Snow Queen, eps 1 and 2

Oh Snow Queen.

I am not watching anything else until I finish you.

Wow. I am about twenty minutes into the second ep and I literally had to force myself to stop because I had to leave. I kept going ‘but one more minute, one more minute.’

I did a picspam about SQ before so I won’t repeat it, but I will repeat that I am taken aback by how luminous this drama is. I don’t know what filters they used, but the light simply shines, pure and early morning, throughout (I love what Korean dramas do with light and design. This is equally beautiful but miles away from the super-saturated richness of Goong).

The plot, in case you haven’t read up on it before, revolves around two individuals: Tae-Woong (played by Hyun Bin. I never knew he could be beautiful) and Bo Ra (played by Sung Yuri, as this restrained brittle yet irresistable mess). Tae-Woong is a math genius who is wasting his life being a third-rate boxer as a result of his best friend’s suicide while in high school. Bo Ra is the only child of a very rich man, and is suffering from a number of physical and mental disorders. Their paths cross and Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale heavily comes into play.

You would think that a story with such a plot would be heavy, dark, depressing? But it isn’t. The one, very odd word that comes to mind is ‘pure.’ Both TW and BR have a certain purity to them and neither of them really wallows around in misery. And oh God, I can so see how they are going to heal each other: she is going to find love, and care, and connection she doesn’t have, be a ‘real girl’ at last, not someone who is to be just treated and protected and kept in a glass case so she won’t break. And he will also find connection and love and will be able to open up again and move up past his guilt.

( Spoilers for first and beginning of second ep )

Snow Queen, eps 1 and 2

Oh Snow Queen.

I am not watching anything else until I finish you.

Wow. I am about twenty minutes into the second ep and I literally had to force myself to stop because I had to leave. I kept going ‘but one more minute, one more minute.’

I did a picspam about SQ before so I won’t repeat it, but I will repeat that I am taken aback by how luminous this drama is. I don’t know what filters they used, but the light simply shines, pure and early morning, throughout (I love what Korean dramas do with light and design. This is equally beautiful but miles away from the super-saturated richness of Goong).

The plot, in case you haven’t read up on it before, revolves around two individuals: Tae-Woong (played by Hyun Bin. I never knew he could be beautiful) and Bo Ra (played by Sung Yuri, as this restrained brittle yet irresistable mess). Tae-Woong is a math genius who is wasting his life being a third-rate boxer as a result of his best friend’s suicide while in high school. Bo Ra is the only child of a very rich man, and is suffering from a number of physical and mental disorders. Their paths cross and Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale heavily comes into play.

You would think that a story with such a plot would be heavy, dark, depressing? But it isn’t. The one, very odd word that comes to mind is ‘pure.’ Both TW and BR have a certain purity to them and neither of them really wallows around in misery. And oh God, I can so see how they are going to heal each other: she is going to find love, and care, and connection she doesn’t have, be a ‘real girl’ at last, not someone who is to be just treated and protected and kept in a glass case so she won’t break. And he will also find connection and love and will be able to open up again and move up past his guilt.

( Spoilers for first and beginning of second ep )

Snow Queen, eps 1 and 2

Oh Snow Queen.

I am not watching anything else until I finish you.

Wow. I am about twenty minutes into the second ep and I literally had to force myself to stop because I had to leave. I kept going ‘but one more minute, one more minute.’

I did a picspam about SQ before so I won’t repeat it, but I will repeat that I am taken aback by how luminous this drama is. I don’t know what filters they used, but the light simply shines, pure and early morning, throughout (I love what Korean dramas do with light and design. This is equally beautiful but miles away from the super-saturated richness of Goong).

The plot, in case you haven’t read up on it before, revolves around two individuals: Tae-Woong (played by Hyun Bin. I never knew he could be beautiful) and Bo Ra (played by Sung Yuri, as this restrained brittle yet irresistable mess). Tae-Woong is a math genius who is wasting his life being a third-rate boxer as a result of his best friend’s suicide while in high school. Bo Ra is the only child of a very rich man, and is suffering from a number of physical and mental disorders. Their paths cross and Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale heavily comes into play.

