beyond the edge

It's one of my favourite dishes at 鼎泰丰 (Din Tai Fung), the deliciously numbing and slightly chilli oil, and the (really quite good) fat noodles soaking up the juice.

The "red oil" is a versatile mixture used in a several of my favourite Szechuan cuisines - the chilli oil wonton, the cold noodles, and add it as topping to your favourite noodles.

I did this as an experiment, but it actually turned out rather amazing. This is quite a versatile recipe, so you can alter whatever spices you prefer to be in there.

A) Dry ingredients (alter this to taste):
- Sugar
- Salt
- Crushed Szechuan pepper 花椒
- Crushed fennel seeds 茴香籽
- Crushed fried red onions 炸紅蔥頭 (you can get these from SE Asian shops)
- Crushed fried garlic 炸蒜
- Chilli powder or crushed dried chillis 辣椒粉或干辣椒碎 (one recipe suggested 3 different types of powder, I happened to have some chilli powder I got from Coles and a bag of crushed chilli from a Korean store, though to be honest I'm not connoisseur enough to taste the difference)
(Optional) Sesame or crushed peanuts
(Optional) Pepper 胡椒
(Optional) Lithospermum 紫草 - supposedly this, in Chinese medicine, counteracts the "hot" effects of the other chillis/peppers that's added to this

B) Oil ingredients:
- Fresh ginger
- Fresh garlic
- Fresh shallot
- Dried Szechuan pepper
- Dried star anise
- Dried cinnamon (I actually forgot this, but it didn't seem to affect the core of the taste too much)

The idea is that you use low heat to deep fry all of the ingredients in (B). Unlike in other Asian stirfry cuisine where you typically heat up the oil before adding in the spices, you actually put the ingredients into cold oil and slowly heat it until small bubbles ooze, and let it cook until the ingredients turn crisp. Then you discard the spices in the oil and pour the oil, while hot, onto all the dry ingredients.

To make the sauce for the wonton or the cold noodles, mix one part of the chill oil/paste to one part Chinese vinegar (or black vinegar) to one part soy sauce.

You would definitely scoop some of the crushed/ground spices along with the oil, because that's where the flavour pops.

In a movie that draws heavily from Oriental philosophy/ideology, and in fact has multiple parallels to the Dreamworks panda story, it's only appropriate to use Master Oogway's icon to represent it.

I actually ended up watching this movie twice, more out of circumstance than because I felt particularly compelled to, the first time in 2D and the second time in 3D. I don't know if it's because 3D glasses never fit me very well but although the visuals were indeed a tad more impressive in 3D (it would be much better on IMAX, I'd imagine), you miss out on the nuances of the actors' expressions, in particular Tilda Swinton.

I think people have already said all that's needed to be said about this movie. It's a par performance by Marvel, upping the bar for imagination and visual representation, and barely clearing it from a plot and character point of view.

Unlike his incredibly popular turn as Mr Holmes in Sherlock and (for me at least) a riveting presence as Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness, Benedict Cumberbatch's Stephen Strange is just...par. I mean, from where I stand, there's definitely humour in the familiar caricature of awkwardly narcissist surgeons, but whether it's the slightly distracting almost-American accent (he sounds much better than RDJ sprouting British, so there's that) or the failings of the story, Strange is unfortunately not as charismatic as Tony Stark or Thor, not as funny as Peter Quill, not as morally straight as Steve Rogers, and not as personable as Scott Lang. Marvel's leading men had always led the story, the plot there only as an embellishment to display their best qualities. It's not as though Benedict hadn't pulled his weight, and it certainly isn't that he is incapable of doing great or lovable, but unfortunately Strange is neither, and that is this movie's greatest misstep.

There were some great acting from everyone involved, which unfortunately only further highlighted the thinness of the plot. Rachel McAdams did what she could with 15 minutes of screen time for a warm and compassionate ED doctor (where do you find one of those these days? LOL), and was a lot less grating than the last token girlfriend *cough*Nat Portman*cough*. Mads Mikkelsen also did what he could with a largely 2-dimensional villain in Kaecilius.

I think my greatest frustration is that the stems of the plot are there, but the story wasn't allowed to develop into a rich canopy. To draw on the Kungfu Panda analogy - if a cartoon could make you shed a tear at a doddery turtle's ascent to the stars, there's no reason it couldn't have done the same here. Similarly Kaecilius and Mordo were both short-changed in terms of their character (well, in terms of character even Stephen Strange was short-changed, so I suppose all that's not surprising). The betrayal these 2 students felt, and in particular in the case of Mordo, if the movie had given a little back story to explain why he was so fiercely adherent to the idea of "rules", then Marvel would have created one of their best antiheroes next to Loki, but alas.

