#big fish and begonia

[clickityquacks]

With the popularity of Nezha 2, I wanted to give recommendations for other donghua but also to help clarify some Nezha 2019 vs Nezha Reborn (2020) confusion. For best viewing pleasure of any of the new Nezha adaptations, I highly recommend watching or skimming through Nezha 1979. It adds an extra layer to the 2019 and 2020 versions.

They are different movies with different plots! Nezha 2019 takes place in a more traditional past whereas Nezha Reborn is a Steampunk reimagining of Nezha 1979 and the original Nezha Myth.

Nezha 2019's studio Coloroom also produced Jiang Ziya, also based on Investiture of the Gods. God of Three Eyes was a slated addition that follows Erlang Shen but I have not seen news about it. Monkey King is Back is also the same studio and I would say kicked off the revitalization of animated movies based on myths. You can watch the intro scene and skip the rest.

Nezha Reborn has a cinematic sequel with Yang Jian which follows Er Lang Shen/Lotus lantern myths in the steampunk setting.

★I would recommend the classic Lotus Lantern which follows Sanshengmu and her son Chen Xiang who goes on a hero's journey to defeat Erlang Shen who is evil in this movie.

★I love Butterfly Lovers, it follows the myth of Zhu Yingtai who wants to be a scholar, dresses up as a man to do so. She meets Liang Shanbo and they really hit it off as they study and Zhu Yingtai falls in love, reveals her identity, and then the end :) . This particular movie has three musical numbers that are all great in my biased opinion.

Little Door Gods plays on the idea that people used to keep images of two door gods pasted on their doors but with cultural progression and economic slumps, the gods are at risk of being obsolete.

White Snake. I have no words for White Snake, I didn't like them but you might like them. It is a romance between a Snake Spirit and a Human.

★ 30,000 Miles from Chang'An. Stunning movie, I loved the heavy art inspirations for the proportions of everything. Follows the life of Gao Shi and his crossroads with the burgeoning poet Li Bai.

My little area! Can't go wrong with any of these movies I think.

Big Fish and Begonia was a big hit, especially for the historical round house representation. Zhou Shen propelled to fame and OST career with this movie.

★ Dahufa is a weird movie! The less you know the better, honestly just strap in for the ride. This one is a bit violent.

Legend of Hei follows a black cat, Hei which is a prequel movie to the animated series with a similar name. He is trying to find a home but encounters humans and monsters along the way that cause him trouble.

I am who I am is about a group of misfits who overcome challenges and become Lion Dancers. The only movie that I included that isn't that fantastical but extremely touching.

[kukuandkookie]

The end of 2024 has proven that 2025 seems to be a huge year for donghua and I’m gripping everyone to give all these donghua besides just the most popular ones a chance!!!:

Link Click, Yingdu arc: releasing December 27, 2024

Nezha 2, sequel to Nezha 2019 aka Nezha zhi motong jiangshi, confirmed for January 2025

To Be Hero X, likely April 2025 release (I hope people will also support the version with Chinese VAs! 🙏)

Lord of the Mysteries, 2025 summer release—accompanied by more good news: the novel has officially entered the British Library and it will also be translated into English by Yen Press

False Memory, series version, confirmed 2025 release

I am making this post because False Memory just released its new trailer and I am very much so looking forward to it! The series started as an indie short before growing into a bigger thing, much like Fog Hill of Five Elements and The Legend of Luo Xiaohei and Alita’s Trial. We’ve thus been waiting a couple years for news so this is really exciting, especially after it recently got a Twitter account!!

Bonuses:

Ya She, released a couple months ago but late enough into 2024 I’d still love for more people to check it out!

Scissor Seven, another one that’s had its newest season out for a while now, but I assume that for those who have Netflix, it hasn’t been officially English subbed or dubbed yet. We’re also still getting trailers for its game!:

I Am What I Am 2, released Dec 14, 2024 in China!

Reminder that Mo Dao Zu Shi is now on Crunchyroll! They may have removed it from Tencent’s donghua YouTube channel for this, so definitely go support it if you do have Crunchyroll!

Some children’s donghua have also recently released, including news of the new Balala the Fairies season and the other magical girls show, Rainbow Crew! The latter is confirmed for an official release in English.

