#tom shu-yu lin

[eastasiansonwesternscreen]

EXCLUSIVE: Lana Condor (To All The Boys franchise), Andrew Koji (Bullet Train), Ross Butler (Shazam! franchise), Sung Kang (Fast & Furious franchise) and Elodie Yung (The Cleaning Lady) are among those set to star in Worth the Wait, a romantic comedy marking the U.S. directorial debut of award-winning Taiwanese filmmaker Tom Shu-Yu Lin (The Garden of Evening Mists), which has wrapped production in Vancouver and Kuala Lumpur.

Others cast include Karena Lam (American Girl), Osric Chau (Supernatural), Ali Fumiko Whitney (The Road Dance), Ricky He (From), Kheng Hua Tan (Crazy Rich Asians) and Yu-Beng Lim (Rebel Moon).

An English-language indie set against the intercontinental backdrops of Seattle and Kuala Lumpur, which is said to be in the vein of Love Actually, Worth the Wait follows a year in the interconnected lives and romances of an all-Asian ensemble cast.

(via Deadline)

[news-buzz]

Busan Film Festival Unveils 2024 New Currents and Jiseok Award Winners News Buzz

The Busan International Film Festival has revealed its award winners and confirmed earlier dates for 2025. Park Ri-woong’s “The Land of Morning Calm” (Korea) and The Maw Naing’s “MA – Cry of Silence”(Myanmar/Korea/Singapore/France/Norway/Qatar) shared the New Currents Award. Rima Das’ “Village Rockstars 2” (India/Singapore) and Tom Lin Shu-Yu’s “Yen and Ai-Lee” (Taiwan) jointly claimed the Kim…

[not-so-rosyyy]

wait, Tom Shu-Yu Lin????? I loved his film Starry, Starry Night! I'm seated 😌

Hello 🤩 I’m seated

[zhenreviewsmovies]

The Garden of Evening Mists

My Review:

8/10

As a Malaysian myself, it was odd watching such a well made film; in fact I would go as far as to say that I am equally astonished and blown away by this movie as it was just so darn good. Well, the movie has been called a heartbreaking love story, although that is true in a certain manner, I think the more proper branding of the movie would be self-healing.

Firstly, I must acknowledge the themes thrown around in the movie, and to me personally it would be the anger and the hatred towards the Japanese post WW2, and as an individual whom has grown up knowing that Japan were known as some of the most respectable and polite individuals on the planet, I found it hard to understand the hatred that was shown towards them still amongst the Chinese community and after viewing this movie I can say that I can kind of see the anger and resentment felt towards them still. But yes, as mentioned before this movie is about self-healing so in the end, we can't continuously allow the past define the way we see life or how we treat others; sure, there are some few rotten apples here and there but the sample size is simply unsuitable for us to judge an entire community based on the few experiences that we have lived through. Thus, the importance of love, mercy and grace. 

Okay, on with the praises I have regarding this movie. Cinematography is incredible, my gosh what a beautiful movie. However, I believe that it is so mainly because of the location the movie was shot too and these scenes revolving around the vast environment of Cameron Highlands aren't exactly artistic shots but the imagery within the Japanese house where the garden is located is absolutely stunning. 

Although the movie looks stunning, I must bring attention to a certain scene within the movie where the scene could've been better shot which is the scene where the main character, Teoh Yun Ling ponders upon her sister's photograph and the scene plays out in such a way that it felt unnecessary to have a close up on the picture again as it had been done in the earlier part of the movie and the next cut is of her reacting to that picture. This probably isn't an issue for the vast majority but it felt unnatural to me and it stood out too much to my liking. Furthermore, the first 15 minutes of the movie felt choppy to me, this could've been a personal nitpick. 

The acting on the other hand, this is a difficult one to comment upon as it was good but as this movie was labelled as a romantic movie, I went in expecting some serious chemistry between Teoh Yun Ling (Angelica Lee) and Nakumuara Aritomo (Hiroshi Abe) and since this movie focuses on the pain Angelica Lee's character, Teoh Yun Ling experiences during the Japanese invasion of Malaya during WW2, there is constant tension between the two characters due to her prejudice against the Japanese people. But looking past all that, I must say that she did a wonderful job portraying a strong character but at the same time broken, she absolutely nailed all the emotions required in each particular scene and her performance truly nailed this movie home and even brought me to tears.  

All in all, this was a heartbreaking movie, I went in with some form of expectation after seeing the number of awards it was nominated for at the 56th Golden Horse awards and this movie definitely delivers and this is a movie worth catching in the cinema. 

