#week 124

Bao. dir. Domee Shi. 2018.

Bao, directed by Chinese-Canadian Domee Shi and released in 2018, received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short. Bao tells the story of a Chinese mother living in Toronto taking care of her dumpling son who had sprung to life one day at the dinner table.The film explores themes of interracial dating, the importance of food and family and the over-protectiveness of Asian parents. Bao was developed as a side project during her work with Inside Out. It was approved in 2015, making the film Pixar’s first original short directed by a woman. The eight minute film preceded the Incredibles 2 in theatres.

Shi draws inspiration from her experiences growing up in Toronto with a Chinese immigrant family and the dynamic contact between Chinese and Western cultures. Interspersed with cultural markers familiar to Chinese immigrants of all generations, the short is one that hits close to home. 

Domee Shi is a storyboard artist and director for Pixar with contributions to Inside Out, Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4. She studied animation at Sheridan College and graduated in 2011. 

Banner was made by the talented @litlifelover

Here is week 124, folks. As always, thank you to these amazing authors who provide me with endless amounts of entertainment. You are all amazingly talented!

Readers-please make sure you show these authors some love! If you’d like to check out my previous posts, follow #rachel’s fanfic lists or search the tag on my blog. Happy reading!

Just Like Heaven -lesbianophelia  aka @tobeverytender

Wilderness Log - alliswell aka @alliswell21

The Tigers Come at Night - @shesasurvivor

On Borrowed Time - panskiss123

See Right Through My Walls - @hpfanonezillion

My Brother's Bride - AULOVE aka @mega-aulover

Katniss Everdeen is Not a Stalker - AULOVE aka @mega-aulover

The Flower Drum Song by C. Y. Lee. 1957. 

Author C. Y. Lee passed away on November 8, 2018 at the old age of 102 due to kidney failure. This just recently became known through Lee’s children, who stated at that time they wanted to keep the death private. 

Lee was born in Hunan, China in 1915, into a family where all eight brothers achieved fame. One of his brothers was Li Jinhui, a musician and composer often called the Father of Chinese Popular Music. Lee earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from National Southwestern Associated University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in playwriting from Yale University. He emigrated to the U.S. during WWII. 

Among many novels, short stories and plays, Lee’s most famous work is The Flower Drum Song, which is set in San Francisco’s Chinatown and involves a story of generational conflict over an arranged marriage. Though Lee originally struggled to find a publisher, the book has since been recreated into a musical (1958), which became the first Broadway show to feature Asian American Players, and later a movie (1961), too.

Lee is known as one of the few Asian authors that has been able to find commercial success in the United States. According to playwright David Henry Hwang, whom Lee worked with in adapting the musical of Flower Drum Song, Lee not only challenged the then stereotypical role of Asians in media, he also brought different textures into what it meant to be American.

The Wandering Earth (流浪地球). dir. Frant Gwo (郭帆). 2019.

Adapted from the novel under the same title by Liu Cixin, author of the critically acclaimed the Three-Body Problem, the Wandering Earth is China's first full-scale science fiction film. In the distant future, the sun is about to die out and the dawning apocalypse will soon erase everything. Attempting to preserve the human civilization, people try to build giant thrusters to move the planet Earth out of orbit and sail to a new star system, the Alpha Centauri system. 

Upon its release on the New Year’s day, February 5th, the Wandering Earth has received comments from two opposing extremes—is China’s film industry blindly following the Hollywood mode of creating blockbusters? How much of it is influenced by nationalistic drives? While people’s opinions vary, the film is nonetheless the first in many ways. 

Foshan Lion Dance Mural by Hua Tunan. Graffiti. 2014. 

Inspired by classical Chinese imagery of the lion dance, the mural is located near Taipei’s SOGO department store. 

Hua Tunan, born on 1991 in Foshan, China, is a street artist and painter. His father first taught him Chinese painting techniques, and he later found his artistic inspiration when traveled to Singapore. He combines traditional Chinese painting with Western graffiti to create striking ink paintings and street art. His dynamic depictions of strong animals and bold landscapes stay true to his Chinese heritage, and his work is often described as “controlled chaotic energy.”

Watch the process here

Photos courtesy of Hua Tunan

Emperor Visits the Hell (唐皇游地府). dir. Li Luo (李珞). 2012.

Li Luo’s film is a magical realist retelling of Journey to the West that sets the ancient novel in the modern day city of Wuhan. Emperor Visits the Hell follows the Taizong Emperor Li Shimin, a quiet bureaucrat, as he enters and escapes hell by way of corruption, bribery, and general cronyism. 

Emperor Visits the Hell stands in contrast with xianchang documentary style films of the sixth generation – it is shot in stark black and white, with tidy formalist control of the setting. The film culminates in a crucial scene occurring right after the emperor returns from hell, in which viewers see Li Wen, who plays the Taizong Emperor, break character at what appears to be a wrap party, condemning China as a corrupt society of peasant farmers in need of enlightenment. Metacritical yet indicting, Emperor Visits the Hell employs postmodernist technique to an essentially modernist telos.