The Pensieve

Rating: ****.5 / *****

Artistic quality: ****/*****

View the alternate trailer.
I like the song, the version sung by the woman. Right at the end, there’s also another song, very beautiful too. How can I lay my hands on them? hehe…

The Banquet is a loose remake of the well-known Shakespearean tragedy, Hamlet, of power struggles, love and ravenous human desires. It is more of a musical/dance rather than a film. I would highly recommend it for all who enjoy song, dance, and can appreciate an intricate combination of both, together with a dash of Noh (Jap) art. The film flows seamlessly, portraying each character’s dilemma, their choice between love and power. The plot is simple, but the emotions evolved are complex. There is minimal dialogue in the film, and thankfully, whatever dialogue present wasn’t too tacky, unlike ‘Hero’ (where the film was punctuated by giggles throughout).

Although almost every scene wows and tingles your senses ie. the opulence of the banquet decorations, the awfully heavy and tinkly gold jewellery adorning the Empress like christmas ornaments… There really isn’t a particular climax, rather there is a beauty melancholy underlying the entire film.

Favourite scenes include the opening scene of the massacre of the Noh dancers. It’s really like dance of death. And *pause*

WAAAA I LIKE DANIEL WU LAH! hahaha… He’s what I call HANDSOME. heh. Pardon me, give me this rare opportunity to rave a bit can. :D (so happy)
1… 2… 3… EW! MAN on HORSE!

but I’m not sharing this one. Heh.
Ok, here’s another… *drool*

And I didn’t forget you guys, time to drool too!

To get back on track, some might find the ‘Noh-dance scene’ rather disturbing, but it kind of gives me a sense of peace and mystery like how I felt walking along the corridors of AH at 4am.

The film practically makes everything barbaric such as the scene where a general was literally beaten to death, into something quite like a dance. There’s just some sick sort of beauty in that. Maybe that’s why some people get so high on torturing other people. Hmmm. *wonders*

As for erotic, haha some people said certain scenes were quite erotic. Yeah, I agree, but in a depraved way. Oh yeah, and any sexual scene is kind of represented by… ‘a falling leaf’. Actually REAL erotic stuff doesn’t mean all that hardcore stuff you know, and all that 100% exposure. Heh.

Performance
With regards to acting, I felt that Zhang Ziyi did a really good job this time round, better than in ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’. I feel that she’s beginning to fill the shoes of Gong Li. (braces myself for missiles aimed this way from Gong Li fans) She does a fantastic job of masking her power hungry desires, melding it with passionate desires for her step-son. As aptly described, her eyes were like those of a phoenix’s, at times frightening, at times gentle.

Fave phrase

- 还有比这个更毒的吗？
- 有，还有一样东西。
- 那是什么？
- 人心。。。

Visit the official movie site.

My CG’s latest code name:

Boss speaks:

Genre: Literature, mystery.

The first time I read this book, it was somewhere in Sec 1, where I had a voracious appetite for any horror / mystery stories. This time round, was merely browsing in the library for something, anything to read, to get me out of the ditch. (Yes, reading is a fantastic form of escapism.) In the past, I remembered being really freaked out by the ghostly hound. Think I had it classified under the same category as Anubis (Egyptian god with a dog’s head that weighs the dead man’s heart against a feather. If it’s heavier than the feather, Anubis gobbles his heart up. And I suppose the poor soul goes to hell. Boy, it freaked me out so much I was real good for like 2 weeks), and same category as Cerebrus the 3-headed hounds that guard the gates of hell.

Now you must be wondering, what a warped 13-year-old kid I was!

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are probably more well-known than their creator, Sir Conan Arthur Doyle. In this book, one may note the deductive and elementary approach that the author has taken towards solving the mystery of the hound of Baskervilles, a legendary curse that has claimed the lives of two Baskervilles, and is threatening to do the same for the third. This approach was adapted from his medical training at Edinburgh. Can tell, you know, reading the book felt like going through a superb tutorial… History, examination (where inspection was vital), differentials and management! The plot is seamlessly woven into a net of deceit and lies, of subplots and clever guises such that the reader will also enjoy working through the mystery with Holmes and Watson.

In fact, I wouldn’t wonder if other modern detective novels such as the Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene were adapted from these age-old masterpieces. Check out ‘The Secret of Shadow Ranch’ in that series and you’ll get what I mean!