Blogger Hu Xingdou calls for a boycott of the Jackie Chan’s May 1st Beijing concert in light of Chan’s controversial comments about Chinese people and their need to be regulated or controlled. In some way i am sympathetic to Chan, because an intellectual he’s not and he really doesn’t have either the brains or the position to speak his real mind about things, and yet he was stupid enough to open his big mouth anyway. Oh well. Here are the last two paragraphs of this blogger’s criticism, which I liked and have translated for your edification.

成龙公然为剥夺人民群众的话语权、知情权、上访权、参与权撑腰。他在香港、台湾受到狗仔队的追踪，不胜其扰，由此他当然十分感激在大陆作为“中国电影家协会副主席”享受的副部级待遇与特别保护，“慢慢觉得”很有必要“管”一下举报腐败、维权上访、追求国家正义与自由的“添乱之人”，认为只有这样国家才很“和谐”。但是我要问的是：如果成龙的亲人遭遇冤屈无法伸张，如果成龙受到打击伤害无处讲理，如果成龙家的房子土地被人强征而没有什么补偿，如果成龙是弱势群体，不能享有经济权利、社会权利、文化权利、政治权利，举报腐败会被迫害，网络揭露地方乱象会被千里抓捕，上访会被送进精神病院，他还会这样嚣张与猖狂吗？当然，这些仅仅是假设，他成龙事实上是强势群体，是权贵，是既得利益者，他在大陆以爱国主义、民族主义的歌曲作伪装，日进斗金，实际上是在歌唱强者对弱者的蹂躏。
一位缺乏最起码公民意识的影星居然成为成千上万民众崇拜的偶像、成为中国人的“代表”，一位奴才的丑陋表演竟然赢得台下工商领袖们的热烈掌声，大陆中国人该反省一下了，该加入到抵制成龙的行列中去了——为了捍卫大陆的自由、香港的自由、台湾的自由。

[Jackie Chan has openly joined the forces of those that would deprive the people of their right to speak, to know (i.e. to have information), and to petition. Since he’s always getting hounded by the papparazzi in Hong Kong, he must really enjoy the special treatment that he receives as vice chairman of the CHina Film Association, and thus gradually has come to believe that it must be better to control all the troublemakers that report corruption, defend their rights through petitioning, or attempt to achieve some kind of justice, because only then can society be “harmonious”. But there’s something I’d like to ask: if it was his family that were wronged or the victims of injustice, and if it was them who had nowhere to seek redress, and if it was him that had his home and property forcibly taken away without any recompense, and if he was a member of a disadvantaged group, that didn’t have much by way of economic, social, cultural, or political power, and was attacked for reporting corruption or arrested for exposing the crimes of local governments, or taken into an insane asylum because he went to petition, would he still be this arrogant? Of course, these are just assumptions, because in reality Jackie Chan is one of the privileged few, a member of the social elite, the establishment and its vested interests–and he comes to mainland China, singing songs of nationalism and pride, making money hand over fist–but what he’s really singing are songs that celebrate the triumph of the strong over the weak.

That a celebrity who lacks a basic understanding of civil society and the rights of citizens could become the idol of millions, and “represent” China, that a slave’s shoddy performances could so delight and entertain the captains of industry and business leaders ought to give pause to all the Chinese people and make them reflect on whether they should join the ranks of those who will boycott Jackie Chan–for the sake protecting the freedoms of the PRC, the freedoms of Hong Kong, and the freedoms of Taiwan.

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Sure, why the hell not. Like Frank Yi said they copied his way.

I mean the publicly listed Chinese fashion sportswear company, Xtep, whose recent commercials during the Olympics caught my attention because of the music used. The song is called “It’s My Way” and it doesn’t take a New Jersey-born fan of 1980s hair rock to know that the song is a rip off of Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life”…I don’t know who the singer of the song is, but you can tell that they are going for the same kind of vocal style as well.

The commercial features some of the hottest youth stars from Taiwan and Hong Kong, including Nicholas Tse, the Twins, Jolin Tsai, and Wilber Pan, most of whom I thoroughly detest. From what I can tell on the commercial, their shoes look like shite too, but nonetheless, they are still a fairly big player in the China sportswear market, where they are still behind Anta and the now household name of Li Ning. And apparently they are also part of the Carlyle Group’s portfolio, which given the affiliations behind that group make me incredibly cynical about the world and reinforce an outlook which could be summarized thus: some shit capitalists are out there making shitty derivative products, and yet there are some powerful and elitist capitalists out there making sure that the former succeed for their mutual benefit.

