Just Well Robbed

Today I read Just Well Loved by Rebecca Brae.

(Link)

I just want to point out that all of her book covers look exactly like that. YOU might think it's boring, but I think that her appreciation for pastel nature scenes and Victorian narration styles are really9238fu   

Sorry I passed out on my keyboard.

Here's a description:
"A chance meeting brings new hope to a beloved character trapped in a literary classic."

Fair enough. I am a fan of the short and sweet description. I mean, it's a short story, just freaking buy it and you'll find out what it's about! But that doesn't give me much to make fun of.

I was trying to figure out what the literary classic was, until I realized her description is backwards. Way to go, you had ONE sentence and you messed it up! Actually if you take this description literally it should mean like a beloved character, let's take Homer Simpson for our example, is trapped in a literary classic, like say Jane Eyre.

But what it really means is one of those short stories where a literary character is put in. Except, instead of putting Spock in the present day or something, this story is just in the same setting as the character was in before with the same plot as before and it's not stealing because...

It took me a couple of seconds to guess it was Quasimodo, and the annoyingly formal main character and her daughter see past his ugliness to the kindhearted and intelligent man inside and befriend him. Which is different from the theme of the original Hunchback because...

The story really points out that most people are shallow and, uh, I'm having trouble putting this into words because it's such a rare theme. If only there was a common saying or comparison I could apply in this situation, but I'll just have to settle for making my own, so here goes: It's like, you can't decide whether a movie is good or not just from its poster, you know?

Anyway, Quasimodo makes friends with these people and they make a picnic date for the next day and we all learn a lesson about acceptance of other races and his whole life is solved (except he's still horribly deformed), the end. 





Seriously I got nothing else to say because this story is as utterly unsurprising and bland as tofu that has been boiled for far too long by a British chef who was blinded in a terrible accident involving a spice-throwing ninja in a salt mine. Oh yes, I will torture the hell out of that simile and force it to happen sooner or later and you will take it!


Ratings:

Annoyingly Good Grammar: 5 out of 5. The whole experience was horrible because I felt like I was reading something from the early 1900s but with far more stick-up-the-assery, like if H.P. Lovecraft was forced to edit out all the jokes in The Importance of Being Ernest while Nobokov whipped him every time he used a word that sounded too relaxed, like "amidst."

Lessons Learned: 0 out of 5. There was literally no conflict in this story. Both the lady and her daughter were immediately like, "We accept you for who you are," and were not at all scared by the hunchback's ugliness. Not only that, but he also wasn't described at all and it was impossible for the reader to be startled by him because it is taken for granted that we'll be like, "Oh yeah, Quasimodo. I saw that Disney movie." The themes and metaphors that could be drawn out of his ugly ass are all ignored too. The Goonies did a far better job with the befriending a freak thing. There was also no internal conflict in any of the three characters, despite the author setting up the mother as the clear narrator, then skipping to the little girl for a second before ending with Quasimodo randomly thinking, "F-friends?" Yeah, way to make him smarter than he looks, better leave that to your summarize-someone-else's-story style descriptions next time.

Stealing Someone's Story: 1 out of 5. I would give it more, but the key here is she didn't successfully steal someone's story, I was onto that shit like immediately. She could have changed his name and gotten more points here, but she took some creative writing class where the teacher was like, "Take a favorite fictional character and juxtapose them into your story, and let's try to stay away from, uh, weird narrative styles from the turn of last century *cough*Rebecca*cough*," and she completely missed the point. What she heard was, "You can just steal other peoples' shit, plot, characters, and all and if you put your name on it, it counts as a different story." Even fan-fiction is a step above this because the characters are put into different situations, dumbass!

Overall: 2 out of 5. The writing was very coherent and it had a sensible, chronological progression. The only things this story lacks are plot, voice, logical narration, original characters, original themes, conflict, character arcs, and any entertainment value whatsoever. Small fixes, really.



If you want to read something with characters that aren't necessarily original, but are at least have names that are changed to things like Parry Hotter, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

Wolverine...is the intellectual property of Marvel

This week I read Wolverine by Ulf Wolf. Hahahahaha. Really? Your pen name is themed like the things you write? That's like a guy choosing the name Blackthorn to write fantasy. Actually this guy is Swedish so, it's possible that his name is really Ulf Wolf, but I still have my doubts about a rhyming, themed name.

