The Age of Innocence

Just coming back from an exhibition named Innocence and Experience.

I love the motto said by William Blake,true innocence was impossible without experience~

Nothing to be said more.Enjoy the words.

The Life and Times of Louis i.Kahn

I made a face-to-face interview for Mathias Woo with the theme of AIAF 2009 last month, and today is the last day of the festival.I went to Hong Kong Cultural Center to enjoy the multi-media performance directed by him.

Nothing needed to be said more, after I enjoyed the fantastic show acted by Kam Kwok Leung.Completely immersed myself into the monologue of Louis i.Kahn, I felt brightness and inspiration coming from the whole theatre.

Maybe it was called Aura.

Louis i.Kahn was a piscean man and architect with intelligence and humor , he died of heart attack on March 17,1974 in New York.He left a lot of debts after death~~~Twelve years later ,I was born on the same day.Just like a coincidence, funny and unforgettable.

Just remember his words: Wonder precedes knowing and knowledge.

A Dialogue on Stories of Collective Memory

Topic : Imaged Cities, Written Record
-- A Dialogue on Stories of Collective Memory
Time: 4:30pm-6:00pm, July 26,2009
Venue: Joint Publishing, Wan Chai
Lecturer: Leung Man Tao(Cultural Critic),
Jia Zhangke(Film Director)


In recent years, collective memory is a hotspot cultural and social phenomenon widely discussed in China Mainland and Hong Kong. On July 26,2009, Director Jiang Zhangke brought his latest book A Collective Memory of Chinese Working Class which was the written record of his film 24 City to Hong Kong. Cultural Critic Leung Man Tao held the live exchange between Director Jia and readers at Joint Publishing, Wan Chai. Director Jia shared his feeling of making his works on the collective memory theme with us.

24 City is an independent documentary film represented the great changes from establishment to disaggregation happened at a state-run ordnance factory in Chengdu, Sichuan during the half century. By face-to-face interviewing hundreds of workers with his video, Director Jia described common people’s dramatically economic and psychological transformation during the reform of state-owned enterprise. While the book A Collective Memory of Chinese Working Class offered readers another manner to know the forgotten history from literal texts.

“At the age of planned economy, working class was the mainstream in Chinese society, collectivism was their ineradicable perception, they all treated their factory as their own family .” said Director Jia. However, When China came into the period of market economy since 1990s, the working class has been marginalized and ignorant obviously. The traditional lifestyle and living environment were challenged and middle-aged workers desperately found that they couldn’t face the competition in the ever-changing new world. Laid-off employees cherished their past even though they felt being sacrificed by the cruel time. When factories were pulled down, the former public space disappeared completely. However, psychological trauma remained and became their sentimental collective memories.

Besides discussing the working class, Director Jia also talked about their children. Those one born after 1980s have grown up at the new period, collective memories was far away from them. But it was no doubt that parents prepared to devote everything to the young generation.

“Those factories have become disappeared historic sites, while the collective memories need a long time to be cured.” a passionate reader said at the end of the discussion.

A movie view on UP

Director：Pete Doctor
Writer: Bob Peterson , Pete Doctor
Release Date：July 30,2009 (Hong Kong)
Genre: Animation / Action / Adventure / Comedy/Family




The cinema is a place which can create another space away from our reality. As well as watching the film Up was a wonderful experience. I appreciated a fantastic adventure launched by an old man and a little boy to a lost world through the huge screen at UA Cinema.

Based on Bob Peterson and Pete Docter’ s original creation, the adventure story began with colorful balloons.“We came up with this image of a floating house held aloft by balloons, and it just seemed to capture what we were after in terms of escaping the world. We quickly realized that the world is really about relationships, and that’s what Carl come to discover.” said Pete Docter.

Carl Fredricksen whose face and gruff personality based on Spencer Tracy and Walter Matthau was the protagonist of Up. Choosing an retired man who used to sell balloons as a leading role probably blew someone’s expectations. Nevertheless, the first 5 minutes of the screening describing his dream of adventure and sweet life with Ellie has already attracted our visions and emotions. In comparison with Old Carl’s surprising apprearance, Little Russell was a persistent and enthusiastic boy could be easily found in our daily life. During the adventure to the wilds of South America, their dramatic cooperation represented a harmonious affective interaction between different generations.

