WARNING! a tall lady rules this blog site..

My goodness,its already Thursday!!
I seriously have alot of backlogs..

Been too busy with my aunt staying in last week,& I've been busy with work & my movies!
Had Red Cliff 2 on Tuesday with kor, Ong Bak 2 with Luis on Wednesday,& Ip man on my own just now.. :))
Alittle bit overwhelmed.

For the 3 movies..ALL fighting sequences were good..

Listed below are just some plots of the respective movies.
I highly recommend Red Cliff 2 if you have watched part 1 (to conclude the war thing),and also Ip Man.. :D
Ong Bak 2 was abit off,the story doesn't make sense,& its exaggerating.

Bitter over an unforeseen defeat to rival states Shu and Wu, Cao Cao of the Wei Kingdom is confident that his million-man fleet will crush the under-manned alliance once and for all.
An epidemic and seasickness cripple Cao Cao's men, however, postponing D-day. Gen. Zhou Yu and strategist Zhuge Liang take the time to demoralize their enemy, and trick Cao Cao into practically giving them 100,000 arrows and even beheading his top generals.

Nevertheless, the allies are still seriously outnumbered and can only increase their chances of winning by attacking with fire. A northwester, however, compromises their plan, as the flames would blow back in their direction. Zhuge Liang, foreseeing an astronomical movement that will change the circumstances, urges the allies to postpone the attack. Meanwhile, Xiao Qiao, Zhou Yu's beautiful wife whom Cao Cao lusts after, heads to the enemy line with a plan of her own.

Set in the regal times of King Naresuan, Tony Jaa plays Tien a man who was born into nobility but had it stripped from him after his parents were brutally murdered. During his childhood Tien learned Khon, a form of dance which is usually reserved for royalty.
Although he didn't know it yet Khon would later prove to be an invaluable aide to him. After seeing his parents murdered at the tender age of 10, Tien is forced to live on the streets where he is eventually captured by a group of thieves who take him in and teach him how to steal and fight. Tien expertise as a thief and fighter grows and it isn't long before he is made head thief.
Then Tien sees something that makes his stomach churn. A competition is being held to find the best knights to serve under the very man who had killed Tien's parents all those years ago. Tien passes the tests easily and is made Lord Rachasana's 2nd Knight.
Now, he has his opportunity to strike but he will have to use all his skill and ingenuity if he is going to get his revenge on the man who killed his parents

Ip Man is adapted from the life story of Yip Man, the grandmaster of the Wing Chun style of kung fu and sifu of legendary kung fu superstar Bruce Lee.
This film will be the first important record of the master's life.

In the 1930s, Foshan thrives as the hub of Chinese wushu, with various sects actively recruiting disciples.
They often compete against each other to prove their strengths.
While Ip Man is an accomplished martial artist, he is unassuming and keeps a low-profile, and doesn't run any martial arts school, nor accept students.
He only stays at home, quietly sparring with his compatriots in friendly competitions, swapping pointers with each other.

One day, Ip Man is challenged by Master Liao, who just set up a wushu school, in a closed match. Ip's teahouse owner friend who witnessed the entire fight, tells everyone about Master Liu losing. Seeing it as a public humiliation, Master Liao gets into disputes with Yip Man.

Henchmen of Jin Shan Zhao are going around challenging various wushu schools in Foshan. Martial Zealot Lin informs Yip Man, who was however, unable to go out and aid the masters because he respected his wife, Wing Cheng, who dislikes her husband fighting.

Eventually, Jin Shao Zhao finds Ip's residence and challenged him.
Ip dispenses him with ease using four Wing Chun Forms: fist, footwork, blade and cudgel.
Ip becomes an instant hero and there develops a craze for Wing Chun in Foshan.

Following Japanese invasion in 1937, everyone's life is adversely affected.
Ip's property is confiscated and his family is forced to live in a decrepit house.
Being one with strong pride, Ip refuses charity from his wealthy friend Zhou Qing Quan, owner of a cotton mill, opting instead to work as a coolie at a coal mine to sustain his family.
One day, General Miura, together with his troops, arrives.

As a fanatical practitioner in martial arts himself, he sets up an arena, offering rice as a reward.
However, to another high-ranking Japanese officer Sato's mind, they cannot afford to lose, they must preserve Japanese superiority and dignity.
Eagerly taking up the challenge, Martial Zealot Lin makes use of the opportunity to demean the Japanese, but was brutally beaten to death.

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OK....
This song didn't make any sense to me,its a first I see of Gackt's music video on MTV just now..