There was a lot of controversy about the casting of Tilda Swinton. It's ironic to call it "not whitewashing when the character was white to start with" when the original character was Asian and much of the movie's imagery and even some of its philosophy draws on Asian culture. To her credit, Tilda Swinton makes the Ancient One great, but I have no doubt there are equally capable actors of Asian descent that could have done this. That said, her portrayal of the Ancient One with a mischievous twinkle and fleeting moments of vulnerability certainly made her the most interesting character in this movie.

She also has the best quote - "We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - neatly foreshadowing perhaps not only her students' downfall but also her own.

I am very fond of Benedict (and also of Rachel and Chiwetel), so I do want to see more of them, but while this has been a stunning visual experience, I really hope the story gets much better by the second time round.
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As an aside, I've seen a few sites talk about when Doctor Strange was set, and one of the makers came out and said that the movie started in 2016. Without arguing over how long Strange would take to master sorcery - just from a medical point of view, the guy was in a car accident (it's amazing how he managed to get out of it without brain injury when his face is all smashed, but hey, creative license). Then we see him wake up with external fixators, then he flips through 3 hand X-rays, representing a progression in time - the first one when the ex-fix's were in, the second when they were out, and the 3rd when more pins were removed. Following that, at least one major surgery was depicted, followed by a period of rehab. The impression you get from the movie is that he had more surgeries (likely with rehab in between) before everyone had given him up and he had to search out Pangborn.

In the "leanest" case scenario, we're talking about: accident - ex-fix - ex-fix out - pins out - rehab - surgery - rehab. This is a process that would have taken at very minimum 3-4 months, though if I were to factor in other surgeries and in real life terms, I'd be estimating a year or even two. This does still give enough time for Strange to arrive at the same chronology as Thor: Ragnarok by 2017. To be honest I think it doesn't really affect the Marvel continuity if he had been around earlier because he would have been immersed in training, and may not even have heard about Sokovia or whatever.

When you read the synopsis, you wonder how this could possibly be interesting. Sangenya Manchi is one of the top/legendary salespeople-real-estate-agent in her company. This is the story about how she sells houses..............

Not only that, Kitagawa Keiko pulls one of her most expressionless blank-faced acts, not that this is her fault because Sangenya is supposed to have 3 expressions - normal expressionless face, faint slight-relaxing-of-jaw "ochita" (got them) smile, and her ヽ(#`Д´)ﾉ　GO!

In fact, most of the central characters are caricatures - from the icily efficient Sangenya, to the puppy-like Iwano, the try hard Mr-Nice-Boss Yashiro, the company "prince" Adachi, the waste-of-oxygen Shirasu, the cute-happy-to-be-adultress secretary, the sexy bartender....

Fortunately, it takes these caricatures and runs with it, doing what Japan does best, which is live-actioning what is essentially a moving comic book.

You keep watching because of the comic interactions, and then a few episode in you realise, actually, it's a pretty damn good drama.

As opposed to the tropey central cast, the guest stars are much more well-defined and multi-layered. The script is written by a woman, and after a while it shows - the amazing thing is that this show, not only in its central cast, but also in the numerous guests each episode, has an abundance of strong-willed, independent women that Japan often tries to pretend does not exist.

And through these women (and men), the series is actually a shrewd and often painfully realistic dissection about what family is supposed to mean. Rather than taking the moral high ground or the idealistic sundrenched tone of many a Japanese series, it accepts that reality isn't perfect and sometimes it's not possible to fix what has long been broken.

Sangenya's approach is incisive but also warmly empathetic, and she addresses what the customers need rather than what they want, and in that way reflect upon what "home" (ie) is supposed to be. For example, in the first episode, she convinces a gynaecologist couple to buy a unit much smaller than what they wanted or what their means could afford. Her reasoning, as she points out, is that their young son doesn't need a big empty house where his family is never home, but rather, a place close to where the parents work and a small living area where - in the rare moments that the family is home together - they can bond tightly, at least until the child is old enough to get past his loneliness.

In the second episode she addresses the Japanese "hikikomori" phenomenon, and in a twist on the usual J-dora way of encouraging these people to step out of their shells, she reasons that it's unreasonable and unrealistic to expect a man who's been cut off from society for 20 years to relearn the skills to live in society again, so she creates a home where he could self-sustain his wealth while living in as much isolation as he can.