You would think that a story with such a plot would be heavy, dark, depressing? But it isn’t. The one, very odd word that comes to mind is ‘pure.’ Both TW and BR have a certain purity to them and neither of them really wallows around in misery. And oh God, I can so see how they are going to heal each other: she is going to find love, and care, and connection she doesn’t have, be a ‘real girl’ at last, not someone who is to be just treated and protected and kept in a glass case so she won’t break. And he will also find connection and love and will be able to open up again and move up past his guilt.

( Spoilers for first and beginning of second ep )

Paap: sexy wannabe nuns and even sexier policemen

You know, sometimes I find cross-cultural remakes fascinating. Bollywood movies are a case in point. Bollywood often takes an obscure (or not so obscure) Hollywood movie and remakes it. Interestingly, the outproduct has not that much in common with the original even if the plot is largely kept. Different conventions of the genre and social expectations lead to some fascinating results. For example, in a recent Bolly remake of A Perfect Murder, the scummy lover was the one who convinced the heroine to marry the rich man so they could collect later. Only on learning of this did the heroine's husband hired the scummy bf to take the wife out. And the movie ends up with the husband and wife forgiving each other for their transgressions (!) and united in killing the lover (impaling him with a pole, no less). Quite quite different.

Anyway, this is a bit of a seguay into Paap today's post subject. Paap is a Bollywood remake of the quite famous Hollywood movie Witness with Harrison Ford. Replace Philly with Mumbai and the Amish with a Buddhist Monk/Nun community. Yet, while the plot is superficially the same, the movie turns into something entirely different (and not just because the child witness to a murder in this case is a kid the heroine is sent to Mumbai to pick up because he has been picked by the monks as the reincarnation of their former leader. Not a typical Hollywood point). Witness was a movie about cross-culturalization and a neat mystery thriller. Paap, which showcases the beauty of remote hill stations (it really is one of the prettiest movies out there), is really a sexy love story and is more about the awakening of the heroine's femininity and her discovering the world and its desires, than it is about anything else. The plot with the murder is a mcguffin, summarily dealt with. In fact, while Witness is really Harrison Ford's show, Paap is all about Udita Goswami's character. It's as if the Amish widow in Witness was given center stage, everything else secondary (Perhaps the female-oriented slant is because the director herself is female). And while Witness was in a way an idealization of Amish culture and had at least the equal amout of praise for desire to abstain from modernity, Paap is clearly on the side of going into the bustling modern world and experiencing life of the outside.

Anyhoo, I confess. This is basically my vaguely intellectual excuse to post some incredibly hot pictures. Seriously. I did a write-up on it somewhere in my LJ and will look it up at some point.

( 17 reasons why Paap, the Indian remake of Witness, is better than the original. Not dial up friendly )

Paap: sexy wannabe nuns and even sexier policemen

You know, sometimes I find cross-cultural remakes fascinating. Bollywood movies are a case in point. Bollywood often takes an obscure (or not so obscure) Hollywood movie and remakes it. Interestingly, the outproduct has not that much in common with the original even if the plot is largely kept. Different conventions of the genre and social expectations lead to some fascinating results. For example, in a recent Bolly remake of A Perfect Murder, the scummy lover was the one who convinced the heroine to marry the rich man so they could collect later. Only on learning of this did the heroine's husband hired the scummy bf to take the wife out. And the movie ends up with the husband and wife forgiving each other for their transgressions (!) and united in killing the lover (impaling him with a pole, no less). Quite quite different.