Alittle disturbing with some guy trying to commit suicide,and Gackt looks..much older.
I actually quite like his artiste persona and songs..
He's not THAT old but a huge flaw appeared on a couple of scenes.OMG.
Call for a face lift? not sure..haha..

It was alittle funny with lyrics going..
"Take me out!
In the midst of a dream..

Real or Dream?
Answer me.."

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Another day went by just like that..
I spent my entire morning clearing up some mess because my aunt is staying over for the following week..
& I spent quite alot of time blogging about Ponyo..
& THEN..

I had my evening out to an Indian-Muslim wedding dinner,which was quite delightful..
For a fact,this is the THIRD wedding event that I've attended to in A WEEK! >.<"
Its NUTS man,I've been eating like nobody's business!!! Plus festive meals?!?!
OMG..

Its my first to such a wedding,& it was pretty grand too! :))
They had insufficient tables,so the concept was to eat & go off,things like that..I dont think everybody stayed that long either..
So the usage of tables are rotated by various guests..




We had waiting staff who served cutlery,bryani rice with mutton,achar to go along,& some curry sauce..

Some sort of fried chicken was served too,marinated with spices & it was really good :D~
Not forgetting..PAPADUMS! :D :D :D

Wah it was major shiok with the rice man! Some "eat all you can" spree..
Door gifts were cupcakes & I brought so many to YWAG! hee.

YWAG was quite good too,incase you have no idea whats YWAG,its the name of my cell group lah!
:P
It was Jesse's birthday on Friday,& the twins will be having theirs on Tuesday,same as my Mum!
Wanted to get gifts,but was too last minute.
Wanted to buy a cake,but my cell group leaders had settled it already.

Oh well,I did all the mouth action lor.EAT!





The cake was really good by the way ;)

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WAH I caught the sneaks last Saturday!!So excited!! I want to watch it again because its a very simple story,there's so much innocence in it,& it brings us to the sea & nature..Brilliant.
Even Miyazaki has quite a number of significances in this film,very subtle..

Officially on the screens here in Singapore..
Again agaiN! yay~Can't even wait for the DVD actually.HA.
I'm quite a fan of Hayaho Miyazaki (does an ALMOST complete DVD box set of his works count me in?),so I'm here to share..
Its about a goldfish who wants to become a girl..

Well actually,she's a goldfish who runs away from her home in the sea.
She ends up stranded on the shore and is rescued by Sōsuke, a five year old boy who lives in a house on a cliff.
After taking a great liking to her, Sōsuke names her Ponyo and vows to protect her forever. Meanwhile, her father Fujimoto is looking for his daughter, upset that she ran away. He calls his wave demons to return Ponyo to him.
Sōsuke is heartbroken by this, and goes home with his mother, Lisa, who tries to cheer him up, but to no avail.

Ponyo and her father have a confrontation, where Ponyo refuses to let her father call her Brünnhilde and declares she is Ponyo, and voices her desire to become human, because she has started to fall in love with Sōsuke. Her father silences her with difficulty and goes to summon Ponyo's mother.

Meanwhile, Ponyo, with the help of her sisters, breaks away from her father, and uses his magic to make herself human. This causes an imbalance in the world, which in turn results in a huge storm. Riding on the waves of the storm, Ponyo goes back to visit Sōsuke. Lisa, Sōsuke, and Ponyo stay the night at Sōsuke's house, hoping the storm will be over, whereupon Lisa leaves the house to check up on the residents of the nursing home she works at.

Granmammare, Ponyo's mother, arrives at Fujimoto's submarine.Fujimoto notices the moon has come out of its orbit and the satellites are falling like shooting stars. Granmammare declares that if Sōsuke and Ponyo pass a test, Ponyo can live as a human and the world order will be restored.

Sōsuke and Ponyo wake up to find that most of the land has been submerged. Lisa has not come home yet, so with the help of Ponyo's magic, they make Sōsuke's toy boat life-size and set out to find Lisa. While traveling they see ancient extinct fish swimming, such as the Gogonasus.

After landing and finding Lisa's empty car, Ponyo and Sōsuke go through a tunnel. There Ponyo loses her human form and resumes the form of a fish. Sōsuke and Ponyo are captured by Fujimoto and they safely arrive at the nursing home and meet Granmammare. Granmammare asks Sōsuke if he can love Ponyo even if she is a fish or mermaid. Sōsuke replies that he likes Ponyo in all forms. Granmammare then allows Ponyo to become human once Ponyo kisses Sōsuke on the surface.


Spoiler movie review if you have not watched it. :P

THE END.. :)


Hayao Miyazaki never fails to impress and enlighten me with his works..
Its always has that whimsical & magical touch that I myself can't think of,& most of you don't even think of it either.
I wonder how he grew up & lived as a child,plus his surrounding environment since young till now?

