Edmund Yeo

Facebook had listed out my 20 biggest moments of 2013. I'm glad I have a social media site to do this for me based on the amount of likes I got on my Facebook status updates.

The Cantopop superstar Anita Mui passed away from cancer exactly ten years ago. I remember what I did ten years ago when I heard of the news. It was morning, my family and I were heading off to Singapore for vacation. Her death cast a pall upon my heart, that day, on the road to Singapore, the songs of Anita Mui constantly played on radio. While I grew up listening to her songs ( Bad Girl , with the memorable "Why, why, tell me why" lyrics, was a childhood favourite) and had even attended one of her concerts in Singapore, I knew Anita Mui more as an actress who starred in many great Hong Kong film classics. It's been a decade since her passing. I will sift through my own memories and list out ten of my favourite Anita Mui films (or film roles), from earliest to latest.

I'm ashamed to admit that prior to the beginning of this month, I have only seen two Hou Hsiao-Hsien films, and both are his latter day works: MILLENNIUM MAMBO (2001) and CAFE LUMIERE (2003). Every time I watch MILLENNIUM MAMBO's opening, my heart flutters. In order to rectify my lack of knowledge regarding Hou Hsiao-Hsien's body of work (and also for filmmaking reasons), I decided to go on a Hou Hsiao-Hsien marathon of sorts. I have heard that his best works are the ones from the 80s to 90s, those were times when he was more interested in making films related to Taiwan's history.

A friend back in primary school managed to dig out a book of collected student essays. Turned out that my autobiographical piece was in it.