The Yi Ren Zhi Xia game is also coming soon to global, and Fox Spirit Matchmaker even updated their OP recently after quite a long time of silence.

And speaking of silence, even the long-awaited SVSSS donghua saw some movement recently!?

Now if I could get a confirmed 2025 release for White Cat Legend season 3 (and maybe God Troubles Me and Lie Huo Jiao Chou and Fei Ren Zai and All Saints Street and The Legend of Luo Xiaohei and Wo Jia Dashixiong Naozi You Keng etc…)), I could die a happy man (gender-neutral)—after watching all of these newly released donghua shows and films and seasons, of course ahaha. 🙏

For more news and info on donghua, you can check here:

There’s a bunch of new donghua information in the above document that came from 2024, even though they don’t have official release dates yet! Including but not limited to:

The announcement and PV of Call-Up Girls, based on a baihe manhua

The announcement of a Nirvana in Fire donghua, based on the danmei novel with a famous cdrama adaptation (with the manhua having recently gotten an official English license via Aloha Comics)

Trailer and announcement for 《向火而生》, based on Shui Qian Cheng’s danmei novel Blazing Armour

More announcements for Jing Wei Qing Shang, based on the popular baihe novel

Trailer for The Story of Rong Song, a spin-off of the famous Big Fish and Begonia movie

and many, many more…!

Hope everyone can join me in watching more donghua for 2025!! :D

[yunsound]

Director Jiaozi and the Chinese Animation Industry

If you’re on my page it probably means you’ve seen my endless gushing about Ne Zha 1 and 2. I’ve always been a huge fan of domestic animation (domestic for me meaning China) as well as international Japanese and Western animation.

In particular, I admire big blockbuster animated films that managed to both convey cultural, artistic and spiritual messaging through a medium as notoriously finicky as animation.

Some of my favourite animated movies (I think this is an opinion held by every animation fan) are the Spiderverse series (despite not being a Spiderman fan) and the Ghibli movies of my youth. 

Being Chinese, though, I grew up with 2D animated TV shows that cemented their place in my upbringing. Shanghai Animation Studio movies such as Ne Zha Conquers the Sea 1979,

Havoc in Heaven 1961,

and even 1878’s Calabash Brothers (or Gourd Brothers? I guess?)

are all iconic parts of growing up as a Chinese.

Chinese animation has never been widely acclaimed on a global scale the way Japanese animation and sometimes Western animation have. The domestic animation industry is made entirely up of passion projects, which can seem great until you realise passion projects don’t typically tend to make money.

In a film industry as hyper-competitive and critical as China, most animation projects never tend to make it far. Art and music, while highly respected once you achieve success, have high barriers to entry. Chinese people are very critical of artistic work because of thousands of years of artistic development.

You may have heard of a recent animated film in China called A Mermaid Summer (or however it was translated). 2 people spent 7 years making it- the movie was bullied to oblivion.

A Mermaid Summer is, quite frankly, shit. It’s terrible. The animation is bad, the storytelling is bad, the voice acting is bad. It was, however, a passion project made by like 2 people on their own- people understand why it’s bad, and it’s not like we expected Oscar-worthy visuals.

Does this seem incredibly harsh to bully these two hardworking people? YES, it does! And it IS harsh and mean!

Understand that thousands of beautiful works (made meticulously and with great care) receive little to no attention in the domestic industry, made by equally small teams as A Mermaid Summer but with much higher quality.

The creators weren’t seasoned pros and definitely didn’t deserve to be bullied so much, but it would’ve honestly been much better if they had scrapped it. (They had actually considered starting over but decided to keep going, which I think wasn’t a good decision). 

Putting out a bad product is never better than taking your time, even if it takes you a lifetime.

I tell you about A Mermaid Summer to establish some baseline rules in the Chinese film industry and how Chinese people want films to be made (both animated and non-animated):

It does not matter how long it takes. The end product has to be good.

If the product is bad, NO MATTER how beloved the director/idea/IP/characters are, it’s going to flop.

In an animated movie: either the animation has to be great, or the plot has to be great. If you have one or the other, it’s meh. If you have both, yay! You cannot, however, get away with having both be mid.

If the product is bad, no one cares how much work you put in or how sad your circumstances are: there is going to be ZERO people complimenting or watching your work. Results speak, not effort.

