TRYING to BLEND into this FORLORN WORLD when PEOPLE continue to DISAPPOINT …
WHY do YOU have to be this LONELY?
“I LOVE YOU, I really don’t care if you need to stay up all night bellowing like the wind. All I wanna say is that I’ll always be there for you.”
“The MOST terrible POVERTY is LONELINESS.”
I wrote this Article 3 years ago, on a bleak day in November 2009.
It has always been one of my firm favorites for its easy spread of poetic indulgence.
Today, I am bringing the essay back, completely unabridged, with its warts, bruises, everything.
I am trudging memory lane, so pray, help me.
“This storm is breathing, brewing, bellowing …..
Outside of the window, you watch the rain pelting down heavily -
coupled with the howling of wind,
Frenzied passerbys with umbrellas are busy scurrying pass,
The overall mood is depressingly cheerless,
Awww … isn’t the desolate sky reeking in a thousand gloom?
ARE YOU LONELY, my friend?
Yes, LONELINESS can come calling and crawling like ants all over you,
When love dies,
WHEN LOVE FINALLY DIES ….
We make mistakes, big and small, comic and tragic.
We pledge commitment, in all sincerity, to another person, only to realise later that our love and passion for the person isn’t as deep as we once thought and believed.
From there follows the broken promise, the bitterness and heartache and the guilt of having misled someone despite our best intentions.
Rainer Maria Rilke [1875-1926], her poem ‘Loneliness’ is full of angst and anguish.” …
“Being apart and lonely is like rain.
It climbs towards evening from the ocean plains;
from flat places, rolling and remote, it climbs
to heaven, which is its old abode.
And only when leaving heaven drops upon the city.
It rains down on us in those twittering
hours when the streets turn their faces to the dawn,
TWO FAMILIES AND THEIR TWO YOUNG SONS WHO WERE SWITCHED AT BIRTH SIX YEARS AGO.
Now, who’s to blame? The Nurse or the Hospital’s careless management?
“LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON” (2014)
JAPANESE MOVIE REVIEW
Touch my soul, maverick director KORE-EDA HIROKAZU implores us.
Here he is, with his new family-themed award-winning tour de force that will certainly make you sit up, take notice and reach for your hankie, provided you have a tender heart. Do you?
We all have one if we use it right. (metaphor)
“LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON” is a gem with emotional depth. It’s rare these days to get a chance to appraise a good Japanese film in the cinema.
Why?
Since the deluge of the Korean films some 10+ years ago which was an unexpected craze that seized Asia by storm, audiences worldwide these days are “hooked” to the mesmerizing Korean dramas.
As a result, they have unceremoniously dumped their Japanese cousins.
And “LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON” is here to prove that the Japanese films are still very much around and have not lost their shine.
In 2013 awards keep piling in:
It was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Jury Prize.
It also bagged (Winner) for Best Film at the Asia Pacific Film Festival.
As well as being awarded the Audience Awards at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
The list doesn’t stop there.
Here’s the plot:
Ryota is an arrogant architect living in Tokyo. He is successful, hardworking and is pursuing the perfect life. But whatever bliss he is currently enjoying is just a lull before the storm.
One fateful night he and his wife,Midori, get an unexpected phone call from the hospital.
The shocking news: their young son, Keita, is not their own flesh and blood- the hospital had given them the wrong baby six years ago.
Masaharu Fukuyama plays Ryota the ambitious professional who’s married to Midori (Machiko Ono), with a perfect house and a six-year-old son.
His world is turned upside down by the shocking revelation that the hospital had accidentally switched the babies six years ago: his biological boy is now being brought up by Yudai (Franky Lily), a happy-go-lucky shopkeeper whilst Ryo has Yudai’s son.
“LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON” has a powerful theme with an admirable cast of Japanese veterans.
Ryota is portrayed as cold and aloof whilst Yudai is the likable good guy who enjoys frolicking with his kids.
Ryota is now in a dilemma to choose between his true blood son or the one whom he has been nurturing all these years.
“LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON” is a family movie made for everyone.
It is packaged with love, angst, frustration and the eventual stage of redemption.
It is poignant and tender, especially in scenes where the two mothers share problems regarding raising their sons.
And it says enough to sum up the crux of this movie.
It beckons you into a time loop, where close encounters are repeatedly occurring over and over again,to drain you out, physically and emotionally.
