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What I Learned on YOMYOMF This Week – April 9 – 15, 2011

  • April 16, 2011 12:00 am

What I Learned on YOMYOMF This Week is a capsule of the week’s blogs with sarcastic commentary from Yours Truly (that’s me!).  If you’ve been busy and missed out on a couple of our daily gems, this is a perfect way to catch up.

But seriously – what was more important than reading YOMYOMF?

This best week of the year for reasons I shan’t disclose, YOMYOMF contemplates dating advice from parental units; Nyquil-fueled dreams; and racist cereal.

Sounds delicious!

1,001 REASONS I LOVE MOVIES: (#23) SIDNEY LUMET ON ‘MAKING MOVIES’:

“I really don’t think I can add much about Lumet’s life and career that hasn’t already been said, but in addition to being a filmmaking giant, he also wrote what I consider to be the best book about directing–1995’s Making Movies. If you want to be a filmmaker and can only read one book on the subject, this is it.”

Well, thanks, Phil – as if I wasn’t strapped for cash already, now you’ve sold me on this book!  Damn you for inspiring me to read.

NORTH KOREA’S KIDS GOT TALENT!:

“It is known that children train in extracurricular activities like music and sports for hours on end and for many years in North Korea. It is not to say these particular kids don’t enjoy what they do, but it is definitely a lot of grueling work.”

Yeah, but it’s not like childhood’s something you’re supposed to enjoy.

Can You Name 10 Central Asians*?

  • August 2, 2010 12:08 am

ZOHRA

Zohra Saed aka Professora Talibonita is currently living in ABD-istan, a small island off the coast of PhD-land, the realm of steady salary and glamorous curriculum meetings. She is Afghan by birth, Brooklyn through sheer hard labor. She maintains her own Central Asia blog. She is the co-editor of the upcoming One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature (University of Arkansas Press, Fall 2010).

A flash of amber skin, a few strings played in a soundtrack, the symbol of the wolf, a familiar name and suddenly, I’m verified/validated/authenticated/truncated/and blissfully accepted into the folds of dominant society… here is my top ten list of fun Central Asian Stuff (for lack of a better term) from 2000-2010 (because it takes a decade of mainstream cultural digestion in order to get this large of a list).

Do you remember Zhang Ziyi being serenaded in Uyghur in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)? I couldn’t stop yapping about that short little sliver of Turkic glow in a film filled with luxurious special effects and orientalist wow-things (scimitars, bamboo flying fighters, silky blouses with secret loves… etc etc). The accent almost stuffed up all the Turkic sounds in Lo’s nose but whatever, “Gozal Qiz” (beautiful girl) survived his accent and that, accentuated with his scimitar and his natty hair most certainly validated by 1/4 drop of Uyghur blood.

Top Ten Central Asians (2000-2010)

10) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Lo and Jen by the Yurt – in the background

Before Ang Lee broke any mountain — he dared to have an Uyghur, Alim Jan, perform traditional Uyghur instrumental for the soundtrack of this film. You can hear it in this scene.

Music by Alim Jan (Soundtrack 8 )

assassins of lust – women as ninja

  • March 3, 2010 3:06 pm

A woman is like a ninja.  Her body the perfect weapon, able to effortlessly dispatch even the hardest of men with casual simplicity.  She is born with a natural arsenal in which to choose and depending upon her intent, can flirt, seduce, liquify, or terminate her opposites at will.  Instead of tonfas, swords, throwing stars, and bamboo darts dipped in blowfish toxin, the modern, woman ninja possesses weaponry of mind, breast, shoulder, tummy, persona, tongue, etc.  21st century steel is no match when compared to the flesh of a woman ninja.  Not even close.

i will seduce you with my mind and hypnotize you with my bodice...

As much as I fear the woman ninja, I simultaneously desire her.  It’s like superman wanting to make love to Lois Lane after she secretly smoothed on Kryptonite body lotion.  The allure is beyond temptation but indulging in it will instantly vaporize any man’s nut sack and mojo.  A frank with no beans is a useless stalk, so they say.  But as my wise, one-eyed grandfather of the Shaolin once told me before my departure into the modern world, “Grandson, it is your destiny to make love to the woman ninja no matter how painful.  It is through this great pain that you will find your truest self.  Just make sure to practice safe sex and say thank you.”  My one-eyed grandfather was a wise man indeed…