Then there's the pair of lovers who adore each other emotionally but can't stand each others' living habits, the divorcee who keeps trying to get back with a guy she doesn't love but really just needs a home where she can be with her girl friends, the father and son who really want to live together but are too scared to bring it up with their hawkish wives who can't stand each other, the divorcing couple who actually become closer after given some distance....

It's a nice reflection of how society has evolved, and how the idea of home doesn't have to be the nuclear family. It can be for one person, it can be for a group of like-minded individuals who want to grow old together, or even the idea that a family can have two homes and be better off for it.

It's also a gentle illustration of how Japanese women are also evolving - that they can be measurably better than their male counterparts at their jobs (Sangenya and a number of other female guests), that they can now be single, that they can now be divorced, that they can now be the breadwinner while their husband looks after the domestics. Japan is without a doubt catching up with gender equality, but even these days the dramas that come out of Japan can be so...implicitly sexist in what they expected of the two genders. Female main characters are rarely high-ranking, high-achieving or highly skilled in their field, and if they are (e.g. in Doctor X) there's always friction with hoards of ageing men that try to maintain their iron grip on authority.

It is a fun series and the strategies about selling the right house for the right person are interesting, but the pleasure is the underlying commentary on society and the quiet revolution it leads for the overturning of Japanese gender stereotypes.

Starring the amazing Spiderman...as opposed to The Amazing Spiderman.

It's only just opened so I'll start with the non-spoilerific version:

It's not hard to see why it's scoring above 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. It has its flaws - I'm not a fan of the shakycam, and if you had time to think about it, parts of the plot do seem forced and crowded, and it certainly counts somewhat on the audience to already be invested in the characters.

My biggest trepidation going into the movie was how it would handle the conflict. Would it lean too much towards Cap because he's the main character, or too sympathetic towards Iron Man because of RDJ's star power? Would the justifications be forced? Fortunately, the movie does an impressive job of giving each key character a consistent, logical and sympathisable reasons for choosing the side that they do, and while the events leading up to the two big showdowns are a bit contrived, the complexity of emotions and loyalties (as well as some highlight quirky moments) certainly make those flaws easier to overlook.

Unfortunately, I feel you have to already be invested in this universe, not necessarily as a diehard fan, but having at least watched and appreciated the character arcs throughout the Iron Man, Captain America, Ant-man and Avengers franchises. Then, does it make sense that Tony would take an accusation so personally, that Steve would question the judgement of those governed by ulterior agendas, that Natasha would choose the most utilitarian route.

Without those movies, it's hard to grasp how much Tony's parents and their sudden deaths had shaped his behaviour prior to him maturing into Iron Man, and how desperately he needed closure. Without those movies, it would also be hard to grasp why Captain America is drifting further and further away from the role of a "model" soldier, and why he would put so much on the line to protect a criminal. I've said before that while Steve is a soldier and understands the misfortunes of war, Tony fights for very personal and sometimes very egocentric reasons, and it's never been more painfully obvious than here. He fights because he wants to be a hero, he wants to do good things, he wants to save people, and he doesn't have Steve's capacity to take it in his stride when his mistakes have a name and a face and an erased future. The story gives them time to explore what they believe in and what their bottom line is, but they bring into the argument a respect for each other...so that by the time Tony says that iconic line, "But so was I [your friend]", you believe him, and by the time you see that iconic 3-way fight, it hurts to watch them.

The characters new to the roster include Black Panther, Spiderman and Ant-man (where do the hyphens and capitals go, anyway?) and they are a delight in an otherwise heavy, unrelenting chase. This is practically an origins story for Black Panther, and despite being only on the sideline he manages to have a complete character arc in one movie. The bug bros (as opposed to the science bros? XDDD) similarly had an amazing introduction into the greater MCU, both with their wide-eyed fanboyism, and Spiderman finding time between his excessive chatterboxing to fight cool.

I don't think I spoil anything by saying that the villain is Baron Zemo. I think reviews are quite divided on him: not "the Mandarin" divided, but there's a camp that say he's the usual boring Marvel villain, while another says he's the next best thing after Loki. Personally I think I agree with the latter - he has one of the better motivations in the stream of drab villains after money (Obediah Stane, Darren Cross), power (Ronan, Red Skull), petty revenge (Whiplash, Aldrich Killian) and whatever the heck was Ultron. His role was relatively light, but (without any spoilers) his story bears strong parallels to what several other characters in this movie experience, no one could fault him for doing what he did or the way he's decided to execute it (even though from a plot perspective, his plan was a bit too contrived). I mean, couldn't he have just emailed the video to Tony?