(Link)

Wolfstuff: Where wolf-like animal stories come from. Here's a description:

"The wolverine has not eaten for days. He has her scent. The deer is tired and bleeding, though still running. He can keep this pace up for days, she cannot. He knows that he will eat tonight. He will kill her well before dawn.

::
The warming March sun had shone all day. Although the air remained frigid in the many shadows, out in the open the surface snow was melting in its glare. Then, as commonly happens in early spring this far north, when the sun began setting and the shadows grew longer across the snowy field, the melted snow surface froze and soon the entire meadow was covered by a crust of icy snow thick enough in places to support a walking man, thick enough everywhere to support almost any child, and plenty strong enough throughout to support the wolverine..."

Et-cetera. I'm not going to post the full description because it goes on another ten paragraphs. Dude, it's a DESCRIPTION, you don't post the full short story there!

Anyway, this is a story about a minority serial rapist that chases a woman through her hometown. He can't wait to get his hands on her and it's only a matter of time. HOWEVER, in a sudden turn of events she stumbles upon some policemen, but she is hesitant to show herself because she is also a minority.

At least, that's my reading. Literally what happens is a really boring and excessively long account of a sex-hungry--I mean, bloodthirsty wolverine trying to satiate his murder rage on a hungry doe. She is about to give up when she finds some humans, and they of course save the day with guns. It really reads like it should be a metaphor though because it would be completely pointless to write a stupid story about animals, right? Right?

Since the guy is Swedish and presumably raised by wolves, I will skip the usual grammar gripe and get on to the more interesting gripes.

I had trouble connecting to these characters because they were freaking animals I don't care about. We did get to see some of the humans' points-of-view, but they were as exciting as a man that pretends he's a wolf all day and then writes a creepily detailed journal about it. Actually, I would read that.

It's pretty obvious that the doe will survive because the wolverine is sort of made out to be a crazy mass-murderer type and-- Seriously, how can you write about animals like they are people? I feel weird just summarizing this plot. But anyway, I did actually find myself rooting for both of them and sitting not quite all the way to the back of my seat, but on the other hand this effect quickly faded when I excitedly thought, "The End," and there was still another freaking quarter of this novella to keep reading. And it figures the super female defenseless deer is rescued by burly lumberjack men with guns. 

Because women can't do anything by themselves. HA! Stupid women.

Ratings:

Inconsistent Animal Sophistication Level: 5 out of 5. One minute these animals were using words like "obstreperous" (throwback!) in their internal monologues and the next they were talking about the strange men with their "fire sticks" and their "machine things" that "move" people. Seriously why would an animal not know the word for "gun" or "axe" but the word "boot" is totally commonplace to them? It just made feel like I was reading a description from the point of view of some savage that didn't understand what the big shiny bird that rode in the sky was (see my reading).

Tenses: 2 out of 5. After the first section of this, I had to go back and check because it felt like I had been suddenly hurled into present tense. And indeed, the first part is past tense. "Fine," I thought, "he's just experimenting with this to set the pace." And that excuse worked until he started messing it up. Some things would be twisted into strange sentences referring to the past in present tense, then there would be a past tense sentence just stuck in there, because if you can't figure out how to express it, then fuck it! (Writer's motto.)

Sounding Stilted Due to Trying to Set the Mood: 5 out of 5. This guy was writing part like he had just watched Planet Earth (highly likely) and part like he was trying to add suspense--which he was. The result was that every contraction and simple sentence was ripped out of the story entirely. I can't imagine talking to this guy. "Kids, amirite?" "They are a group of individuals which can not and will not be deterred from their insatiable curiosity, especially-" "Shut UP!"

Overall: 2.5 out of 5. It was mostly written well and stuff, but it was just boring as hell.

If you want to read something else that is boring as hell, visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall 

The Shit

Today I read The Pitch by Adriaan Brae. You got too many vowels in your name, bro.

(Link)

Description:

"A light-hearted, satirical, look at the troubles faced by con artists in a more enlightened age."

