay $60 for a hoodie. Anyway I recently started looking for David Beckham's LA Galaxy Jersey. I found them but they coast $80. I really want one and now I started to reconsider paying $50 for a BAPE shirt. Why wouldn't I if I'm will to pay $80 for a Beckham shirt? Am I crazy?

A List for George

George, just in case you can't read the characters I put in your e-mail here are the pics so that you can know what I'm talking about.



Dalja's Spring - 吳達子的春天


When Spring Comes - 春暖花開的時候


Hana Yori Dango 2 - 流星花園 2 (又名-花樣男子 2)

New Top Ten list

This is my Top ten list, like I said I like to ask people that I first meet what their fravoite 10 movies are. This list isn't permanent, it changes from year to year depending on when I see a good film. The only film that is in the right place is my #1 choice, which I think is the best movie I've ever seen. The rest or just on my list and their rankings don't mean that I like one more than the other.

1) Le Pacte des loups - The Brotherhood Of the Wolf (France)
2) Jade Warrior - 玉战士/Jade Soturi (china/Finnland)
3) A Bittersweet Life - 달콤한 인생 (South Korea)
4) Infernal Affairs 2 - 無間道 2 (Hong Kong)
5) Matando Cabos - Killing Cabos (Mexico)
6) Boonedock Saints (USA)
7) Blue Spring - 青い春 (Japan)
8) Hero - 英雄 (China)
9) Beat - 비트 (South Korea)
10) Shiri - 쉬리 (South Korea)

Jade Warrior

One of the few films I picked up at the Convention over the weekend was Jade Warrior. Which I actually thouht was really good, good enough to earn a spot on my top ten list. Anyway, I had first heard about this film while reading an article on KFCCINEMA.COM that talked about a film being made between Finnland and China. Sounded interesting so I waited to hear something about it and I didn't hear anything. Luckaly I saw it at the convention and picked it up. I'm glad I did, the film is the not really orginal but the collaberation between the scandinavian country and China made this film seem like a breath of fresh air. The fight scenes are decent, nothing spectacular to get excited about. It's really one of the only down falls I found to the film, which to me seemed to try really hard to be the next Matrix. Which were done in that slow-mo effect and added in cgi to show the strenght of their movements by showing dust blow in the wind etc. The film stars Tommi Eronen (from Finnland), who plays a foreigner who goes to China to fight an evil force. His father was suppose to be an Asian man who went to a distant land and fell in love with a foreign woman. Anyway his farther was a blacksmith who made a devise called the "sampo" which could unlock "the oassis the human universe" but this evil force wants it to make it his own (basically he wants to form oassis as he wants which would be hell on earth). This evil force kills him and takes the box from him as he tries to open he finds out there is a saftey that would only allow his son to open the box. Kai/Santi (Tommi Eronen) is the only person who can defeat this evil. I forgot to mention that when he defeats his evil he will become enlightened and will no longer be reincarnated. He defeats the evil, but did not kill him, when he returns to the village of the woman he suppose to marry he finds out that she was in love with his best friend before she even met Santi. After he hears his love played by the very beautiful Jingchu Zhang (张静初) confess her love for his best friend he walks away. The evil then trickes him into opening the box only to find it empty. He puts the evil inside and locks him away, only to be reincarnated over and over in body not in mind, forgetting his purpose. The evil is released accidently by a scholar who know about the legend. The evil force is then released in our modern era. Knowing he can't open "oassis" with out santi he helps him remember his purpose and tricks him to open the box again revealing "oassis". By then Kai knows who he is and must fight the evil again before he brings hell to earth. I totally recommend this movie, the cinematography is nicely done and the soundtrack is beautiful.