It's a movie I think that will have people take away different things. Is it complex and profound? Not really, it's certainly less about politics this time around and more about character-centric things like personal beliefs and family and modus operandi. But it is a beautifully constructed ensemble piece, where each character gets a moment to shine, and several of the major ones get a fully fleshed character arc.

And for me, I think it will stay one of my favourite MCU movies to date, even if it ends on an oddly disheartening note.

I've watched about 9 episodes of this projected-to-be-16 episodes saga.

I actually didn't want to watch it based on the synopses (又用這個藉口不累嗎) - a soldier and a doctor? So many things could go wrong, but then a nurse at work kept pushing me to watch it, so surely it can't be too bad.

I'm really not into K-dramas, but I understand the central characters are all pretty famous? And this is Song Joong-ki's first drama since returning from military conscription.

There's a good reason I try to avoid medical drama but I like stuff with suspense (but preferably not a convoluted plot that resolves over 50 episodes) so it's almost always police procedurals or medical dramas on my watch list.

Fortunately, Descendants of the Sun doesn't pretend to be a medical or a military-based thriller, and so I'm far more forgiving of its mistakes. I think the wonderful thing about this show is how perfectly balanced it is between the romance and the drama, humour and angst.



I was so busy laughing at this scene (basically the doctor is 花痴ing over the guy's "only photo") to notice the dextrocardia situs inversus totalis the first time I saw this. Then when it popped up again in an MV, I thought, "Hang on...not only is the heart deviated...the gastric and colonic gas are also on the right."

SO MAYBE HE HAS HIS APPENDIX ON THE LEFT SIDE AFTER ALL. I mean, excuse my 職業病 but it looks like the bronchus on the left is also more horizontal than the right? So it's likely that he has the total inversion of the organs. The text on the Xray is not flipped, so it just remains whether this is going to be a plot point or just...some random mistake trivia.

Also, just for the record, the only X-rays that make surgeons go 花痴 (yes, even female surgeons) are the ones of people who are not walking out of hospital the same day.

Anyway, back to the story, because I didn't know Song Joong-Ki when I first started watching (and I didn't see any posters...) I seriously thought Seo Dae-young was the main character until the scene in the hospital where the two main characters gaze upon each other as the curtain glides in slow motion between them while a love song croons in the background.

Hey, it is a Korean drama after all.

Which brings me back to what I mentioned a few days ago in the Sungkyunkwan post. Don't get me wrong, I love Song Joong-Ki in this role, and my lack of knowledge of Korean stars aside, I can't imagine someone else doing Yoo Si-jin. He manages to subvert his character as Yeo-rim, despite both these characters having a playful streak (okay, there are one or two scenes where his mischief overlaps with Yeo-rim). Whether 2 years of service did this, who knows, but his air is much more mature, more confident, and more manly. In a way, I think Joong-ki tries to play Yeo-rim as aesthetically pleasing as possible, which is in keeping with the character but also with a lot of idols of that age. Yoo Si-jin's expressions are much less...picturesque, if that's the word, his smiles and grimaces and snarls and shock can all contort his face into odd angles, but makes him feel more like a working man than an idol.

That said, Song has a very boyish face, and coupled with his leaner physique, his perpetual slouch, and the character's playful mannerisms...I seriously thought Seo Dae-young, who exudes much more discipline and the manly virtues of not having an idea of romance assurance was the main character. Or at least, the higher ranking captain. It's not that Song can't do serious, and some of his best scenes are when he's serious, but on occasions, depending on the lighting and which uniform he's wearing, standing amongst other soldiers he looks like a cornered high school student....

Kang Mo-yeon and Yoo Si-jin especially are impossibly perfect characters, written in a way that makes it hard to dislike them. I like how mature and rational they approach their vocation and their relationship. I like their level-headed discussions, where they acknowledge each other's values without compromising their own. Their discussions about the different and potentially contradictory commitments of a surgeon versus a soldier is interesting for two jobs that deal with injury and death on a regular basis. Fortunately I don't think the drama tries to preach any lessons about which side is correct, though it did have a rather painful side plot about a doctor who ran away from a building (leaving a trapped patient behind) during an aftershock and was then, despite the patient surviving, guilt-ridden for 4 episodes with many scenes of really grating mopiness.

First rule of emergency medicine: check for danger and keep yourself safe. You can't save the patient if you become a patient.

