TGIF

YES!!!

 

In case you can’t spot it, that round head on the rt of the trio is my Loverboy~ <333

My C/HK/TW Movie Watchlist 2014

In order of anticipation.

Every big name director is having an epic out in 2014.  This is already my shortlist, there are many I am not interested in but make good business sense.  Quite a few, I can not wait!

合吾! on Longmen Express

[all pictures and gifs from baidu longmen express bar]

Have an MV:  Longmen Express – O Death or a trailer in Japanese

Cool, huh?!  The drama is nothing like it lol, except for some fleeting moments it’s roasting itself and every wuxia/period dramas.  

Weekend Pretty Post: Spring’s MEN edition

It will get so hot in here, it’ll be dead heat of summer by the end you finish the post.  Guaranteed!

Monday Pretty (and not so pretty) post

Things I truly want to write about:

1. ILICDD: but then it’s mostly squees and I can’t stop myself from clicking another ep to begin with, and on top of that, control my inclination to gush with spoilers when this is one show that every detail is so precious and must be experienced firsthand.

2. FOL:   It’s D-2 KoreanTime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We are down to counting down hours tmr!!!!!!!!!  It is one that truly gets better with rewatch, so dense and immersing a drama experience, and it’s just so well done with effort and thought behind every frame.  I still lost it so very early on, as in had to break and curl up in a ball crying when DongSoo’s dad is weeping about his dead son, his every word is like a stab to himself and to me, when we are also fresh on the visual of it happening on DS’ body.  TT___TT I think this is partly responsible (bulk is it’s written by a Kmelo fiend monkey no offense to monkey) of me not able to enjoy any of the contrived melodramatic in IMY.  In FOL I see a young DongSoo, being snuffed of hope every time there is a glimmer, and yet I see him at least trying to soldier on,  this tender, old soul in a young boy’s body.   I’m talking about a lonely, withdrawn young boy, not dealt a lucky card in life at all.

3. My 2012 favs.  I have so many or I should say I rabidly insanely love the precious few like no other year, my head is exploding in the happy.

But of course I go do sth not even remotely related instead.  *I do blame it on IMY being sooooooooooooo FUG.  Lets not kid ourselves, obviously YSH’s party do is ShinChan going to his prom.*

C netizens voted on the best (and worst) glossy magazine covers on their newsstands in 2012.   How can shallowme look away, may I ask?!

Wuxias Trololoing

When I saw half my Wlist loling like a cackle of hyenas a wk ago, when the following rumored list for the cast of DGSD2013 was leaked, all I can helplessly do was ‘Oh-PLEAAHZEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ it to oblivion, this utter devastating exacerbating load of bullcrap.   I had a good laugh though.  You will too.

By this time we’ve all seen Wallace as QiaoFung, and 90% of us r nursing massive headaches because of it.  Wallace can never be a QF, he’ll angst and be in pain but missing the boat as the commanding hero of a Demi-god able to survive more than the whole wuxia’s worth load of crappy boulders falling on him.

imo Wallace has always attached himself to duds, I have seen quite a handful of his work through the years but none of them can be hailed as watchable.  None.  So it does make sense he’s attached to this.  It fits, actually.  I don’t think he’ll be the main reason this drama is the stinkiest of all wuxia adapts, he’ll hold his own and be bland coz if we are talking about a myriad of funny smelling things….there are plenty.

Counting down to Dec

Last stretch, ~4 months to go.  I don't need him to jump into a new project or whatever. I only want maybe a snap of him buying Christmas presents for his folks/fam/hyungs in CheongdamDong looking like a dork in a baseball cap and totally chillaxing and flashing his dimpled shy smiles to anyone in sight.

In other words, no more drawing of blood in ur uniform, while fanahjumma'nurse' is madgrinning at you all happy<_<:

Then there's THE epic 5/6-way battle on the Cmovie front.  Tbh I've not seen a truly decent Cmovie epic/blockbuster since War of Flowers and that was Dec last yr.  This year there are a multitude of megablockbusters in store and the battle will be cut throat bloody.