New Videos

This weekend I went to the "Wizard World" comic book convention here in Chicago over the weekend. I've been going to the convention for over 10 years now. Last year I help a vendor sell videos and I didn't get to see much that year. Which took some of the magic out of it. I helped set up and later took apart the booth and help him move his product by giving recommendations. Which left me little time to actually look around the convention that year. That's why I was excited to go this year. As always I went for movies but found they're selection very disappointing. Every year is the same films: Storm Riders, A Man Called Hero, Versus, Alive. It's as if they don't know about all the other good films Asian cinema has to offer. Two movies that I picked up were Hero and Princess Blade. I already had them before but only on video and VCD, I thought it was time to get them on DVD. I did ask if anyone had the new Japanese movie Dororo (どろろ) but everyone said it wasn't out yet. I told them that it was and I knew it for a fact. They quickly replied that it wasn't distributed here yet,

I knew that, just because it wasn't out here yet doesn't mean that it's not out. That's because they were bootleggers and only bought Chinese disk or Thai disks, burned them and sold them again. Buying a Japanese’s disk for $50 bucks would be too much for them. Then they tried to say that most of this stuff isn't licensed here in America so they had to sell the Chinese imports. I had to bust them out by pointing to videos like The Host which i know is out in America distributed by Magnolia, along with other like Alive, Versus, which is releases by either Tokyo Shock or Media Blasters. OldBoy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance by Tartaran. But as anyone knows when you go to a convention or buy off of e-bay more than likely it’s a boot. I also found the second season of Hana Yori Dango (花より男子), but the vendor was selling it for $35 bucks. I said no way because I knew I could buy it off the next for at least $20 cheaper and it would be the very same disks.

I also bought a “Son of Godzilla” t-shirt, and a few other movies. Over the last few years I noticed a drop in Japanese toys being sold at the convention. I think one of the main reasons is that lots of comic books are being made into films again. Such as Punisher, Fantastic Four, and I mean again because if you know films you know that those films were made in the early 80’s and are still just as bad as they were then. Other movies already out are X-men (1 – 3), Spider-Man, Superman Returns, Batman Begins, etc.
You get my point. Also Japanese toys were always expensive and still are.
Nobody sold J-pop, which really surprised me. Only anime soundtracks, but I’ve never been big on too many animes.

Just in case you guys want to know what else I bought here’s my list:
Concent, Gun Crazy, Gun Crazy 2, Ghost in the Shell (SA.C.) 2nd GIG, Jade Warrior, Sazer X, Swordman 2, Time and Whispering Corridors.

Trends

If you know me that you know I hate trends, one of the reasons I quit skateboarding was because everyone started to do it. But usually I'm one of the last persons to follow them. Meaning that I get into them only when most people are getting out. Anyway I recently noticed that I'm getting more into the hip hop trend. Now we all know that hip hop's been around for a long time now, but I guess you can say that I'm recently getting into the fashion part of it. I listen mainly asian hip hop like EPIK HIGH, 지누션, MC 몽, M-FLO, K DUB SHINE, Midicronica. Just to Name a few recently I found out about RIP SLYME and I've been trying to find more asian Hip Hop to listen to. Anyway as I said I noticed that I started to pay attention more to the fasshion.


I just can't seem to get enough of Nike shoes right now and looking every for a a pair of MJI (Air Jordan 1's) in four different colors. I've been paying more attention to Ecko Clothing and looking online for Bathing Ape clothing. The one thing I can't get into for now are the shiney shoes. For some reason they just look too cheap, I showed a pair to my friend Kimmy and she agreed with me. Actually she said they look kind of childish, like something a kid of about two would wear.

Actually clothing I wear right now isn't that different from what I wear now it's just now there are brands that i'm looking for in paticular, I remember when I went to fill out an application at Corner Bakery and the manager who hired me at the time asked if I skated (as in skateboards, none of that fruit booting for me), I said yes and asked how he knew. He said I was dressed like one. But I was only wearing a pair of cargo pants and my fravoite NYU hoodie. Anyway the point is he classified me just by my cloths and was right, which is one of the reasons why I hate trends. Well, my point is.... I really don't have one. I'm just saying that I'm buying a lot more shoes (mainly NIkes) that I actually need and trying to match the rest of my cloths with my shoes. I'm such a lame.

Book Review

I recently bought a new book on Korean Cinema called “Contemporary Korean Cinema: Identity-Culture-Politics”. I haven’t gotten a chance to read it fully, but it mentions a few early Korean films from as early as 1962 and how they impacted Korean Cinema. Reading this book reminds me of some of the other books that I have that I’ve recommend to the group that I’ll talk about again.

