Movie Review: 向左走·向右走 Turn Left, Turn Right

   I was not planning to write another movie review, since my last entry was about the latest film that I have seen. I just felt I need to write a post about this film now, lest I forget about it. I will be busy this coming months, aside from my regular work, I've decided to study Chinese again at Confucius Institute, based inside the campus of Ateneo de Manila University.

   This film was recommended to me by a friend. I wasted no time, and I immediately took the chance to watch this movie. Warning: A bit of spoiler. The scene at the beginning of the movie is a rainy one, and a girl reciting a poem. I'm the type of person who types the characters dialogue if that line is really meaningful. So I searched for the poem and I found out that the title is, "Love at First Sight" written by Wislawa Szymborska. Here is a the first stanza of the poem, 

Both are convinced

that a sudden surge of emotion bound them together.

Beautiful is such a certainty,

but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

   I was hooked immediately for I also like poetry. Ok! I confess, I'm really a mushy, hopeless romantic person. Early this year, I just bought a book of poetry by a famous contemporary writer Lang Leav. 

The movie was based on the story book of Jimmy Liao. The original title was, "A Chance of Sunshine." The movie was a collaboration of Hong-Kong and Singaporean movie makers. It stars, Takeshi Kaneshiro, and Gigi Leung.

    This film will really will get you hooked. They also added 'villainy' characters in the story. Such additions, has made the story even more exciting to watch. There are scenes that really made me cry. I also like the soundtrack of the movie. I also came to know that there's also a tv series, the popular 'Tong Hua' singer, Guang Liang was the one who sang the series' OST. There are also unforgettable quotes from the movie. Here's a translated quote from the movie.

"If two people meet and they both fall in love, that's destiny for sure. If neither loves the other, even if they meet millions of times, it's still not destiny. If one's in love and the other isn't, and the one who's in love grabs on and won't let go while the other just wants to run away, not only is it not destiny... It's pain." - John Liu

    It's obvious that I really like the movie. I also got an idea, to draw the lead characters, and I made it into my social network's cover page. After watching the movie, a question just popped up my head, like what if, 'the one's' just around the corner and you really have no idea. My thinking's somewhat changed now, if we think that each of us has a person that's meant for us, then what about those who are still unattached, those who are still single until now, and those who chose to remain single. I think its unfair to think that way. What I know is certainly, there's a time for everything.

   Below is the OST of the movie, sung by Stephanie Sun. 'Yu Jian' (Encounter).

My Chinese Themed Artworks

   Before, I was just into food polymer clay art, that is molding clay into shapes of miniature food. Lately, I have been doing Chinese themed art, based on films and artworks that I have seen on the net. 

  When I do art, I don't create, and draw everyday. I just make something when I am inspired, or when I feel like making one. Anyway, here are some samples of my artwork. 

Picture on the left. This is the panda keychain that I've made using Sculpey polymer clay. As you can see each of the panda is holding a different item. On the left side, panda is holding bamboo, panda in the middle is holding a heart and the panda on the right side is holding a rose. It signifies, life, love and hope.

 

 The next art you can see is my 'playful panda' art. The lady in the drawing is me. I really like pandas. I find them really cute. For this artwork I used Adobe Photoshop CS6 as suggested. I painted the background yellow because I wanted ito be a 'happy' art. There's also a Chinese character written, in pinyin it reads 'Wo Ai Xiong Mao'. In English it means I love Panda!. Xiong Mao means panda.

 

The next art is sort of a mixture of photo and graphic drawing. The drawing pad and the blue background is real, and of course the pencil. I just did the graphic drawing on the blank pad. The artwork was inspired by 'Litte Dimples' music video, a mandarin song by JJ Lin and Charlene Choi. I added a panda in the drawing. In the music video, it's just a bear.  

    On the right side. This is a 'rush' art of mine. I made this art in connection with the upcoming Chinese New Year. You can see a Chinese girl dressed in Chinese clothes which we call the 'cheongsam'. I also added red envelopes. The colors that I used are significant in Chinese belief. Red and gold is a positive or a good color for them.

    The next art of mine on the left side is quite similar with the style that I did with my 'Little Dimples' drawing. In fact it is one of my favorite art. It's based on the movie 'Turn Left, Turn Right', shared to me by my FilChi friend. The colors of the umbrella are similar with the colors of the umbrella that was used in the movie. I really like the movie. Who knew, that love can be just around the corner.

  The next art that I did is just an 'imitation' art from 'How To Draw Kawaii' characters book by Christopher Hart. It's obvious that I really like pandas, so this is the art that captured my heart!  

The next artwork that I did, was based on the song by Rainie Yang, 'Zhi Xiang Ai Ni', (Just Want to Love You). I saw a similar artwork in 'All About Chinese' webpage. So I made a similar artwork. I wrote on a cardboard and I cut it into circles, pasted it on the drawing pad, and I drew a clothesline and the characters were just hanging on it just like the way we hang clothes to dry.I was the one who wrote the Chinese characters so this artwork took me a while to make, since I'm not really used to writing in Chinese. I made another version of this drawing. For this drawing the woman is of course me. It's sort of an 'emo' drawing.

The last artwork that I will share to you has that nationalistic theme, in memory of my favorite national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal who incidentally has a Chinese lineage. Why I admire him? Because, aside from being a hero, he's got a brilliant mind, a very good writer, a man of Science, a linguist and also an artist. I have seen some of his artworks in Cebu. Jose Rizal's ancestor, Domingo Lam-co hails from Amoy, China. I made this graphic drawing December of last year. In almost all of my artworks I used MS Paint. It's just recent that I learned how to use Adobe Photoshop CS6.

You can check out all of my artworks in my deviantart page. Please do visit. My Deviantart just click on MyDeviantart. Thanks! 謝謝! (xie-xie)