FantAsia 2003: Resurrection of the Little Match Girl

Well, it's official. Bullet Time has been re-absorbed into the collective unconsciousness of Asian entertainment. Like wire-fu and blood spouting from the necks of decapitated samurai, it's become part of the repertoire, and we will now pause to allow the Wachowskis to shed a wibbly tear of joy.

[pause]

Back to movie review. XD Going by Google, Resurrection of the Little Match Girl cost circa 10 million $US, which makes it a financial whale by S.Korean standards but cheap 'n' cheery set beside comparable Hollywoodian oeuvres, like a Sanrio knock-off in non-approved acid colours. Flopped in its homeland, apparently. Unsurprising: it runs through the paces of summer popcorn flick, but is mainstream-pleasing only in a very scattershot way. The FantAsia audience was all appreciative laughter and applause, though, as well they should have been. Arcade FPS-savvy and looking for a headtrip? Amateur of the post-modern delights of Lain, dot hack and so forth? Movie's for you.

(I intend to dissect these films in reasonable depth. Chances are some of you are going to see them eventually, though, if you haven't already, so spoilers beyond the usual film review synopsis sort of thing will be behind a cut.)

Stage 1 is Asian Indie, with a slant toward Alienated Pop-Cult-Soaked Youth. The main character, Ju, is your archetypal hapless l0ser d0rk, a take-out delivery boy who wants to be a professional gamer like his obnoxious best buddy, and has a real thing for the cute cash register chick at the local arcade. She doesn't give him the time of day. He fantasizes about going postal and machine-gunning down entire offices to the mellifluous strains of the S.E.S. chestnut "Dreams Come True" (kindly uploaded by Ced before I could). And so it goes, until l0serb0i has an inevitable Boogiepop Moment, and spots Sun-Tzu's chaos-system butterfly fluttering past on the night breeze. It's followed by Little Match Girl herself, a shivering waif from whom the bemused Ju buys a plastic lighter - because just as inevitably, she's the spitting image of his mad crush Hee Mi.

(As well she should be, because Little Match Girl is Everyman's Desire: the Rose Bride and more besides. The Cyberpunk Utena subtext of her character arc is by far the most interesting part of the movie.)

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Also according to Google: I note with utter lack of surprise that if you live in Korea, you can download RotLMG as an actual java mobile phone game. Mow down enemy chibis while keeping Match Girl from snorting too much butane! Beats Snake any day of the week! Thus proving once again that only Westerners find living in a puddle of Post-Modernism to be worthy of remark. It's not networked for multi-play, but I figure that's a matter of time.

yo yo rum

Seems that everyone who fancies eating me thinks I'm liquid food, and most often alcoholic. I have no idea what this says about me; that's my story and I'm sticking to it. ...Coconut rum liqueur and starfruit-orange juice make the best tropical half-and-half, by the way. XD I'm actually bothering to stir it up in a shaker, with ice cubes, and it turns out palest gold and mellow like a trail of stardust. Leave it in the icebox long enough and it shows a tendency to turn to slush one can consume with a spoon. *purrs*

There's some sort of weird bodily invocation thing going on here, actually. I went and swam outside for an hour this evening, then came home and drank rum. Now I have a long and detailed story in my head about Elizabeth Swann that I never asked for. I know why she's into pirates. I know why the Gov'nor, in the long run, is not as bothered as he could be that she's into pirates. And so forth. There's sickeningly cute stuff in here somewhere about chibi!Liz and chibi!Will playing hooky in Port Royal and learning how to swim. And with all this I still have to remember not to call her "Keira", because that's the sort of name that sticks to a face.

...Not what I'd have picked to write. But it's original, I suppose.

By the way, would it do anyone a spot of good if I posted scans of the official piano score to that Yo Ho song? Because, um, I have it. The full Disney songbook from Minnie's Yoo-Hoo down to A Whole New World, passing through Supercalifragilistic... and the theme to Duck Tales - Duck Tales! - because we're the sort of family that goes down to Orlando and buys sheet music as souvenir. Dear saints, I used to watch Duck Tales obsessively when I was a kid.