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It's been awhile since my last entry. I have been distracted by a new hobby.....digging for images posted by bloggers around the world. This hunger for images is totally addictive. I've been spending hours and hours at home just searching for images, after images, after images. Not totally a waste of time really. There are literally millions of images (besides porn) out there on line. Many of them are beautiful, many are thought-provoking. It's a great way to escape.
OK...back to my own personal blog. I have been a huge fan of the Zatoichi movies ever since the 60's. I was too young then to go to the cinemas to see the original Zatoichi movies. They were considered too violent for kids of my age. However, my parents were loyal fans of the movie series also. I always heard their reviews when they came back from the cinemas. In fact the original movies with Shintaro Katsu playing Zatoichi were an immensely popular franchise in the 60s. They were publicized so much it was hard to miss them. So when the original movies became available on VHS in the 80's, I watched almost all of them. Then again on DVD when they came out in the 90's.
There were originally 26 Katsu Zatoichi movies made. Unfortunately only 25 of theme are available on DVD now. Apparently the rights for number 14 of the series "Zatoichi Pilgrimage" was tied up with the Miramax company. It's like the holy grail for Zatoichi collectors. It has never been released in NTSC.
Then in 2003, Takeshi "Beat" Kitano recreated the character in an updated version of "Zatoichi". There are hundreds of reviews out there on line. I personally thought it was a good but not outstanding remake. Nobody can beat the coolness of the one and only Shintaro Katsu. Just like Sean Connery created the screen version of James Bond. Shintaro created the screen version of Zatoichi.
Not too long ago, I found out that there was yet another re-incarnation of the Zatoichi character recently released in the form of a young blind girl. Haven't seen any DVDs of this new movie yet. I can't wait to see it one day. Theoretically the premise works. A young blind girl in the chaotic male dominant Samurai period of Japan. One can easily imagine the dangers that the girl must have to encounter. Anyone who has already seen the movie please feel free to add your review or comment.
Session 3: April 18, 2009 (3 hrs.)
More shading done. Finished the chrysanthemum underneath and the chevron of ripples linking the flower to the front of the upper arm. Shades are very dark because the ink is still new. After the scabbing, colours usually go one shade lighter. Getting more like a Japanese tattoo now. Two more sessions: one to finish the rest of the background (waves, rocks, etc)...then one more session to shade the Koi itself. Hopefully the entire tattoo will be completed and heal in time for summer.
Session 2: March 7, 2009 (3 hrs)
Shading started. Still hurt, but less than outlining two weeks ago. Starting to look more like a tattoo. Ink is still dark. Later colour should settle down one shade. Next sessison, more shading. One month later.... Still can't believe I'm doing it!
Pedro Almodóvar's upcoming movie, starring Penélope Cruz. I'm a huge Almodóvar fan. Can't wait for this new movie to be released in North America on ..... November 6!
This is the synopsis I found on ropesofsilicon.com:
"Broken Embraces is a four-way tale of amour-fou, shot in the style of ’50s American film noir at its most hard-boiled, and will mix references to works like Nicholas Ray’s “In a Lonely Place” and Vincente Minnelli’s “The Bad and the Beautiful,” with signature Almodóvar themes such as Fate, the mystery of creation, guilt, unscrupulous power, the eternal search of fathers for sons, and sons for fathers."
Here is the trailer.
Art by French artist Bruno Richard - A friend introduced to me this artist from Paris. I like his art. They are thought- provoking, frantic and intense....not for the "faint-hearted or minors". Pretty well says it all.
Session 1: Feb. 21, 2009 (2 hrs.)
Outlines done. Took two hours. Yes it hurt, but I think it turned out OK. Can't wait to go back in two weeks to start filling in with shades.
This just arrived in the mail yesterday .... in time for Valentine's Day !
Latest cover of the V Magazine. Any magazine who can bring Grace Jones and Jean-Paul Goude back together for one more feature cover is worth checking out. Miss Grace Jones.....what can I say? Now I believe in the legend of the Phoenix. MISS Grace.....just when I started to give up looking for your news....here you are......BANG! Right between my eyes with this HURRICANE CD. Knocked me right out! William's Blood.... already a classic before it hit the American shore. Did you realize you made us wait one-third of your life before you let us see this happen! You're my Torturer....Rumour said that you recorded 27 new songs?!.....There are only 9 on HURRICANE.....ummmmm......the rest....????? (.....SUFFER! .....drooling...... SUFFER!..... more drooling!!)
The 50s
Any kid who grew up in Hong Kong in the 60s knows who Miss Yu So Chow is. She is the daughter of the Martial Arts teacher of action stars such as Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. She is also the Big Sister of Martial Arts movies in the 50s and 60s, a unique genre of movies initiated from Hong Kong and has subsequently became a world famous symbol of the little island's entertainment industry. When people think about India, they think of Bollywood, when people think about Hong Kong, they think of Martial Arts (or Kung Fu) movies. However, most movie audience around the world had their first experience of Hong Kong Martial Arts movies from the 70s when Bruce Lee entered the scene, not too many realize that the history of Martial Arts movies started two, three decades before Bruce Lee was even born.
I was fortunate enough to grow up in Hong Kong in the early 60s. Like many parts of the world, television was a new medium for us then. For the first time ever, entertainment such as early Martial Arts movies made in the late 50s were brought right into our homes. Kids around my age started to be exposed to a great deal of these early black-and-white action adventures that were combination of Western cinema techniques, Chinese opera choreography, special effects and sometimes even opera singing. These movies became part of the childhood of my generation.
Most of these action movies were primitive in today's standards, but they were full of fantasies and imagination. Heroes go off to icy North Pole in search of certain elusive plants to save his loved ones who are injured by the evil villains, monstrous giant creatures like eagles or cranes that would guard sacred treasures from trespassers, heroes often get thrown and left to die in deep valleys only to be saved by the secluded Martial Arts masters who later pass on the superior Martial Arts techniques to the heroes. And upon their return, the heroes would defeat the villains (hey wasn't that the story line for "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back"?). Basically always about good and evil. However, just telling the stories straight wasn't entertaining enough for the movie audience back then. Some smart Hong Kong movie-makers in the 50s (probably even as early as the 40s) thought of a new way of kicking the story-telling up a notch...they added skillfully choreographed action sequences into the formula. The most logically way of doing that in a relatively safe and economical manner was to incorporate already trained Chinese opera performers into these movies. Unlike Western operas, tradition Chinese operas often tell epic historic stories that involve battles between warlords. Most of the Chinese opera performers, male or female, would have already received their basic action training. It's part of the curriculum. People usually go where there is money to be made. These performers entered the movie industry naturally and became the pioneers of future stuntmen and stunt-women.
Incidentally in Chinese history there are old legends of women fighters who would go to war against invaders in order to protect their country and families, eg. Mulan. With this background in mind, Chinese movie-goers in the 50s and 60s were familiar with women who could fight and protect themselves. When movies told stories of female action heroes, the audience embraced these characters as part of their culture, their history, without any doubt or suspense of disbelief.
Strangely enough sexual discrimination wasn't prevalent in these action movies. Female heroes were just as important to the plots and were adored by the audience just as much as their male counterparts. Usually the male heroes had their certain unique Martial Arts skills, the female heroes would have just a different set of Martial Arts skills. In quite a few of these movies, the male and female heroes need to collaborate in their Martial Arts skills at the end to form the ultimate power to defeat the villain. The man couldn't do without the woman, and vice versa. The philosophy of "Ying" and "Yen" was widely applied and accepted. Compared with the mentality of Western cinemas, Hong Kong Martial Arts movies were way ahead in the concept of political correctness in this regard.
