Báishé Chuánshuō 白蛇傳説 [movie]

How can I live in this beautiful world please?

The sorcerer And The White Snake.

Huzzah I have my blog back! Offline for 3 days due to me messing up the transfer to .org on my new domain. Suffice to say... it didn't work. 

So I'm back here. Safe and sound after freaking out about how to undo what I did - totally missing the [x] on the bit where you set up the redirect thing - and couldn't work out how to reset it! Dip sh*t. Total idiot.

I have wasted most of my only day off being annoyed by stuff happening even though the old Chinese guy I spoke to last night for ages on the train made me so sparkly happy haps that I woke up in a great mood.

So I decided to turn it around and finish watching this movie. I started it the previous night but was too tired.

This movie is epic and fantastic in the true sense of the words. 

I liked snakes already but this added a whole new level.... 

There are going to be too many screen shots, I will have to ramble on about nothing as much as possible to get them all in. 

Good job I excel at that. Already accomplished 3 paragraphs of stupids.

I'm not entirely happy with this movie. I like it better when my heart doesn't get ripped open and left on the floor, but aside from that it is a stunningly beautiful, sweet and lovely film. Aesthetically wonderful with an interesting story and all the relevant martial arts leaping into the air and controlling the elements,  with a perfectly cast lovable set of characters.

I need to fill this up with lots of text so I can put in these epic amounts of pictures but for some reason today I'm lost for words.

Ok, so maybe a cast list and synopsis will help fill a gap.

Jet Li - Abott Fahai

Shengyi Huang - White Snake

Raymond Lam - Xu Xian

Charlene Choi - Green Snake

Wen Zhang - Neng Ren

Jiang Wu - Turtle Devil

Vivian Hsu - Snow Goblin

Miriam Yeung - Rabbit Devil

Chapman To - Toad Monster

Kar-Ying Law - Mysterious Herbalist

Suet Lam - Chicken Devil

Sonija Kwok - Bu Ming

This film is set where two worlds cross over. 

The humans and demons are meant to live apart but the demons interfere in the human world with evil or mischievous intentions sometimes, requiring protectors of dharma to keep the balance. 

These monks are powerful spiritual peacemakers, ready to fight all manner of beings to retain order and protect humans, as monks do, but there are still many traits of demon kind they over look. Namingly their ability to love. 

A cheeky pair of snake sisters play around with some humans gathering herbs for medicine one day and through consequences of the roughhousing the white snake ends up diving into the water to save the Herbalist Xu Xian as he drowns. Their encounter links them irreparably and they fall into a unique adorable love with each other.

The monks are of course hell bent on fending any demon away from the human world and demons can be extremely powerful and vengeful. 

The couple can only live for so long in their fantasy of a relationship before the monks come knocking and reveal the white snake's true identity to her beloved husband.

...and all too late.

Gah, its pretty sad. I cried. I know I always cry, but still, it is pretty sad. I would rather it had a fluffy fuwa fuwa ending but I cant always get my way. 

I have enough Japanese dramas to keep me satisfied with that I guess. 

The reason I watch Chinese movies is for the fantasy and beautiful folk takes and mythology. 

Not exactly for the cheesy happy Gokusen endings where everyone just magically becomes a great person.

I love all the demons, the settings and the magic. It is like Mushishi all over again. The first time I saw that I was so taken in by the look of it I almost forgot to pay attention to the story. 

A similar thing happened with Báishé. I got all wrapped up in how pretty everything was I forgot it couldn't be all  cheesy disney fuwa fuwa. 

I love films like this. The subject matter is absolutely my favourite thing ever to watch. Fantasy magic type love and stuff. You do find that with all the beautiful fantasy there is a darker side. 

Pan's labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, Yim Pil-Sung's Hansel and Gretel,  so many films that have stunning visuals but really dark undertones from the outset. 

Báishé is not in that league at all, it is pretty much all fun and frolics for around 1 hour, 

then the dun dun duuuuh music starts, she drinks the snake bite wine 

and f*ck it, its all gone wrong in a flamey snakey wavey vengeful mess of flames and snakes and waves. And vengeance.