The main book I want to talk about right now is “Korean Cinema: The New Hong Kong”. The first comment I’d like to make is that Korean Cinema is nothing like Hong Kong Cinema so comparing the two is really absorb. The thing that made Hong Kong Cinema so popular was their action film. Mainly a lot of action film from John Woo staring Chow Yun-Fat or Jackie Chan, other directors as well like Jonnie To or Benny Chan. Followed by their drams with directors like Wong Kar-Wai and others. (I don’t want to name them all, there’s just too many). The Thing about the current “Korean New Wave” is that they were mainly controlled by government censors which have been loosened which is why were getting so many great Korean Films now.

As I read the book I found it of very little use for my report I was writing for a class. As I read it seemed to me like it was just a collection of reviews of Korean movies. At the very back of the book they list some of the Authors credentials as being a part time film critic with 750+ movie reviews. Bottom line this book is a collection of reviews for Korean films he either like or didn’t.

Some of the highlights of the books as stated in the book are
- a brief history of South Korea and it’s Film Industry
very brief indeed, with only a mention about Japanese occupation,
Government censorship and reform in the 80’s

- a look at present state of Korea’s filmmaking industry and how it resembles the dot com era
it just normal business I thought, companies won’t invest until they know they’ll make money off of the project.

- an examination of Characteristics of the newest “Korean New Wave”
As in any “New Wave” movement in film it just means that they’re showing more films about the social/political changes happening within the country.

- A look at the stars of Korean Cinema,
I hated the part when he compared actors to Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts. I believe if you’re watching foreign films you don’t want to compare them to “American Actors”

- How moviegoers can go about seeing Korean Movies
All he say is here is go to film festivals and shop on the internet for DVD and make sure to by an all region DVD player. Not the most helpful information, I thought.

Your’re best bet would be to find it at a used bookstore if you’re lucky or look for it at your local library but if you want to have it then go ahead and get it.

Rip Slyme

I just heard about a Japanese group called Rip Slyme but when I first googled them I kept looking for "slim slipper" becuse I couldn't remember the name of the group. Anyway the guy who told me about them was in my Lighting 1 class. The funny thing is his name is Akira but he's not Japanese. That may not be funny to you but I thought it was interesting. Anyway he should me a video of theirs called I.N.G. which I couldn't find on youtube becasue of so many things called I.N.G. I also tried looking up "My Style Vaio" and still couldn't find it. Well he told me the name again and I found them. One of the reasons I liked the video is because they have a shot called "lighting" that I thought was funny becasue it reminded me of the class we were in when he told me. They were playing with lights used in filming, I thought it was funny so I liked the video. Here it is so you guys can see it.

Sentai

For those of you who might not know Sentai shows are the orgianl versions of the Power Rangers in America. But I guess you'll figure that out when you watch the videos. I wanted to make a comment about the show and the pink ranger but I figured this is also a good way to expose some people to the Sentai shows. There are other shows that are just as popular and old like Sentai like Kamon Rider or Masked Rider. Japan has lots of other shows like "Blue Swat" and "SPACE SHERIFF SHAIDER" and "Cyber Cops".

Anyway the comment I wanted to make was that often when the show has two female characters one of them is usually always pink. The other is a different usually Yellow or white. Anyway what I wanted to say was that I noticed that usually the other ranger is cuter than the Pink Ranger. Although the Pink ranger in all the shows is usually supposed to be the cute character in all the shows.

Here are a few examples of other rangers that are usually cuter than the Pink Ranger.
The Best example is Deka Ranger


(DekaRanger)


(MegaRanger) Another good example and my fravoite of all the shows


(Five Man)


(BOUKENGER) Here the Pink Ranger is actually cute but I still think that the Yellow Ranger is cuter


(ChangeMan) The Pink Ranger actually looks cute here


(Jetto Man)


(OhRanger)


(FlashMan) The Yellow Ranger is waaay cuter than the Pink


(BioMan)

Here are some show that only have one Female ranger


(ZyuRanger)


(TurboRanger)


(GekiRanger)


(GoGoFive)


(TimeRanger)