Patriot Yue Fei trailer

My thoughts? 
ChenKun's insanely charming and expressive face sums up my reaction, exactly:

My world is back to its cosmic balanced normalcy.  It's less exciting, but I'll be saved many hours of time-wasting and rants.

In many more words:
1.  HXM is gorgeous, undeniably fineeee, and he's in the Clothes Optional/Always Off Club.  Those r some new hard muscles and it looks good, on him, and he's generous to show us.   Me thinks he wont be training with his top on ever in this.
2.  Clothes and sets r well designed, not the gawdy froufrou showoff purposeless vein abundant in CN periods (which I can't stand), but tasteful, and just right touches.
3.  Ruby looks captivating in 2 sec of screentime, and fits her role to a TEE. Everybody else, as well.  EXCEPT…
4. HXM, himself.  It's back to my biggest gripe with him, and a hugest peeve of mine.  PS.  He had some, and it's showing in his lower half of his face and the second he opens his mouth to read lines, it's back to the crazy spastic out of control gobbing and smirking, screaming to me I'm too PERFECTLY PRETTY TO NOT BE SWARMYHAMMY MUAHAHAHAHHA!!!!!!! Needless to say, he's not really improved, as he's previously fooled me in those gorgeous stills, and so wrong for the Righteous Patriotic Hero of Virtuous Perfection!  BUT HXM's fangirls can rest assure, your constant comfort of sweet candy hunkflesh adonis, the never changing XiaoMing is back, from my grabbyhands, to yours.

Sorta off topic:
Really, I'm not against plastic surgery entirely, but when it obscures what u r expressing thus ACTING then I don't need to see it in my dramas and movies.  I'm against PS becoming alarmingly an obligation in Cdramaland,  It's like a stuck-on (and many cases, carved-out) LV logo for faces, it has to be obvious, for show, a status quo/symbol translating to bookings and jobs.  It's not unheard of for management companies 'urging' newbies to have things done, and procedures r glamorized as losing wt/getting prettier.  I'm most offended is PS has become  a jumping board to ascent in the industry, gone is the honing of skills or any consideration for talent level/suitability for the role to begin with.  Yuan ShanShan is the specimen where her obscene amount of procedures is lauded and rewarded with leading roles instead of any talent/improvement.  And I'm pushed to the limit and doing my own little protest with my drama time by NOT condoning and watching anything these cheaters r in when they r nth without their PS or overrated hyping to begin with.  I wonder if it's to be written in their CVs nowadays what pricey prodecures r done in order to even be considered under representation and they'll be rewarded screen time accordingly.  What I'm against is most of the time it's horribly obvious, fugly and absolutely unnecessary, eg YangMi and many of her homies/up and coming starlets in the biz, they must've all met at the same hideous surgeon's office/dungeon. 

Then there r successful cases which I understand how it pays off in jump-starting in their career when they have potential to begin with, eg a HXM or a Fan Bingbing.  BUT procedures always backfire, sooner or later and now he's lost any artful control of his lower face, when he's SOOO promising, if less chiseled before.

I can’t believe it: a HXM as YueFei fangirling post…mostly

Lord have mercy!  Gone is the HXM anti for last decade in me and a clean new slate (with many dirty thoughts!)

Ruby Lin is LOVELY and I let out a sigh of relief… she's playing mother of the children of a YueFei that looks like Huang Fking XiaoMing instead of a 16 yo bimboprincess.  Who freaken cares about doubling their age just to grow old(er) with YueFei, HXM or no HXM.  Age appropriate gorgeousness is sooooooo much easier on eyes.  And I can imagine the job is much easier on Ruby herself, screaming OTP! just with hand holding.

