08. 24. SNACK

팥빙수: shaved ice with red beans

We went on another tour boat to a tiny island where they pretended it was the Mediterranean. There was a good deal more uphill walking than I’d anticipated, and the shaved ice was a welcome respite. This is on the other end of the scale from the shaved ice at Napoleon Bakery — it’s got everything on it. Fruit, rice cakes, red beans, little cubes of jelly, condensed milk, ice, everything. And I do not approve of such an abundance. On the whole it was better than the shaved ice from Napoleon Bakery, but only because most things that are intended to taste better do taste better than absolutely nothing. The green tea shaved ice from that place we went to after the crabfest was the best, I should ask where exactly it was, just for reference.

07. 10. SNACK

Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhuge Liang

WHAT A RIDICULOUSLY HOT PIECE OF MAN-FLESH. What is this? What is this movie? I can’t articulate my thoughts concisely enough to have all this rambling fit into a post about mero fish, so here it is, a separate scream. Red Cliffs was no artistic masterpiece, not something that goes down in history as an example of superb film-making. The biggest tragedy is that since the source material is largely episodic, it’s difficult to translate that into a movie that holds every little piece together. But you know what, I couldn’t possibly care less, because I love this movie so much and I don’t even know why. Is it the casting? Certainly — I have an unconstrained adoration for movies that are cast according to something even deeper than stereotype. Something like archetype. There’s no need to search for the perfect balanced group, no worries about target audience or wrongful representation; they simply look the way that they are, and that’s exactly what this movie does. Is it the hotness? I won’t deny it — Takeshi Kaneshiro makes me want to tear down the projection screen and ingest every little piece of it in frantic lust. Or something. But in general, it’s a war movie with an epic budget, it better look hot for what it’s worth. And it did. It could also be John Woo’s obsession with doves.

Zhuge Liang and John Woo’s dove

I swear to God, if the theater wasn’t so packed, I might have actually emitted some sort of high-pitched shriek every time Takeshi Kaneshiro was onscreen. It’s just ridiculous. Strutting around like that with his infuriating fan, all coy and pensive and yet at the same time, he has the most hilarious scenes. No lie: HE DELIVERS A HORSE. The traditional instrument battle was as stiflingly badass as expected, and he fans doves and dusts himself off angrily and slkdjlfkjse I have resorted to keyboard smashing. Also let’s be honest: all those men inhumanely intensely gazing at each other all the time didn’t hurt, either. Of course it’s usually because one of them has a huge ginormous …army, and the other one is supremely skilled in b… battle. But hormones are hormones all the same! I guess my only comment that even approaches criticism from this angle is that Zhuge Liang is not apocryphal enough to suit my fantasies. He’s still a little lost, a little ruffled, a little hesitant, which is still considerably more romantic than historical accounts have him be. So really I shouldn’t be complaining at all. Besides, his true calling was never military tactics, it was politics, they say — and the little things he did, like changing the freaking weather and INVENTING THE FREAKING DUMPLING. ONLY THAT. Honestly, how many people have invented the dumpling? ONLY ONE. ZHUGE LIANG. This man was a god amongst sweaty, fierce, totally ripped mortals. Oh, Zhuge Liang. Three isn’t a number that does you justice; I’d have waited at your door a thousand times. My dusty invention of a crush.

06. 28. EVENING SNACK

Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhuge Liang

Because man cannot live on bread alone, and a girl has needs, I overcame my post-dinner hunger by feasting on movie pamphlets. And oh gosh look. This is from the Red Cliffs movie opening in July, about a week before The Dark Knight. So Takeshi Kaneshiro, whom I don’t really know but apparently have seen in Perhaps Love which nobody else watched except for the three people in the 200-person theater with me at the time which was half past eight in the morning, is going to play Zhuge Liang. And Zhuge Liang is kind of a big deal. I’m certainly not versed well enough in the Three Kingdoms lore to go into any specifics, but he is the original smartass bastard. He has a feathered fan for the express purpose of annoying the hell out of everybody else. He should be smarmy, composed, infuriatingly knowing and yet somehow incredibly fly. I think that has been accomplished and I am tickled to no end.

DUELING TRADITIONAL INSTRUMENTS

No kidding there is going to be a traditional instrument dueling scene in the movie. I can’t breathe, that is so amazing. It’ll be just like dueling banjos except without the mental disability and the hours of wide-eyed panic that follow. Also, TRADITIONAL INSTRUMENTS. I’m not sure what they’re called because I don’t know the first thing about China, but I’m already jumping up and down in my seat. Sorry the picture is so terrible, but these are tiny on the pamphlets and it’s super glossy. Zhuge Liang is twenty-seven at the time of the battle for heaven’s sakes how supernaturally hot is that? Also Zhou Yu is thirty-three and played by Tony Leung so okay both the actors are slightly older than their parts but by this point I don’t care, I don’t even care whether it’ll be a good movie or not and I certainly don’t care much about the battle scenes. I just need to see Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhuge Liang sitting on a high chair with his white robes smiling that little maddening genius-tactician smile and maybe calling on some good old-fashioned magic. Though actually the last bit probably shouldn’t happen.

Charlie Bartlett

This movie is old hat but I saw the pamphlet standing there and I squealed. How is that man so fine? I always believed in you, Robert Downey Jr. Believe you me. Well okay let’s be honest I only heard of him after he got things under control, but hey at least I knew him a handful of movies before Iron Man. I think that’s enough to go with these days. Just like you get a smidgen of cred for having known Johnny Depp before PotC. Why do I incorrectly remember Secret Window to be further back than Caribbean? Probably because I felt like the movie went on forever, since, you know, it wasn’t a good movie really. It’s surprising: I just counted, and I still haven’t seen twenty Depp films. Maybe if I do Platoon and Donnie Brasco sometime.