#poor aesop has enough ships

[pastelwhile-art]

Drew my friend's and I's favourite characters from IDV interacting-too bad they both hate talking.

[hong-kong-art-man]

Mainland ‘Hong Kong’ film The Crossing: the cultural stream has been crossed?  

By word of mouth, I was told the Chinese Mainland made a very special and good film The Crossing. It was made by a very gifted Mainland film director Bai Xue. The story and setting were Hong Kong, the characters were Hong Kong, the language was Hong Kong, the style was Hong Kong, few actors and crewmates were Hong Kong and the rest were all from the Mainland.

Yet, it is as impressive as any Hong Kong film made by us. Blessing or threat, this distinctive film does ring a bell to the sluggish engine of our local film industry?

Never say never. Hong Kong & Chinese Mainland used to be 2 film systems. With the inrush of film professionals to the Mainland, Mainland films especially the blockbusters have become very ‘Hong Kong’ in terms of style. As a significant step in the direction, the astonishing debut of the female director Bai Xue The Crossing poses a signal that Hong Kong films are no longer unique or superior as it can be seen, good quality ‘Hong Kong’ films can now be made by the Mainlanders who will in future create better ‘Hong Kong’ films than we do.

At a crossroad, Hong Kong must think and know which way to turn:

(1).     Hong Kong films should be targeted at the local market only.

(2).     Hong Kong films should be exported and targeted at the Mainland market as an expansion.

(3).     There should not be any cultural distinction between Hong Kong and Mainland films and Hong Kong should simply work with the Mainland to produce a single kind of ‘Chinese films’.

(4).     Forget about the Mainland market where controls are unyielding, Hong Kong films should rather be targeted at the Asian and international markets.

(5).     Hong Kong should only be micro focused: just be the centre of co-production of Sino-foreign film joint ventures.

It is easy to say that Hong Kong must grasp all the above options. It is equally easy to opportunistically say ‘when fortune smiles, embrace her’. In one of Aesop’s Fables, a dog carrying a bone in its mouth catches sight of its reflection in a pond and snaps greedily at the bone reflected there. In doing so, the real bone slips out of its mouth and is lost. Great time is gone, all the roses falling. Hong Kong films cannot be contended with yesterday’s glory. We must search and identify a particular focus or path of survival strategy which is clever, sensible and attainable for Hong Kong.

The Crossing however took me by pleasurable surprise. What confronts me is an ‘elegantly elliptical’ film, as critic Cath Clarke pointed out, “It is a wisp of film that never quite gathers speed or force but it gets under your skin, capturing the impulsiveness and impatience of teenagers.” This good film opens the locked doors to one’s soul and is like a beautiful autumn in the meadow. No wonder why this film won numerous awards in different film festivals.

The main character Pei (Huang Yao) is a 16-year-old student who was born out of a Hong Kong-Chinese marriage in which her dad and mom separated. Her life is fractured. She lived with her mother of promiscuous relationships with men in Shenzhen of Chinese Mainland. Pei spent her every day―in school, at play or seeing her father in Hong Kong. He was a poor shipping yard worker. Her daily routine was to pass the border immigration checkpoint, take an hour train and travel between the 2 cities of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, not knowing which place was her home. She held fast to a materialistic dream: travelling to Japan and sipping sake in a hot spring with flying snowflakes surrounding her―the fantasy that she watched on TV. It was her only motivation in life and she firstly worked as a restaurant waitress. Realizing that the money would never be enough to make her dream come true, she agreed to the suggestion of her ‘dream man’ Ah Hao (Sunny Sun) who was a gangster. Wearing her school uniform as a protective shield on her daily cross-border commute, Pei became a skilled mule smuggling iPhones from Hong Kong into Chinese Mainland. More than just the money which she earned, the trafficking gave her a purpose in life―independence, confidence and warmth from the gang. Poor by character but rich by ambition, Ah Hao asked Pei to be more aggressive by betraying the gang…

A million opportunities passed away. Hong Kong is now somewhere lost: doing well in Hong Kong making ourselves a stronger city? Exploring the vast hinterland of Chinese Mainland with our limited resources? Exploring the international boundaries to strengthen Hong Kong’s global presence? Again, it is easy, if not diplomatic, to say we can bite all possibilities.

In reality, when one door opens, another usually shuts. People often encourage youngsters to go starting business or be employed in the Mainland. But how? What can they do? What backing like money, plan, guidance and support have they got? All questions, when unanswered, push us back to square one…

【過春天】https://youtu.be/mRhqxCVAzJA

【少女年華】https://youtu.be/FZ0t5bkcsXE

[queen-mabs-revenge]

But also Liam 2 is taking advantage of the duel between Nemo and BB for sneaking up with Elsa and showing her the Nautilus. And then Nemo and BB decide a duel is not brave enough for them and they ask Ursula to bring a Kraken in SB. Killian is so fucking done with all their shit and when he finally convince everyone to goes back to the ball room all the forks have disappeared because Ariel was bored and wanted revenge from being at the same table as BB.

OK I’m going to have to drop my personal pet Liam II shipping headcanon here, and it’s that I ship him with Will Scarlet. 