C Drama everything

If one only relies on weibo for casting 'news', Loverboy is the sizzling piece of holy Tang-monk meat everybody exc TR wants a bite.  All we know for sure is he's chilling back home in Wuhan, spotted partying everywhere in fanpics all over weibo and 'reading scripts' after Mulan wrapped. His name is popping up in every drama under the sun in preproduction. The most ridiculous being Goong 3: FengMi+HongShi r mentioned in same breath as the main quartet MUAHAHAHHAHA.  Then there's the up in the air one of Hawick, YaYa, YH transplanting to a modern TongHua adaptation (really I can count 2 or 3 or 4 TH adaptations in production atm GEEZ)now that the censor bureau is cramping down on period 'non-historicals' making Lonely Spring Court a possible no-go.  There's one potential pairing I'm praying to happen, even for the evil stepmom of a writer Fei Wo Si Cun's East Court (Sealed with A Kiss WTFery will never be easily forgotten here): YH + Wang ZiWen, an up and coming U25 C actress I'm keeping a very keen eye on.  She's still under the radar but with the smartest resume amongst her peers, popping up in EVERY genre possible, her work portfolio has the greatest balance of serious and trendy; silly popular idol vehicles, critically acclaimed blockbusters and indie artsy gems.  If u've asked me, she would've kicked LSS to the curb as RuoXi because there's a vivacity firing under her demure looks,  the often talking point of SS' sore lack of.  Wang's eyes, even with those horrid circle lens can wax poetic.

She earned some serious brownie points as a noob in Sheng Si Qiao/生死桥 (Lit. The Bridge of Life and Death), a drama adaptation of my favorite Lilian Li novel growing up.  She is DanDan, a fav character of mine in all of Lilian's novels. Needless to say I'm harsher than normal when watching and was prepared to jump at any stabbity chance.  She's green in it and wearing circle lens in a period drama is my HUGE peeve, but she's got the aura of the character pat down, impeccable casting by PD all around.  And what a seriously true to novel adaptation!   It's one of the best drama adaptations of any piece of novel I've seen in Cdrama,  even with new characters added on and filling plots out to enrich a full length drama epic.  The dedication and perfection in every painstaking detail in adaptation was only seen in the rare BBC masterpiece equivalent.  That said, it's not for entertainment, it's super angsty, no glimmer of rainbow for ANY of the characters,  tbh many times you'd wished them killed and RIP instead of living the hell.  At times it's draggy, bare in histrionics, brilliant ladyPD has no care of pacing it for an easier catchy watch, putting all her eggs in the basket of reviving the time and place and the fine artistry of Peking Opera.  RL artists are allowed to showcase real performances, often most of an act of opera.  The supporting cast is a list of the who's who of living national treasures.  It's a feast for the eyes with any care to historical accuracy, and for an art geek, it's glorious crack. I need a rewatch.

She's scene stealing most lately in the Great Magician, the sly-est political satire cloaking under the slapstick farce, a true storytelling 'magic' trickery.  She's the prettiest of the cast, esp when Zhao Xun is unbelievably haggard to play the love of their llives of both Tony and Sean.

I watched an episode of ZJZ's New Journey to the West 2011 last night.  It's not as headdesky as I thought in content, but severe acousticophobia alert: ZJZ is using his bloody inappropriate background music LOUD and 24/7 EVERY FkING SECOND OF THE EPISODE. EVERYYYYY! Lord, have mercy.  There are dense text st fr the classic, then the remaining lines r too modern, typical.  One of ZJZ's 'strength' is he's going to 'dramatize' any book clunkily page by loyal page.  There won't be much editing/adapting the dry text into a proper screenplay.  It's not an issue here, I'm just saying out loud.

Guess what this is:

The main issue:  Art direction and CGI are HORRIBLE (above: Cow Demon)  This looks exactly the same as things 30/40 yrs ago.   $1 billion RMB and u r giving us this crap?!?!?! I wasn't expecting anything, but hope u have pages of excuses for ur bankers, ZJZ.
Despite it all, I may still continue, for the insane amount of big star cameos! FSF has never looked more smashing and I've heard he's doing an endearing job with his role as the mystical hero, 3rd eye all seeing Erlang Shen.  He can be Pegasus Seiya in this get up. I approve!

In other news: me gusta HXM as the Legendary Sung hero General in the movie The Patriot Yue Fei:

This is no longer news: Peter Ho is BAMF!Hot in blood and grime.