Thursday, February 23, 2006
The day the music died refused to stay dead
Yes, I must apologise for the annoying revival of music on the blog. Just for a while, I promise, as soon as this phase passes.
The song that currently plays when you open the blog is the ending theme from the Jap drama serial Oh-oku (大奥). It's a very addictive show that is currently airing on Channel 56 of cable television every Monday and Tuesday (that's assuming you all subscribe to that channel, heh). Set somewhere in the late Tokugawa Period of Japanese history (in the late 19th century - I actually went and read up on Jap history because of this drama) it follows the events in the Shogun's inner palace Oh-oku in Edo (modern-day Tokyo) where all the female retainers as well as the Shogun's wife live. What makes the show wonderful to watch is the conflicts between the various female characters, such as the Shogun's wife, the chief supervisor of Oh-oku and the Shogun's mother, even as the Bakufu crumbles under the pressure of rebel feudal lords and foreign powers.
Apart from the compelling acting of the actresses (the hair on the back of my neck stands up watching them stare malignantly at one another), the soundtrack is also wonderful, and if anything the show is worth watching just to admire the actresses' kimonos. Such beauty of fabric and design is not easily seen today, and each heartbreakingly exquisite kimono is easily priceless. The workmanship just blows me away, and makes me melt just marvelling at their heavenly beauty. Haha I have this weakness for beautiful kimonos. Unfortunately the male versions of kimonos are not as pretty. *sad*
I'm really rather bored, so I went and found some pictures to post here so you can see what I mean about the kimonos. And the actresses are really quite pretty too, heh. I am so ga-ga over this serial.
I suppose when I really think about it the Japanese model of drama serials is the one I've found the best for the viewer, because it's compact (most serials come in 10 to 13 episodes because in Japan they air television programmes in multiples of quarter-year i.e. 13 weeks [which is why animes come in 13, 26, and 52 episodes mostly]) and they write the scripts so each episode is like a stand-alone piece placed on the backdrop of the main story. Every episode builds up to a climax of its own so that the viewer is completely riveted, and it doesn't really leave you stuck at some halfway point between episodes. Unlike Hongkong, Taiwanese and Korean dramas (unfortuately I haven't watched a Singaporean drama for many many months now), which last forever and each episode is just a small building block of the whole story, often not having any real beginning, end or climax.
[/rambling]
Studying becomes remarkably boring when you're doing pharmacology (no, I haven't fallen in love with it yet, and I don't know whether to be thankful or not), and somehow I don't feel like there's a lot to study. The past year questions seem simple enough, except for the one mad question that was wholly on Optimisation of Drug Therapy, which made my eyeballs pop out. When Benny Tan said "Also Examinable", I hope that wasn't what he meant. After lazing around for a few days I'm suddenly quite worried about surprises like that.
And as a break from studying, for those who've actually watched Brokeback Mountain as well as the original Star Wars trilogy, here's
a spoof on Star Wars Brokeback style. Actually it's okay if you haven't watched BBM, but it's funnier if you have. Incredibly funny, the innuendos they manage to dig up in real movie conversations.
ETA To plhu: I agree, the long kimonos are much more beautiful than the ones that end at the ankles, but it's probably only for indoor wear considering how dirty it would get trailing around outside. I think they wear the shorter ones when they leave the palace.
I'm very annoyed because the comments box is treating everything I type in it as spam, so I can't reply, gah.
Avaris / 2/23/2006 05:06:00 PM
0 consumed
