Other than 2046, another movie I am totally looking forward to is this weekend’s release of Soul Plane. Maybe I will catch it when I am at Maui this weekend….
All Posts by ‘George Chen’
2046 is coming
By Thurs. we will see the premier of the long awaited Hong Kong film 2046 at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie took about 4 years to make (on and off) directed by Wong Kar-Wai (one of my favorite film director).
Not a lot is known about the movie except it’s set in the future 2046. Wong also hired some of the best know Asian artists out there for the project, such as Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Takuya Kimura, and Zhang Ziyi.
In typical Wong’s fashion, he shot the film with NO script at all. The stars usually learn their lines when they arrive on the set.
I recently purchased an essay collection about Wong’s film, as one of the writer noted, Wong’s pretty much “telling the same story” through his various films. I don’t think the writer meant it in a bad sort of way, but makes you wonder about the whole creative process.
Wong’s family is Shanghainese and moved to Hong Kong in early 1960s’ (similar to my grandparents), so whenever Wong uses Shanghainese dialogue in certain domestic scenes I feel very connected to his films which I don’t find in most Hong Kong movies.
Why 2046? 1997 + 50 = 2046/7. 1997 was the year Hong Kong handed back to the Chinese after 100 years of British colonial rule. The 50 years came from the famous Dung Shau-Ping line, “50 years of stability” meaning China won’t change the Hong Kong’s way of life for 50 years afterward. I don’t think Wong’s movie will be about politics, but the year 2046 is certainly the year to look forward to. The movie too.
My best friend’s Blog is up
Well, Mr. Szakall new Web Blog is up and running. Since we share similar interests so that’s why you’ll see a lot of his subject matters are similar to mine… BTW, congratulation on the new job as well.
More on FFXI Virtual Economy
Ran into 2 University of Pennsylvania students (?) report on FFXI economy. 52 pages in all. Good stuff!
Sony’s PSP@E3
I love the name brand “Playstation”.
Back in the days of mid 80’s, high-end computers were once called the “Workstation”… when Sony’s “Playstation” came on to the marketing, the name itself right away give you a sense of “hightech-sexiness”. Starting next year, you can take the sexiness with you just like your trusty iPod.
The most interesting part of the device is the 480 x 272, 4.3 inch, 16:9 wide screen TFT LCD. In many ways, it will change how game designers approach game design on such a small device… Just image a game like Ace Combat 5 that’ll give you a true to life fighter pilot point of view… how cool is that?
What’s also stands out is the built-in 802.11 support, which turns the game device into a “Trojan Internet Appliance”. I haven’t got so excited about a gadget for a while (since the Sony/Ericsson P800), I am certainly looking forward to get my hands on it next year.
You can find out more about the PSP here.
WWII style pin-up art with a twist
Randomly came across Andrew Bawidamann’s web site and his work. Really good stuff! This guy got some serious talent…. My fav. ones are the pirate girl (in red) and the Navy SEAL/UDT diver girl. His style also reminds me of the mid-90s’ Warner Bro. Batman cartoon…
It’s also interesting that he does “Rock Poster” as well.
Magnatune
I first discovered Magnatune via the classical radio area in Apple’s iTune application. The stuff are the usual monk chant, baroque, and chamber music. Nothing grand nor crazy. What’s interesting, is that, I have been “blasting” their music whenever I am playing FFXI online mainly because Minge Migs will not fit the mood, nor Chinese pop diva like Sammi Cheng.
I have since downloaded 2 “full album” at Magnatune which give you full access to the CD quality WAV files as well as the usual high quality non-drm mp3/AAC.
If you have iTune on you computer… try it out, you might like what you hear.
Los Amigos Invisibles in San Francisco (again)
The boys from Venezuela are back once again. I think in the past few years, I have at least check out there live show 5 times in San Francisco… The are no doubt one of the coolest “guy band” out there. Funk, soul, dance, disco, latin… Although, I don’t speak Spanish, I still love to sing along to there songs. They will be at Bimbos 365 SF once again on Friday June 11. Do check them out if you are in town.
The are very, very entertaining live.
FFXI and Blogging
I was going through my Web Blog site stat, and notice a link from this site which turns out to be a fellow blogger/FFXI gamer. She’s a lvl 71 Mithra Bard. It’s a very pleasant surprise to know someone is checking you out…. It’s rare for someone that can blog and play FFXI at the same time since both can be time consuming. ^_^;
If you can be any race of your choice, what would you be?
Obviously, not in RL. But in the world of MMORPG FFXI , you can choose to be one of the 5 different races. You can pick between Hume, Elvaan, Galka, Taru, and Mithra. For Galka, and Mithra, they are asexual male and female respectively.
Here’s a very interesting break down on what uses actually pick in the game:
humes (40.95%)
tarus (22.63%)
elvaans (20.21%)
mithras (10.68%)
galkas (5.53%)
I guess majority are still happy being “hume” after all…
George Chen DOT COM 
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