Without trying to nitpick, that entire plot was written poorly - certainly some junior doctors can be left quite unsupported in the field, but that is not characteristic of the medical team shown in the drama. They're a good cohesive team who work well together, so it was incredible that the senior doctors didn't try to mediate at all. Secondly there was no good reason that the junior doctor was in the ruins looking for survivors, he's not trained in that sort of retrieval, and when he found the trapped patient, he should have called for help first rather than trying to drag him out on his own. Third, while it's true that you shouldn't be changing treating doctors on a whim, when the therapeutic relationship has clearly broken down, it's to everyone's benefit to change the treating doctor.

Aigoo...let's stop talking about the medical aspect, because otherwise I won't stop.

I like how the relationship between Yoo and Kang plays out, even though it might feel a bit drawn out. I think Kang's prolonged misgivings about entering the relationship are perfectly justified, because not many rational people want to commit to a relationship where the other person might get sent on a job and never return. I like how Yoo is usually playful, but when questioned about his expectations and hopes for the relationship, he always approaches the discussion like an adult.

However, I think Yoo is too perfect, to the point where his biggest flaw is his job. He's perceptive, and so he's always playful when the mood needs to be lightened and serious when situations demand respect. He's smart, skillful, disciplined, responsible, brave, pragmatic, humanitarian...........He knows exactly what to say to make a girl's heart flutter (seriously, stuff like "You don't have to feel defeated just because your feelings have been exposed. Just remember that I love you more and you always have that advantage over me." - many kudos to Song Joong-ki for somehow able to carry all these sappy lines without making the audience cringe). He's the sort of character that only exists in fiction, matched with a female character who is similarly smart, strong and stoic, even if she keeps grudges for a little too long and is sometimes a little too fierce - but she's a surgeon, so that would be totally in character XDDDD

The secondary couple of Seo Dae-young and Yoon Myung-ju is a pleasant surprise. In fact, one of the best things about this drama is its general lack of people backstabbing each other (at least, not in seriousness XDDD). There's no multi-angle relationship, just two couples trying to iron out their own massive problems. Seo and Yoon's relationship is perhaps your much more traditional Asian problem of class difference. Yoon's dad is the general, Seo is unlikely to get much further past a sergeant major. Yoon's dad prefers Yoo - despite this, Seo and Yoo are still good friends, Yoo and Yoon bicker like siblings, and the romance between Seo and Yoon teeters between tragedy and hilarity. I like Yoon's forwardness, and her tireless efforts to be somewhere close to Seo despite his and her dad's efforts to keep them apart. I like Seo, or rather, I love Jin Goo's portrayal of Seo - probably one of the best 面攤 (blank faced) acts I've seen (YAMASHITA TAKE LESSONS FROM THIS MAN YO). Unlike Yoo, he is a man of few words and few expressions, but despite that it's still obvious from the way his eyes narrow, or the way his brows furrow, or the way his jaw tightens or relaxes exactly what Seo is thinking, and that is the epitome of 面攤. I like how there are several long conversations where Yoon practically talks to herself while he remains silent and unsmiling...but it still somehow felt like one of the richest conversations between two star-crossed lovers.

But what keeps audiences watching is how well the scriptwriter has balanced and juxtaposed scenes that are completely emotional opposites. After a tense gunfire or a stressful mass trauma event, there's always something sweet, something funny, something mellow, something cute to soften the pain...and just when things are in danger of getting too sappy, the tension starts building again.

Because I'm someone who always preferred thrillers to romances, I think the pace is perfect, but I wonder how people who only watch romances are able to sit through the gunfights? I know my mum runs away every time that comes on...

Really hoping for a happy ending, but somehow with their occupations that seem rather difficult....

As far as terrible excuses go, I went and watched this because I felt I should fatten up my K-drama tag a little...

Actually the real reason is yes, I got on the boat that's Descendants of the Sun and seeing that it's yet to hit the obligatory!k-drama!angst part (i.e. last 3 episodes), I thought I'd dig this out.

I've always been a bit wary of watching actors/actresses I don't know, especially in stories that need to be carried by charisma rather than plot, which was why I never started watching Sungkyunkwan despite really liking Rooftop Prince a few years ago. Also, frankly, the poster that's been used around the net for this drama has really not inspired an interest.

I admit I started watching it for mainly Yoochun and curiosity about Song Joong-Ki. In a way, the first episode was one of its best episodes, because thereafter a series of poor writing made you lose sympathy for the main character "Dae-mul" bit by bit until you were sick of her stupid face.

To be honest, the drama had a lot going for it, and was unfortunately sunk by its central romance. The most interesting parts were everything else - the rigid restrictions brought on by class (and gender) inequity, the importance of an education system that protects the students against partisan interference to foster free thinking, and how different parenting styles create different thinkers.