The story is almost as short as the description, but a much larger waste of time. Also, I have no idea why there is a broken light bulb for the cover. Maybe it was a bad idea to write this story? HAH, take THAT guy who will never see this and doesn't have a chance to defend himself!

I think there were actually more grammar mistakes than words in this story. It's super easy to fix in three simple steps:

1) Read your story after you write it

2) Is there a space after every fucking opening quote mark, like this?---> "   Bob shit his pants--hard." If so, take out the fucking space.

3) If your sentence somehow manages to have any fucking punctuation at all, is it hanging outside the quote marks, like this?---> Craig sniffed. "   Did you just shit your pants"? If so, tuck that little bastard back where it goes; it's obscene to just have it hanging out there, flapping in the wind.

Anyway, in this story, the super forgettable main character with the personality of a white cardboard cutout gets a strange call on his skull implant. It's in the future, and the author really wants us to know how many cool things he thought of, like ads in your skull and--whatever, who cares?

The man on the other line offers him everlasting life for ten percent of his income until he dies. If you guessed religion, you win! It goes on like this with the caller trying to sell religion and the guy making "funny" remarks. For instance:

"   What do you mean I need to follow certain rules" ?

"    Like you can't sleep with men.".

" What ab5out hermaphrodites"   ? &

Wakka wakka?

It turns out the guy doesn't accept and it is revealed that the caller is a struggling con-artist trying to run a scam he got from the ancient con-artists. RELIGION SLAM!

Ratings:

Clever: 1 out of 5. First, all credibility is ruined by the horrible typos. I can't harp on that enough. There's also the fact that this story is like five words long, which is a good indicator that this Adriaaanie guy couldn't think of anything else. The jokes were also almost as bad as the 90's classic "Laughing out Loud"

Buy it used on Amazon for $0.01 (seriously)! Yes, that's Kelsey Grammar.

Back on track. The premise of this story is also not very clever. It's the old and tired "Let's deconstruct religion into what it literally is for some larfs," gimmick. But at that it's not worth the thirty seconds I spent reading it, especially because it assumes we'll all just abandon religion once we have computers in our brains.

Setting: 0 out of 5. I got to say I have a problem with just listing shit until the reader is bullied into realizing it's the fucking future (both in the sense that I do it too much and in the sense that I hate when other people do it). If it reads like: "Joe Spaceliver put on his nanosocks and strapped his plasmadildo to his cryobelt and stepped across the platform to the bulkhead of his spacepartment, then palmed the fazelock to his antigravmagnetodoor which whooshed up to futurereveal the spacecitytropolisplanetscape-" I GET it already, we're in the FUTURE fuck.

Subtlety: 0 out of 5. The guy might as well have called up and said, "Hey, do you want to join my thinly-veiled satire for religion?" and the story could have ended there. For it to be funny or neat or whatever the hell this was going for, I have to make it more than two paragraphs before I'm like, "Oh, he's making fun of religion. God, what time is it? Don't I have better shit to do?"

Overall: 2 out of 5. I don't even know why that many points. Maybe because he was polite enough to stop after a short time. I would say because it's at least legible, but it almost isn't. Points for trying to be clever, I guess.

If you want to read something that is obviously trying to be clever, visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Movie Action

I know I said I wouldn't do another movie this week, but I saw so many good movies that I just had to share. I settled on Machi Action by director Jeff Chang.

This movie is about the actor that plays Spacehero Fly (Bolin Chen) and his best friend Monster (Qiu Yan Xiang). For a while their Power Rangers style TV show is a hit, but after ten years their ratings are terrible. The CEO of their network steps down and hands over the company to his daughter (Guo Xue Fu). She decides to call in a Japanese expert to revamp the show, leaving Fly and Monster replaced by the new, hip "Face" (Owodog).