Doesn’t this seem very strict? That’s because it is, but it’s the reality. Recently a movie came out based on the beloved novel series by Jin Yong, called Legend of the Condor Heroes. Condor Heroes is probably one of China’s biggest ever IPs. 

Its fans are everywhere. My parents love Jin Yong’s novels and so do 80% of China’s population. It’s as big as Harry Potter, basically, just for a different audience.

The actors in the movie are all popular too. Xiao Zhan, Leung Ka-fei, Ada Choi are all big-names.

However, Legend of the Condor Heroes completely flopped. The art direction and writing was bad and the acting was mid. The movie industry is not like the TV drama industry: if your movie is bad, NO ONE CARES if the actors are hot or if the IP is big, it will flop.

In this harsh environment, animated films especially struggle. We’ve seen a severe lack of good Chinese animated films. Is this critical culture to blame? Certainly part of the problem, but it’s also (somewhat sadly and ironically) what drives people to want to excel.

A very tough love solution. 

This is why it is especially shocking and especially impactful that Ne Zha 2 is doing so well.

Ne Zha 2’s director’s stage name is Jiaozi (which means dumpling). His real name is Yang Yu. I will call him Jiaozi, though. 

He graduated from med school in a fairly-prestigious university in Sichuan. Everyone knows how rigorous med school is. While he was studying, he spent every night holed up in his dorm figuring out the basics of animation. After graduation, he didn’t go to work- he spent three years living basically in his mother’s basement trying to make an animated film. 

A very, very classically doomed story. However, against all odds, he did it. He released a 16-minute animated short in 2008 called 打，打个大西瓜 (or See Through).

It’s available on YouTube and it has a total of 0 lines of dialogue. This short, however, went viral for its anti-war, anti-hate and anti-propaganda message. It won a lot of domestic and international awards. 

Through those three years he spent making See Through, he lived off his mother’s retirement fund of 200 dollars a month (1000 yuan), bought virtually nothing, and worked 14 hours a day.

See Through didn’t garner him instant success. After all, it was just an animated short. Within a year it wasn’t really mentioned anymore. He did, however, get his foot in the door.

Ne Zha is one of the biggest IPs in China. He has the most film/anime/comic/game adaptations after Sun Wukong (that’s including Dragon Ball and all the Dragon Ball spinoffs). 

Jiaozi basically made Ne Zha 1 on two cents and a dream. The movie was low-budget (I’m talking 22 million) and in interviews, he revealed he had no money to hire a motion capture expert or a voice acting coach, so he did all of this himself. He even voice-acted some of the characters to save on costs.

The entire cast was unknown VAs. The animation was done by newbies just entering the industry. This movie was the definition of cutting costs.

Against all odds, it succeeded. Ne Zha 1 won fans over with its humour, stellar character-building and refreshing message. It became the highest grossing film of that year and catapulted Jiaozi into fame. 

Almost as soon as Ne Zha 1 succeeded (within a year), Jiaozi began work on Ne Zha 2. 

If you compare pictures of Jiaozi before and after producing Ne Zha 2, you can notice he looks like he’s aged a lot more than 5 years.

Jiaozi has said he’s an extremely introverted person prone to anxiety, and that he’s a huge perfectionist to the point where it’s harmed both his professional and personal life.

He outsourced many of the more complicated scenes on Ne Zha 2 to top foreign production companies. You can see their names (Korean, Indian, Japanese, American etc) in the end credits of Ne Zha 2.

However, he said in an interview that because the project was coming from mainland China (which, as we’ve established, has a fairly weak animation industry), these foreign companies sent only their lowest-rate animators despite the high rates Jiaozi was paying them.

As such, Jiaozi had to redo most of these scenes from scratch with domestic groups.

Hundreds of animation studios in China joined to work on Ne Zha 2. Jiaozi invested almost all the money he made off the first movie back into the second one. These workers were young, passionate newcomers to the industry- they once again didn’t have the budget to hire seasoned pros despite the much looser spending constraints.

The studios that joined Jiaozi worked at low rates (sometimes not even breaking even on labour costs) to produce Ne Zha 2.

5 years later it happened. Ne Zha 2 is making an incredible amount of money. 

