Zombie Obsession Post 1

One of my main obsessions is zombie films. I can easily watch them all day. I love all types. I particularly enjoy watching Russian, French, Irish, and American zombie movies. The reason why I love zombie movies so much is because of the unique suspense; it never gets old for me. I’ll sit on the edge of my seat (well usually couch) asking numerous questions while watching. These questions include:

  1. Is the zombie problem a worldwide epidemic? Or does it only affect certain people; like maybe one blood type? Does it only affect a Town?  Or even just a few people?
  2. How will the non-zombies die in the film? That is if they do at all. Will they be killed by a zombie? Or maybe even a horde of zombies? How many zombies does it take to kill a person?
  3. What caused the zombies to become zombies? Was it a virus? A scientific experiment? Demonic Possession? Aliens? Radiation? Witchcraft? Some sort of sorcery? Revenge?
  4. What are the zombies like? Can they remember anything before they turned into a zombie? Do they need to eat flesh a certain number times a day? Or maybe they don’t need to eat the flesh, they just want to. How fast does the zombie transformation happen? Days, minutes, weeks, seconds? Can the zombies run? How exactly violent are they?
  5. Is there a cure for the zombies? Like Love? An antidote?
  6. Will main character/s find a way to keep zombies dead? And how? Will they have to burn them? Shoot them in the head? Use a magic spell? Or will the character/s find a cure to make the zombies normal people again?

I know that’s a lot of questions just to do with zombie films. But hey, like I said it’s an obsession of mine. I think that if a zombie film answers half or more of these questions, then it’s a keeper. If not, then it probably sucks.

– My obsession

 

I’d like to tell about my obsession just testing this category. There are three things which I can say ‘my obsession.’ First, I’m interested in food, especially in America. Since I came here, I’m really happy because I can try to have a lot of different kinds of food. Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vitamin, Indian, Messianic, and of cause American food! Although people say they all become Americanism,  I love to have these foods without going to real places. Second, I like to watch movies. Recently, I’m into musical movies. This is because I am impressed by that songs made the story. Finally, I love to do trip by myself. Every time I traveled somewhere, I could get something new, for example there were opportunities to meet new people. I really like the meeting to people. Through trips, I can find that I am not alone, and I can’t live by myself. Everybody helps me, and everyone connects with me.

Anime Reviewing!

I’m planning on review anime as part of my “Rock” categories. I  will later be posting a page dedicated to the format of the reviews. My ideas for these reviews are going to be to review in my blog, an episodic review of each show I’m watching, and once I’ve completed the show, to post a page dedicated to reviewing the entire show under the anime section. More to come…

A-POP 01.10.14 class notes

House-Keeping Notes

  • Check email every night and morning
  • Syllabus and Covenant by Monday(maybe later)
  • Absence includes…
  • Chromebooks for Thursday
  • Burning Chrome (William Gibson) – Cyberpunk Short Story
  • Consensual Hallucination
  • Familiarize w/ Evergreen Library system
  • Hello Kitty (next Thursday afternoon)
  • Blog Workshop #2 next Thursday

Tuesday’s Film: The Beautiful Country

Thursday’s Film: Shaolin Ulysses

 

Asian American Science Fiction Authors

Doing some research into Asian American authors of my favorite genre. This is post is intended to be a place for me to keep track of author’s whose work I’d like to look into.

Ken Liu – “The Paper Menagerie”.
Chinese American. Notable author, winner of Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award for short stories.

Jacqueline Koyanagi – Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel
Been meaning to read her for awhile! Japanese-Southern-American. Writes about QPOC women, in diverse relationship styles, and neuroatypical characters.

Larissa Lai – Salt Fish Girl
Description for this book sounds great:
“Salt Fish Girl” is the mesmerizing tale of an ageless female character who shifts shape and form through time and place. Told in the beguiling voice of a narrator who is fish, snake, girl, and woman – all of whom must struggle against adversity for survival – the novel is set alternately in nineteenth-century China and in a futuristic Pacific Northwest.

