today Gus & I watched House of Flying Daggers. i can't even begin to explain how much i can't stand sad love stories. the ones with no happy endings. i think i am genetically engineered to be averse to this sort of thing, i honestly cannot watch without feeling like my heart is breaking as well.

*SPOILER*

i'll get to the ending:

NOBODY WINS. not andy lau. not zhang ziyi (she dies). not takeshi kaneshiro.
WHAT A FREAKIN' DEPRESSING SHOW SERIOUSLY. i feel 1) cheated and 2) heartbroken and 3) ashamed of my deficiency in chinese. lesson to be learnt: NEVER TAKE CLB. seriously guys master your chinese, it's important when you watch shows like these because they like to talk about the background of whatever by writing chinese words, right to left. so i was clueless, gus even more clueless :( but anyway, this was a simultaneous love story - one about forbidden love and one about unreciprocated love. both are depressing as fuck so prepare for that

ugh okay this show is a lot different from other wuxia shows in that there is a lot less focus on martial arts and more on the love story. but it's zhang yimou so it's still pretty good... if you're looking for a straight-up martial arts show i guess you should watch something else. if you're looking for a good war movie, also look for something else. red cliff is not bad! hua mulan is not bad but ugh, unnecessarily violent :( i hate super violent movies where ten million people die.

also i am confused. everything about takeshi kaneshiro's face should amount to a really ugly man but he is, for some reason, super hot??? i don't get it.

anyway guys don't be ashamed of your heritage okay. be proud to be asian and don't bow down to american imperialism! you are only reinforcing a vicious cycle of racism. seriously, guys, we shouldn't give a shit what whites think okay? ASIANS!!!!! after all there are so many of us who look the same we can mindfuck them easily. supremacy mindsets cannot exist when nobody bows down to another. we can still be densely connected and operating in harmonious bilateral and international relations without being subordinate to anyone else. that's the way it should be. EVERYBODY EQUAL. MARX IS RIGHT