Here’s a vid of the commercial, this one meant for the Olympics in particular:

and here’s the whole song:

A couple of thoughts on that commercial: firstly, it always get my goad when Taiwan and Hong Kong stars shil for mainland based products, just because if you are famous and from those parts of nominally free China, I somehow feel you ought to shil for some better brand–I mean what does it say about you that these shoes cost 150-300 RMB? On the other hand, I know that they’d never be remotely considered for brands like Nike and Adidas, who go for the real top-flight athletes. In that sense, Xtep is smart because they go for the youth demographic, for the fashion sportswear market, sell the image, sell the lifestyle. It’s not and has not been about the specs of the shoes for a long time.

It’s also ironic because the commercials plays on those common Olympic tropes of “1.3 billion people’s dreams and hopes”, which nauseates me to no end, and again, makes me wonder why Taiwanese and HKese stars would go for that. Oh yeah, maybe they are proud of the Olympics, and maybe they are getting paid a fuckload of money. Oh well Peijin, hold your nose and look the other way.

Last thought on this is the Wilbur Pan’s role in the commercial, where he plays the role of a street basketball player—that cheesy layup at the end and his knife across the neck motion—it’s like he’s some bad-boy gangsta baller, but I bet he’s a weakling on the actual basketball court. I doubt he really plays in the streets of anywhere, not even Taipei, where, if you know where to go, there are some ballers wid skeels. Wilbur is basically a pretty boy that likes to appropriate the tropes of hip-hop and b-boy culture to sell his image, which he can then parlay into record sales and concerts, sportswear and soda commercials. There is no need for him to be anything other than what he is. It’s one unified image, and all he’s selling are the various products that help him realize his lifestyle, one which, provided you outfit yourself with the same shit, you can have too.

Unfortunately, that’s another aspect of greater Chinese pop culture that I detest too—and I know that there’s no point in crying about the commercialization of hip-hope or black culture, that’s been the status quo for years and it’s not going to change. It’s just that to me, it’s even more meaningless when it comes from Chinese people. I know pop culture has an easy, lowest common denominator type universality to it, but somehow there’s a very atavistic and inchoate impulse towards Chinese purity that I cannot quite explain. It’s not that everything has to be traditional, it’s more that I was hoping that one day even in the realm of popular culture and lowbrow consumerism, Chinese people might do something that at least strikes people as having one or more iotas of originality.
Li Ning vs. Nike and Adidas, Lenovo vs. Apple, Baidu vs. Google—the west has a head-start and a superior advantage. Mimicry is a form of flattery. I talk of inspiration and originality, while these Chinese brands are locked in a fierce to the death battle for every percentage point of market share they can get.

Not sure what to think from here. Maybe better solution would be to put on some Bon Jovi, which always reliable source of low dosage escapism:

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Comrades—Almost a Love Story is a movie I am embarrassed to admit I had not seen until a couple of days ago. I’ve always suspected that Peter Chan’s movies are a bit heavy on the schlock factor, and to a certain extent, that’s true of this film, but in a relatively unoffensive way.

I can’t and won’t write a full-blown review or criticism of the movie here, but will jsut offer some desultory notes.

Leon Lai’s performance: cloying at times, but he grows on you. In the beginning you think: there’s no way someone that “polished” looking could ever be some bumpkin from the mainland, much less Tianjin. Of course, Lai’s roots are in Beijing, so I guess that’s not really the issue. It’s just that he’s too fresh-faced. NO matter how hard he tries he looks like he’s in some skin-care product commercial.

Maggie Cheung: well, she was ok for the most part, but there were one or two scenes where she was absolutely brilliant: one is after they have gone to bed together (after he’s married his girlfriend). The inevitable conversation occurs: what are we going to do about this? He says, without flinching, that he will return to his life, to his wife and his home. And she says, then what about me. The way that scene is shot—they are in bed—adds to the effect. She is lit so that you mostly just see her face, half in light and half-hidden in shadow. In this scene she nails the pathos of the other woman in a way that few other actresses have or will.

The Teresa Teng (邓丽君) trope that runs through the movie does more than just provide a soundtrack for the movie: there is a sense in which her music, which bridged the divide between Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the mainland in a way that politics never could, serves as a fitting metaphor. The popularity of her music in the pop-music starved China of the 1980s is a collective cultural memory and emotional anchor for the two mainland immigrants. Everyone in Taiwan and Hong Kong had probably heard her music much earlier and were already “over it.” On the other hand, Teng’s music “originated” in Taiwan, where she was from—and so their appropriation of this music represents the mainlanders’ entry into the world of Chinese-language pop music. At present, the Chinese pop culture industry knows no boundaries—sure there are still (political) bans on certain performers (mainlanders in Taiwan, blacklisted musicians on either side, etc)—but for the most part, everyone is in on the conversation, no one is left behind. There is no time lag—the music is released simultaneously as is the information, thanks to the internet. The performers always have mainland tours, not as an afterthought but as their main source of income.