This is a futuristic film about mankind gearing up for confrontational warfare versus a formidable alien race called mimics.
Where did I read that Tom Cruise’s latest movie”EDGE OF TOMORROW” is destined to be this summer’s first big-budget bomb?
A case of not generating sufficient buzz in the West?
Tom Cruise has myriad(s) of cinematic followers in all parts of Asia.
His brand positioning is always of the dashing, fearless, dauntless hero.
It’s not easy to kill a strong, established product.
“EDGE OF TOMORROW” is a sci-fi that is all bold and solid on the outer crust.
Then it peaks and storms at a cracking pace as a blockbuster, headlong into stiff competitions from Godzilla and X-Men at the box office, giving all these a run for their money.
In the movie, Cruise plays the arrogant Major William Cage who is a unbendable “straight jacket”. His cushy job is to cajole and recruit new soldiers on national television. No, Major Cage has never been in any real life combat.
Therefore he roared with extreme displeasure when he is trooped up in an apparent suicide mission to fight the deadly aliens called Mimics.
Cage’s insubordination lands him in the infantry of a sure-lose battle. He is dead within minutes.
Strangely he wakes up (again) with amazement, as if the day has never happened.
He remembers last that he was at the barracks the day before the battle.
He is oblivious to what else is milling around him, but before long he is thrown back onto the beach, into the battle, and he dies one more time.
Cage soon discovers he’s not the first victim for this time loop-game.
However, with each time-loop, he harnesses the magnificent power of observation. Because this time round he’s fully prepared that the happenings are going to manifest themselves. And the entire process is going to be repeated again, yet in another time-loop.
Finally he meets Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) and together they set out to defeat the aliens. What happens after this, you really have to see the movie for answers.
The director is Doug Liman and he has delivered a deliciously demented flick. Kudos.
Tom Cruise’s star power shines in action as well as his confrontations with the fearsome extraterrestrial monsters.
The plot is based on a Japanese novel called “All You Need is Kill” by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.
This smart and unsettling movie is certainly worth a watch for all its hard work.
Please TAKE NOTE that the RELEASE DATES are DIFFERENT IN various COUNTRIES.
“X-MEN : DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (2014)
THE MOVIE REVIEW
Some of my writer- mates lament that the grammatical oxymoron “days of future past” is a mouthful, but hey, there’s a valid reason for this sci-fic of two time blends.
The ensemble cast proudly boasts a select list of the Hollywood “greatest” , including China doll FAN BING BING who’s toying around more like a dispensable piece of discard.
Her insipid role is more a collaborative inclusion to capture the massive China market.
The characters she plays is sadly, devoid of conversational dialogue and she does not register notable chemistry with her fellow colleagues onscreen.
Let refresh the synopsis lest anyone forget:
The exuberant X-Men are back to fight a frantic war to ensure the reckless world remains as one solid piece.
This spans two time periods in DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, the old-time mutants and their younger beings (selves).
Whatever done creatively is to revamp a major historical event and fight an epic battle to save the planet.
“Days of Future Past” opens on a bleak dystopian future where you appraise ruined cities sprawling with corpses. The story goes from there.
First, let us usher in the stellar all-star cast.
Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) are now fighting together against the Sentinel threat.
They rallied the support of Storm (Halle Berry) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) — including Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Bishop (Omar Sy), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), Blink (Fan Bingbing), Sunspot (Adam Canto) and Warpath (Booboo Stewart).
The characters sizzle in this action-packed thriller from visionary director Bryan Singer. (welcome back!)
Singer is in top form despite the recent bisexual gossip, cleverly bringing two generations of mutant-kind together in a time-travel tale.
Bryan Singer and his screenwriter team (Simon Kinberg, John Byrne and Company) balance everything with relatively little confusion in keeping the storytelling precise and concise. Kudos!
The locations switch base from China to New York , Moscow, Vietnam, Paris and Washington, where the spectacular climactic clashes in front of the White House are set.
The X-MEN characters are legendary, hence there’s little point to rattling on about the renowned mutants. They are forever saving mankind from extinction.
Jennifer Lawrence is wonderful as Mystique, as well as Hugh Jackman is great as Wolverine.
But credits must also go the rest of the veteran cast without which the film might lose its valor.
Cinematography is absorbing.
The visual treatment by Bryan Singer is absolutely breathtaking!
SPOILERS?
Preferably not, so as not to mar the enjoyment and flow of the predictable plot.