Most people are worried about the pressure the success of Ne Zha 2 is putting on Jiaozi- about a week ago he officially announced he’s stopping all interviews and publicity for Ne Zha 2 to go into “seclusion” to work on the 3rd movie, before 2 even finished airing. 

He’s been working extremely unhealthy hours for over a decade. However, the results have paid off. That’s all we can say, I guess.

The reason why many Chinese adore Ne Zha so much isn’t just because the movies are good- it’s because the movies are good enough that they basically became hope for the future of the domestic animation industry.

A *relatively* small company (not small anymore, considering how big they’re probably going to get in the future) managed to make 2 of the highest grossing films in Chinese history and one of the highest-grossing films of all time. Jiaozi has made more in box office sales with 2 full-length movies than most directors with over thirty or fourty.

It’s incredible that what seemed like such a doomed journey turned out so fantastically. Many young Chinese animators now dream of working with Jiaozi, or becoming like him.

Of course, Jiaozi isn’t perfect. He’s at the very least extremely talented, probably a “genius” (or however you define genius) and incredibly hardworking. 

His workers describe him as a nightmare director not because he’s rude but because he is incredibly nitpicky and has seemingly impossibly-high standards. He’s also a little bit of a douchebag (he made a short film called The Boss’s Woman that’s pretty misogynistic but it was never formally released). 

However. You can’t deny that Jiaozi has accomplished what decades of animators before him haven’t been able to. Ne Zha 2 is the greatest animated movie in history. That’s incredible for the Chinese animation industry, which before Ne Zha has never been able to get a stable footing.

Some other Chinese animated movies I recommend as well as some notes.

As a general rating marker: I rate 

Ne Zha 1: 7.5-8/10

Ne Zha 2: 9/10

The Shawshank Redemption: 9.5/10

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: 9/10

Decide from these rankings whether or not you think my opinions on movies are valid and if you want to keep reading.

大鱼海棠 Big Fish and Begonia 2016

7.5/10

Co-produced with Korean animation studio

Very touching, very tear-jerking

Animation is beautiful

长安三万里 30,000 Miles from Chang’An 2023

6.5/10

Ehhhh?

It’s definitely touching but not for everyone

Not understandable for a wide audience: you’d need to know some basic Chinese history and culture

It’s okay

People either love it or hate it

西游记之大圣归来 The Journey to the West: Hero is Back 2015

7.5/10

The animation is just okay, but the story is great

Very hype

One of the first domestic animated movies whose release I actively followed

Without background of JTTW it’s not very good, but if you know you know.

新神榜：杨戬 New Gods Reborn: Yang Jian 2022

6/10

The animation is good: more precisely, the models are good

The storyline is kind of a mess

Much better than the other New Gods Reborn movie, which we don’t talk about

Worth a quick watch

白蛇缘起 White Snake 2019

6.5/10

Not bad, the storyline was meh

It got some hype abroad but it’s mid

Worth a watch but it’s way overrated

深海 Deep Sea 2023

7.5/10

The animation is beautiful and the story is good!

Worth a watch! I recommend it

Very dreamcore, floaty feeling

Gives you a sense of being not quite in our reality in a similar way as some Ghibli movies 

[franki-lew-yo]

The vibe: Essential 'Classic Fantasy' films in Animation

i.e. "traditionally told/traditionally characterized mythology+fantasy stories who's intricacies are up to interpretation rather than being dissected within the film itself"-films. THAT kind of 'classical' rather than literally all being old or new films.

[caiuxraven]

Big Fish & Begonia gets a spin-off series called The Story of Rong Song, which follows the story of Chi Song Zi, the god of rain, and Zhu Rong, the god of fire.

[gebo4482]

Big Fish and Begonia : The Story of Rong Song (Trailer)

Dir: Liang Xuan / Zhang Chun

[loserspride]

04/13/2025

For ease of reference, in this post I talk about — Big Fish & Begonia, Risk System, The Boys Season 4 and Crank.

Alright, it's been a hell of a couple of weeks so I've missed maybe an update or two, I lost count, and I don't particularly want to get into any of what's been keeping me busy so let's fucking do this shit. I have decided at this point that I am only going to be writing about media I have finished only. It feels dumb to keep posting about stuff that is ongoing and only updates once a week or month because I don't really have a whole lot to say at that point so it just feels like a waste to keep reiterating the same thing until it's over and just save everything to an overall breakdown at the end of it all. Okay, let's do this actually now.

