The China Lover is the 2008 novel by Ian Buruma, a Dutchman now living in New York and teaching at Bard College. I’ve included the novel as the introduction to this article because the book jackets cover art are really eye catching.
The subject of the novel, or maybe it should be called a historical-fiction book based on real life events, is Yoshiko Yamaguchi who was also known as Shirley Yamaguchi, Li Xianglan, and Ri Kouran. Yoshiko was born in Manchuria in 1920 to Japanese parents.
Following the Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese had set up a puppet Manchurian government. By the late 1930’s, she’d grown into a very pretty and talented young woman who soon caught the eyes of the Japanese working there. Yamaguchi wanted more than anything else to be a singer and a movie star. The Japanese believed they had struck gold with this talented young woman, because she was fluent in both Mandarin and Japanese. Her movie career began and her career seemed to be fast tracked. But there was a problem.
Yamaguchi, was asked to pose as a Chinese girl by her Japanese handlers. Though born in China, and raised in China, she was Japanese. She was even given a Chinese name, Li Xianglan, to attract the Chinese audiences.
The agent makes a pitch to the director
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Five people, all twenty-somethings, are active in the workplace as well as members of the digital world. Somehow, via Twitter, or some other social network which they’ve used to communicate, they ultimately agree to meet. This is how the 11 week Japanese TV series called Sunao ni Narenakute begins. I’m not sure what the title actually means – but the tag-line of the series is - It’s hard to say I love you, and that is a pretty good description about what will follow.
Basically, over the life of the series, which ran this year from mid-April through June 24th, we will learn some in depth info about the five lead characters. We watch as they struggle with their problems like: their aversion to commitments, their lack of confidence, their unwillingness to either express the truth or to face it.
If that sounds kind of grim and disturbing to you, you can rest assured that the series is not completely or only about bumps in the road, it only seems that way. The cast is youthful, attractive, and their problems/issues are not too remote for most of us to identify with or relate to. As they’ve agreed to meet for the first time in the opening Episode, I’ll give you a little thumbnail sketch about each of them to help you decide if you’d like to watch this series.
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Shinzanmono is a Japanese TV Series that just ended its run last Sunday night, June 20th. Broadcast on Japan’s TBS Network, this show was definitely prime time as it aired on Sunday nights at 9:00 PM. The 10 episodes of the series can most simply be described as a detective story. The crime was a murder, and it took place in the Ningyo-cho neighborhood of Nihonbashi, Tokyo. Of course the series was shot in the very neighborhood being portrayed.
I think shinzanmono means something along the lines of ‘new neighborhood people or person’, which is what Detective Kaga Kyoichiro is in Ningyo-cho. Kaga was just tranferred to the Nihonbashi precinct, is placed in charge of the case. With virtually all of the residents of the neighborhood’s main shopping street, harboring one secret or another, they will all emerge as suspects, Detective Kaga must use his keen sense of deductive reasoning to uncover the truth about these people as well as solve the case..
Much of that is from the synopsis provided on the d-addicts.com website. But it really doesn’t do the series justice. Calling it a detective show is truly an over-simplification. Unlike American detective shows where the detective solves a new crime each week, this series focuses on just the one case. We, much like Detective Kaga, are in the dark. Though we witnessed the murder in the opening episode, and have seen snippets of it, in flashbacks, in every episode that followed, we still have no idea. This is a literal, “Who done it?”
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Currently airing on Japan’s Fuji TV Network is the lively and entertaining Tsuki no Koibito or Moon Lovers. It just started a few Monday’s back on May 10th, so it’s 3rd episode has already aired today, the night of the 24th in Japan.
The lead role of Rensuke Hazuki is played by the Japanese superstar, Takuya Kimura. He’s the CEO of the Regolith Corporation. Under his guidance, Regolith is about to pass the Mastpole Company, and become the number one brand name in interior design.
Simply described, he is in the furniture business and he’s very smart about it. So he’s successful, rich, and ambitious for more, much more.
Takuya Kimura and Chi Ling Lin
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Calling all action film fans. Especially if you favor or love the Hong Kong style which basically hasn’t a lot of dialogue, and is often quickly paced.
Beast Stalker is a 2008 release and about the worst thing I can say about it is that the title is a bit misleading. Dante Lam previously co-directed, with Gordon Chan, the excellent Beast Cops in 1998. That film was nearly unanimously acclaimed, so using ‘Beast’ in this title might be an attempted marketing ploy for knowledgeable film folks.
Nevertheless it has all the style and chops that Lam is noted for – gritty and tense situations which are amped up by a jittery hand held camera, strong characters who are both good and bad, and some very fine use of lighting and slow motion.
