thanks to the sister's boyfriend, i managed to watch Curse of the Gim Huey and The Banquet over the weekend. (woots) in case you've forgotten, gim huey/kim huay/kim huey's the one with gong li and lots of boobs (i sometimes wonder if it were those things which stole the show... for the men of course) while the banquet is the one with ziyi zhang, as she has come to be known in the western world. and in our jokes. anyway, there was some hooha over the similarities (if i remember correctly) and debate about which was better. i'm inclined to believe most men would choose the former, though that is just my gut's judgement. i, for one, much appreciated Banquet more, partly, perhaps, of the lack of distracting bosoms. (the ladies in my house never failed to exclaim "walao eh" whenever those things appeared on the screen, much to the amusement of the boyfriend, the only male audience) no i'm kidding. Banquet was more artistically done, i loved the dance parts, and the way the story was told, slowly drawing you into it. the complexity of the characters made them more believable, made you think about them more as people rather than fictionaly characters of a story. zhang ziyi (i revert back to the way her name SHOULD be said, in my opinion) really stole the show. her furtive glances, all that emotion written on her face and in her eyes, wah. and of course, there's daniel wu to melt the ladies' hearts. haha.

i was left with the impression that gim huey had too many things gold, while banquet was characterised by red. gim huey was really spectacular, all the pots of gim hueys on the ground (CGI, the boyfriend said) and all those soldiers dressed in gold and silver and the great numbers of it all. everything was plain in a way, though, the personality of the characters easily understood, and they spoke in semi-plain mandarin, quite unlike the simple, concise and yet complex dialogue found in banquet. you know, the kind in old chinese movies in which dialogue was minimum, yet spoke a great deal.

the ending. ok, a whole lot of people died, for both. sad. the fighting scenes for both were good, i must say. hate the gore though. (am suddenly reminded of the flying head in 300, and all the other gruesome scenes in that movie. which made the violence in these movies not too bad. phew.) oh the ending. gim huey's ending was sad, i'd rather die if i were her (gong li, the empress). the ending for the banquet...was full of question marks. "huh???so who killed her???u mean he din't die??but he did right??" and so the ladies were left puzzled. the boyfriend didn't say anything, so we never knew if he understood the ending. maybe the sister knows if he knew, but it doesn't matter. the thing is, i'm still pondering about it and waiting for someone to enlighten me.

anyway. that's my take. i wonder which one of you actually took time to read through all that. haha.

am now finishing (finally) shadow of the wind, the book i was reading really intermittently for a semester and which, i would've finished in a week or less even in a leisurely pace. school and its contents take up too much of my life. hmmm. which really, may not be a bad thing.

i forgot.
happy birthday to dee, who turned 20 yest, and to today's bday peeps--the kindergarten best fren virginia and cousin vicky. and to my optician, whom i met today and from whom i bought yet another pair of glasses. (and my frens exclaim "ros!!!!!")well, let's not talk about it. (though i must say, i'm pretty excited. hee)

ok. chow.