Unfortunately the central romance and the main plot point of "cross-dressing girl studying in an all boys' school" (wait...where have I seen that before...HanaKimi) is its weakest link because of its shallowness between the meatier plot lines raised above., but to say that would be unfair to its premise.

Sungkyunkwan is meant to be a crossdressing school drama exactly in the vein of HanaKimi and Ouran Koukou and others such silly shoujo things, but set in the ancient times...but if it were only that then it would have sunk into oblivion. It's both fortunate and unfortunate that it's propped up by these pertinent themes and subplots, as it makes the central story of "crossdressing girl in boys' school" really quite...bland.

What makes it more disappointing - and perhaps because it had such an intelligent approach to highlighting class inequities - is the Mary-Sue misogyny that is so painfully unavoidable in these crossdressing stories (perhaps except Ouran Koukou, I still think Haruhi was one of the best done crossdressing heroines).

Even given the grace of "main character protection", she still comes across in her actions as passive and uncertain, until the plot calls for a Mary Sue moment in the end. It's really quite disappointing, because in the first episode she was an admirable (albeit foolhardy) girl who could face down threats of unequal marriage and rape, and take on the risk of potential death by entering Sungkyunkwan. But from episode 2 to 19, the Asian Main Female Character syndrome takes over. She's helpless and quivering when threatened by Ha In-soo and his cronies. She's speechless and keeps trying to run away when teased by Yeo-rim. Despite this, she retains her Mary Sue achievements and clinches several competitions that require real skill and experience, of which it was made obvious she did not have.

This all culminated in a frustrating showdown in episode 18 where she runs (without checking her surroundings or notifying her friends) into a temple, and her 3 friends each paid a terrible price to bail her out - Geol-oh was injured trying to distract the troops, Ga-rang surrendered himself in order to protect Geol-oh, and Yeo-rim - trying to save all three - was forced to publicly acknowledge his falsified heritage. All throughout this, Dae-mul stood big-eyed and open-mouthed without trying, for a moment, to stop Ha In-soo from finding Geol-oh or arresting Ga-rang or publicly humiliating Yeo-rim.

Does this mean that the main character is stupid and useless? She's not - because she's supposed to be one of the smartest in her class, and when the plot calls for it she's more than able to hold her own against a barrage of threats against her poverty and her gender.

What it says, unfortunately, is the perpetuation of gender roles in our modern society, where even a script that has Dae-mul preach several times about "western standards of gender equality", still sees this strong, smart female character as someone who must nevertheless fit the traditional female role of needing to be protected, as not having the ability to stand up and speak out for those she cares for, as being less capable of problem-solving and advocacy than her male counterparts.

Sure, in the end she was the one who led the students in a peaceful protest in front of the emperor, condemning the military intrusion into Sungkyunkwan - but the students would not have been there if Yeo-rim did not abdicate his role to her and if Geol-oh hadn't dragged his wounded body out onto the rooftops to be Hong Byuk Seo. It was, bittersweetly, handed to her on a silver platter for her to enjoy her Mary Sue moment.

I'll talk more about the characters in another post, but Sungkyunkwan is a drama that I think tried to be two competing stories and as a result isn't very successful in either. It has fascinating characters, some beautifully formed friendships, and, as of crossdressing dramas, one of the more natural romances. It has an intriguing political plot line, driven by some well-portrayed class conflict, and its use of Confucius literature is a testament to its intelligence. Unfortunately, all this is undermined by the central premise of a school comedy romance, and all its finer points are sacrificed to uphold this much more banal storyline.

My entries are getting longer and longer...in between.

The endless cycle of sleep-eat-work-eat-sleep doesn't leave much space for introspection on the 2 days of the week you have leave from it.

I've actually been watching a lot of random stuff since coming to Sydney, and this Easter break has been a bit of an unintentional marathon. Some of them I haven't finished yet, but it would be so long until my next entry, that I should at least make the effort.

SPECIALIST
As a continuation of 4 drama SPs over the last couple of years that rated pretty well each time, it managed to be the top rating drama of the season (not including the long-running shows). Even so, the decline in drama ratings over the last few years have been unrestrainable, with most dramas these days struggling to break even 10%, and even the top rating ones of the season seldom pass 15%.

Is it good? It's not bad. The plot holes are less obvious than some of the other stuff that goes on in Japanese crime thrillers, and the mystery is usually interesting enough to keep you engaged for the 45 minutes run time. But the characters are pretty bland, and the overarching conspiracy was - rather typically of Japanese crime dramas - a letdown. The ending is open, possibly paving the way for sequels later on.