Teng’s death in the movie comes just as the dreams of the two main characters are on the verge of collapse: Li Qiao’s mob-boss husband gets killed in a shooting in New York City, and she is about to be deported. Li Xiaojun has divorced and moved to New York City to work as a cook, and doesn’t have much of a social or emotional life. It is at this moment that they finally meet again, and the fairy tale seems to come to a close. The carriage has become a pumpkin, or has it. Will life keep surprising you with miracles when you least suspect it?

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This is the first time that I have ever seen Wong Kar-wai without his trademark sunglasses. I never realized his face was so big;
evidently the shades he wears occupy a good part of his face. He was in Bhutan for the wedding of Tony Leung and Carina Lau
and lots of other Hong Kong celebs, such as Faye Wong, were there as well.

Anyway, he looks like such a regular postman dude in the picture that I was left scratching my head…so that’s WKW? How could this be?
I hope he dons his glasses again soon.

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This is a picture from there…I guess they are getting married in a couple of days? Not like i really care that much, but I really thought that he was gay, and that the reason they had not tied the knot for so long was that and/or because they had other lovers.

oh well.

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If you’re a fan of the “gutter-trawling” alienated youths genre of film, you should find this one enjoyable: and I did not intend to be ironic there, because I actually think this was a good film. The story centers around two brothers: the younger one gets relentlessly and heartlessly picked on at school–beaten up, all the time, by boys and girls (the latter, despite their nice skirts and uniforms, are basically triads-in-training–like many mobsters, they like stuffing heads in urinals and toilets). The older brother sees this and does nothing. It gets worse: the younger one is physically abused by his father at home, and again, the older one does nothing. With no one to protect and stand up for him, the younger brother disappears.

He’s not heard from again until the police tell the elder brother that his brother is in the hospital after attempted suicide, and is also the main suspect in the homicide of a girl affiliated with a young triad boss/mobster. The older brother soon finds himself entangled with these triad members, who say his younger brother made off with a huge stash of drugs. He then tries to piece together what exactly his younger brother had been up to during the last few years.

What he finds out is that his brother has become part of the seamy underbelly of New Territories housing development. These are outsiders and misfits, the kids that slip through the cracks of the system. And of course, to make ends meet they resort to stealing and selling drugs.

I always feel conflicted about movies like this: the inherent seriousness of the subject seems somehow at odds with the often stylized camera work and pacing. The highly saturated, bold, and contrasty cinematography reminds me of Infernal Affairs ?????where you see a lot of these cyan-green tinted shots. Of course, it’s more than just eye-candy: what you’re getting is not the objective fly-in-the-wall take on what happens, but some reflection of the subjective reality of the characters. I don’t want to suggest that the style is amateurish or bad, just not necessarily what one might expect of a film that touches on some very serious issues. My proclivity for neo-realism, documentary style movies a la the Dardennes Brothers is what I am getting at, but I suppose it’s not a big deal. I’ve just found this type of style has become idiomatic in Hong Kong and reminds one of those Hollywood films that also deal with people on the wrong side of the tracks or the bad side of town: to a certain extent, you have to deal in cliches. You don’t explore the complexity of parental abuse, or why kids beat up other kids.

I suppose that much of it has to do with the fact that so much of what happens in this film is alien to me. Hong Kong–you’re thinking banks and dim sum, wine bars and electronics shops. The harbor, the peak. You don’t think about father-daughter incest, much less expect to see (dimly), a father humping a daughter and getting her pregnant. Here the heart and mind begin to part ways: your mind is telling you that yes, all these things do exist, but this film is like a potluck roast of all the bad shit that happens in life and cramming all of it together makes the suspension of disbelief a wee bit harder. On the other hand, your heart is trying to feel sympathy for the characters and revulsion for all the cruelty that you see. That’s why realistic, naturalistic performances and style tend to work better for me: they start off by looking more “real” (or verite), and tend to shy away from overdramatizing.

The film has a few plot twists and turns, which I think makes the film much better than it might be were it to rely purely on the “moods” and portrayals of everyday life for teenage dropouts. With regards to the latter: the naturalistic performances by the actors really did make those moments shine–all the times they stole things, and made fun of each other, got high, fought and then made up. These dropouts are a motley bunch and for the most part, they all looked it–none of the made-up pretty-boys and Canto-pop queens that dominate most Hong Kong films. I am guessing that they used many non-actors, and perhaps some of them are even from that area of Hong Kong.

All in all: one of the more interesting films and directors (???) out of Hong Kong these days. I’ve heard that the director’s other films are quite interesting as well and am keen on filling what seems like an inexcusable gap in my Hong Kong film repertoire.

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What i noticed is that, like with most computer/software applications, it’s divided into simplified Chinese for China, and traditional for HK as well as traditional for Taiwan.

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Just something I saw in China CSR.com…this thing was on the way from Oakland to China. I guess there are some loopholes in Hong Kong law that allow e-waste to get through, even though it’s technically illegal. Technorati Tags: china, greenpeace, hong kong, oakland, US, e-waste, waste, environment, computers, electronics

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