This movie is pretty fucking brilliant if a little disjointed in places. There is a villain (some guy who was forced to play the bad guy when he was a kid and just got the shit beat out of him by the other children wearing Fly masks) but he only shows up like three times. When he does show up, it's usually entertaining because he does stuff like robbing kindergartens on tuition days while the kids are stoked that the villains from their favorite show are playing with them. Another time highlights how much this movie satirizes Taiwan--they rob an English cram school during a performance. Funny because he asks the teacher how much for an English lesson and she says 25,000 dollars, so he says, "Fuck you," and a little boy repeats, "Fuck you." It's supposed to be funny because he's giving a free English lesson, but really it's just hilarious to watch little kids swear. Small "heh" moments like these accumulate through the whole film, but aaanyways, now, proportionally, this post has more of the villain than the actual movie. Let's get back on track.

This movie has so many great things about it: Funny cameos, references, and completely random shit (like an Orgazmo poster in the background--awesome). They got the Power Rangers parody down pretty damn well. They even have the spandex-clad foot soldiers that sit around in their own group and don't really talk but make sounds exactly like the putties from Power Rangers. You know, this sound:

Damn those girls are hot. And as a kid I never really appreciated the writing. An environmental message AND multiple puns for taking out the trash? Brilliant. Oh yeah the Machi Action--so anyway for random shit it struck me as hilarious when the Japanese guy came in and asked who the hell these guys were and they just made their putty noises and one lifted up his arm and for some reason they pixelized his arm pit hair. Haha what the fuck?

Face is also a brilliant rival for Fly because where fly was the old-school, clean-cut hero with a mullet, Face is the new, hip, effeminate, eyeliner-wearing, singing and dancing Asian superstar type. And his name is Face. After Fly's last episode where he is brought to his knees by a spray of toxic lotion by Monster and then dissolves into space protein (I can't make this shit up), Fly and Monster try to make ends meet by doing the home shopping network selling Tiger Penis (another awesome Taiwanese reference). Meanwhile, Face is boosting the image of the new Spacehero by doing music videos. I can't say enough about how perfect this character is, but if I keep going we get into the realm of shit which is shit that you have no idea about.

Alright, but my favorite part BY FAR was when Fly went around trying to get acting gigs and failing because his acting style consists of only ultra-dramatic movements. At one point he shows his previous commercial work from an ancient VHS, and they are mildly funny with his superhero movements and mullet, but I cracked up for like five minutes straight when he did a parody of my favorite Taiwanese commercial in history. Get ready, because I found that shit on the Youtubes:

Other than the funny parts, this movie actually has a really serious message to it, which is nice. It turns out Fly and his little brother worshiped the Spacehero that came before, and his little brother wasted away and died while Fly was promising to be a hero for him. It's also revealed that the CEO of the network has kept the show on the air for so long because he believes that some shows are important because of their message, no matter the ratings. I have mixed feelings about how they handled all this, but it left me with a generally warm feeling, so why not.

Ratings:

Best Scooter Scene Ever (Of Which Taiwanese Movies Have a Hell of a Lot): 5 out of 5. So Fly is told he is the worst actor ever by a porn director and his love interest rides back with him to comfort him. From the back of his scooter she starts to sing the Spacehero Fly theme song and he breaks down into the most hilarious crying face ever and joins in. Both touching, a huge reference, and fucking funny as hell (Yes I used "both" for three things. You got a better word!?).

Sound Effects Ruining Things: 3 out of 5. Not everything in the movie was funny, and what may have been funny originally was often ruined by sound effects. I don't know why Taiwanese TV and sometimes movies feel the need to add like "Boioioioing!" randomly while I'm watching shit. Yeah, Indian movies do it too, now that I think of it. Like the porn director with his hand stuffed casually down his pants is mildly funny until there is a big uncorking sound effect while he pulls it out to shake hands.

Wandering Storyline: 3.5 out of 5. I enjoyed most of the things that were jammed into this movie, but it was pretty lengthy and I felt like I had come out of a blackout sometimes when I was suddenly like, "Who the fuck is this actress? Oh yeah, he's in love with the makeup artist from half an hour ago."

Overall: Also 3.5 out of 5. Nah...4. 4 out of 5, because I just remembered it was pretty funny when he did his home shopping network pitches and then commanded, "CALL!" while wearing a Power Rangers suit.

READ! amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

Au Gratin Taipei

I just watched Au Revoir Taipei by director Arvin Chen.

