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Saturday, April 12, 2008

The Japanese Language vs My Legendary Ego

Sorry about the lack of updates. Parents were here for a visit in Tokyo.

Anyway, my Japanese classes started on Wednesday, and students were assigned to each class based on their results during the Japanese Placement Test on Monday.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Orlando Bloom's Japanese Uno (Hair Gel!) Commercial

I was at a shop yesterday accompanying a new friend from Hong Kong, Jason, to hunt for televisions. As he was doing that, something that was playing in all the snazzy flatscreen televisions in the shop caught my attention.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

The Miyazaki Aoi poster in the Subway

Everyday, when I walk through the Edogawabashi Station to catch a train, I see this Miyazaki Aoi poster:

Poster of Miyazaki Aoi


And always, I pause a little, struggling to resist this urge to tear the poster off the wall and run away with it.

I seriously need help. Anyone know where I can get these subway posters? Help anyone? People of Japan Probe?

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Tokyo. A city of contrasts. Traditional cherry blossoms vs scifi-like architecture

As I was walking back from Waseda University this afternoon, I noticed that the river was filled up with more cherry blossom petals than yesterday.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Tokyo Day 2: Clubs Recruitment Day in Waseda University

This morning, I decided to visit Waseda University for the very first time. When I crossed the bridge to the university, I saw this:

My Last Day in Malaysia. My First Day in Japan.

I tried to compare the day I left for Perth in 2004 with the day I left for Japan and both days couldn't be any more different.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

过去。 现在。 未来。

她:
曾经...
他:
曾经什么?
她:
怀念曾经
他:
嘿! 不在乎天长地久,只在乎曾经拥有
她:
应该吧
她:
人总是喜欢怀念以往
他:
记忆是痛苦的根源
她:
无可否认
她:
可是只有回忆才让你感受到人生的甜美
他:
我喜欢向前看. 不喜欢过去的我.也不喜欢被当成是以前的我
她:
无论什么时候,都是自己
她:
以前还是以后
她:
都应该珍惜
他:
当然.可是我只期待自己的成长.记忆不可靠,很容易把一切美化了,戏剧化了.
她:
个人想法
他:
如果只执着过去,把以前的都当成最好,那么对现在及未来太不公平了.
他:
本人毫无内涵的想法
她:
哈。。
她:
太不一样的观念
他:
我并非否定记忆的重要性, 只不过觉得最好的不一定在过去. 就忽略了现在. 而且, 如果我不相信明天会更好,那么就太没意思了.

An Empress And The Warriors 江山美人



After viewing the trailer (I was already giggling at the 'romantic' scenes between Leon Lai and Kelly Chen), and reading its early reviews in Hong Kong, I was already expecting the worst from AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS. Directed by Tony Ching Siu Tung (he often works as an action choreographer and is Zhang Yimou's frequent collaborator, working on the action scenes in HERO, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS and CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, he was also behind the badass martial arts scene in the godly Bollywood superhero flick KRRISH), starring Donnie Yen, Kelly Chen and Leon Lai, AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS is the kind of film you need to avoid if you were seriously looking for a good film to watch.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

My PC.com Magazine Cover Story Recounts My Nokia N95 Filmmaking Misadventures

Swiftly we prepared to do the scenes with Darren and Magessan together. I burst into the room in dramatic fashion while Erna was practising with the two guys. Darren was in the midst of doing a fake but shrill-sounding laugh.

"All right, as you may know already, this scene is simple, our poor James Bond will find himself being tickle tortured by the sadistic Dr Bhol Le." I explained. "And James Bond will laugh within the inch of his life."

I paused and held up the two feathers Erna bought for me.

"But you don't have to worry about that. You're really going to get tickled."

"He's not ticklish." Magessan said. Darren nodded.

"WHAT? How could this be?" I exclaimed, the two feathers in my hand went limp immediately.

"But I can fake it!" Darren said.

After spending most of the 23 years of my life being so ticklish, I was thrown off by the idea of someone not being ticklish...

Friday, March 21, 2008

Exploring the Hong Kong Filmart 2008

I've returned from Hong Kong last night, but I'll chronicle the last day of my trip there.

