Wednesday, December 28, 2016

In Tribute to our Princess, our General - Carrie Fisher (1956 - 2016)

In this personal tribute, Red Dot Diva speaks of what Carrie Fisher means to her.

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Carrie Fisher died on my birthday.

From now on, I will always be celebrating my life while remembering hers. Such is the bittersweet cycle of life, and how different lives connect with each other in different ways. Like many in the Star Wars community, I will miss her dearly.

I first saw 19-year-old Carrie Fisher on screen at the old Odeon movie theatre when I was 10 years old. My grandmother, mother and aunty were movie fans, but for them, they relished in the sad weepy Chinese black and whites, where almost every woman character in those 1.5 hours were put through all sorts of tragedies in life. I sat through many of such movies. While my mom or grandma would whip out tissue after tissue to wipe their overflowing tears, I sat there perched in between them feeling utterly bored, and absolutely bewildered on how helpless or hopeless these women characters were.

Why can't they take charge and do something? Does only crying, looking limpid and being tragic help live life in any way? Yes, my head ruled my heart even at that young age. That Chinese notion of "Fate" was also what I often fought against. In some ways, I felt that you could at least attempt to challenge Fate right in her face.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Celebrate The Festive Season with HBO Asia's Original Chinese Martial Arts Anthology!


Here's a way to infuse some Asian-ess in the year-end festive celebrations. You can watch two Chinese martial arts shows while chowing down on some baked ham and roasted turkey, and you can do this wayyyyy before Chinese New Year too! That is because HBO Asia will be screening an original martial arts anthology at 9 PM on 25 December and 26 December respectively! Shiok!!!

Set in China's Qing Dynasty, the two stories “Master of the Drunken Fist: Beggar So” and “Master of the Shadowless Kick: Wong Kei-Ying”, will be sub-titled in English and Mandarin. These HBO movies are a co-production with China Movie Channel (CMC), and will be the first time HBO is airing Mandarin films.