The story is a bit hum-drum as it starts: A well connected criminal is convicted and being driven to prison. His gang engineers a way to spring him out of that car. Then a massive multi-car crash occurs involving a number of vehicles. One car is the one in pursuit with Sgt. Tong (Nicholas Tse, Hong Kong’s version of Johnny Depp). Another is the car driven by Prosecuting Attorney (what we call an A.D.A. in the States), The third car is the one driven by Hung (a hoodlum for hire played by Nick Cheung). And of course, the first car with the convicted but escaped criminal. Read more…
Before Lust, Caution (2007), before Brokeback Mountain (2005), before The Hulk (2003), and even before Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Taiwanese movie director Ang Lee was well known in international movie circles for his very well received The Wedding Banquet, which was released in 1993.
The story basics start with three characters, Wai-Tung and Simon, a gay male couple, living in Manhattan, and Wei-Wei, a beautiful struggling artist who is a tenant in a rental apartment property in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that is owned by the portfolio diverse Wai-Tung.
Wai-Tung has not told his parent that he is gay. Said parents continue to harangue him about getting married and presenting them with grandchildren. And Wei-Wei is facing deportation from the US unless she can marry an American.
Well, Wai-tung is a naturalized American citizen, so a ‘marriage’ of convenience between he and Wei-Wei is designed by the threesome. This should allow Wai-Tung and Simon to continue as they wish, and Wei-Wei would then be granted a green-card to allow her stay in the US. Or so they thought. Wai-tung announces this to his parents in Taipei, and to his shock and dismay, they promptly announce that they are flying in to meet the bride, and arrange the wedding, as a civil ceremony only just won’t do.
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Connected (Bo Chi Tung Wah) released in September, 2008, is a taut thriller with plenty of action. Directed by the veteran and reliable Hong Kong director Benny Chan, the film has enough action with shootouts and chases to keep the 18-30 year old males involved, enough eye candy and dramatics to satisfy the 25-45 males watching on DVD, and a sympathetic but resourceful woman as the victim of a kidnapping along with a couple of cute 6 year old kids, so you can safely ask your significant other along to watch the video with you.
In a nutshell, an attractive single Mom called Grace Wong, an electronics whiz played by the wonderful Barbie Hsu, while driving a sporty convertible gets into an auto accident which was no accident. When she recovers her senses, she as well as we are brought up to speed as we all learn she is a victim of a kidnapping.
The bad guys want something from her brother and think she might have it, or might know where he is. She doesn’t have a clue but the bad guys have to resort to some real heavy-handedness to get to that point. Read more…
Look For a Star aka Yau Lung Hei Fung is a 2009 Romance from famed Hong Kong director Andrew Lau who is most famous for the Infernal Affairs trilogy that he co-helmed with Alan Mak.
The star is the eminently bankable Andy Lau who has returned from doing a few period epics to a modern Romance in this feature. His co-star is Shu Qi.
The film is set entirely in Macau, which is a mere 40 miles and 40 minutes away from Hong Kong via your choice of high-speed ferries like jetfoils, turbo-cats, jumbo-cats and other kinds of hovercraft. I must add that clearing immigration in both Hong Kong and Macau took almost as long as the rapid trip across the South China Sea. Macau is correctly called the Las Vegas of the East, and serves as a glittering backdrop for the story. Read more…
A recent article in Japantoday.com was a short piece about beautiful actress Akiko Yada and her marital woes. You can read the piece here, but the long and the short of it is that hubby Manabu Oshio is currently being detained, as in held in custody, by the Tokyo police, while facing a charge of failing to exercise due care resulting in a death.
It seems, per the article, that Akiko long suspected her husband of infidelity, but she is surprised that drugs are also involved. She filed for divorce four days after Oshio’s arrest.
I’m not going to comment further on the arrest, the alleged crime, the alleged drug use, or infidelity. Those things will work themselves out with or without press coverage and definitely without my opinions.
Maybe it is part of the press campaign for her next motion picture. In a more recent Japantoday.com article, they’ve announced that Akiko will play a police detective along with Kenji Sakaguchi doing the Bruce Willis role in the Japanese version of Die Hard.
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June Woo: The opening narration:
“In America, I will have a daughter just like me. But over there, nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there, nobody will look down on her because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there, she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow.
The recent post on this blog about Ming-na Wen brought to mind her role as June Woo in the wonderful film adaption of the Amy Tan novel, The Joy Luck Club. The novel’s pedigree is impeccable. Published by G.P. Putnam & Sons in 1989, the book was on the New York Times best seller list for more than six months, it has been translated into more than 35 languages, and has sold in excess of 30 million copies world wide since its original publication more than 20 years ago.
After Amy Tan had a lengthy three day meeting with screenplay writer Ron Bass and movie director Wayne Wang, where they hashed out how the novel would be adapted into a movie, the three of them made a pact that they would not sell the book’s movie rights, or the screenplay, unless the studio gave them total creative control, meaning they would control the screenplay, the choice of location and actors, the filming, the editing, all the way up to and including the final cut. Read more…
The China Lover is the 2008 novel by Ian Buruma, a Dutchman now living in New York and teaching at Bard College. I’ve included the novel as the introduction to this article because the book jackets cover art are really eye catching.
