Edge of Tomorrow— I’ve been thinking about time loops recently and I had never seen this classic time loop movie, so I watched it. It’s fun! The whole premise is very pro-military which I didn’t like at all, but it is a well constructed time loop, and I liked what they did with the troops of the genre
Various Cooking Videos in Mandarin— Now that I’m actually studying some Mandarin I’m trying to watch something in Mandarin everyday. But I don’t always have a lot of time, or enough focus to follow a plot, so I often just watch a short cooking video. These are very soothing and I’m learning a little bit about Chinese cooking techniques.
The Grandmaster (2013)— So I’ve been reading a book about the history of wuxia and martial arts films, and the introduction mentioned that this would be one of the keystone films to the chapter “Wuxia and Kung Fu in the Blockbuster Era” so I thought I would watch it for context. The flim is very stylized with a dark color palette, and lots of close ups. I don't know enough to say anything interesting about this film. It’s going to be interesting reading more about it when I get to that chapter. (Content note: moderate gore, off screen death of children)
A Touch of Zen (1971)— Another wuxia classic(Also mentioned in my film history book). I’m not sure what I thought about this. There were some character developments that I didn’t quite buy, some of the fight scenes in the dark where really hard to follow, and the ending was very confusing. But this also had underdogs teaming up to defeat the bad guys
Dragon Inn(1967)— This an earlier movie directed by the same person as A Touch of Zen, and I can see some similarities in the plots. The two films also share several actors. This one was a bit shorter and was easier for me to follow. There are many excellent restaurant fights!
(Content notes: some gore, offscreen forced castration, people making gross jokes about eunuchs)
A couple of Mirrors eps 1-3 — A chinese drama adapted from a f/f novel. Set in 1920’s Shanghai it has a lot of asettic, and a cute cat. I stopped watching this because it's too dark for me. There is just a lot of murder and also the death of child seems to be a major plot point.
Various Cooking Videos in Mandarin— Now that I’m actually studying some Mandarin I’m trying to watch something in Mandarin everyday. But I don’t always have a lot of time, or enough focus to follow a plot, so I often just watch a short cooking video. These are very soothing and I’m learning a little bit about Chinese cooking techniques.
The Grandmaster (2013)— So I’ve been reading a book about the history of wuxia and martial arts films, and the introduction mentioned that this would be one of the keystone films to the chapter “Wuxia and Kung Fu in the Blockbuster Era” so I thought I would watch it for context. The flim is very stylized with a dark color palette, and lots of close ups. I don't know enough to say anything interesting about this film. It’s going to be interesting reading more about it when I get to that chapter. (Content note: moderate gore, off screen death of children)
A Touch of Zen (1971)— Another wuxia classic(Also mentioned in my film history book). I’m not sure what I thought about this. There were some character developments that I didn’t quite buy, some of the fight scenes in the dark where really hard to follow, and the ending was very confusing. But this also had underdogs teaming up to defeat the bad guys
Dragon Inn(1967)— This an earlier movie directed by the same person as A Touch of Zen, and I can see some similarities in the plots. The two films also share several actors. This one was a bit shorter and was easier for me to follow. There are many excellent restaurant fights!
(Content notes: some gore, offscreen forced castration, people making gross jokes about eunuchs)
A couple of Mirrors eps 1-3 — A chinese drama adapted from a f/f novel. Set in 1920’s Shanghai it has a lot of asettic, and a cute cat. I stopped watching this because it's too dark for me. There is just a lot of murder and also the death of child seems to be a major plot point.