Besides the affecting storyline and vivid characters, being the very first animated film, as well as the first 3D film and ever to open the Cannes Film Festival 2009 are Up’s special advantages and selling points. Undoubtedly, we were fascinated by its splendid visual effect and successful commercial operation. The use of state-of-the-art 3D technique for its stereoscopic production has already brought an unbelievable visual pleasure to audiences. Amazing visual effect ,breath-taking action and humorous Cantonese audio dubbing enhanced Up’s unique features of cinematic narration and expression. Whatever techniques being used were committed to convey essential spirits of the movie perfectly, which were sincere love and the warmth of humanity.
At the end of the film, We were so pleasantly surprised to see Carl and Ellie’s little house finally was located on the top of Angel Falls. However, neither of them couldn’t be there. Staring at the screen, a virtual image of Chinese Ideal State named Tao Hua Yuan came into my mind simultaneously. The peaceful scene suggested lots of inspirations for me to understand the film profoundly.
The result was touching and thoughtful. It post several significant questions to us in an euphemistic manner:

Who are the ones we should care for a life time?
What kinds of life do we really want?
How can we get a happy life?
……..
Indeed, the greatest blessedness in the world is to sincerely love and cherish our families and friends.
No matter in the virtual movie world or in the real life, just preserve our warm humanity and childlike innocence from our inner hearts forever.

Film Review-Perpetual Motion

I believe in the words: films should be watched at cinemas. Just like a youth writer Law Pun said, if you watch a film at a cinema, not only you just watch it, but also you have experienced the event with other persons.

Perpetual Motion, an independent feminist film directed by Ning Ying and acted by four famous women in China was a big attraction made me to enjoy it at Hong Kong Science Museum during the 33th Hong Kong International Film Festival. Indeed, I came to cinema to watch it by reason of its alternative technique of expression and narration rather than the simple story context.

The movie talked about four successful mid-age women’s love, marriage and destiny at a small traditional Chinese Courtyard in Beijing during a Spring Festival Eve 2005. Famous fashion magazine publisher Niuniu (acted by Hong Huang) invited three girlfriends for dinner in order to find out which one slept with her husband and betrayed her. After the one day’s in-depth chat and open sexual experience sharing, a call from police station told Niuniu’s husband’s death in a car accident helped her find out the right one through their various reaction to the news.

Unlike other commercial films, Perpetual Motion didn’t plan to tell a complete story but aimed to deliver a straightforward Chinese feminist thought to audiences directly and obviously. The absence of male protagonists, fully sexual topics, rebellious feminine images and nonprofessional actresses made Perpetual Motion become special and classical.

Who stole Niuniu’s husband was not important in the end, the spirit that the film wanted to express on feminism and social transformation in China Mainland has already come into our mind by appreciating four characteristic women’s funny dialogues and impressive behaviors. It is obviously that the storyline of Perpetual Motion was related on some real-life facts, especially on Hong Huang’s marriage with famous Director Chen Kaige. Just like Ning Ying said, Hong Huang and other women acted themselves rather than designed characters. No matter in real life or in the movie, all of them were contradictory individuals under the pressure of tradition and rebellion. Their dramatic destinies had a closed relationship with Chinese political and economic changes.

After screening on that day, the face to face communication with Director Ning Ying was another pleasant surprise. The charming middle-aged female intellectual who spoke sterling Mandarin shared her happy feeling of shooting such a film with her friends. “It is our amusement rather than work, although the market of Chinese independent films is in recession. We want to express the ideological change during the great development in China though the half century.” said by Ning Ying.

A Lonely Spectacle--Langham Place

A Lonely Spectacle

---Langham Place

Rochelle says this one is her favorite, so do I.

Hong Kong International Film Festival--In the Name of Love

In the Name of Love--The Films of Evan Yang
Time:28.3-7.6.2009
Venue:Hong Kong Film Archive (Sai Wan Ho)

The exhibition of famous Screenwriter Evan Yang located at Hong Kong Film Archive is the nearest exhibition I have experienced in Hong Kong.It was so joyous that it took only five minutes for me from home to Hong Kong Film Archive on foot.

As a girl grown up in China Mainland, a lot of Hong Kong located culture is not familiar to me.By enjoying the multi-media exhibition, I gradually know something of the handsome and brilliant scriptwright in early Shanghai and Hong Kong.Just like his temperament, most Evan Yang's works are romantic love stories owning a special personal style.

In The Name Of Love: The Film Of Evan Yang

Evan Yang was a man of letters. He was raised on the classics of China but later studied Western literature and acquired a fondness for Hollywood films. He became well versed in the cultures of both East and West, first making a living as a writer and journalist and later as scriptwriter and lyricist. Then he became a director.