Anyways,something for the Miyazaki fans..
"Do you know?" stuff that makes you want to watch Ponyo again..!

The wonderful shade the moon brought to the movie - At the opening of the movie we see an impressive moon. It is larger than usual and as it appears its existence becomes larger. Miyazaki mentions that "Because of the world’s balance disruption, the moon is getting close to earth." It brings the crisis of earth’s collapsing; the moon’s approximation causes a gravitational imbalance, making the sea level rise and cities sink into the sea.

However, the moon means more than that. Since early times, the moon has been said to be a female symbol. Ponyo's mother Gran Manmare always appears at night and radiates a strange moonshine-like light. Some say the moon can govern human spirit and increase the numbers of suicide during full moon. Or the moon's age and tide having some relation with human life and death. It may be no exaggeration to say that humans as a creature are controlled by the moon.

The relationship with the Ghibli Museum shorts - Some of the trials Studio Ghibli has accumulated during the production of six of the Ghibli Museum shorts have been reflected on this movie. From Koro no Daisanpo (コロの大さんぽ, Koro's Big Day Out), with its picture book style like backgrounds (the warm and nostalgic style painted by Yoshida Noboru was first accepted in that movie). From Mizugumo Monmon (水グモもんもん, Monmon the Water Spider), with its the detailed depiction of water. From Yadosagashi (やどさがし, House Hunting), with its depiction of trees, grasses and winds which were drawn using Sakuga. From Hoshi wo Katta Hi (星をかった日, The Day I Harvested a Star), with its three-dimensional depiction without using CG mapping.

These are the experiences that made it possible to make Ponyo without any CG. Because we nowadays don’t use cel animation at all, we necessarily need computer processing on the composition of characters, backgrounds and effecting of light. However, we can feel something awesome on this all hand drawn movie.


Listening to Wagner's Valkyrie - When Miyazaki was developing the idea of Ponyo, he used to listen to the entire composition of Wagner's opera The Valkyrie. Some staff say that Miyazaki was saying "Listening to this music, I can feel the adrenaline flowing". Like Hitler used Wagner in Nazi propaganda, Wagner’s music has an uplifting power to the human sprit.

No wonder such Valkyrie could effect something on the movie. The real name of Ponyo is Brünnhilde and was derived from the eldest of the nine flying girls named the Valkyrie. She is slept by her father Wotan, who is caring about her. From the very beginning, the world view of Valkyrie is the world of the gods fronting the end of the time. From these, the influence can be guessed. Wotan is the master of the gods, trying to avoid the end of the world. We can easily imagine Ponyo's father Fujimoto from it.

The root from Natsume Soseki - After the production of Hauru no Ugoku Shiro (ハウルの動く城, Howl’s Moving Castle), Miyazaki eagerly read the complete works of Natsume Soseki, which gave an unforeseen effect on Ponyo (note: Natsume is widely considered to be Japan’s foremost novelist of the Meiji Era). Natsume's novel Mon sets its main character as Sosuke. This Sosuke lives under a cliff and it is obvious that Ponyo’s Sosuke is derived from Mon’s Sosuke.

Furthermore, Natsume studied abroad in London when he was young. He must surely have seen Millais's Ophelia at Tate Britain. In his book Kusamakura (草枕, Grass Pillow), Soseki overlapped Ophelia on its heroine and mentioned about the picture of Ophelia. Miyazaki got an interest in Millais’s diabolical picture and visited Britain to watch it by his own naked eyes. He was shocked to see it and decided to change his way of depiction, which was too detailed and over mature to naiveness. And all of this started because of Soseki. Surprisingly, according to the old calendar Soseki's birthday is on 1/5. Miyazaki's is on 1/5 according to the new calendar. They might be linked by fate.

(Note: Miyazaki was shocked by Ophelia’s detailed depiction. He thought the way pursued by Studio Ghibli had already been completed by Millais and other European painters from the 19th century with a much higher level than that of Ghibli.)


Mother and Child, by Suzuki Toshio - This year Miyazaki became 67 years old. Last autumn, he told, "I became at such an age that I can count the rest of my days until "Omukae" comes to me. Then perhaps I can meet my mother again. When that time comes, what should I talk with her about?"

(Note: When we die we think someone like God, Buddha, an angel or death comes to invite and take us from beyond the grave or above the sky. In the Ponyo song Himawari no Ie no Rondo, the lyrics go "I want to dance again for a while until Omukae comes to me". This is the wish of the elderly wheel chaired women.)

