Good intentions

I had meant to sleep early: my eyes are almost hurting because they are so tired and dry. Looking at the time now however — I guess not.

I wanted to mention something about this last year (actually, to be less vague, over a week ago) in my blog, but because blogger.com was down, I put off the update until I forgot all about it. Anyways, just wanted to say that I watched Miyazaki Hayao’s Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi last week in the best cinema in Singapore and totally loved it. I can’t wait for it to be released on DVD. I already have the Mononoke Hime DVD at home, so it’ll be the second Miyazaki film that I’ll purchase.

While we’re on the topic of Miyazaki films, My Neighbour Totoro was showed on TV on New Year’s Day morning. I only managed to catch the last half-an-hour of it. However, the version that was being shown was the Chinese-dubbed version of it, which as usual sounded awful. To make it worse, the broadcasters must have used an old copy of the film or something because the picture quality wasn’t too fantastic. The colours looked murky and the lines of the drawings were blurred.

These TV broadcasters never give anime the proper respect it deserves. Just a while ago, I had been following the Ruroni Kenshin series for a couple of weeks. For some unknown reason, just before one of the climaxes of the series (a couple of episodes after Minister Okubo was assasinated), they took the series off from regular broadcast. It really pissed me off…

Well anyways, on Wednesday, I caught Oshii Mamoru’s (of Ghost in the Shell fame) live action film Avalon. It was filmed entirely in Polish, with Polish actors of course, even though the production crew were mainly Japanese. The story was deliberately slow-paced, and left one with quite a number of questions after the final credits pulled over. Not one easy film to follow, but throughly satisfying nonetheless. Visually, it was an artistic achievement: the first 3/4 of the film reminded me of the FMVs of one of those PSX2 games, only this time, it was enhanced by an enormous video screen projection. Sometimes, I really wonder how the minds of these animators/cinematographers work. How is it that they are able to conceptualise and put-to-screen what they see in their heads? The score of the film by Kawai Kenji is one of the most epic I’ve heard. Dare I say that it’s better than that of the Lord of the Rings? I’m really not sure. I’m just waiting to get my hands on a copy of it before any comparisons can be made. I’ve searched Amazon.com and they don’t have it. The Japanese site does though, but I’m not sure if I can ever filter my way through the Japanese. BTW, I felt a bit of nostalgia when this opera piece in the film came on because it reminded me of the famous Opera scene in Final Fantasy 6. =)

Hmm… Right now it’s pretty damn late. I guess it’s really time for me to log off and sleep. I’m going out shopping tomorrow, or rather, later, so I think it’s better to leave the house energised rather than zombified. gtg zzzzzzzzzzzz~

Subjects: Film, Television & Anime 映像

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: anime, Avalon, DVD, Final Fantasy, Kawai Kenji 川井憲次, Lord of the Rings, Miyazaki Hayao 宮崎駿, music