Anyway, this is a bit of a seguay into Paap today's post subject. Paap is a Bollywood remake of the quite famous Hollywood movie Witness with Harrison Ford. Replace Philly with Mumbai and the Amish with a Buddhist Monk/Nun community. Yet, while the plot is superficially the same, the movie turns into something entirely different (and not just because the child witness to a murder in this case is a kid the heroine is sent to Mumbai to pick up because he has been picked by the monks as the reincarnation of their former leader. Not a typical Hollywood point). Witness was a movie about cross-culturalization and a neat mystery thriller. Paap, which showcases the beauty of remote hill stations (it really is one of the prettiest movies out there), is really a sexy love story and is more about the awakening of the heroine's femininity and her discovering the world and its desires, than it is about anything else. The plot with the murder is a mcguffin, summarily dealt with. In fact, while Witness is really Harrison Ford's show, Paap is all about Udita Goswami's character. It's as if the Amish widow in Witness was given center stage, everything else secondary (Perhaps the female-oriented slant is because the director herself is female). And while Witness was in a way an idealization of Amish culture and had at least the equal amout of praise for desire to abstain from modernity, Paap is clearly on the side of going into the bustling modern world and experiencing life of the outside.

Anyhoo, I confess. This is basically my vaguely intellectual excuse to post some incredibly hot pictures. Seriously. I did a write-up on it somewhere in my LJ and will look it up at some point.

( 17 reasons why Paap, the Indian remake of Witness, is better than the original. Not dial up friendly )

Paap: sexy wannabe nuns and even sexier policemen

You know, sometimes I find cross-cultural remakes fascinating. Bollywood movies are a case in point. Bollywood often takes an obscure (or not so obscure) Hollywood movie and remakes it. Interestingly, the outproduct has not that much in common with the original even if the plot is largely kept. Different conventions of the genre and social expectations lead to some fascinating results. For example, in a recent Bolly remake of A Perfect Murder, the scummy lover was the one who convinced the heroine to marry the rich man so they could collect later. Only on learning of this did the heroine's husband hired the scummy bf to take the wife out. And the movie ends up with the husband and wife forgiving each other for their transgressions (!) and united in killing the lover (impaling him with a pole, no less). Quite quite different.

Anyway, this is a bit of a seguay into Paap today's post subject. Paap is a Bollywood remake of the quite famous Hollywood movie Witness with Harrison Ford. Replace Philly with Mumbai and the Amish with a Buddhist Monk/Nun community. Yet, while the plot is superficially the same, the movie turns into something entirely different (and not just because the child witness to a murder in this case is a kid the heroine is sent to Mumbai to pick up because he has been picked by the monks as the reincarnation of their former leader. Not a typical Hollywood point). Witness was a movie about cross-culturalization and a neat mystery thriller. Paap, which showcases the beauty of remote hill stations (it really is one of the prettiest movies out there), is really a sexy love story and is more about the awakening of the heroine's femininity and her discovering the world and its desires, than it is about anything else. The plot with the murder is a mcguffin, summarily dealt with. In fact, while Witness is really Harrison Ford's show, Paap is all about Udita Goswami's character. It's as if the Amish widow in Witness was given center stage, everything else secondary (Perhaps the female-oriented slant is because the director herself is female). And while Witness was in a way an idealization of Amish culture and had at least the equal amout of praise for desire to abstain from modernity, Paap is clearly on the side of going into the bustling modern world and experiencing life of the outside.

Anyhoo, I confess. This is basically my vaguely intellectual excuse to post some incredibly hot pictures. Seriously. I did a write-up on it somewhere in my LJ and will look it up at some point.

( 17 reasons why Paap, the Indian remake of Witness, is better than the original. Not dial up friendly )

Wow, just wow...

Prehistoric lovers found locked in eternal embrace



ROME, Italy (AP) -- It could be humanity's oldest story of doomed love.

Archaeologists have unearthed two skeletons from the Neolithic period locked in a tender embrace and buried outside Mantua, just 25 miles south of Verona, the romantic city where Shakespeare set the star-crossed tale of "Romeo and Juliet."

( More of the article )

Wow, just wow...

Prehistoric lovers found locked in eternal embrace



ROME, Italy (AP) -- It could be humanity's oldest story of doomed love.