OK HEAR ME OUT: I feel like there’s a connection between Liam II’s personality, and Killian’s lieutenant days, if I’m going to try to suss out his personality. He seems serious and composed about his role as first mate, but is obviously able to harbour really strong feelings that can come out in passion and violent reaction. But in general, he seems fairly quiet and, yeah, serious – perhaps a bit more reserved than Lieutenant Jones. 

And like, IDK what they intended with Will, but they broke up Scarlet Queen, so I’m rolling with it. So I can see it starting off while Nemo is convalescing with them bumping into each other – oooo! Maybe during one of these brother bonding lunches that had to have happened to make that hug as warm as it was (Scarlet does love breaking up Killian’s dates as it were) – and Killian’s got his flask out, Will walks by, can’t fucking help himself and comments on it to Liam like “oh ho, don’t let him too deep into that, or you might get a good old sock to the jaw for no good reason! Cheers, lads!” (exit Will; Killian clenched jaw, Liam wrinkling his nose ‘and…who was that?’ ‘Just the resident shit-stirrer, don’t mind him.’)

But they keep bumping into each other – Liam’s always exasperated like ‘oh great, this asshole again’ and Will’s 3000% into antagonising him because 1) he is so here for anything that bothers Killian and 2) it’s fun and this goes on for a bit.

(um…wow ok I apparently have feelings about this…this gets long?)

And then one day, Killian’s meant to meet up with Liam at, fuck it, Aesop’s Tables for a game of billiards, but can’t last minute bc Storybrooke. Liam’s already there, and the bartender gives him the message from Killian, and he’s pretty bummed out bc although the outings started as just short of an order from Nemo for the brothers to talk it out, he’s really starting to warm to Killian. 

Will’s there and has overheard the message, and is having one of those days himself where he’s just feeling bone-deep loneliness and he slides over to where Liam is; Liam glances over and stiffens like “Oh, just go away. I’m not in the mood.” and Will rolls his eyes, orders two more drinks and is like “good. Neither am I.”

And they drink in silence for a while, then grab the next free table and start a game…and they start to talk…and it doesn’t get friendly really, in a laughing and back-slapping sense – but the barbs are now undercut with smirks and grins back and forth. If eye rolls were dimes, they could pay their tabs a few times over – and they’re both really fucking competitive.

And suddenly the antagonism has this kind of cheekiness to it – Liam will grab Will’s coffee order from Granny’s counter, Will will shout after him and Liam will just flip the bird over his shoulder while he sips away heading to the hospital to check on Nemo; Will will glance up from his dinner when Liam walks into Granny’s, make exaggerated sniffs, and loudly ask Granny why she didn’t tell him that fish and chips were on the menu for tonight (Granny is like 24% amused and 76% fucking done with them). 

But then they’ll grab the darts and get embroiled into an hours long tournament punctuated with insults, bickering, and about four times of Liam nearly inhaling his beer because he can’t even pretend to not be amused at some of the horseshit that comes out of Will’s mouth.

(Emma and Killian walk in for a bite right around now, hear the insults flying between them and Killian’s about to walk over and see what this miscreant is doing with his brother, but Emma just puts a hand on his arm like, ‘I’m sure he can handle himself, Captain Overprotective’)

When Granny kicks them out at closing time they’re at a draw, and they can’t stand for that, so they head over to Aesop’s for another round and a switch to billiards.

A few drinks in and Will’s just fucking with Liam by putting his face right eye level at the pocket he’s aiming for and furiously waggling his eyebrows. Liam’s lining up a shot like “I swear by all the gods, if you don’t move your stupid face, I’m going to hit it.” Will doesn’t move, Liam follows through with a hard shot that he was just intending to ricochet off the bumper with a bit more force than necessary, but the cue ball takes a hopper directly into Will’s nose, and it’s like a straight-up Carrie situation.

Few minutes later, Will’s sitting in a booth dramatically tilting his head back while Liam’s pinching his nose with the bar rag and just apologising over and over, Will kind of side-eyes him which looks fucking ridiculous in his state and kind of honks out ‘well that’s a dig in the head from the both of you now’, and Liam loses it. Just completely loses it hysterical laughing. Will tries to look indignant but can’t hold that for more than two seconds. He starts laughing, his nose starts bleeding again, Liam goes to pinch it again, but kind of nearly punches Will in the eye and it’s just a fucking mess of wheezing and Liam trying to gasp out apologies between fits of laughter.

They recover, completely exhausted and just lean on each other in the booth riding out the last of the sporadic laughter until it’s closing time there as well. Will’s apartment is in the direction of the docks anyway, so they’re walking home and standing at the corner where they’d part ways and Liam apologises one more time and shoves Will a bit with his shoulder. Will lets out the most put-upon sigh on the face of the earth and is like “always with the violence”, and Liam’s all smirking like “yeah, and how is else is anyone supposed to deal with you, Scarlet?” And Will’s like, “it’s always kicks and never kisses for poor old Will Scarlet, you know it’s not like I asked for a face this punchable. You’d think I’d get a bit of sympa–”

And he gets his kiss after all.

…

Um, so my point is that YES, except Liam is showing Will the Nautilus, and 100% Ariel is inside hoarding forks and claiming dibs on all of the centrepieces. Yes.