So I was like, "This kinda seems like Superbad, but toned down for Taiwanese audiences." I mean, look at Jack Yao here:

Now look at Michael Cera:

I mean, I guess his jacket IS zipped up, and a different color. And that subway is much less crowded than the one in Au Revoir Taipei. But it just seems sort of similar, I mean, who is this Arvin Chen gu-HEY! The director isn't even Taiwanese!

Anyway, this is the same sort of misunderstanding-with-the-police-and-criminals-causes-a-night-time-adventure-through-the-city film that Cera is always in. If he could speak Chinese, I bet he would have been in it. It does a pretty good job with the characters, though, defying most of the Taiwanese stereotypes all the other movies have (because the writer is fucking American, probably). The wannabe gangster is effeminate and in touch with his emotions, giving his kidnapee advice on love. Susie (Amber Kuo), the love interest, defies her little girl looks to lead Jack Yao chasing after gunmen and running from the cops. Kai (Jack Yao) doesn't ever grow the balls to stand up for Susie (except once, but he hits like a sissy and gets punched to he ground immediately). And the dumb convenience store worker/friend is- no wait, that's pretty accurate--but he gets a pep-talk from like everyone to go for it with the girl he works with and he doesn't, which is refreshingly real.

The cop character is pretty good too, I mean, check out his CHIPs hair and leather jacket!

Plus a dumb chubby sidekick? Nice. The cop also gets left by his girlfriend and you think it's going to be another Hong Kong formulaic thing where he's either too badass for his woman or gets her back (actually let's face it, YOU don't think that because YOU don't watch a bunch of Chinese movies for no reason) but he ends up being so inept at his job that he loses Kai when he spots his ex and ends up in a hilarious shoving match with her date.

Oh yeah, I never said what the plot is. Uh so Kai's girlfriend goes to France and he spends all his time in a book store teaching himself French where Susie works and tells him he can't just sit there and read shit for free. His girlfriend leaves him and he makes a deal with a gangster he knows for a ticket to France to win her back. Hijinx ensue. Yeah, it's a date movie, take your girlfriend. Or rent Superbad.

Ratings:

Cool-Looking Shit: 5 out of 5. The cinematography is pretty good. And check out these gangsters:

Sappy Love Shit: 3 out of 5. Again, love story. But the cop and the convenience store worker don't get their girls. Also, the ending is pretty good, considering you know there's going to be love involved. Basically, though, there is enough mildly funny/interesting shit happening for it to not be hijacked by the love thing.

Me Posting Funny Shit: 0 out of 5. What happened here? Alright, I promise I'll find a terrible fanfiction or something to review next time.

Overall: 4 out of 5. Yeah, not bad. Superbad was better. Have I mentioned that you should see Superbad? God I love Michael Cera.

If you want to read some erotica with Michael Cera in it, visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

A Horrible Movie

This week I watched A Beautiful Life (no, the Chinese one) by director Andrew Lau. This is the guy that did cinematography for City on Fire? What HAPPENED?

Basically a cop (you just can't write a movie that's NOT about cops, can you, Hong Kong?) named Fang Zhengdong (played by Ye Liu) runs into a drunk, Li Peiru (infamous porn star Shu Qi returns to the screen for another shitty role) who attaches herself to him until he is brow-beaten into liking her. Legend Anthony Wong is also in this movie, randomly becoming blind like halfway through with no explanation, but it doesn't make anything better.

I have been talking a lot lately about how Taiwanese and Chinese movies seem to fulfill certain gender roles, and one ideal of manhood is the caring, artistic guy who has a good job and saves the girl gone astray. This movie absolutely shattered my expectations with how EXACTLY FUCKING RIGHT I WAS. Shu Qi basically spends all her time annoying the fuck out of this poor guy who is just trying to prove his sensitivity by taking care of his slightly ret- I mean... really unique brother while all his cop friends bother him about not being married. About the time I was saying dryly to the screen, "This is the part where he saves her from being a worthless alcoholic by using love," the words actually poured out of every actors' mouth, in a row. "My grandma says I can save people." "You have to save me." And Anthony Wong's unbelievable line which he actually said with his mouth, "You always said you could save people, well here's a damsel in distress." Back the fuck off, movie, I get it!