Archaeologists have unearthed two skeletons from the Neolithic period locked in a tender embrace and buried outside Mantua, just 25 miles south of Verona, the romantic city where Shakespeare set the star-crossed tale of "Romeo and Juliet."

( More of the article )

Wow, just wow...

Prehistoric lovers found locked in eternal embrace



ROME, Italy (AP) -- It could be humanity's oldest story of doomed love.

Archaeologists have unearthed two skeletons from the Neolithic period locked in a tender embrace and buried outside Mantua, just 25 miles south of Verona, the romantic city where Shakespeare set the star-crossed tale of "Romeo and Juliet."

( More of the article )

Lady Wrestlers and Mob Bosses in Canada. Oh, bad cinema, never change!

OK, today's movie pick is little known International Khiladi. So full of delicious cheese!

This is in the 'Koyla' territory for me. By that I mean it has hunky man!suffering and is overall of the so-bad-it's-good quality. In fact, it just might top Koyla because I don't remember Koyla having a climactc fight scene with a fake plane and people hanging in-out in a delightfully MST3K manner....Nah, mulleted SRK still trumps but this comes close.

International Khiladi is Bollywood attempting Rashomon. Sorta. But getting sidetracked by Twinkle Khanna's scary hair, and dancing in Canada, and lady wrestlers, and the weepiest mob boss the world has ever seen.

As the movie opens, our Noble Heroine, portrayed by 'Stanislavski-level-imitation-of-a-block-of-wood' Twinkle Khanna is on a witness stand. Akshay Kumar is in the dock (oh baby, what could I do with Akshay Kumar and handcuffs. Ahem.) Akshay Kumar is the 'International Khiladi' of the title, a tough mob boss who must have been awarded this title on the basis of all the amazing amount of weeping he does in this flick. Seriously. People who complain about the rivers of tears produced by SRK in Karan Johar movies have not seen IK.

Twinkle Khanna, who we later find out is a journalist with a recently diseased beloved brother, is accusing Akshay Kumar of rape. In some detail. Akshay, surprisingly, doesn't deny anything but sort of stares stonily ahead, probably contemplating his paycheck. Of course, since Akshay is the hero (I almost typed the 'heroine' because of the weeping) and Twinkle the heroine, we know that there must be Something More Between Them, and that he is unlikely to have raped her as even in a Bollywood movie, his being the hero trumps his being the mob boss.

( The rest of the write-up. Spoilery, but come on, you'd watch this for the plot? )

( Some Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna pics )

Lady Wrestlers and Mob Bosses in Canada. Oh, bad cinema, never change!

OK, today's movie pick is little known International Khiladi. So full of delicious cheese!

This is in the 'Koyla' territory for me. By that I mean it has hunky man!suffering and is overall of the so-bad-it's-good quality. In fact, it just might top Koyla because I don't remember Koyla having a climactc fight scene with a fake plane and people hanging in-out in a delightfully MST3K manner....Nah, mulleted SRK still trumps but this comes close.

International Khiladi is Bollywood attempting Rashomon. Sorta. But getting sidetracked by Twinkle Khanna's scary hair, and dancing in Canada, and lady wrestlers, and the weepiest mob boss the world has ever seen.

As the movie opens, our Noble Heroine, portrayed by 'Stanislavski-level-imitation-of-a-block-of-wood' Twinkle Khanna is on a witness stand. Akshay Kumar is in the dock (oh baby, what could I do with Akshay Kumar and handcuffs. Ahem.) Akshay Kumar is the 'International Khiladi' of the title, a tough mob boss who must have been awarded this title on the basis of all the amazing amount of weeping he does in this flick. Seriously. People who complain about the rivers of tears produced by SRK in Karan Johar movies have not seen IK.

Twinkle Khanna, who we later find out is a journalist with a recently diseased beloved brother, is accusing Akshay Kumar of rape. In some detail. Akshay, surprisingly, doesn't deny anything but sort of stares stonily ahead, probably contemplating his paycheck. Of course, since Akshay is the hero (I almost typed the 'heroine' because of the weeping) and Twinkle the heroine, we know that there must be Something More Between Them, and that he is unlikely to have raped her as even in a Bollywood movie, his being the hero trumps his being the mob boss.

