I HAD TOO MUCH TO DREAM LAST NIGHT (MEN AT WORK EDITION)

I am shopping at a comics store that doesn’t exist in real life but I’ve come across frequently in my dreams recently. I see a box set for a popular anime called Supersonic Dyke Busters (which isn’t quite what it sounds like – it’s something closer to Gunsmith Cats) – the set includes a DVD, a comic book, eight miniature muscle cars featured in the series, and an action figure equipped with an oversized gun that can shoot different types of ammo from the same magazine – bullets, rockets, crossbolts, whatever. It’s HK$1,100, and I decide it’s worth getting.

I exit the comics store, which is located in a mall, and in a nearby atrium I see an open-air TV studio where I’m supposed to be serving as a panelist for some telephones-related discussion. I’d decided to skip it, so it seems they’ve put a hologram or robot or something in my place, because I can see me talking on the panel.

Scene shifts: I am at some company function set at a waterfront park by a lagoon. We’re doing an event of some kind, and it’s going to start soon. But the venue isn’t ready – there’s all this litter from the previous event before ours, so we start policing the area to get it cleaned up. I get too close to the waterfront and the platform collapses – I fall into the lagoon. My colleagues are laughing, but I’m shouting, “It’s not funny!” because I’m convinced there are sharks in the lagoon.

Later, I have to go back to the studio area to pick up my stuff – I’m naked, wrapped in just a blanket. The room is full of people – it’s a post-show reception of some kind. I meet a PR person for a company I met in Barcelona, she says, “So we gave you all that material and I haven't seen a story yet, so I was wondering when it might be coming out.” I don't want to tell her the interview was a wash, so I tell her I’m sitting on it for now and plan to write something later as part of a bigger article, but she obviously doesn’t believe me and isn’t pleased.

Scene shifts: I am walking along the side of a highway in China. A road crew is demolishing a discontinued flyover by blowing up drums of petrol with boxes of razor blades taped to them. “That’s bloggable,” I think, so I stop to film them with my camera-phone, then it occurs to me to take cover. The drum explodes. I feel some shrapnel land on my head – not hard, more like rain. I feel along my scalp and find a shard of metal stuck there, but it doesn’t seem to have penetrated the skin very deeply – there’s no blood.

And then I woke up.

Watch me explode,

This is dF

WHOEVER WINS, WE ALL LOSE

It’s getting close to election time, and we’re in for possibly the messiest election yet, with the Chosen One in serious trouble and the top challenger mired in corruption allegations. Whoever wins, no one’s going to be happy with the results.

I’m talking, of course, about Hong Kong’s race for the next Chief Executive (which is what we call our President, or Governor, or Mayor, or whatever the equivalent is for a city that resides within a country but requires a separate visa to enter).

Which means I shall bore you with local politics now. If this doesn’t interest you, perhaps my Sexy Tumblr Party site is more to yr liking.

( And now, the politics ... )

For context, Tang’s biggest problem isn't so much the fact that he cheated on his wife to the point of fathering a child out of wedlock, or had a basement installed in his house that went against local building regulations (at a time when the govt has been cracking down on people for breaking building regs with their own illegal add-ons, only to discover to its embarrassment that a lot of legislators do it too), so much as the fact that his response has invariably been to smile, deny everything, then once confronted with evidence, say that he never said he denied it, he just misunderstood the question, or he doesn’t comment on private matters. Either that or he just talks about all he wants to do is serve the greater good of Hong Kong and why is everyone focusing on petty matters?

Sure, all politicians do that. But Tang has a way of doing it in which he not only either lies to yr face or avoids yr question, but also treats the press and the public like they’re complete idiots. It’s probably the way he smiles as he talks. 

The only thing working in his favor is that pro-Beijing electors who backed him don’t seem keen on changing their minds, if only because the property tycoons that own HK and also sit on the election committee don’t like the populist tone of voice of his chief challenger, Leung Chun-ying.

That said, Leung has his own share of scandals to explain, mostly involving conflict of interest, alleged triad connections, and his supposed suggestion back in 2003 that the govt should handle street protests by siccing the riot police on them. On the other hand, the difference is that Leung has generally handled his problems far better, at least politically. 

So basically HK’s choice of leadership for the next five years comes down to the guy who’s better at deflecting political scandals. Or possibly Albert Ho, the leader of the Democratic Party (i.e. the party Beijing loves to hate) who’s also in the race mainly to prove he can’t win. He’s probably right. 

Anyway, it’s an interesting development in HK’s fledgling limited democracy. No CE has ever really had what politicians like to call a “public mandate”, but at the same time, public opinion does matter. Even Wen Jiabao says as much (if not in so many words). Tang’s approval ratings are way down, and as the Establishment Candidate, he could still win, but he’ll be an unpopular CE from Day 1. And considering Beijing has yet to officially back anyone this late in the game, Tang’s supporters may decide it’s better to abandon him for Leung than to find out the hard way. 

Unless, of course, nobody wins. 

We’ll find out on March 25.

Spoiled for choice,

This is dF

(A SIMPLE) LIFE ON MARS?

We went to the cinemas over the weekend and saw two films almost diametrically opposed to each other: a smallish indie film and an epic Hollywood CGI blockbuster.

A Simple Life

Hong Kong movie from director Ann Hui that made a splash at the Venice Film Festival, but they only just released it here this month, after a ton of promo for it that basically harps on the fact that the two leads (Andy Lau and Deanie Ip) have worked together since the 80s, and that Ip once played Lau’s momma on TV.

That’s not the case here – Ip plays a servant who has worked for the same family for 60 years, and currently works for son Roger (Lau). The two suddenly find their roles reversed after she is forced into retirement by a stroke, and requests to be put in a nursing home.

This being an Ann Hui film, it’s slow-paced slice-of-life fare. That said, it’s also free of the melodramatic cheese and histrionics you’d get with just about any other director (either in HK or Hollywood), which works in its favor, thanks to Hui’s ability to direct her actors to say so much with so little.

It’s probably not for everyone, and I’m a little biased here because it’s probably the most realistic cinematic portrayal of HK nursing homes I’ve ever seen (we had to put my wife’s aunt in one, so I’ve experienced them first-hand), so maybe I identify with it more closely than I usually do with Hui’s films. It’s a little too long, but it’s very well done, and I will say Deanie Ip deserves the best actress award she received in Venice.

John Carter

There’s been a lot of hype over this, mainly from Disney’s apparent inability to market it to both the fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter books and people who have no idea the books even exist. (Apparently if you put “Mars” in the title, people will automatically assume it sucks.)

I fall somewhere in the middle – I read A Princess of Mars, and found the basic idea okay but the narrative rather wooden. But I figured a movie version had potential, and with Andrew Stanton directing and Michael Chabon helping with the script, why not?

Result: Not bad, but not great. Both Barsoom and the Tharks look about the way I pictured them, and the explanation for how Carter manages to get to Mars in the 1880s (which Burroughs never really explained, at least not in the first book) works fine. The main problem is the uneven pace – it’s essentially an action film that’s frequently bogged down with really slow drama scenes that make the whole film longer than it needs to be. Also, the plot gets muddled when it comes to the different factions at play, which probably needed a little more explanation since I’m sure many people were wondering, “Why are there humans on Mars in 1880?”

So it’s a little messy. Still, as SF blockbusters go, it’s okay. But I wouldn’t call it a must-see either.

Red sand between my toes,

This is dF