(KakuRanger) Kane Kusogi is the Man


(HURRICANGER) She's not Pink but boy she sure is cute


(DaiRanger) This show is pretty awsome too


(SPACE SHERIFF SHAIDER) This is another cool looking show


(FlashMan) This is the Korean opening for Flash Man, I thought it sounded cute. But the year is Wrong 1997 was actually MegaRangers

I found this while I was looking up all these videos. It actually looks kinda cool, Ranger in Thai Land. I wonder what Satoko would say if she saw this

(SportRanger)

Busy

I've been quite busy lately, also I've been trying to act more like my friend "Lazybones" and not doing much of anything else. I've gottent a new film yesterday called The Restless - 중천 (中天) but haven't seen it yet. Anyway this weekend was spent mostly playing Resident Evil 4. Which I've already beaten but now on professional mode I'm find Krauser difficult to beat. So I'm playing it all over again in hopes that I can load the clear staged data so I would have stonger guns when I fight Krauser again in Professional mode. Even though I really should be registering for class since Columbia college screwed me over for next semister. Actually out about 12 new movies I've only seen 1 of them so I haven't even been watching any films. I have... actually I've been slacking on that as well I was about to say I've been praticeing my Korean but this last week has been kinda hard with just finished midterms and now getting ready for finals. Now I'm trying to let people know about Wizard World 2007, and I've....
ah ha. Now I know where I've been spending my time doing. I've watched most of Battlestar Galatica miniseries series and season 1 stright and only have one and a half disk left of season two to watch.
Grace Park is hot, but I'll write about that later. Not only that but I've also been watching the reruns on PAX TV in Chicago. I've gotten carried away with finding out who the Cylons are. I've looked on the internet for spoilers and found out who 11 of the 12 human models are. Even though on the show StarBuck just met the 5th on Caperca and the president is on the run from Commander Odama. I've also heard that season 4 might be the last season.

Frog River

Actually I've been busy with school. Summer Session is a lot faster than I realized. For some reason the teachers give the midter three weeks before the final which is too close if you ask me. Anyway all the movies I orderd came in last month and I haven't been able to watch them all. But I did see frog river, which I thought was good. It's a short (90min) indie film form the Japan. It's distrubited by a company called Grasshopper which is getting know for distributing indie films. Anyway it's about a guy named Tsutomu (Ryo Kase - 加瀬 亮) who's in an art college and in love with a girl named Mizuno. Anyway, most of the movie is about him trying to hang out with her. His only two friends in the movie know that he loves her and one of that uses it to his advantage. Anyway one of the most interesting aspects is how the director uses Mise en scène (fancey college word they teach in film school), or at least the wardrobe with every character having something written on their shirt that tells you something about the character. Too bad I hate Kanji and couldn't understand what's written on their cloths. Except at the end when they told me when they switched house with end. Although we never see the Mizuno, and of his Friends, Kaori (Machiko Ono - 尾野真千子) is a girl that likes him but he's too obsessed with Mizuno to notice. I thought she was cute in the film, that's why I put up her pic now. It's a good film that I recommend

Sale

Virgin Megastore is going out of business and has everything marked down 35%. Which means this is a great time to get some Japanese movies either from their international section or thier Criterion Collection. Actually I got carried away and bought quite a few DVDs and forgot to leave some money to oreder the Perfume CD. Well, here are some of the movies I picked to expand my ever growing movie collection.

Perfume (コンピューターシティー)

I just heard about this group called perfume and thought they were really good. The last Japanese techno i heard was the E.L.T. (Every Little Thing) techno album. As soon as I get some moeny I'm gonna order their CDs, here's a video for whoever's interested

New Books

While looking for a few books to help me write my zombie movie I went to a book store not that far from here (Powell’s Book Store 828s. Wabash). I was looking for ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE and WORLD WAR Z. (By the way I did that calculate risk test they have on they’re website which calculates you possibility of survival during the zombie war. My highest score was 32%, and I’d like to say the questions are a little bias, because I’m pretty sure I’d survive unless I was trying to protect a girl) Anyway they didn’t have the books there but I found some other ones that I thought were be really interesting.

