More recent media
Jun. 24th, 2024 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
halfcactusI meant to keep this short but I kept remembering things I wanted to add lol oops
Rookie (2023), directed by Samantha Lee: A wholesome and feel-good 90-minute movie about girlhood and belonging.
PLOT: Ace is a lanky and awkward basketball player who gets recruited into her new high school's volleyball team, and Jana is the popular team captain whose temper has been frayed by shoulder injury, unprocessed trauma, and parental expectations. They fall in love in training camp.
This is by no means a perfect movie. There are a lot of loose threads in it—Jana's storyline in particular felt like it had a lot of missing scenes. But it's still an incredibly lifelike depiction of youth and the memories that make you. I particularly loved Pat Tingjuy's performance as Ace, a realistically awkward newcomer with a quiet but unwavering sense of self. The casting and styling were so on-point and reflected the movie's stance on girlhood—Ace looked so normal, and everyone in the volleyball team had different features and body types, which made the movie all the more immersive, like you either knew this people in real life or were them yourself. Anyway it was really cute and only 90 minutes, so none of its weaknesses really bother me.
CW: There's a sexual assault (bad touch) storyline that's as unsubtle as a brick but makes sense when you consider the target audience (teenage girls who don't often see their experiences represented). Other than that, this is a very low-key and low-stakes movie. The only instance of homophobia is an obnoxious jibe from a priest about "praying" for the girls who are holding hands.
WHERE TO WATCH: Amazon Primeor your sources for Asian indie films
Ancient Detective: Low-budget 2020 wuxia mystery series about the righteous detective Jian Buzhi who suffers from memory loss and is trying to find out the truth about the massacre that killed his father. He acquires a fiercely loyal boyfriend in the aspiring hero Zhao Wohuan, and a stoic and protective girlfriend in the ex-assassin Zhan Shiqi. Other recurring characters are assassin sect heiress Ming Yue, historian Sima Dang, doctor of assassins Gong Que, and unknown element Ye Xiaoxiao.
There was also An Attempt at adding a LGBT character to the mix and everything turned out better than I feared + I am happy to report that that character survived.
I'd categorize this as a cozy mystery with some wuxia action where the plot and characters don't have a lot of depth and the mysteries aren't very elegantly executed. I really enjoyed watching the show try to explore themes of memory and ask questions about what defines people and how much change you can get away with before you're considered a different person. I also just really enjoyed the FL as an umbrella-wielding ex-assassin. The mysteries were mostly there to drive the plot forward, but I ended up really liking the case about the physicians, even though the setup was very slow and it was otherwise just a filler episode to get the gang to the next plot point. It was unusually thought-provoking and the payoff was great!
+ Logged on to my fansubs account for the first time in idk how long to post a subbed trailer... let's see how long it takes for TPTB to come down with the merciless hammer of copyright blocks haha:
- Call for the Dead (John le Carré): I liked the murder mystery aspects and the bits of characterization for Smiley, but the spy plot went over my head (which is business as usual).
- The Plague Court Murders (John Dickson Carr): So far no murder has happened, and my eyes have been glazing over all the descriptions of the characters + estate (??) they are in... Here's to hoping I still enjoy the mystery. ^^;
- 桥头楼上 (priest): Another douqi recommendation--this one's gen with a (I am told) mostly all-woman ensemble cast. And suspense/mystery! All things that are relevant to my interests. Chapter 1 was compelling (water ghost PoV--I'm so in), straightforward, and readable, and Chapter 2 is making me use my brain and Google stuff.
- Chapter 1 notes:
- I made the mistake of skipping the chapter intro at first (fake webnovel details + fake author's notes), as I usually don't read those anyway, so I was so confused when I got to the comments section at the end askd;ajf;af??? Going back to the beginning to catch up on what I missed was funny.
- I'm curious about:
1) The circumstances behind the narrator's death: We know that they drowned because that's how water ghosts come to be, but not if it was murder/suicide/accidental...
2) The nature of lore in this webnovel: It feels like it plays with variations of what happens after you've drowned your replacement, but I don't know anything about water ghost stories. Eitherway I'm curious if the narrator's surprise at the outcome is a function of the story, the plot, or the characterization. - I really enjoyed the unexpected
spoilers
body-sharing—one where both souls take turns on the driver's seat without communicating.
- I made the mistake of skipping the chapter intro at first (fake webnovel details + fake author's notes), as I usually don't read those anyway, so I was so confused when I got to the comments section at the end askd;ajf;af??? Going back to the beginning to catch up on what I missed was funny.
Books:
TV/Films:
PLOT: Ace is a lanky and awkward basketball player who gets recruited into her new high school's volleyball team, and Jana is the popular team captain whose temper has been frayed by shoulder injury, unprocessed trauma, and parental expectations. They fall in love in training camp.
This is by no means a perfect movie. There are a lot of loose threads in it—Jana's storyline in particular felt like it had a lot of missing scenes. But it's still an incredibly lifelike depiction of youth and the memories that make you. I particularly loved Pat Tingjuy's performance as Ace, a realistically awkward newcomer with a quiet but unwavering sense of self. The casting and styling were so on-point and reflected the movie's stance on girlhood—Ace looked so normal, and everyone in the volleyball team had different features and body types, which made the movie all the more immersive, like you either knew this people in real life or were them yourself. Anyway it was really cute and only 90 minutes, so none of its weaknesses really bother me.
CW: There's a sexual assault (bad touch) storyline that's as unsubtle as a brick but makes sense when you consider the target audience (teenage girls who don't often see their experiences represented). Other than that, this is a very low-key and low-stakes movie. The only instance of homophobia is an obnoxious jibe from a priest about "praying" for the girls who are holding hands.
WHERE TO WATCH: Amazon Prime
There was also An Attempt at adding a LGBT character to the mix and everything turned out better than I feared + I am happy to report that that character survived.
I'd categorize this as a cozy mystery with some wuxia action where the plot and characters don't have a lot of depth and the mysteries aren't very elegantly executed. I really enjoyed watching the show try to explore themes of memory and ask questions about what defines people and how much change you can get away with before you're considered a different person. I also just really enjoyed the FL as an umbrella-wielding ex-assassin. The mysteries were mostly there to drive the plot forward, but I ended up really liking the case about the physicians, even though the setup was very slow and it was otherwise just a filler episode to get the gang to the next plot point. It was unusually thought-provoking and the payoff was great!
+ Logged on to my fansubs account for the first time in idk how long to post a subbed trailer... let's see how long it takes for TPTB to come down with the merciless hammer of copyright blocks haha:
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2024-06-24 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-25 12:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-25 11:12 am (UTC)Also oh gosh 桥头楼上 is complete???? I was eyeing it while it first started but totally forgot to keep up. !!!!!
no subject
Date: 2024-06-25 12:13 pm (UTC)I tried peeking at the novel but it would take me years to finish it so I gave up j;ljaspapsdfaj;
And yeah 桥头楼上 complete at 32 chapters and completely free!!! I'm so happy to be reading something gen haha