Hayao Miyazaki is a living legend. Who knows better than Studio Ghibli and Disney? Since 1984 he has showered us heart warming stories and explicit animation. The last film he wrote and directed for Studtio Ghibli is Ponyo. Among all creations of Hayao, Ponyo will always be my favorite character. I think Ponyo is the epitome of the Japanese expression 'kawai' (かわいい) which means cute. One of the most recent Hayao masterpeice is The Secret World of Arrietty although it is sometimes called The Borrower Arrietty. Just to emphasize, this film was writtend and produced but not directed by Hayao. Unlike Ponyo, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Kiki's Delivery Service and many others which are both written and directed by him.
The story of this 2010 film directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi revolves around the girl named Arrietty who is living in a not-so-different world together with his mother and father. Their species are in danger of speedy disappearance so extra precaution not to be seen by humans must be taken. However a little boy named Sho sees Arrietty in the lawn for the first time and thus the journey begins. It is also called Borrower Arrietty because these small creatures often borrow tangibles from humans such as sugar, tissue and the like. Arrietty's first borrowed material was a pin which she showed off to her mother. All this time the family thought they were the only ones left, turns out there are others living in some distant land. Perhaps I had expected too much on this film, something as adventurous as magical and adventurous as other Hayao films. I must say the climax of the film was not clearly highlighted. I was neither able to see depth nor the complexity. To top it all, for me Spirited Away remained on the top list among all Hayao animations and Ponyo will and forever will be, the cutest.
A typical Korean meal is composed of rice, the main dish (which is usually meat) and lots and lots of side dishes termed as "pan chan" (반찬). We were on our way to Busan to attend the gala night of World Ocean Forum. It was past noon so we decided to munch on food available in one resto at the bus terminal. We had 5 side dishes mainly composed of beans, radish, lettuce and one leafy vegetable each picked differently.
Contrary to common knowledge, kimchi does not only refer to pickled lettuce. In fact the word "kimchi" means "pickled" itself. This means there could also be types of kimchi other than lettuce. The fifth side dish was the soup which is often considered a side dish too. Last August 2009, I went to the countryside of Anda and experience the traditional "chuseok", also called as thanksgiving day. My labmate's mother stated that historically, Korean side dishes are usually picked using chopsticks while spoon is exclusively used for rice and soup. Modern practice uses chopsticks for rice too. Korea's chopstick are unique because they are made of metal and flattened, opposite to the round and wooden chopsticks of the Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese.
According to my Professor, Koreans suffered a lot during the 19th century. During this time people barely eat and life expectancy was very short. To make up for the hard times, the all new extravagant Korea made each meal into a feast. The many side dishes made them feel they eat like the kings. Since they are served to people in excess, most of these are wasted indiscriminately. There had been notions by the government to pass an ordinance to minimize the pan-chan served in restaurants, food shops and the like. Food establishments worry that costumers may give negative feedback, thinking they were not served right. This lifestyle became a tradition up to the present. Maybe Korea has little to worry since solid waste management is prioritize in the country. Part of the scheme is a heavy out pour of funds on bioethanol production. The solid waste management lab in MMU, a lab next to ours, was doing the exact thing. My friend used to gather food waste from the school cafeteria. Ingenuity indeed.
I always thought that PS I Love you was the best movie of all time, the setting was perfect, the story was perfect. I cried my heart out watching that movie, feeling the imperfect yet undying love of Holly and Gerry. Until last night I watched 71: Into the Fire (also known as 보화 속으로) and found myself in a fetal position sobbing. I downloaded this movie last summer but never paid attention because it appealed to be dragging in the beginning. This Korean movie was released June 16, 2010 which became a major box office hit and had a gross revenue of around $20 million.
It was based from a real-life story of 71 student soldiers who defended the Pohang Girl's Middle School and slowed down the advance of North Korea soldiers for 11 hours. The fact that they were student soldiers, they lack the skills and war tactics. The 71 soldiers were lead by Oh Jung-bom which was played by the Bigbang rapper TOP who had only been to the real combat once.
The rest were teenagers, untrained men and few criminals who wished to see a real battle. Kwon Sang Woo played the role of Kap-Jo whose parents were killed by communists and chose to live a life without regard. Cha Seun-won played as Park Mu Rang, commander of North Korean forces who wishes to advance to the Nakdong River. Colonization of the Nakdong river spells the end of South Korea and is therefore on top priority. Most of the South Korean troops and its American allies defended the river, leaving the 71 student soldiers all by themselves.
For me endings are as important as beginnings because it could either spoil or stride the movie and I think I just saw the most heart-warming ending. It's all embedded in my head now. I must say TOP was the most impressive because he was the most amateur in terms of acting but he kicked himself gracefully. The picture shown below was a tear jerker, watch to movie and find out why.
I have been soaking myself to lots and lots of Asian series lately. City Hunter, Protect the Boss, Code Blue and the most recent Greatest Love. If ever you're interested, you can always watch these series online at http://otaku-streamers.com/ which has also numerous anime streaming list. However you must sign up for unlimited viewing. I do not usually go online streaming since it's quite time consuming. What I do is I download each video via the very convenient internet download manager. Let me recognize my computer genius Vietnamese friend for introducing this ultra fave dload manager. It is fast and easy compared to torrent, however it may slow down your computer system.
There is also http://www.epdrama.com/ which has fewer anime list compared to that of otaku-streamers. Both otaku-streamer and epdrama gives you high resolution downloads. Only, otaku-streamer downloads faster and groups each series per episode while epdrama divides each episode into either 5 or 6 parts. Based on personal experience, otaku-streamer often encounters more webpage problems compared to epdrama so I often do dloads via epdrama for Japanese and Korean series. All of my anime dloads are from otaku-streamers. The downside for both otaku-streamer and epdrama is that scrolling is slower since they show numerous video list in their homepage. What I do is I go to http://mysoju.com/ for suggestions of what Korean or Japanese series is hot for the month. Mysoju is not ideal for dload because their videos are usually flv in format, has very poor resolution and therefore ideal for online streaming. For anime suggestions, I go to otaku discussions such as those available in otaku-streamer. The users will usually name their best slice of anime for example, and most of them has a common answer so you can never go wrong.
For more drama and anime list, you can also visit www.crunchyroll.com and www.dramacrazy.net respectively.