Verdict: a good police procedural, but don't get too attached to the big conspiracy.

Kaitou Tantei Yamaneko
It's been a long time since I could bring myself to watch another one of Kame's dramas, and I'm pleased to say that his acting has improved greatly. Yamaneko is sufficiently brash and burlesque for Kame's public persona not to overwhelm the character.

Yamaneko is an interesting character - sort of like Detective Conan bred with Gintama. Japanese literature (if you count manga/anime amongst "literature") does these sort of characters very well - from Kenshin to Gintoki, the carefree and careless main character who carries a dark and bloody past. He's a "good thief" who steals from the corrupt rich, but previously trained as a spy at the order of a mysterious entity called "Yuuki Tenmei" who came into power during WW2 but still exerts a stronghold on Japanese politics. Somehow, Yamaneko had a fallout with Yuuki Tenmei, and while completing his "side quests of the week", his main mission is to find Yuuki Tenmei and the answer to his existence.

Unfortunately, rather typically of a show of this enormity - e.g. Ouroboros, SPEC - the ending dissolves into ludicrousness. One of the twists was seen a long way coming due to an unfortunate casting. And like many Japanese shows of this calibre, the show is peppered with odd morality lectures and the ending is immensely confusing as to what it wants to say about the world.

Verdict: an excellent effort by all core actors, let down by a disappointing script.


Matsumoto Seicho adaptations
Matsumoto Seicho was one of the great authors of modern Japanese crime literature. Every year, there are multiple adaptations of his works released as drama SP, drama series or movies.

I watched a few of them: "The black forest", "The woman who bought the local paper", "The castle of sand", "The flag of mist". They're slickly produced SPs (well okay, most Japanese drama SPs are quite well done and often better than the series...) which are all well-acted and very atmospheric.

The female characters are...interesting, and really rather pitiable. Apart from "The Black Forest" which quite easily translated to a contemporary setting, the others...I want to say that they're dated, but they're not, because in Japan (and probably many other parts of the world) women are still subject to the same sort of inequity that's put on display there.

For example, the extremely capable and shrewd reporter in "Castle of Sand", who provided multiple clues and ideas to the police investigation, gets transferred away from investigative journalism because she's a woman and should be writing about things like...girly things.

Or the rather tragic female main characters in "The woman who bought the local paper" and "The flag of mist". The first story was extraordinarily...claustrophobic. Here is a woman who was being extorted and raped, who wanted to keep her marriage together, and murdered the two perpetrators because they threatened to continue their abuse. In the end, to protect her husband's reputation, she divorced him before turning herself into police. She had intended to kill herself but one of the other characters stopped her, saying - "the man's (the rapist) children won't get any of his life insurance if you die, because it would be counted as suicide. I hope you can turn yourself in, so that the children know the truth, and they can continue to love their father."

I don't know why I reacted so badly to that. I felt she had already been through so much, and while murder can't be justified, there's certainly extenuating circumstances. I don't feel the man deserved any sympathy and he certainly wasn't portrayed as a good father - he had multiple women and was rarely home to see his wife and children, and on top of that he extorted this poor woman for money and raped her multiple times. I felt she had already paid so much for another undeserving man in her life - the husband, for whom she had an abortion as he demanded it of her, and the botched operation made her infertile. For whom, even when her own honour and security was at stake, she still cut ties with him so that he could be protected. In a way she was a 白蓮花, but she also wasn't, because she became strong enough to take matters into her own hands and kill the perpetrators. I don't think people should commit suicide to avoid facing retributions, but I was very annoyed that the above speech could change her mind - why should she have sympathy for these children, when their dad is such a low life and when she couldn't have children?

Less tragically, in "Flag of Mist", it was about a girl's revenge against a lawyer who declined to be the defense lawyer for her wrongly accused brother. I felt a lot of her hate was misplaced, but yet tragically understandable.

What ties these stories together is that a lot of these women - these women who try to get their way, are not your usual "good girl". They become hostesses, they sell their bodies, and when asked, they sigh and say, "We have to live, somehow".

These days things are getting better for women, but his stories are an oddly painful reminder of how stifling Japanese society can be on the role of women.

Of course I've watched Age of Ultron a while ago (twice, in fact, cos Dad wanted to watch it too haha) but the movie was a bit like a bowl of ice-cream in summer - felt delicious while eating, but afterwards felt like you had a lot of nothing.

Antman is a bit like Guardians of the Galaxy. I think canonically he's actually a fairly big presence, but the basis and name seemed ridiculous, which is probably why he took so long to get to the big screen.