Hiromi Goto — Half World, The Kappa Child, Hopeful Monsters
Japanese Canadian author. Queer? James Tiptree Jr. Award winner (among many others). Inspired by her grandmother’s and father’s stories about Japan. Lots of ghosts, folk magic, the kappa.

Malinda Lo– Assorted young adult novels
Chinese American author. Queer, writes QPOC characters. Fantasy and sci fi young adult novels.

E. Lily Yu — “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees”

Ted Chiang — So many!
Has won 4 Nebula, 3 Hugo, 3 Locus, etc. etc. Many well known short stories. Lives in Bellevue Washington.

Marie Lu-?

The Beautiful Country

I think this movie has some historical truths to it as far as the ships conditions when they were travelling and people dying because of disease or illness.  Also, the woman Binh had fallen in love with, Ling, was a prostitute and I am not at all that surprised about it. I did enjoy the movie and I somewhat enjoyed the ending. Like I had said before, I am more of a happy ending kind of girl, so I wanted to see Binh reunited with his mother and father together, but of course that did not happen. However, I cannot say that the ending was not a happy one since Binh did end up getting to meet and live with his biological father.

In the movie, I also thought some of the characters were symbols or allegories. For my first example I felt that Mai, Binh’s biological mother, was an allegory for the “reality of the dream” if you will. What I mean by that is she works for the “Big House” opposed to being on the streets or working in a run-down restaurant, so she has a “high” position or job; however, in reality she is still like a servant or slave. Many Asians wish to come to America because they see this higher form of living when America-for Asians- is not really that great. Also, Mai’s boss’s son (I cannot recall his name) to me is seen as the government. He has the power and feels he has the “right” to do what he pleases to Mai. Which in turn, is the government thinking that because these Asians are in America, they have the right to give or take whatever they want from the Asians. In addition to that, I saw Ling as an allegory for the Asians who’s American dream did work out. At the beginning of the movie Ling says that she’s “dead on the inside” and so thats why she can careless about her ways of prostitution. I feel that many Asians have felt that way if they do not want to live in their own home country. Then at the end of the movie she tells Binh, “Tam is dead. You’re alive. I’m alive.” At this point, she is somewhat a singer and she is seeing this other guy Jerry. She has a job she loves to do, she finds “love,” and she finally sees herself as the star she knew she was. Obviously Binh loves her and he tells her that she does not love him and she kisses him then leaves. That moment she walks away from him, is (to me) symbolic of Asians walking away from their past, their homeland, and conforming to the new American ways.

I do not think that any of these allegories are purely accurate, but I do think that they stand for more than just the characters they play. Overall the movie was very enjoyable and eye-opening since it’s different from reading it from a book and actually seeing it happen.

Movie Review: The Beautiful Country

The-Beautiful-Country-cover

Released in 2004,  The Beautiful Country takes place in Vietnam, 1990. “Less than dust,” young Binh is a social outcast in his small village because his father was an American GI. Binh’s adventure begins when he leaves the village to search for his mother in “the big city”– Saigon.  The acting was great, cinematography wonderful and the story a good one, no matter how slow the pace. Rather than retelling the story which anyone can find that on the web, I think I’ll address a few things I found more intriguing.

Cherry blossoms. There is a scene where  Binh’s mom (he finds her easily…too easily perhaps?) a servant, is gardening in the center of the frame when an ominous person enters from the left only visible from the knees down walks slowly by… then a flurry of cherry blossom leaves falls… The following scene the Lady of the house is killed by her own stubbornness and a wet floor. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen this theme of cherry blossom leaves used as a symbol of love, life and/or death, but I thought it was more commonly used in Japanese stories… something for me to investigate before watching the next film.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Tim Roth make an appearance as the Captain of the ship used for human smuggling. A role he played well– breaking the type-cast, for the next few hours I completely forgot of him as Pumpkin/Ringo in Pulp Fiction, or as Dr. Lightman in Lie To Me.  He doesn’t play a very nice guy, but he does give our hero Binh a break while on the ship. I kept expecting to see something else happen between he and Binh as it appeared the Capt was… just not a very nice guy. Something a human-trafficer needs to be I suppose. The Captain offers to take Binh somewhere else– nicer presumably, but Binh turns him down as he is determined to reach America. “I offer a new life, you choose an old dream” says the Captain. Wise words, from a broader perspective. But Binh has another goal in mind.