Big Fish & Begonia

I decided I wanted to start including anime movies to movie night since I used Anilist to track animanga instead of Letterboxd, these movies wouldn't turn up during the movie roulette system I use to pick non-anime movies. Anyway, I am now alternating — one week anime movie, next week non-anime movie. This was the pick for the night! First of all, I want to say that I ultimately did enjoy this movie but I don't think that a lot of it had to do with the movie itself. The premise is a bit absurd. The plot summary reads as follows:

This is a mythic land where no outsider has ever set foot. The spirit-like dwellers there, however, know us mortals well. They are responsible for human emotions and desires, for seasons, weather, the elapsing of time. Our protagonist, a spirit girl named Chun, has just turned sixteen and goes in the form of a dolphin to explore the earthly part of the sea, to see what the human world is like. While cruising at sea, Chun gets caught in a storm and finds herself enmeshed in a fishing net. A human boy spots her and comes to her rescue, trying to free Chun from the entanglement. By accident, the boy drowns leaving Chun wretched and heartbroken. Da Hai tells an absorbing and bittersweet story of sacrifice and redemption when Chun is determined to bring back to life the boy's soul, now in the form of a little white fish. Da Hai is about an adolescent coming to terms with her limitations, and a spirit, coming into possession of her powers, dealing with the difficult issues of death, love and maturing emotions with empathy and nuance.

What that summary doesn't encapsulate is how much of a "at what point into sacrifice for the sake of something do you back out and call a loss?" this movie is. The number of people, of friends and family, who die for the sake of this one girl's refusal to accept the death of a total stranger (no matter how charmingly this fixation the movie and its creator's try to pose it) is absolutely absurd. At one point, I had tears in my eyes from laughing over it. In all seriousness, I think the frustrating thing about it all is that the movie never truly confronts its themes. In the end, Chun makes it to the mortal world with the newly resurrected boy and there is no actual lesson to take away from it whatsoever. Death is not something to be accepted. It's something that can be manifested and compromised with. I understand that they might have wanted to end the movie on a high note but maybe don't make a movie majorly about grief and coping with loss if you don't want to reconcile with the weight of the narrative. And I think a lot of this could have been forgiven if the character writing was at all interesting or engaging or just. Anything.

This movie has some very cool and interesting character designs. It's unfortunate that none of them were reserved for any of the main characters. And a lot of this lack of effort also goes into their characterizations. The main group have no depth whatsoever. There is just nothing about them that really makes them feel like anything outside of characters in a thing we are watching. And this is where I have to draw some comparisons.

It's pretty clear that Big Fish and Begonia took a lot of inspiration from Studio Ghibli. That they had big pants to fill to compare is an understatement, and I'm honestly not at all a Ghibli fan. I've actually only seen two Ghibli movies and I fell asleep midway through one of them. But even then, I could see the inspiration. But was it inspired? Or was it derivative? In terms of writing, in terms of stylization, characterization, heart — the substance just was not there. That Ghibli films were made by people who care what they are making is something I can definitely agree with, but this didn't feel like a movie made by people who cared about what they were making. It was a movie made by people who were trying to make a Ghibli movie. Oh well.

Risk System

So I started Risk System back in October and I have played it on and off since them. Recently, I've decided to shelve it. It has an interesting premise, fun character designs and writing (though minimal). I enjoyed the music a lot and the aesthetic. It had everything going for it but ultimately, the gameplay was lacking. A grazing shmup with movement inertia and incredibly buggy hitboxes. I got a few levels in before I figured that if I dedicated a single additional month to this instead of the hundreds of other games waiting on my backlog, I'd lose my mind. It had incredibly mixed reviews with some people hating it, others loving it and some just content with it's addition to their repertoire and I think that very accurately captures the experience of playing the game. When it's good it's good and when it's bad it's bad and unfortunately, for me — it was mostly bad.

Maybe another time.

The Boys Season 4

Trigger warning — I will be talking about scenes in this show in which people have been raped in no explicit detail, but still. Proceed with caution.