Let's start with the broad strokes - the movie is quite well-done, within the limitations. It's a heist movie as promised. It's much smaller in scale than the other heroes, which I think is a good thing. Like most superhero movies, the story is rather simple and linear, though what makes it stand out is probably the multiple central and side characters.

Antman decided to take the second iteration of the character, Scott Lang - a man recently released from jail for corporate theft. Unable to get a job because of the record and desperate to negotiate visits to his young daughter, he gets drawn into a heist to secure enough money to do so. This causes him to cross paths with Hank Pym, the original Antman, who values Scott's unorthodox resume in his own plans to topple a wayward corporation.

That both Scott and Hank were in this film together was a stroke of genius. Apart from being absolutely unique in the last dozen Marvel films to have two superheroes sharing the same mantle, there is an unforced parallel between Hank and Hope, and Scott and Cassie. Family relationships are a sadly neglected subject in the superhero world. The best of it had been in the Thor movies, which was unfortunately bogged down by all the other terrible stuff that was going on. There were some nice parent-child moments in Guardians, but more about the absence of it. The nice part about Antman was the uneasy relationship between Hank and Hope, which brings out my next point.

Hank is the most grumpy old fart next to Yondu LOL

He actually turned out to be my favourite character. I like how flawed he is, despite being in the mentor role. I like that he's arrogant, obstinate, bad-tempered, unforgiving, hamfisted...he's highly intelligent but you would not necessarily call him wise. I like that he keeps a grudge for decades to the point he'd rather employ a thief than enlist the help of anyone involved with Stark. I like that he's awkward with his daughter, that he wants the best for her but didn't know how to tell her that, that he wants to mend the relationship but just makes things worse each time. I like that he's a proud man who's used to achieving great things but the events in the film forces him, bit by tiny bit, to concede that age is catching up and he's no longer quite the capable man he used to be. I also like how even the climax highlighted how single-minded Hank is - that in a way he would destroy something to protect it. Michael Douglas brings a presence to the movie that Anthony Hopkins did to Thor and Robert de Niro did to Winter Soldier, but he seems to - or perhaps the script allows him to - put more heart into it than the former two.

Scott is a likeable character, though unfortunately debuts after Peter Quill and probably overlaps too much with him. They're both criminals who still have a sense of justice, enacted by two people known more or less for comedy or "boy next door" type roles. The difference though is Scott has more justice than scoundrel compared with Quill, and I don't know if it's intentional, seems a much cooler and reserved sort of guy than a lot of the other superheroes. He's someone who lingers and watches on the side before taking a dive, but he's also someone who dives in with relish and works hard at something when he's accepted the task. He's an engineer sort of guy - not the hot-headed type who tries to wing it by ear, but the type that has the minutiae worked out and has multiple backup plans that he can draw from and improvise with on the spot. That said, I'm not sure he can hold a franchise together, and I feel the movie would not have been quite as good if Hank had not been there.

A lot of people have waxed lyrical about Hope and the step forward for representation of women in superhero movies. I'm not too sure Evangeline Lilly was quite on spot for all of her scenes, but Hope managed to distinguish herself from the Black Widow, despite both being excellent fighters and capable sharp-tongued women. I think, after revisiting Winter Soldier, the difference is that Hope doesn't have Black Widow's past - and so she's less aware of herself (e.g. she would never use her sexuality like Black Widow could as a weapon), less cold-blooded but also less vulnerable.

The three of them are probably far more relatable and "normal" characters than others of their ilk.

The movie's strength was its humour, with excellent timing, especially of juxtapositions, and it was a shame this never came through in the promos. The pacing never made you feel like it dragged, despite its small scale, and it prodded the 4th wall at some good places. The villain was again Marvel's weakness, and to be honest there could have been something better from the Darren Cross's (I don't think I'm spoiling anything - it's revealed pretty quickly that he's the villain) interaction with Hank Pym. The imperfect mentor and the frustrated student trying to prove something to his Master - it had been done reasonably well in Kungfu Panda. There were hints of it, and the two actors certainly tried to make something of it, but there wasn't enough to make you care for Cross, which was a real shame.

In all, a decent standalone movie that introduces you to a surprisingly pleasant group - but I'm not too sure about how they would go about making this a franchise. That said, I'm certainly looking forward to Scott's appearance in Civil War, and I'd love to see cameos from Hank and Hope somewhere down the line too.

Certainly was nice to hear the Winter Soldier jig whirring away in the background during that post-cred scene. Speaking of post-creds, they're probably the two most fulfilling post-creds in a while, and worth staying for.