( The rest of the write-up. Spoilery, but come on, you'd watch this for the plot? )

( Some Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna pics )

Lady Wrestlers and Mob Bosses in Canada. Oh, bad cinema, never change!

OK, today's movie pick is little known International Khiladi. So full of delicious cheese!

This is in the 'Koyla' territory for me. By that I mean it has hunky man!suffering and is overall of the so-bad-it's-good quality. In fact, it just might top Koyla because I don't remember Koyla having a climactc fight scene with a fake plane and people hanging in-out in a delightfully MST3K manner....Nah, mulleted SRK still trumps but this comes close.

International Khiladi is Bollywood attempting Rashomon. Sorta. But getting sidetracked by Twinkle Khanna's scary hair, and dancing in Canada, and lady wrestlers, and the weepiest mob boss the world has ever seen.

As the movie opens, our Noble Heroine, portrayed by 'Stanislavski-level-imitation-of-a-block-of-wood' Twinkle Khanna is on a witness stand. Akshay Kumar is in the dock (oh baby, what could I do with Akshay Kumar and handcuffs. Ahem.) Akshay Kumar is the 'International Khiladi' of the title, a tough mob boss who must have been awarded this title on the basis of all the amazing amount of weeping he does in this flick. Seriously. People who complain about the rivers of tears produced by SRK in Karan Johar movies have not seen IK.

Twinkle Khanna, who we later find out is a journalist with a recently diseased beloved brother, is accusing Akshay Kumar of rape. In some detail. Akshay, surprisingly, doesn't deny anything but sort of stares stonily ahead, probably contemplating his paycheck. Of course, since Akshay is the hero (I almost typed the 'heroine' because of the weeping) and Twinkle the heroine, we know that there must be Something More Between Them, and that he is unlikely to have raped her as even in a Bollywood movie, his being the hero trumps his being the mob boss.

( The rest of the write-up. Spoilery, but come on, you'd watch this for the plot? )

( Some Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna pics )

I am a lemming...

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I am a lemming...

Create your own visitor map!

I am a lemming...

Create your own visitor map!

Namaste London and Virgin Snow: two very different movies I am excited for. And a Lee Jun Ki MV

When we were watching Salaam-e-Ishq, I saw posters for Namaste London with Akshay Kumar (whom I like) and Katrina Kaif (who I don't mind). It looked cute and romantic and fun, and it releases in March.

( Behind the cut are a few song promos )

And then there is Virgin Snow, a movie with Lee Junki and Miyazaki Aoi.

It looks unbelievably gorgeous and romantic.

( Trailer behind cut )

And then there is this awesome MV featuring Lee Jun Ki.

( MV here )

Namaste London and Virgin Snow: two very different movies I am excited for. And a Lee Jun Ki MV

When we were watching Salaam-e-Ishq, I saw posters for Namaste London with Akshay Kumar (whom I like) and Katrina Kaif (who I don't mind). It looked cute and romantic and fun, and it releases in March.

( Behind the cut are a few song promos )

And then there is Virgin Snow, a movie with Lee Junki and Miyazaki Aoi.

It looks unbelievably gorgeous and romantic.

( Trailer behind cut )

And then there is this awesome MV featuring Lee Jun Ki.

( MV here )

Namaste London and Virgin Snow: two very different movies I am excited for. And a Lee Jun Ki MV

When we were watching Salaam-e-Ishq, I saw posters for Namaste London with Akshay Kumar (whom I like) and Katrina Kaif (who I don't mind). It looked cute and romantic and fun, and it releases in March.

( Behind the cut are a few song promos )

And then there is Virgin Snow, a movie with Lee Junki and Miyazaki Aoi.

It looks unbelievably gorgeous and romantic.

( Trailer behind cut )

And then there is this awesome MV featuring Lee Jun Ki.

( MV here )