I don't know, man. So much of this season was just sort of ... dicking around. I don't care about Starlight's abortion, I don't care about Hughie's mom, I don't care about whatever they're doing with Black Noir. So many plots just become so inconsequential — like why the fuck did Frenchie put himself in jail? I know, it's because he is an expert chemist and they wouldn't have needed to kidnap Victoria's boyfriend if he wasn't locked in a box somewhere. It lent no credence to his character whatsoever. It never really went anywhere. Everything in general for this season felt like just set up. A lot of set up for the final season. And what isn't set up, is just much of the same of what we've already seen. I just don't know. It doesn't really feel like they're milking it too, y'know. Like when shows just sort of go on for too long that they lose themselves, it just feels a bit like the writers are a bit lost on where to go. It just kind of feels like it's run out of steam. This tends to happen a lot with adapting series that deviate so heavily from their source material. Anyway, this isn't exactly even my biggest complaint with the season. As aimless as the plot feels throughout, it's always entertaining in one way or another and I could honestly spend hours just watching nothing but shots of Anthony Starr giving his Homelander stare. Starr just really brings exactly what needs to be brought to the character at all times.

No, my biggest complaint is the extremely weird stance the show has taken with rape all of a sudden. The Deep raped Starlight when he forced her to give him oral sex. This was treated with extreme weight and severity. She is a person who was victimized but she rises from it and fights for justice. Becca is raped by Homelander. This was treated with extreme weight and severity — though it also serves for good manpain fuel for Butcher, I guess. But it's still given the seriousness that an event like this deserves. But then, the Deep is raped. When this happens, I couldn't help but feel like it is treated with nowhere near as much compassion. As if the writers feel that he deserved this and it is morally justified to mock him for it. As a survivor myself, it made me feel sick — but I chose to give them the benefit of the doubt. It was a hiccup and I suppose that there are other victims out there who disagree with my perspective and lean into the "an eye for an eye" mentality. Fine, whatever. I was willing to shrug it off.

And then Hughie. Hughie is raped several times in this season. It's actually absurd to say this as I'm sure you know what's coming but yes — Hughie is raped several times in season four and the show treats it with extreme levity and even goes as far as to villainize him for it. Firstly, he's assaulted by Tek Knight. I know there's a very weird sort of grey area in the earlier parts of the scene because Tek Knight thinks he is someone else who has consented to this, as does Ashley but when Tek Knight discovers he is not who he thinks he is — he plans to torture and assault him. I also would like to remind everyone who doesn't remember from earlier in the season/series that Tek Knight was Hughie's favorite Supe as a child. This was someone he looked up to as a little kid and now this man is sexually assaulting him and the show thinks it's a fucking joke. He has a panic attack and cries and then it is swept away as the story moves on to the rest of the inconsequential bullshit it's churning.

Then, we have the Shifter. Shifter was a pretty interesting character. I actually was very intrigued by them. I loved the way they actually shifted bodies, that they had to do so constantly or their body would start rotting away, the fact that they had no idea what they even looked like, the fact that their brain is likely full of the memories of hundreds if not thousands of people. They were really fascinating, as a character. And they raped Hughie repeatedly when they took on Starlight's appearance and proceeded to seduce him under the false pretense that they were Starlight. It's rape. And it is infuriating that when Starlight learns about this, she immediately tries to make it into some bullshit faux-feminist "Wow, is that all you see me as? A sex toy?" argument and has absolutely no understanding that this was an incredibly violating thing to happen to Hughie as well as her. They were both victims. She's not perfect, no one is, so I just want to clarify that I think it's perfectly understandable for the show to have characters who are flawed and don't always say or do the things people would consider the "correct thing" to do and that the actions of characters aren't always in any way indicative of a writer's thoughts or feelings but it is extremely concerning that the rape of men in this show is never given any grace or compassion or empathy. It just feels so extremely callous and has left me with a really sick feeling in my stomach.

And it's also made me think about how regularly men experience other minor forms of sexual assault on the show that are always treated as jokes. MM is regularly poked and prodded at by Love Sausage's giant dick. That thing is around his neck so often, it's more scarf than cock at this rate. MM gets Web Slinger's webbing shot out of the little hole in his lower back and it goes on his face, an obvious "cumshot" joke and something that MM, a man with misophobic OCD, is distressed by. And then of course in herogasm, when he gets absolutely bathed in cum. I can't remember anymore off of the top of my head but I know in the back of my mind, I know there is more. But then meanwhile, Homelander's backstory is being treated as if it were one of the greatest tragedies on the planet. The nationalist genocidal psychopath is being granted more kindness than Hughie.