His early films are somber and melancholic, moods that resonate with the weariness of the post-war years. Later, he found a new voice in the modern city style at MP & GI, directing and writing a series of charming musicals and romantic comedies that embody the optimism of the 1950s. His capacity as a man of letters had equipped him well to keep pace with his times.

Yang's early training in Chinese classics also ingrained in him a yearning for idyllic romanticism. Always professional but never perfectionist, he was an artist of moments. He was in love with being in love and most of his memorable moments are those of a man and a woman engaging each other in the name of love. His films often suffer from loose structure and sloppy direction, yet their best moments are either so endearing or so touching that his better works can be profoundly affecting. Those moments also coalesce into a distinctive narrative voice. Evan Yang is not a master, nor is he a great film artist, but he is a filmmaker with a personal style, one of understated drama but stirring emotions.

(Evan Yang's Notebooks in 1960s, as a scriptwritter, each notebook is a valuable collection for him)

Hong Kong International Film Festival--Perpetual Motion

HKIFF—Perpetual Motion

Time: 2:30pm,Apr 12,2009
Venue: Lecture Hall, Hong Kong Science Museum

Perpetual Motion is a well-sold artistic film directed by famous female director Ning Ying and acted by Hong Huang, Liu Suola ,Li Qinqin ,Ping Yanni and Zhang Hanzhi. I watched the movie when I was junior college student in Zhuhai but today is my first watching it at a cinema and Director Ning Ying came to Hong Kong for the celebration of the 33th HKIFF.

The movie talked about a simple story on four successful mid-age women’s love, marriage and destiny at a small traditional Chinese Courtyard in Beijing on Spring Festival Eve 2005.Famous fashion magazine editor Niuniu(acted by Hong Huang) invited three girlfriends to her home for a dinner in order to find out which one slept with her husband and betrayed her, during the one day’s chatting and playing ,a call from police station told her husband’s death in a car accident helped her find out the right one.
But as spectators, we knew that the consequence was not important in the end, the spirit the film wanted to express has already come into our mind with the four women’s funny dialogues and impressive acting.

After screening, Ning Ying had a face to face communication with audiences.

As well as I expect, she was a charming woman like a female intellectual. She said that filming artistic and independent film in China Mainland has little commercial market these years. No matter her works or Jia Zhangke’s. Perpetual Motion has already created a box-office legend. Losing audiences and market is a desperate reality. Although less and less people will go into cinema to enjoy an artistic film that talking profound life theme, Ning Ying said she enjoyed the process when filming it with her friends.

Obviously, Perpetual Motion based on the true experience of four successful women , we can easily related the story to their real life. In fact, they just acted themselves rather than designed characters. Ning Ying said they want to express the ideological change during the great development in China though half the century. Chatting love affair and sexual experience, actually they described the change of women’s status in China and expressed their desire and unsafety.
Just like a spectator said, after we rebel our social and family tradition, who we are is another confused question in front of us..

Ten Principles of Creativity

Ten Principles of Creativity

Venue :CKB UG04 ,Chung Chi Campus

Time: April 8,2009 14:ooPM

Lecturer:Mathias Woo (Architect)

1.Creativity is supply creating demand.

2.Creativity is coming from knowledge,technology and experience.

3.Creativity is not always profitable.

4.Creative culture is nurtured by communicty.

5.Creativity industry is made up of suppliers, managers, creators ,agents and consumers.

6.Creative Education---Creative Community--Creative Industry--Creative Economy

7.Art nurtures culture, culture nurtures creativity.

8.Art is the root of creativity.

9.Art is the future built up on the past.

10.The government is the biggest user of creativity industry.

Eileen Chang's Little Reunion

It is no doubt that Eileen Chang who had a legendary life is the most famous female writer in contemporary Chinese Literature.

Although her works and she used to be not welcomed to Mainland China's Govenment because of some political reasons, in her fans' eyes, she is a renowned and sarcastic woman.Her love fictions such as Lust, Caution and Love in a fall city have already become classical works no matter in Hong Kong ,Taiwan and China Mainland.

I first read Eileen Chang's works when I was thirteen years old.The novel named Half-Life Fate attracted me for long.The tragedy story and classical Shanghai modern style made the fiction and its movie popular.I noticed that Eileen Chang enjoyed using a simple and chilly way to write some excited stories.Readers can gradually feel the desperation and deeply understanding of life after a wonderful reading.