[tiantianxuexi]

开卷有益: Always a good time for books!

Wow it’s summer!! But no classes also sometimes means you kind of fall off the language wagon :/ a nice way to maintain momentum but not get too brain fried is to read works in translation, or works about china/the sinosphere. This can help remind you why you started learning or just kind of fill out fun background knowledge and maybe pick up a few things. a mish mash selection (mostly amazon links but then you have the isbn for your library or pdfing or w/e):

Free online Paper Republic focuses on Chinese translations, Asymptote Journal is also wonderful and has work from not only Mandarin but Cantonese, Uyghur, and more! 

The Four Classic Novels You don’t need to read these, straight up it’s ok. That said, they are referenced a lot and work their way into things, and for the most part are just fun stories. Most have multiple translations, I’m linking to one but feel free to poke around

Dream of The Red Chamber (Story of the Stone)

Water Margin

Journey to the West (or abridged ver, or really, this is what Dragonball is based on)

Romance of the Three Kingdoms (also a tv version from 2010 on youtube)

More Fiction There is no real logic to this selection  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Legends of the Condor Heroes - very popular wuxia novels

Lu Xun - A Madman’s Diary, etc. A founding story in the vernacularization movement. It’s possible to find bilingual copies of much of his work, but because he was a pioneer in the early not-Classical Chinese writing movement (白话) his writing is not what is now considered “standard Mandarin.” It’s decently easy to read, but maybe don’t learn grammar from it (another: 孔乙己)

Chronicle of a Blood Merchant - Yu Hua 

Beijing Comrades - gay and graphic in moments, so originally published anonymously online

Notes of a Crocodile - Qiu Miaojin, a “cult classic” 

The Chilli Bean Paste Clan - Yan Ge

Frontier - Can Xue (she has also written short stories)

Running Through Beijing - Xu Zechen 

Red Peonies: Two Novellas of China - Zhang Yihe has written quite a few stories about women from her time in prison during the Cultural Revolution, and while censored in China they are popular elsewhere. (careful tho some have only been translated into French so far but might look like English titles)

The Tibetan Suitcase -  I was actually trying to remember the name of a different book, but also this looks good too

Short Story Collections

King of Trees - Ah Cheng

Love in a Fallen City - Eileen Chang

Cantonese Love Stories - Dung Kai-Cheung (more city romantic than people)

The Wandering Earth - Liu Cixin. (havn’t seen the movie but it is on netflix) I really enjoyed the Three Body Problem series, especially the first one as it actually starts a bit in the past, but if you’re not sure about scifi his stories are a good place to start and I think are a sort of look at some Chinese approaches to tech that vary from the “colonialism in space” style of a lot of Western scifi. 

There are also lots of anthologies out there (boo).

Poetry

Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry

Words from the Fire: Poems by Jidi Majia - Jidi Majia is from the Yi minority group (which has its own alphabet!) and he incorporates elements unique to it

The Poem Behind The Poem: Translating Asian Poetry 

Non-Fiction

The Private Life of Chairman Mao - written by Mao’s doctor, prof recommended this as a kind of fun/interesting read

Shanzai - Byung-Chul Han, short but a thing I think about a lot

The East is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination

Age of Ambition - Evan Osnos. I found Osnos through this New Yorker article (long but worth it) and I think he brings both nuanced analysis (apparently difficult for some western journalists ఠ ͟ಠ) and engaging story telling

The State, Identity, and the National Question in China and Japan

Creativity Class: Art School and Cultural Work in Post-socialist China

The Birth of Chinese Feminism - Lydia Liu (I’m taking a class with her next semester I’m so excited and nervous)

The Chinese Typewriter - Thomas Mullaney. one of my favorite books, also about technology/media/info processing with great history work

An Anatomy of Chinese

Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora 

Multilingualism In China - Zhou  (you can tell these are kind of linguistic-y but I’ve tried to choose ones I think are approachable)

Lin Shu Inc: Translation and the Making of Modern Chinese Culture - did you know Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a big hit in China? neither did I

China’s Design Revolution - honestly this book was a mixed bag, only bother if you find it in the library or used or something

A Short History of Chinese Philosophy  - bilingual! even if you plan to read Zhuangzi or something on its own I recommend some sort of contextual history help to get the most out of it (we used this in a class)

There’s so much out there but hopefully this gets you grazing in the right direction! 

[jeanpascalmattei]

Nos étoiles non contraires...

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