And we've seen them handle PTSD before. One of the things I most have liked about the show is how it has handled mental health, substance abuse, etc. There was always a degree of understanding but this season has felt ... devoid of that. Devoid of humanity. If you've seen the show, you know it's not subtle. When it wants you to know something, it tells you. Which is fine, that is the vibe it has always had. An over-the-top satirical spin. But that only makes this whole situation all the more jarring. We'll see what happens in Season 5, I guess.

Also, them changing the name of the last episode is some real wimpy cop-out bullshit.

Crank

Trigger warning — I will be talking about a scene in this movie depicting a sexual assault/rape/dubious consent situation in this movie in no explicit detail.

Last night's movie was a riot. This is definitely one of those I've been meaning to get around to for a while and was so excited to finally do so. The editing, music, acting, cinematography— it was just so stunningly produced. From the get-go, everyone in the stream was enamored. Now, for clarity's sake, it's a rough watch. There are a lot of slurs tossed around, some jokes that are meant to be pretty clearly offensive and a scene that has pretty much all watchers of this movie fighting a war that has gone on for almost twenty years. This is getting really long and I've been working on it for a little over two hours now so I'm gonna keep it pretty short.

I can get how this movie isn't some people's style. It's janky and gritty and stupid but it's such a good fucking time. I think it's probably one of the best action movies to have ever been created. A few things bring it down, a lot of which pretty fucking heavily dates it. I was bummed when Kaylo was sort of just used as collateral damage in the movie. I was pretty excited to see a trans/gay character in a movie like this but I guess that just showed a degree of naivety in me I didn't expect. I guess I thought that with the way the movie had handled such a fun and interesting character like Orlando, it would have done the same with Kaylo. Which brings me to say that I feel that a lot of the movie at times feels disjointed with itself. It was as if six different people were all trapped in a room for a week with nothing but a pile of cocaine to survive off of and came up with the script, which is both it's biggest strength but also it's biggest weakness.

It's not like the movie isn't capable of compassion. I was actually rather taken with these random moments of contemplative introspection littered in the movie. The scene in the hospital where Chev stumbles into the room of a (comatose or sleeping) sick man in a hospital bed and spend the time he can afford grappling with his own mortality. The scene where his doctor offers him an "easy out", a dreamful sleep into death and he once again finds himself in this fork where he must either break the cycle or turn the wheel. It is able to offer glimpses of humanity into the beast that is Chev. Even Verona, who struggles internally with the grief for his dead brother but the pride that disallows a semblance of vulnerability. It just doesn't really want to dig its fingers into that gaping wound, which is disappointing.

Movies like this, where the protagonist is a sack of shit is always very divisive, especially when those characters also show semblances of being good people. Some people strongly believe that only good people should be the main characters of thing and that those people can only ever do good things and that the people who stand against them are bad and can only ever be bad. You know, like real people in real life, I guess. I do not agree with this mentality at all but I do think that people who are writing characters like this sometimes lose the plot. It's a dangerous line to walk but not impossible.

Anyway, this is all to say that I don't like that they made Chev assault his girlfriend in attempts to goad her into sex so that he could keep his adrenaline up and not die. I think it was a severely mishandled scene that could have been fixed with more than two seconds of critical thought. My partner actually pointed out that he should have just started jerking off or something if he was that desperate. I don't know if it makes it less of an assault and more of a harassment situation but it's definitely a better option than him clinging to her legs like a pathetic horny dog and trying to knock her onto the ground. Many people argue that she ends up agreeing, which would I guess push this more into a "dubious consent" situation. I'm not here to argue semantics. I think anyone with a brain capable of rational thought can surmise that this largely contributes this the rape culture mentality that no does not always mean no and can then become a yes with enough grit and determination. That being said, I don't think it's the end of the world that a movie made twenty years ago has shit politics. I'm an adult that can watch a movie and say "there are some things about this I really liked and there are some things I really didn't." Which is to say, there are some things about this movie I really liked and there were some I really didn't.

That's all. Bye.

