I am Sof.

Last night I watched the a Korean film starring Zhang Ziyi called Musa (the Warrior). Parts of the film looked like Zhang Yimou’s style, plus the presumption of Zhang Ziyi’s appearance= Zhang Yimou’s film. The director is Korean, and the actors of the Koryu musa are also Korean. I liked this film, though the princess played by Ziyi really pissed me off sometimes; people risking lives for stupid causes. However, the bravery and the comradeship is much admired; it depicts the (northern) Asian traditional and ideal values of Man. Just like the story of Hero, a man dies a glorious death; dies for his country, for his Emperor, for his parents. As much as I respect these values and traditions, I sometimes do have issues against them; but disliking them is different from performing them, for I believe a person is born with certain things that’s bound to him/her that can neither be shunned nor detruded.

So much for Asian pride. I borrowed a CD of Puccini’s Turandot, by Zubin Mehta, Pavarotti and the London Philharmonic, it’s beautiful. PRC used to have concerns of publicly performing this production and thus had forbidden it, but they relented in the 1990’s and performed Torandot at the Fobidden City in 1998 for 8 consecutive days. I still remember it being such a great event, media and newspaper made it really big. Unfortunately I didn’t go, I was only about 10 and didn’t know a thing about opera except the fact that it is when a few fat singers gather on the stage and sing as opposed to orally speak the words. My uncle went, he is a huge opera buff; I think he even flew to Shanghai within one day just to see an opera production. Anyway. It is good, especially because it contains text about Kong-Tze, Tao, and the theme of this really well-known folk tune Mo Li Hua; get a copy of it and listen if you have time.