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Category Archives: Film

  1. Thoughts on Slumdog Millionaire

    At the Business Today conference, the first keynote speaker, a c-level exec from Universal Studios, said the best movie of the year would be Slumdog Millionaire, and he wasn’t just talking his book – it wasn’t even their movie. I had heard about the film a while back when there was a free screening in New York, but the tickets disappeared quickly and I hadn’t found the time or the company to go to AMC with. Until today. And yes, it is the best movie, in a long, long while.

    Continued…

    Posted in Film.

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    By qui tacet – November 29, 2008

  2. Jay Chou’s Secret: Xiaoyu vs Qingyi

    The romance between Jay and Xiaoyu (Kwai Lunmei) in ‘Secret/不能说的秘密’ is so perfect… it really is a simple love straight out of Jay’s 简单爱, or pretty much any of his early songs. And this MV by SY-sempai is set to my favorite piece from the OST. But my heart goes out to Qingyi’s (Alice Tseng) disappointment, and the sorrow behind her forced smile – it must be so painful to pine from afar, but even more so to keep that longing… secret (LOL).

    Posted in China, Film.

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    By qui tacet – November 12, 2007

  3. North Korean film studies

    I rushed out of the office during lunchtime (missing yet another incredible AEI three-course lunch) to take the Metro down to the Library of Congress to attend UC Santa Barbara prof. Kim Suk-young’s presentation on “Kim Jong-il and North Korean films”. It was ridiculously hot and I had decided to wear my suit, which was a bad idea. The Metro was screwy and I was in such a rush that I went into the wrong building and had to get through security all over again. Eventually I found my way to her talk.

    Continued…

    Posted in Film, Korea.

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    By qui tacet – June 26, 2007

  4. A review of Ham Tran’s Journey from the Fall


    Nothing is more precious than freedom.

    Yesterday I went to see the NYC premiere of Journey from the Fall with one of my surrogate-mothers on campus and other members of the Vietnamese Students Association, and after the film ended I knew that the long list of film festival awards was well justified. The film tells the story of one family’s journey from the fall of Saigon in 1975. When we were in the ImaginAsian cinema I was looking at the table of posters outside the theatre when I noticed several boxes of tissues available – It’s not possible to watch the film without crying a river. Perhaps seeing it was therapeutic for me since I’ve been holding back tears for a while now. Here are some thoughts on the film.

    Continued…

    Posted in Film, Other Asia, Politics.

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    By qui tacet – March 24, 2007

  5. A review of Abderrahmane Sissako’s Bamako

    Joseph Stiglitz’s Committee on Global Thought organized a private screening of the film Bamako on campus tonight, and I had the opportunity to attend. I had heard so much about the film on the World Bank’s Private Sector Development blog, as well as through Socially Conscious NYC, and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Even though I had invited several friends to come along, I ended up watching it alone, as usual. There were some 20-30 people in the auditorium. Here are some thoughts about the film.

    Continued…

    Posted in Development, Film.

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    By qui tacet – March 22, 2007

  6. 夜宴 / The Banquet

    I attend a lot of Asian groups events (just now I had kimbap for dinner with a Korean Christian campus group). On Friday evening I met a lot of students from Beida, Tsinghua, Fudan, Shanghai Jiaotong etc who were in town for the China Future Leadership Project, and discovered just how difficult it is to communicate when their English and my Mandarin are both subpar. On Saturday I went for a Chinese students event (one of the graduate student groups, mostly Mainland students and recent immigrants with their families) celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival. Lots of little Chinese kids running around the classrooms while the adults had karaoke and mahjong. Ko (my burmese friend) and I went for their screening of the film 夜宴 (English title: The Banquet) in a lecture theater. Not entirely kosher as I could tell it was from an RMVB… but I will probably watch it again in a proper cinema with the rest once it premieres in the states, simply to test whether or not I can follow the dialogue without subtitles.

    Continued…

    Posted in China, Film.

    1 comment

    By qui tacet – October 8, 2006

  7. The Honey and Clover movie

    I can’t wait to see the film adaptation of one of my favorites:

    It’s just the trailer but I’m already a little disappointed. Hagu-chan is supposed to be so much cuter, they should’ve got her seiyuu to act. And the scene about seeing for the first time the precise moment that someone falls in love seems a little less poignant than I thought it should be. It’s my favorite part so they had better get it right. I’m also not sure how well it would work as a film when there is so much less time to develop the characters – the slow-paced anime series had absolutely no plot and each episode was just a slice of their lives.

    Posted in Anime, Film.

    2 comments

    By qui tacet – August 2, 2006