His goal is to reach America and find his father. When laboring in New York paying off his debt owed to the traffickers, he is told that as the abandoned child of an American GI he could have flown to the US for free under a special visa program. Naturally he flips out after learning this. All those troubles he could have avoided… but how are social outcasts supposed to know of this in small Vietnam villages?

Tim Roth as Captain Ho

Tim Roth as Captain Ho

Binh finds his dad Steve, blind and living in a trailer under the big Texas sky. Binh doesn’t tell Steve that he’s his son– something the directors intentionally leave out.  Once Steve learns that Binh is from Vietnam  he says, “it’s a beautiful country;” a phrase repeated in the film when referring to America. They say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence; a play on perspectives. I can’t help but think of the relationship between that statement and that of Capt. Ho’s. How well the two complement each other, yet the wisdom is found through perspective.

All-in-all, not a bad film. Anytime my mind returns to specific lines from a film two, or three days after seeing it there is obviously something valuable there. Depending on one’s perspective~

Questions for blog workshop

Is there any way to have the blog feed appear on different pages!??

Or alternatively, is there any way to bring up a collection of posts(potentially with the same tags) via another page.

Under the bookmark section, is there a way to link to a certain group of tagged items?

Impressions on The Beautiful Country

The_Beautiful_Country  The Beautiful Country was a movie I have not heard of or seen before Tuesday’s class. The movie told of a “bui doi” named Binh who leaves his village to find his mother, only to leave her soon when the mistress Binh’s mother worked for dies from an accident. With no choice to flee, Binh takes his new young brother Tam with him and sets off for America to find his father. The trip is hazardous and causes them to wash ashore to Malaysia, where they meet Ling, a Chinese woman who is kind, but works as a prostitute at night for favors. The trio escapes during a riot and reach a ship where they endure another perilous journey that costs Tam’s life. Once they reach America, Binh and Ling work in New York’s Chinatown district and try to make a living. Deciding he is wasting his time, Binh confronts that Ling has changed and leaves her with the rich man, setting off afterwards towards finding his father in Texas. Binh meets his father’s ex-wife, who does not help him at first, but eventually tells Binh of his father’s last whereabouts to make him go away. Traveling to Sweetwater,  Binh applies to work at the ranch and meets his father, who is blind. Binh works with him and they both share accounts of their lives until the end where the father realizes the Vietamese working with hims is his son. It concludes with Binh happily cutting his dad’s hair while his dad jokes about doing the same to Binh too.

The movie was a journey that changed a man throughout his journey. At first, Binh was  subservient and following what others told him due to his status as a “bui doi” or “less than dust”, but after Tam’s death he becomes more confident and less passive on things affecting him or Ling. The evolving of Binh’s character was great to see, including the diverse range of people he met along the way. The death of young Tam due to water sickness was one of the most dramatic scenes I’ve ever seen, probably more dramatic than Assano’s seppuku in 47 Ronin. I did admire how Binh dealt with Ling upon finding out she has her heart set on the rich man instead, going the route of “you’ll be happier with him than me” and reminding her he can’t wait forever to find his father.

Regarding the cast, the choices were actually pretty good. I did not recognize any of the cast members initially except Snakehead, the “other business” man aboard this ship who was later on killed by the British captain. The face and voice immediately told me it was Temuera Morrison, whom I remember as Jango Fett from Star Wars Episode II.

Other than him, Ling, played by Bai Ling, was also Miss East from Wild Wild West. I don’t know any of the other cast members, but Binh’s actor, Damien Nguyen, surprised me the most since he confessed the hardest part of working on The Beautiful Country was actually trying to be fluent in his native language. Overall, the movie was excellent and it gave me a different view on how other immigrants handle the challenges of coming to America. I’d recommend my friends to watch it.