Shengyi Huang (Kung Fu Hustle, The Fantastic Water Babes) who plays white snake is *insert another word for stunning or beautiful that I havent already used* 

Her eyes! Her eyes are captivating. And her mouth ...I can't really describe it, my eyes skate from one perfect feature to the next, trying to take it all in, whenever she is on screen.

My favourite was her sister the green snake played by Charlene Choi (Tripple Tap, Kung Fu Dunk, All about Love, Twins effect 1 & 2) who was so cheeky and sweet. The little side story between her and Neng Ren - played by Wen Zhang ^^ was really cute ...but also not fuwa fuwa - where the hell can I get me some happy fluffs around here??? Damn it.

I like the movies Jet Li is making now he doesn't want to promote violence. I loved them before but since then they are completely brilliant and fantastical. I love his kind, gentle looking face, a quick squee for monkey ^^ in Forbidden Kingdom, and he has such grace and that lovely voice, and suddenly this is turning into a fan girl sesh.

Ok well enough is enough.

Cute animals demons, epic battles in land, sea and air, a great musical score, and an excuse to have these lovely screen shots all over the front page of my site. Cant go too wrong there can you. 

I think that is all I have to say on the matter. Look it cuter little mouse thing. Look it. Aww look it.

Ok, now I'm done.

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Tenshi 天使 [movie]

Fukada Kyōko as an angel; I died and went to heaven

Tenshi – Fukada Kyōko                 Tano – Izumiya Shigeru

Emi – Kobayashi Akemi                 Chii – Morisako Ei

Kasumi – Nagasaku Hiromi              Yoshikawa – Masatoshi Nagase   

Natsu – Naomi Nishida                  Mizuho – Saori  

Miho – Satō Megumi                          Kato – Uchida Asahi

Cat Woman – Wanibuchi Haruko    Yumi – Ōtake Yuki

Fukada Kyōko, who might actually be the most angelic person alive, doesn’t even speak a word in this movie, which I was grateful for as she was so stunningly beautiful without her cute voice that I may well have died if she spoke.

For whatever angelic purposes us mere mortals can never understand, an angel looks down from above on the humans below with love and intrigue. This particular angel decides to make herself known to a chosen few that for various reasons need her beautiful spirit to help them through their troubles.

We follow a young child and her father and father’s girlfriend, two sisters, a bullied school girl, and a shop boy who falls for a girl looking for her lost cat.

The angel turns up in a nightclub and steals the boy’s lime gin, then becoming attached to the drink and later stealing it from a pair of sisters (plunging them into a paranoid confusion of who the hell keeps drinking the drink left on the table).

Of the child, father, and girlfriend, it is the child who can see the angel – and at one point they have a little bizarre musical number while they go flying off into the sky.... I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on then but it was in keeping with the oddness.

It is a pretty film and basically there is nothing else to say but that it has Fukada Kyōko playing an angel. What else do you need to know?

My favourite bit is when she finds a little plushie of kure kure takora and gets annoyed by its very presence and throws it on the floor in a strop.

I like how cat like she is, I died of cuteness over and over again. I have nothing to say – this post is really just for the pretty screen shots – she is so beautiful.

If I can ever bring myself to finish the last episode of friends I will blog that with pictures as she looks adorable in that too. She will brighten up this blog with her innocent pure cute massive eyes and warm smile.

I swear she is an actual real angel.

I should explain something about the film, but nothing much really happens. Plus I’m listening to sorashige book at the moment so I’m a little distracted by Shige laughing at nothing like an utter moron as per the norm.

But back to the point, nothing really happens, it isn’t really tense or one of those movies that throws you up and down as the characters struggle through their lives – yes they are each going through their owns problems but it fades into the background, over shadowed by the non gay fuwa fuwa and blindingly adorable light shining around the cutest actress in the world (with the possible exception of Nagasawa Masami) I just love this girl for roles like these. I don’t think it gets much more fitting than this.  

Ah this really isn’t a review it is a rant about how cute Fukada Kyōko is, I should probably leave it here as I can’t really think of anything else to add. Just watch the bloody film. Surely she should be enough to make that happen.

~