To me, the only difference between these two stories is that I read the book before I see the movie for Angels and Demons, while it was another way around for Da Vinci Code. I know some people are religiously against doing the both. They choose either reading the book or going to see the movie. I am easy, but I think if I ever had the choice, I would rather seeing the movie than reading the book……yes, I like quick fix

However, I can see the point. Books make greater impression on their audiences. Nobody would get the same satisfaction from both the book and the movie. It’s doomed to fail on one thing and most of time it’s the movie who suffers.

Lots of people say Angels and Demons is much better, comparing to its ill-yielded brother Da Vinci Code. It’s at least a decent action thriller, fast pacing and has all the classic elements in one package.

Maybe they are right, but I kind of felt that there is something missing. It doesn’t have the same sort of touch as the book has. The character of that director of the Switzerland Science Base had been totally erased from the movie. Victoria seems to play a very minor and unimportant female role compensating the men’s world but nothing else. Her emotions around her father’s murder, the mixed feelings towards their exploration around anti-matters, her knowledge, wisdom and good eyes for scientific matters and her lovely personalities just doesn’t show in the movie at all.

While our Professor Robbie, like a running chook, heading from one place to another, but doesn’t seem to have the depth of the intelligence that he’s supposed to have. However I admit that he looks much smarter than he did in Da Vinci Code, but apart from his enthusiasm towards getting the access to the Vatican Archives, he wasn’t any brighter than local people in that movie.

Another thing is, we wondered if people who has never read the book would understand any bits of the movie. It’s more like a chasing game made up with different criminal scenes than revealing the real mystery behind an extreme complicated world of history, politics, religions, myths, culture and even geographic elements.

But guess what? I don’t really blame the director. Because I believe that no matter what he does, it just won’t make any difference. Some books are just not suitable to be adapted into movies. I suppose that Angels and Demons (or Da Vinci Code) is one of them.

To be honest, we’ve watched too many Hollywood’s film products. I guess we watch more than 150 new movies every year and most of them are from US. We are getting to a point where we started to lose the interests in knowing American history, a particular person or a certain social class or even fiction scenes. Why do we have to follow America to see what’s happening in their life? Why do we have to chase them around to get entertained or amused?

Anyway, I found some Chinese movies, especially with the good quality ones, really tell you the stories well. I particularly like those happened between 60s-80s. For example, Shanghai Dreams (“Qing Hong” directed by Wang Xiaoshuai) is a good one. Comparing to Peacock, this one has a better touch. I actually like Wang Xiaoshuai’s Beijing Bicycle better, which tells about a story happened in Beijing Hutong and how the people at my age had lived their lives in 90s.

However, I still think Zhang Yimou’s “To Live” is the top one among all these types of Chinese movies, though I like none of the rest of his movies that he directed in the past 20 years. Frankly I can hardly believe that he actually did “To Live”.

You know what? The only problem that I have with good Chinese movies is that I haven’t seen a real happy story yet. Sad story can easily make a deep impression on its audience, but the happy ones? It’s just too hard to get remembered.

Guess what? I didn’t’ get to watch it more than 2 times. No that I lost the interest, it was just those days with old tools to record things, not convenient at all. Nearly 20 years later, I started to fancy to keep a DVD version for this movie, but I just couldn’t find it anywhere, until yesterday I saw it available on one of Internet Online Video websites.

Then I was brave enough to search all the childhood favourites that I can think of, from animation series “Hua Xian Zi” to ” Garrison’s Gorillas” (1967), to “Remington Steele” (where you can see young Pierce Brosnan) to “Ren Zai Bian Yuan” (Hong Kong TV show)……I can find most of them.

The only movie that I couldn’t find (but I have been really wanting to watch it again) is actually a Chinese movie which should be produced by mainland China. It is a story about a group of soldiers with their different specialties on their missions in the China-Vietnam war in 1980s. The movie was so cooooooooool that I couldn’t believe it was a war movie, and directed by Chinese directors.

Unfortunately I didn’t get the name of the movie as I watched on CCTV 6 and started half way. But I reckon it was kind of mid of 1990s production. I can remember people in the movie used a lot of hand gestures to determin the locations for explosions and attack spots, which was so cool that I nearly died.

Does anyone have a hint of what the movie’s name is? And have you ever been like me, looking for some childhood favourite movie or TV show but hasn’t had any success?

It was all worth it going to bed at 2am this morning. I loved the scenes like “counting down seconds with lightening drums”, the idea of “scroll painting”,”thousands people paddling the big boat”, “Big Blue Earth” and the way to light up the Olympic torch…..

This morning’s Sydney Morning Herald says this was the greatest show on the earth. I am probably not comfortable to put it in that way, but it was a show that can make your jaw drop, for more than one time. There is so many messages that had been carried in the show about China. It just makes me so proud of being a Chinese, and for my country.

I think all the performers deserve a good rest, and some rewards. Also I am seriously concerned about their mental health status. After such a long time hard work, with their passion and effort, had been put in preparing for this great moment, I bet lots of them would suffer post-stress syndromes and would feel a bit of emptiness after all of this is over. But, seriously, well done!!! It was truly amazing!

Photo is from http://www.boston.com/.

Due to our home DVD collection actually increasing, it’s been quite a while since the last time we physically went to the cinema to watch anything. However, this time I am not going to wait till a DVD version of this movie is released as we normally do. I think I have to go to see it.

So we went up to Manuka Greater Union tonight for 8:30pm one. It was great to know that the ticket price is so reasonable up there. I was told by my husband long time ago, but I just couldn’t believe it until I found out myself today.

Harrison Ford’s still got it. I just can’t imagine if anyone else can do this equally well as he did. He is almost irreplaceable. Marion, his old lover and the newly explored mother of his son, was not a surprisingly funny character to me. Which woman could get along with Dr. Jones if she wasn’t special enough? Their motorcyclist son, in black leather jacket, was supposed to inherit his Mom & Dad’s madness and apparently, he started to show the sign that he was their boy. Would you hold on a big long snake as in a rope? Now who is madder? Dr. Henry Jones Junior or Junior Junior Jones?

Generally speaking, it is a good movie and very watchable. The pace was great and the twists were enough to entertain the audience. Although there is nothing new about the story, I still like the idea, as it’s actually some sort of topic that would attract my intesrest anyway. I would recomment it.