But before he saves her, there is some other random crap thrown in to lengthen the movie to the Chinese standard of for fucking ever. Fang's demonstrate-how-great-a-guy-I-am slightly ret- err... retrospectively not that stupid brother falls in love with a mute girl and her mother lets her marry him despite his ret- uh, retelling of stories not being so good. Awww are you crying yet? Are the ratings going up? Shu Qi is crying for sure, which kicks off the longest drunk girl crying scene in a movie or even in real life, ever. There's probably a youtube video for this *clickety clack* yep.

So after some more drinking (I finish off a whole fifth of Johnnie Walker when I get home from work too, what?) They finally get together--but oh nooooo he has a brain condition. He had been dropping and forgetting shit up until now and finally he sees the doctor about it. Bad news.

I didn't really see what happened for a while because I swear to you I laughed out loud for like a minute and a half when he asked, "What does this mean?" and the doctor said, "You could be fine. Or...you could forget everything."

Yep. Well he does start to forget shit and she waits for him one day like a loyal saved little girl while he rides the bus around and suddenly is like, "FUCK that was my stop--HOURS AGO." He runs to her and apologizes because she has been waiting out in the cold but then...but THEN she says, "Don't worry, you gave me an angel. You gave me a little hand warmer...
...
...
...
...
You're going to be a father!" The end.












Wait, what? How much more time? MORE THAN HALF A FUCKING HOUR TO THIS MOVIE!?

Ratings:

Pointlessly Dragging On: 5 out of 5. This movie had all the symptoms of a writer that had absolutely no clue how to end it. Finally he chases a robber, getting flashbacks of that time he was a cop that led to him getting amnesia, and when he looks around the guy nails him with a brick. No, he's not dead, and you have to wait like ten more minutes for the absolutely expected "That hit to the head cured his amnesia!" thing. But he just sort of wakes up and the movie is over. Fuck that, I want the super predictable explanation at this point, because otherwise I waited though all that for NOTHING!

Anthony Wong Saving It: 0 out of 5. To put this into perspective, I like to see him as the Morgan Freeman of Asian cinema. But it didn't happen. He said some sage stuff or whatever but mostly sat there looking like, "What the hell is happening to my career?" For shame.

Catering to Gender Stereotypes: 5 out of 5. I just want to see a movie where Shu Qi doesn't play the immoral, sex-crazed lady that has to be saved by the good guy. But then again, single women are whooores, amirite?

Overall: 2 out of 5. Still better than most the shit I read. OH YEAH and the whole time I was like, "This Fang guy really reminds me of someone. What movie has he been in?" Turns out he's the Asian version of Ted from HIMYM. Bonus pointsss!


If you want to read about the Asian version of YOU visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

(His brother is retarded)

Movie Night: I'm not crying, YOU'RE crying!

I had to write an analysis of a movie anyway and I thought, "Hey, why not be lazy and kill two birds with one stone?" and the movie turned out to be ABOUT birds. Fate. It's called Stilt (horrible translation) by director Yin-chuan Tsai.

I have to apologize in advance if this post isn't very funny. I picked out a movie with a couple on the front hoping it would be a horrible love story and I could point and laugh, but if there's anything I've noticed about Taiwanese movies that look like they will be an amateur mangling of love, it's that they always seem to be the opposite.

Is it a love story? No, not in the sense you're thinking. It is about love and sexuality, but again, not in the way you're thinking you fucking facebook relationship status-looking high school girl! (My largest group of readers by far). This movie attacks what it is to be a man in Taiwan, and what it is to be a woman in Taiwan without the plot really being about either of those things.

The main character (never caught his name, I'm terrible at Chinese names, but he's played by Sheng-hao Wen so we'll call him Wen) and his brother Xiong represent two ideal tropes of manhood in Taiwan that fall short. Wen is the sensitive artist type with a wife and he provides for his family but he is shown to be impotent when it comes to actually caring for them or conceiving a child with his wife. The dots are fully (and skillfully) connected when he goes to the sperm bank and fails to produce more than a few drops, apologizing to the nurse when he hands it over. She clinically replies, "That will do" (fucking brilliant). His job is bird watching and that metaphor turns out to be clever in several ways because he cares more about the fucking birds and their families in order to avoid his own inability to have a child. He only confronts it when his bird family epic fails at not killing their chicks with a dash of "nature will figure itself out" commentary.