[hi-jjo]

大鱼 (great fish) - english translation

大鱼 is the theme song created for the 2016 animated movie 《大鱼海棠》 (big fish & begonia). Lyrics by 尹约 Yin Yue, composed by 钱雷 Qian Lei, sung by 周深 Zhou Shen/Charlie.

海浪无声将���幕深深淹没 漫过天空尽头的角落 大鱼在梦境的缝隙里游过 凝望你沉睡的轮廓

看海天一色 听风起雨落 执子手吹散苍茫茫烟波 大鱼的翅膀 已经太辽阔 我松开时间的绳索

怕你飞远去 怕你离我而去 更怕你永远停留在这里 每一滴泪水 都向你流淌去 倒流进天空的海底

海浪无声将夜幕深深淹没 漫过天空尽头的角落 大鱼在梦境的缝隙里游过 凝望你沉睡的轮廓

看海天一色 听风起雨落 执子手吹散苍茫茫烟波 大鱼的翅膀 已经太辽阔 我松开时间的绳索

看你飞远去 看你离我而去 原来你生来就属于天际 每一滴泪水 都向你流淌去 倒流回最初的相遇

Silent waves submerge the curtain of night Soaking through the alcoves of the sky A great fish swims through dreamscape’s seams Gazing at the contours of your slumber

See the one hue of both sea and sky, hear the wind call forth rain Raise a hand, disperse the boundless mists The great fish’s wings are already far too vast I loosen the rope of time

I fear you’ll fly far away, fear you’ll leave my side Even more, I fear you’ll always stay right here Every tear I shed flows out toward you Until it reaches the heavens’ seafloor

Silent waves submerge the curtain of night Soaking through the alcoves of the sky A great fish swims through dreamscape’s seams Gazing at the contours of your slumber

See the one hue of both sea and sky, hear the wind call forth rain Raise a hand, disperse the boundless mists The great fish’s wings are already far too vast I loosen the rope of time

I watch you fly far away, watch you leave my side So—you were born to be with the horizons! Every tear I shed flows out toward you Until it reaches back to our first meeting

t/n:

this song was explicitly written to fit with the movie's plot (which is kind of scattered and hard to follow imo), but without that context these lyrics really seems to be about the grief of parenthood/loss of a child…???

the embedded video includes another english translation in the captions. it's interesting to see where our translations had similarities and differences.

[mayito-bel]

son pololos

[blackpeachy]

Not to make this blog a spam blog, but:

After re-watching Ne Zha from '19 and in light of the second one hitting the theaters here this week I got reminded of another great Chinese animated movie, which I am deeply in love with and then something hit me like a truck - Not a ship on the part of Ne Zha - but ChisongZi and Zhurong from Big Fish and Begonia are basically just another version on Ao Bing and Ne Zna-

[heliosphere-underthesky]

Happy Lunar New Year! Welcome, Year of the Wood Dragon 2024! 🌙🐉🧧 Here's Luna all dressed up for the festivities!

Timelapse under the cut! (VOLUME WARNING)

[lowcallyfruity]

They’re yaoi in my heart 😞

[romanceyourdemons]

you have been given 24 hours to plan a day long movie viewing party for you and your friends. what's the list

my irl friends' film tastes runs to studio ghibli, so i'll base the collection around ghibli films. we'll start off at around 8am with breakfast and a viewing of kiki's delivery service (1989), and then we'll follow the themes of quirky and colorful comings-of-age with amelie (2001). this should put us at around lunchtime, so a break for lunch and then spirited away (2001) followed by akira kurosawa's dreams (1990) for two lushly visualized films inspired by japanese folklore. after this, snacks, and then the main fare: grave of the fireflies (1988) and empire of the sun (1987). then a ramen bar for dinner, and, to end the day on a sweet note, ponyo (2008)

[gebo4482]

Big Fish & Begonia 2 - Teaser (Movie Trilogy)

[levsdaily]

I tried to go with a theme of fantansy and a movie that I saw called Big Fish & Begonia, wich is in a mystical realm that exists beneath the human world, populated by beings of magical power, a girl named Chun participates in a coming-of-age ritual where she is transported through a water portal to experience the human world in the form of a dolphin red and the part that insiperd me is that since they live underwater when they look to the sky is like the whales are like flying.

(By: Lev¨s)