In 2009, Eileen Chang's novel Little Reunion was published in Hong Kong and Taiwan.It is obvious that the whole story has a closed relationship with her own love experience with Hu Lancheng. And she wrote the fiction for long in her later years and consider whether to publish it.Maybe the hesitation is her real feeling.

Love story is just an affair between two persons ,once it becomes public, something must change out of imagination.

However, others wouldn't think like this, especially those publishers and mass readers.We always want to know more of someone we like. Nevertheless, a mystery to be told too much will become a common reality, and the satisfation we expect will disappear with it.

Little Reunion is Chang's latest fiction published but also is her last work used to can be privated for herself. But her wish has already be destroyed when we treat the fiction as a best-seller.

I like the words written on the cover of the book.

It is a passionate love story,talking about the fantastic circuitousness of love, even it ends, we can see something is still there.

Indeed, a love affection don't need too much spectators to share the story.

From Venice to Harbour City

Venue: Gallery by the Harbour, Shop 207, Level 2, Ocean Centre, Harbour City, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon

Time: period: 3-7 April 2009, 11 am-9 pm daily

The Exhibition named From Venice to Harbour City is curated by several architects and professors from HKU and CUHK. And it was made up of several parts including Object, Building, Landscape, City , Media and Text.

The exhibition which has been partly exhibited in Venice last year shared the same theme on architecture and culture. When I came into the gallery in Harbour City , I am attracted by its location and inner environment. Standing at the glass house full of colorful images, I surprisedly enjoyed the spectacle outside the window. The White big ship and beautiful blue sea…..

Just like Desmond Hui said the fundamental similarity between Venice and Hong Kong is the relationship of the city with water: the former its canals and the latter its harbor. They are the cradles of cultural imaginations, the most expressive of which is the architecture of the city.

Leo Oufan Lee who is a famous cultural scholar and professor is one of curators of the architectural exhibition. He is a well-known and prolific writer and commentator on culture. Besides literature and architecture, his research interests include cinema , music and painting. Living in Hong Kong more than seven months, I spent a lot of leisure time in reading his books and attending his classes. He is a handsome and gentle scholar, quite interesting and romantic. However, when he did an interview on Phoenix TV a few years ago, he said that he was optimistic, but felt pessimistic on the whole future of our human-being. By facing the contamination of the world, financial crisis and political corruption, he concluded that our development is limited and limited.

The exhibition reminded of me his words again.Maybe we should better appreciate the coastal spectacle in Venice and Hong Kong before they disappear in the world. All the fantasy we can see today will become memory and relic on our mind.

Sometimes, architecture spectacles and artists share a same destiny---always be appreciated after death.

One Square Foot

One Square Foot

Photography by John Fung

Time:Mar 31,2009

Venue: Hong Kong Arts Center

John Fung's photography expressed his sadness and desperation of the living environment in Hong Kong.

By using excellent digital photography technique of the metropolitan city's architectures, we could easily feel his lyric and nostaglic emotion.

When I went step by step at HKAc to enjoy his artistic works at that special gallery, the exquisite design of the exhibition surprised me.Putting those photos around lifts and steps rather than at a gallery presented the author's attitude directly and exactly.

If I am Mona Lisa....

Kubrick

David Bordwell's Lecture

David Bordwell’s Lecture :
Is the digital revolution in Hollywood a Revolution?

Time: Mar 26,2009 5:00pm

Venue:HKBU

Before going to attend the lecture in HKBU,I borrowed David Bordwell’ s books from library. Just like other critics commending, reading his books on film theory is a colorful interest rather than a boring learning experience.

As well as the colorful description of his books, the old gentleman from the U.S is much more interesting than handsome. With his white beard and small glasses, he is a quite standard Santa Claus if he wears in red.

The lecture’s title is the digital revolution in Hollywood a Revolution?
David gave the lecture for us by telling the technical history and tradition in Hollywood as the beginning. Through depicting the great change during the century, he pointed out that the technique not only changes the work routine in Hollywood but also the storytelling system and devices. With the new technique, the filming became much more fast and the cost got lower, and brought much more vivid aesthetic visual effects.

By using several examples, David said that technical change has brought spillover effect both on silent films and early sound movies.

And in the lecture, David posted a crucial point that new technologies do not revolutionize film production. They are inserted into the existing pattern of work routines. They create new specialties and refinements within Hollywood’s traditional division of labor and phases of production.

What is more the technical change can serve for the intensified continuity of movies in a Hollywood way better in the digital time.