Aya Hirano 平野 綾

I was looking around on Myspace when I came across a persons profile that that this song playing. It reminded me of 80's Anime, (probably the only anime I really watch). So I clicked on the song and fond her name and not much else. So I took the name and googled it, and came up with this stuff. born October 8, 1987 in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, is a voice actor (seiyū) and singer who has had roles in several anime, visual novel series and TV commercials in Japan. I couldn't really find out the song too much; actually don't have enough time to look through all the albums to find the song or the album (I have class soon). Anyway give it a listen to at
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=133480565

Top Ten

Whenever I meet someone new I usually ask them what thier favorite movies are, just 10. Being a film student I think it helps me understand what kind of person they are by thier favorite films. Which usually isn't fair to other people because they like more than 10. The same goes for me, I have 10 depending on the Country and Genre. So I just tell them to try and pick 10, for now here's my 10; I mean for now because it changes over time, and i still haven't seen a lot of films yet. In no paticulare order except for the #1 spot. I wonder if you guys can figure me out after seeing my top ten

1 Brotherhood Of The Wolf - Le Pacte Des Loups (France)
2 A Bittersweet Life - 달콤한 인생 (Korea)
3 Josee, the Tiger and the Fish - ジョゼと虎と魚たち (Japan)
4 Infernal Affairs 2 - 無間道2 (Hong Kong)
5 The Professional - (Léon) (U.S.A./France)
6 The Boondock Saints (U.S.A.)
7 Shiri - 쉬리 (Korea)
8 Blue Spring - 青い春 (Japan)
9 The Outsiders (U.S.A.)
10 Blackhawk Down (U.S.A.)

28 Weeks Later

I was talking to one of my professors who loves Zombie movies about 28 weeks later and he told me that he strongly disliked the movie. He didn't like how the movie went in all different directions with the characters, or how the farther got infected by his wife from a kiss. Or how easily he was able to get to his wife and get out of the room where she was held, that was something I didn't think about til he mentioned it. When the army deicdes to fire bomb the city, and everything explodes they show a shot where she's still straped to the exam table and the window's not broken and the door's not open either. How did he get out? He tried to say he would have used his pass but by then he was infected and wouldn't even been thinking about using his pass.



I want to write my own version of "28 DAYS" later that would focus more on the soliders view. In 28 Weeks later there was a small scene that I thought was perfect and would have like for them to expand on it. It's when contamation has broke out and the soliders are ordered to abandon selective targets and shoot all personal on the gorund level.


When "Doyle" played by Jeremy Renner who's becoming the Next Michael Biehn because he's been type casted as a solider in most of the films he's been (Michel Biehn) in even though he has no military experience. Anyway Doyle asks to confirm order when he gets his sights on the "Andy" the kid, he takes the shot only to have an infected step in at the last moment and then he runs away. As Doyle first hesitates to shoot, and then watches the kid run away. We hear another solider call Doyle through the eye peice who's not paying attention and then begins to yell. That's when he finally looks over and see two infected "eating" him, so he takes the shot and kills his friend. That scene was what I was expecting the entire movie to be like.



Here's how my story would go a group of American soldiers who are station in Britian during the orginal Outbreak, are ordered to help British soliders to maintain blockades. When they notice that this situation is far worse then they expected they head back to base where they hear the island has been quarantine. They then decide that they're going to leave, they refill on ammo and head out. The only thing is they never make it off the island, one decides to stay and help the civilians while others get picked off by the infected one by one. The main point would be they're never afraid about getting killed and have total confidence that they're going to get off the island.

Korean Lessons

Yesterday I had my first Korean Lessons with Kimmy, and she bought me these two books to study from, but she didn't know that I had some books that I bought from the University Of Chicago Bookstore.


Anyway I showed her mine and she thought they were very good, but she decided to teach me with her books because she thought it would be eaiser for her to teach that way since she never taught Korean and isn't too sure how to do it. She also gave me some CDs, that she was going to throw away. The lessons she's giving me, along with my regualr classes, and Now I'm sitting in on a ESL class is really going to take up all my time but somehow I still make time to watch movies and write on Blogger. Not to mention I still have to review my Japanese