Xiong is the rough Taiwanese guy that doesn't use Mandarin and lives with his mother to support her while drinking and smoking and generally being manly. He drinks too much though because it turns out their dad died of liver disease and he has handled it by giving it to himself as well. He is impotent because he is too uneducated and can't manage to make money for his family. Wen pays for his doctor bills, his mother, and even his marriage to a Vietnamese girl. His wife also represents his impotency because as hopeless as her chances of success are, she becomes their source of income through busing tables.

Their mother is the complaining Taiwanese mother trope that highlights all of their inadequacies. She points out in one dinner conversation that Wen doesn't give a shit about them, his wife can't bear a child, Xiong can't make any money, and his own wife is worthless because she can't even speak Chinese. BOOM. She does it more subtly of course, but she highlights the struggle of the two types of Taiwanese women: The wife that can't have a child (because of infertility or work) and the wife that is a mail order bride.

The Vietnamese wife is a great character too because she doesn't even have any dialogue (portraying the submissive but utterly useless other than to look at import wife [the mother also rails about her not being able to cook because they didn't have electricity in her village]) until she reads aloud the letter from her unresolved ex-lover in Vietnam after half the movie.

I won't spoil it but lets just say shit hits the fan. I was a little scared because Asian drama tends to be over the top. "Your wife has cancer. And your daughter got hit by a car. But she's alive. But she's a paraplegic. And the bus was full of AIDS. And the AIDS vaporized into the air and your father breathed it in while he was trying to rescue her." OR it tends to end too perfectly "But luckily the oncoming car she was sandwiched between had a doctor who was going to commit suicide but he feels so guilty that he couldn't do it until he did everything he could for your daughter and he's immune to AIDS so he used his spinal fluid to cure her which also cured her paralysis unexpectedly and cancer ended yesterday."

But this movie struck a balance between bad things happening and things working out. It demonstrated the problem with your standard love story that's sad because cancer/memory loss (Yes, fuck you Notebook and whatever the cancer one was called. Thinking of the saddest thing to make money off of has got to be somehow immoral). These problems were realistic and, more importantly, the solutions were too. When it comes to sexuality and love, sometimes there ISN'T A FUCKING CLEAR ANSWER BUT YOU DEAL WITH IT ANYWAY. Fucking romcoms.

Ratings:

Unanswered Questions: 5 out of 5. I didn't even mention that the two brothers hadn't talked for years and you're waiting to find out why for the whole movie. The "solution" is way better than the tactless flashback your shit-conditioned mind is expecting. It turns out nobody really knows when they lost touch; it's revealed Xiong actually paid Wen's tuition because their father got ill, then took care of their father while Wen served military, then sat at his death bed when Wen went off to Taipei, and finally just got pissed at Wen being the successful one that didn't give a shit about anyone else. There is no "oh it was just a misunderstanding" or shocking "we stabbed that hooker together" scene. And Xiong sometimes props houses up on stilts because their town is sinking into the sea. The birds' names are stilts. THE METAPHORS ARE FUCKING ENDLESS.

I Fucked Up and Learned My Lesson and Became a Real Man Romance Movie Inevitable Speech: 0 out of 0. There wasn't one, which is a good thing. Again, this isn't a romcom but Wen still kisses the sexy birdwatching girl and his wife leaves for a while, but their solution is one of the most realistic I have ever seen in a movie. Xiong's solution with his foreign wife who would rather be with another guy is also not bad.

Crying: 5 out of 5. I have to admit, I cried alone in the dark in front of my laptop in my underwear like a little girl watching the Notebook. But again, FUCK THE NOTEBOOK.

Overall: 4.25 out of 5. I liked it, but I don't really enjoy straight drama and I wouldn't watch it again, but it was good. There were also just a few tiny things I had problems with, but this is the longest post ever so END.

If you want to cry like a little girl--out of disgust--check out amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

(P.S. the your father still has AIDS and the doctor did commit suicide after your sister showed signs of recovery.)