my ajumma notes

Warning: spoilers ahead It is not often that I watch non-TVB Chinese drama but I find myself following what I thought was a mainland serial, Infernal Lover . I thought it was weird that an idol drama guy (Mike He) was in a show with a largely mainland Chinese cast. I found out later that the show was by a Taiwanese and planned as an idol drama! Clever idea, I thought, idol drama in a historical setting (Republican period). In what sounds like quite a story in itself, due to problems with the original female lead and other stuff, they had to re-cast the cast, re-do parts of the story and re-film some of the scenes. And so it looks like what it does now. (Doesn't the other male lead look like Sammul Chan?) As with Royal Embroidery Workshop , I was fascinated by the (female) costumes and sets, and, really, not by the acting. I find mainland acting rather stage-y and staged. Mike He's style is so different. Plus, he had this modern floppy hair look while all the other (forgettabl...

For a few weeks, we had to watch nothing but Life Made Simple because the boy had taken to watching it, on the recommendation of his friends. I do know that the show is/was popular but I don't see it as one of TVB's brightest moments and I couldn't wait for it to end. A big plus point of the show is that it is quite values-laden: friendship, family ties, loyalty, honesty, etc. The acting is alright, too. As usual, Jessica acts well, as does Lo Yuen Yan, who plays Roger's mum. However, I thought it made light of marriage. First, there is Leila wanting, for a long time, to marry Bosco because he is rich. It is unbelievable that they suddenly love each other and get married at the end. After all, for an almost equally long time, Bosco is not interested in her, he likes Jessica (very much), Leila is awful to most people (including Bosco when his company fails) and betrays Jessica. But she does look good in the wedding segment. The worst part of the show is Jessica marryi...

Recently finished watching (started watching only from somewhere in the later half of the stories) two clever stories with unlikely endings. Clever story #1: Goong/Princess Hours Clever interplay of a fictitious present-day Korean royal family and high school romance. I think the modern royal family idea is a novel one. I don't recall any TVB, Japanese or TCS drama using this idea. I really like the palace setting. What also worked well was the pairing of the Snow Prince (the Snow Queen-like Crown Prince) and the cute girl, both roles played by newbies in the acting scene. Unlikely ending: The Crown Prince and cute girl marry for the second time (why did they have to when they didn't even divorce?) in a Catholic church (in all likelihood, though I don't remember any mention of religion, the couple wasn't Catholic)! Also, the unfortunate cousin-prince became so 'poor thing' when he lost everything that could have been his and his mother 'conveniently' h...

Since my blog goes by the name that it does, I feel compelled to write something about the tai-tais featured in the latest Sunday Times . Wow, 3 pages in the Lifestyle section devoted to the ladies (and gentlemen) who grace the pages of Singapore Tatler, Prestige, The Peak , etc. I didn't know that even among this set, there are class divisions. There are the'wannabe' tai-tais and the 'real' tai-tais, the ones who tailor 'copies' of designer clothes and those who wear the real thing, etc. Then there is, of course, me, non-tai-tai, who goes into Prada, Gucci, etc just to look at how much the clothes cost, and the ladies who actually buy and wear those clothes. I also didn't know that you get goodie bags with stuff like business class air tickets to Shanghai and electronic gadgets at these high society events. What struck me most, though, was the somewhat derisive tone I sensed in the 3 pages. Sour grapes on the part of the writers? The part I liked most ...

Looks like I can have a J- and K-drama fest right here in my living room, but sigh... sigh... sigh... I just do not have the time to watch anything yet. Too many other things to do. Right now, I have here, kindly loaned to me by friend and relative, Love Revolution (2000 J serial, 8 episodes), Joyful Girl's Success Story (2002 K serial, 16 episodes) and Love Story in Harvard (2004 K serial, don't know how many episodes). I also recently bought Shall We Dance , the original J movie on which the Richard Gere-J.Lo one was based. On top of that, I was thinking of going on to Box 2 of Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre , the 1986 version (my favourite) starring a dashing young Tony Leung Chiu Wai (then only 24 years old) as the reluctant hero, Cheung Mo Kei. After one year, I finally finished Box 1, consisting of 12 discs with 2 episodes each. At the end of Box 1, Mongolian Princess Chiu Man, if you know the story, has not even appeared yet! I guess all these others will now take me a...

First, I don't know why but the 'date language' for my posts was set at Spanish (Bolivia) . I'm sure it was set at English (United Kingdom) when I started. I've decided to change it to Italian (Italy) just for the fun of it. Second, every other blog I read today (not that many) commented on the article in ST yesterday, 'Porn? No, blogs bug me more'. The journalist says he has come to the conclusion that blogs are worse than Internet porn!! There are people in the local blogging community who believe that the media has an 'agenda' against bloggers... (play scary music here...) ... conspiracy theories... So many people have said so many things about that article, so I'm not going to focus on that for this post, though I was tempted to... Encountered star service at KFC at IMM today. I ordered a shrooms burger and was told I had to wait for 5 minutes or so for it. So I was standing there waiting for the burger and suddenly, the lady at the counte...

I am hooked on this 2004 TVB serial. The English title is really too mundane - War and Beauty . Wish they had come up with something more poetic. Chinese title - K um Ji Yuk Yip or Jin Zhi Yu Nie , badly translated as 'golden branch, evil ambitions' or something like that. Apparently the Chinese title is a play on a Chinese phrase, which I have no clue about. The show is a 30-parter about palace intrigue. The Emperor, a rather forgettable character in this story, has got all these beauties in the palace who are filled with ambition and are catfighting their way to the top. By episode 9, we have had concubines forced to die, palace maids forced to die, concubine wannabes sabo-ing each other, getting exiled, going mad , etc etc... War and Beauty beats Jewel in the Palace , the Korean 70-parter, hands down. Jewel in the Palace is also about palace intrigue but my, the pace is just slightly faster than a snail's. And there are also all these herbal concoction scenes (Imperi...