Last night I watched another movie that I bought in Korea. This time I picked White - The Melody of the Curse (화이트 - 저주의 멜로디), starring Ham Eun-jung from T-ara. It’s a horror movie. Not what I usually go for, but I got it because of Eun-jung.

Eun-jung plays the role of Eun-ju. She used to be a backup dancer, but is now the leader of a rookie K-Pop girl group that’s not doing very well. One day their management company relocate them to a new studio building (where a lot of people had died in a fire some years ago). While cleaning the dance studio, Eun-ju finds an old VHS tape titled “White”. The tape contains a blurry music video recording of a pop song. The song sounds like it would be a hit, but no one has heard it before, so they decide to use it as their own. Horror ensues.

The movie wasn’t overly scary. However, I did employ some “selective viewing” at the end .

I did find the story a bit unrealistic, though. In real life, I think this is how it would’ve happened: “I found an old VHS tape. Does anyone have a VCR?” “No.” The end. Also, haven’t these girls watched The Ring? When has playing an old video tape ever led to anything good?

I watch movies way too seldom nowadays. I have a huge “to watch” pile. However, yesterday I watched Studio Ghibli’s latest film The Borrower Arrietty (Karigurashi no Arrietty, aka The Secret World of Arrietty). It’s based on the novel The Borrowers by Mary Norton.

The story takes place in a Japan, where a sickly boy, Sho, goes to live in his mother’s childhood house to rest before his heart surgery. Under the floors of the house lives a family of “borrowers”. They are tiny (10 cm tall) persons, who borrow small things they need from the house from time to time. The borrowers must remain hidden from the humans, but the young Arrietty is spotted by Sho.

This film is less otherworldly than other Ghibli works. It’s pretty quiet and simple. It was relaxing to watch. The imagery is very colourful and pretty. I like how things are made to look huge, that would be huge to someone the size of a borrower. I liked the movie, although it’s pretty open-ended.

The soundtrack is also different from other Ghibli movies. Usually it’s Joe Hisaishi who composes the music. When the music started, I thought “is this Michelle Branch?”, but it turns out that it’s a French singer named Cécile Corbel.

I bought the DVD in Korea, but I watched it with the original Japanese audio and English subtitles. The subtitles were good except for the erroneous, but consistent, use of “human beans” instead of “human beings” .

I got my copy of the extended version of Sucker Punch today. I ordered it from the UK.

Here’s what I don’t understand: I get a set of two blu-ray discs (one with the extended verions and one with the theatrical version) plus one DVD including digital copy, all with Swedish subtitles(!), and it costs less than getting the Swedish release, which (as far as I can tell) only consists of the theatrical version. And the Swedish version hasn’t even been released yet.

What is the Swedish distributor thinking?

YUI was chosen to compose the opening and ending song for the upcoming Japanese movie Paradise Kiss, starring Keiko Kitagawa and Osamu Mukai. The movie is an adaptation of a manga by Ai Yazawa (the creator of NANA).

YUI ~ HELLO ~Paradise Kiss~

23MB 3:38 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

(download | thm | preview)

Credit: source vid. steely@jpopsuki

HELLO ~Paradise Kiss~ is the opening song. YUI has really changed up her style with her in her last couple of music videos. I think back to To Mother, when it was a minor sensation that YUI was wearing a dress. In this video all the different outfits kind of make sense considering what the movie is about. I like the head band look (the one in the screenshot). But YUI with straight bangs (with the pony tail, where she’s wearing black) looks so weird to me .

You can hear a snippet of the ending song YOU in this trailer for the movie:

Just read that Ai Otsuka has given birth to a daughter! The father is Su of RIP SLYME, her husband since June of last year (whom she collaborated with in aisu x time).

I had totally missed that she was pregnant, and wasn’t even aware that she’d gotten married .

Source: Tokyo Hive

I watched the Japanese blu-ray version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind last night. For the Blu-ray version the movie has been restored and the picture quality is great. They haven’t retouched things like the film grain and the occasional crooked animation cell, but left it as it was in the original film, which keeps an “authentic” feel.

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I’ve finally started chewing away at the pile of Asian movies that I have, so I thought I’d post some short thoughts about some of the movies that I’ve watched.

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I just placed a mega order (well, several medium size orders actually) at YesAsia. It’s been a good while since I ordered any J-Pop and K-Pop CDs and DVDs, so the must-haves have piled up.

This is what I got: […] there’s more! »

I finally watched Dear Friends (starring Keiko Kitagawa) the other night. I’ve been meaning to watch it for years (still not out on DVD with English subs). I liked it for the most part, although it was a bit awkward at times. Very emotional.

After watching it I browsed around YesAsia a bit and saw an in-store banner about some pre-order discount and thought “Hey, isn’t that Keiko?”. Turns out that she’s starring in a new movie called Hana no Ato, where she plays the daughter of a clan official who develops a relationship with a low-ranking samurai […] there’s more! »

I just came back from the cinema after watching The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. I didn’t watch it on the premiere (yesterday) because I couldn’t get a good seat (I got the best seat today). I didn’t get the notification that the tickets were going to be released until the day after I had already purchased my ticket (great service ).

This was the first of the movies where I had actually read the book before watching the movie. I actually found it a bit distracting at first. I was comparing what was going on on the screen with my recent memory of the book too much. There were plenty of scenes that weren’t in the book. I liked Eclipse — I was smiling when I left the cinema, so it can’t have been too bad.

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