Title: Red Cliff

二零零八年七月二十五日：金曜日

Today I went to Bandar Utama to watch the movie red cliff with my parents.

I've always been one who has been sort of fascinated with our Chinese Legends and History and all, though laziness, prevents me from doing further research and I usually except what falls into my lap.. haha.. but well as Dave said on his blog before.. it's the effort, have to put in the effort for whatever we do [I recall something about a fish to big for the pan, so the fisherman let it go... haven't that fisherman heard of knives.. and something called, cutting the fish up to fit the pan? =.=']...

So since it's the holidays for me now.. maybe I should.. the internet is vast... but I prefer to read books.. maybe I should go and look for those old picture books, and well, though my Chinese is crap.. they usually have those little English translations at the bottom :p

Okay... I went to watch that show, for those who don't know, it's based on Chinese History, and a novel which fictionalised that history called the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it's based on the time before China was united into what it was, and it covers our ever legendary God of war Guan Gong, the red faced warrior.

As a child, I do watch those TVB shows [relying on the Malay subtitles then, to understand what is going on, because they use the old formal way of speaking in such shows.. and I don't understand... sadly... even now...the old way of speaking, can be really confusing... plus the proverbs and all.. haha] and from there, I know of our Chinese Legends, plus some reading as well, and lucky for bananas like me... who can't really read Chinese, there are some books with some simple illustrations and English translation.

I like reading all those old stories, the Tales of Liao Zhao, of fox spirits, the monkey king, the goddess of mercy, the eight immortals.. I basically read what I could get my hands on... [no internet at that time yet.. and well. .the internet wasn't that popular at that time..] and watched whatever they showed on television, though I must say, sometimes TVB likes to exaggerate, but guess that's for the ratings...

But anyway, I deviated off the topic... as I was saying, since I'm into stuff like that [though my memory is fuzzy on the storyline and all, I didn't finish the story, as I couldn't find the rest of the books at my relatives place.. I was just left hanging there... maybe I should go out and buy them myself :p] and so is my dad... we went off to catch it..

The movie seems to centre around the epic battle at the red cliff, hence, obviously its title... And if you don't know the story at all. .you wouldn't know how all the generals and all met up etc.. Wouldn't know their relations and all with each other... I sort of remember cause of the television dramas... but I prefer to get my hands on the books.... it's been years.. and I was but a child when I read and watched the story.. so I've sort of forgotten most of it..

But the movie overall... it's ok, too much fighting scenes... there were some funny moments, and some brotherhood/loyalty to friends [sorry, don't know how to describe yi hei in English] scenes.. but overall it was ok.. the battles, especially the use of the ba gua [ermm, 8 formation?] tactic was good, but when I read on wikipedia, apparently in REAL history such a move wasn't used till after that period.... but oh well.. movies are movies... they need the ratings to rake in money.. still, it was impressive... A real good war tactic...

However, I will say that.. I want to catch the next one... because the cinematography is beautiful, and well, I want to see how they fight it out.. though I roughly recall how it will turn out, seeing it on screen is another matter... but that's about it... it was okay

And I don't know why, this past two days since after the exams.. I feel so tired always.. I haven't even watched an episode of anime yet.. but I am trying to catch up on my manga downloads haha.. so that's all.. I'm going to try and turn in early tonight.. hope the green tea from my Japanese dinner, don't keep me up the whole night.. :p

-Oracl3-

P/s: anyone interested in the new "The Mummy" movie? it opened today.... :p