During the production of Ponyo Miya-san was always thinking about this. During one of the days of production, a scene of seeing again came up in the movie. Of course it does not depict such a situation of Miyazaki himself. He borrows the character of the 5 year old Sosuke and lets him meet with an old woman. I won’t tell what they talk about. You will know it when it’s on the screen. Either way, no matter how old we get, the existence of one’s mother has a large and deep meaning for all of us.


A secret of the ancient fish - In Ponyo there is typhoon that causes the sea level to rise, making the town sink into the sea and bringing underwater creatures that once existed in the Devonian period. Some examples are the Bothriolepis and Dipnorhynchus, which really used to exist and of which fossils were found. Another one is Devonencs. It is huge whale like shark and its body is flat. In fact, this is an imaginary creature created by Miyazaki, on which he says "Isn't it like " Ittan-momen?".

(Note: Ittan-momen is a kind of traditional specter. Ittann means about 10 meter long, momen means cotton, so it's a cloth specter. It became popular by Mizuki Shigeru's manga GeGeGe no Kitaro.)

Back with Nausicaa Miyazaki already created huge fictional insects. Like that, Ponyo’s water creatures stun the audience, without their form showing any unreasonableness. Instead, it shows Miyazaki's imagination and his deep knowledge about biology.

Love for Ramen - In Miyazaki’s films there often appear many kinds of delicious looking food. Like the sunny-side up egg and bread in Laputa, Tendon, Anman and Onigiri in Sen to Chihiro and the bacon and eggs in Hauru...

(Note: Tendon (天丼) is the shrimp tempura in a rice bowl which Kamaji eats for lunch, Anman（あんまん）are bean-paste buns Chihiro and Rin eat it in the night at the balcony and Onigiri（おにぎり） is the rice ball that Haku gives to Chihiro when she was crying.)

In Ponyo, the best is the Ramen which Lisa serves to Sosuke and Ponyo, even though it's just instant noodles. Miyazaki's favorite is the one with spinach added to it. However, it wasn't easy to draw and as a result it was changed to green onion as we can see in the picture. There are also two pieces of ham on the ramen to be seen. In that particular scene where Ponyo eats the ham, the animator drew Ponyo taking the upper piece first, however the Sakuga director checked it and corrected it. Ponyo takes the lower ham first, because it is dunked in the soup and can be much warmer than the upper one. It's a delicate persistency. Like this ramen episode, the movie shows various examples of delicate persistency and direction everywhere.

The depiction of waves - This time, with Ponyo, Miyazaki has put most of his effort on depicting waves "like creatures". He turned them into huge rushing fishes called "Suigyo" (水魚, water fish).

Miyazaki uses the waves to resemble these huge fishes and depicts roaring waves in an overwhelming volume. Those who can see them as fish are only children like Sosuke, but adults like Lisa only see the waves. We once saw such a thing in Totoro. Children can detect the entity with their pure eyes. This is a unbudging belief Miyazaki has kept consistently. He might have created a new depiction style of waves that is different from Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎).

A thought put into gladiolus - At Ponyo’s Himawari-en (the nursery which Sosuke attends) and Himawari-no-ie there are blooming gladiolus. In flower language they stand for passionate love, memory, endeavor and forgetting and there are not many flowers that have such various meanings in flower language.

When Miyazaki was discussing the art settings of Ponyo with its art director, he insisted on appearing gladiolus in the film. Gladiolus is a very familiar flower that many people have experiences of growing from bulb. Ponyo's passionate love. Sosuke's endeavor for his given trial. The people in the story who forget everything that happened in the movie and return to their daily life. The gladiolus flowers might clandestinely watch them from behind the scenes...

Again a sunken town - In Miyazaki’s films we sometimes see sunken towns. Famous examples are Rupan Sansei: Kariosutoro no Shiro (ルパン三世 カリオストロの, The Castle of Cagliostro) where a Roman town appears and Panda Kopanda: Amefuri Circus no Maki (パンダ・コパンダ 雨降りサーカスの巻, Panda Kopanda: The Rainy-Day Circus) where Mimi-chan's town sinks in the flood. This time, the town where Sosuke and Lisa live sinks in the water. A common thing they all share is that they all sink in clear water, instead of a muddy stream. The scene depicts just an accident, without recalling any tragic disaster, but instead something exciting and nostalgic that extraordinary events brought us in our childhood. When Miyazaki once watched Fantasia 2000, he mentioned "Nice try… though if I make it, I draw the sunken town under the water surface on that flamingos are dancing." In Miyazaki's conscious mind, there exists the persistence of wanting to visualize sunken towns.

(Note: Every summer Japan is attacked by some typhoons. They often bring disaster to adults, though children always look forward to its arrival, because they bring adventure and joy and school closing.)

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