19th of March began early because I had to rush to the HK Convention and Exhibition Center (HKCEC) for the KURUS (Days of the Turquoise Sky) screening at 10am. Despite being really early, and neither of the booths at Filmart were open, I managed to invite a few FINAS representatives to watch the film with me. Really appreciated their support, and was happy to have new friends like them.

Once the screening was over, I started exploring the Filmart, and had the opportunity to meet other film producers and film festival programmers. It took me a while before I realized that I didn't manage to take any photos the day before, so I immediately snapped some quick ones of the impressive-looking booths of the event.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Hong Kong International Film Festival 2008 Opening Ceremony

My second day in Hong Kong began just as uneventfully as the one before. Attempting to get more information from the Film Festival Hospitality Center (it's one of the hotel rooms), I was shocked that it's closed.

Not knowing what to do, I took another walk back to Causeway Bay, and ended up at another traditional Hong Kong restaurant for brunch.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Heading to the Hong Kong International Film Festival and Filmart 2008

The past few days whirred by in a blur. Just as I usually was when involved in a production, I found myself buried deeply into the editing process of CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY, my first actual short film in more than a year. By Sunday (16th of March), I had finished the first cut of the film, and also celebrated dad's birthday.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

I walked into an anti-piracy operation

(The following entry should NOT be taken seriously)

Pardon my lack of updates. Been rushing with the editing of CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY (production stills are here and here). Need to get it done before I fly off to Hong Kong on Monday.

Went to film some cutaways with Lesly The Cinematographer today. After getting some stunning shots from an alley and a park nearby, I needed shots from a PS2 football video game, but to my horror, neither of my FIFA or WINNING ELEVEN games were around. So Lesly and I headed to Amcorp Mall to make some quick purchases of these games.

Reaching the one and only videogame shop of the mall, I saw a man standing outside, taking photos. I dismissed the guy as some wannabe camera enthusiast, or annoying tourist, and immediately walked into the shop, flipping through the folders of PS2 games.

I vaguely noticed the photographer calling at me, and then someone approached.

"Dik, boleh keluar sekejap?" (Kid, can you leave the shop for a while?)

"Hm?" I replied. Eyeing the photographer who was looking at me, slightly annoyed that the man had the guts to call me out of the shop just so he could take his precious little photos.

Monday, March 10, 2008

CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY Production Stills (2 March 2008)

Here are the photos from the last day of the CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY shoot. Once again, they are all taken by Nikki Tok. (The first part of this series of photo is here)

Suanie's blog readers were confounded by this entry of hers where she posted a photo of her in make-up. So I'll reveal the mystery.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Roland Emmerich's 10,000 B.C.



10,000 B.C. was a magical cinematical experience. It's been a while since I had so much fun in the theater while watching what I would normally regard as a shitty film.

I saw it at KLCC on Friday (7th of March). It was a rowdy crowd. People laughed at the most inappropriate moments (but then, the film IS full of unintentional hilarity) and made amusing comments as the film went on. Like the few women behind me, where I would overheard lines like:


Saturday, March 08, 2008

CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY Production Stills (1 March 2008)

All these photos from the CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY shoot were taken by Nikki Tok, who helped me a lot with the production, definitely Da Huang Pictures' Miss Everything.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Happy Birthday To Me

24 years ago, on the 6th of March, in a Singaporean hospital. I was born.

That's all i have to say.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Daniel Day-Lewis' monumental performance in 'There Will Be Blood'



Yeah, I really haven't been reviewing much lately. Had a lot to do with the fact that I hadn't seen anything worth reviewing lately. What's the point of reviewing a film that merely gave me a 'meh' reaction when I probably have much more to write if I thought the film was really good, or really horrible.

Monday, March 03, 2008

CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY Shoot Is Over!


I've spent the whole weekend shooting CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY. And it's finally over! I was surprised that the shoot went on so smoothly, and despite the crazy weather in the past two days, we managed to overcome the odds!

The whole idea for the CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY screenplay started sometime in last October, when I was borrowing some space from Da Huang Pictures to hold an audition for KURUS. While waiting for candidates to come, I was throwing out short film ideas to filmmakers Liew Seng Tat and Tan Chui Mui in a desperate bid to break my year-long creative drought.

The exchange was like this: