Romance Rekindled

It's about time. I have been waiting for someone of caliber to make a movie out of the epic Chinese novel I've read those many years ago. One that has spawned the popular games series Dynasty Warriors over varying gaming consoles. That's right, The Romance of The Three Kingdoms. The only Chinese novel (translated of course) that I've ever read and loved at the same time. I know that there was a Three Kingdoms movie made and distributed earlier this year, The Resurrection of The Dragon or something but that one....well to put it nicely....sucked. Mainly due to the fictional or rather non-canon elements that were introduced.

And the best part is, the movie opens today! That's right, it opens in my country on the 11th July 2008. And from what I've seen of the trailers it's a damn good interpretation of that one part of the whole novel. And this is only Part 1 of the movie with the second part cited to be shown somewhere in December 2008 or January 2009.

The movie in question is of course, if you don't already know (or don't even have a clue as to what I've been writing about) is Red Cliff (Chibi) or The Battle of The Red Cliff. I've also inserted a trailer with English subtitles I found on Youtube below for you guys to have a gander at what I'm talking.



Click here in case you can't view the trailer.

Man, did I ever need this....

I don't know how many non-Americans who are actually reading my blog even know of the existence of The Daily Show or its spin-off show The Colbert Report. If you do, great, if you don't then the video I'm posting here would definitely be a great introduction to the incredilous meshing of intelligent humour, political satire and outright craziness. This is one of the best segments of either shows in my book. I've watched this a gazillion times and it still cracks me up. I mean come on, Stephen Colbert vs Cookie Monster........ You can't go wrong with this one.

Enjoy!



Or if you can't view the video for some reason, click here for a link to it.

The Lion Used To Roar

As far as I could remember, I've never commented on anything football (soccer to you Americans) related on my blog. Partly because of the disgust I felt as to how the football administering body in my country handled the supposed 'nourishing of local football' more than a decade ago. And I suppose I still hold such a resentment, if slightly, to this day.

Singapore was once a nation that produced footballing talent good enough for export to football clubs beyond the shores of this island city. Even if some were just clubs north of the Causeway. Players that included the likes of Malek Awab, David Lee, V. Sundramoorthy and the football legend and once Golden Boy of Singapore Football, Fandi Ahmad. With the latter two even having a chance to play for top teams in their respective European countries, namely FC Basel and FC Groningen, respectively. Not to mention that the country's participation in the then Malaysian Football League also helped with raising interest and fostering unity amongst all football loving Singaporeans. It was as close to being patriotic as I have ever felt my entire life. Bellowing my support for my fellow countryman and hurling scathing insults at visiting teams. A behaviour when collectively combined gave birth to the Kallang Roar, of which a movie shares that very same name.

So when it was decided by the Football Association of Singapore to pull the country, my country out of the Malaysian Football League with the infamous quote of "Now we shall shift our focus from twenty-two men to more than two hundred men...." post the 1994 season, I instantly became one of the greatest cynics of this 'new dawn in Singapore football'.

And so the funds were allocated into the creation of the S-League where it was touted as an avenue that could produce more Fandis and Sundrams for the future of Singapore football. Not to mention the goal (though it seemed more like a dream then as it does still now) for Singapore to qualify for the FIFA World Cup, inaptly named Goal 2010. Should've been Wishful Thinking 2010.....

The S-League did help with the producing of more job opportunities, not only for footballers but for administrative positions within the club, physiotherapists and the likes. Apart from that, the aim of producing more talented footballers as well as qualifying for the FIFA World Cup proper, never truly materialized. The induction of clubs from other countries such as Dalian Shide Shiwu FC (China), Super Reds FC (South Korea) and Albirex Niigata FC (Japan) amongst other foreign clubs that have already left the S-League though somewhat key in helping to improve the standard of play in the league and the local players as a whole, is detrimental, I think, to Singapore actually focusing on developing its clubs and indirectly also the job opportunities for locals. That is if you don't count the jobs created in Singapore Pools through the betting of S-League games.

I would not dare say that Singapore football had not improved over the course of this whole experiment. The inclusion of naturalized Singaporeans such as John Wilkinson (England), Mustafic Fahruddin (Serbia), Daniel Bennet (England), Precious Emuejeraye (Nigeria) and Aleksandar Duric (Bosnia and Herzegovina) along with a few other pioneers of this naturalization program named the Singapore Foreign Sports Talent Scheme have helped to somewhat raise the level of competitiveness between footballers within the country. Though these players are talented in and off themselves, I for one, would argue on whether some of them are far better than the crop of locally born players that we currently have.

With that said though, Singapore is still some ways far off from even dreaming of qualifying for the FIFA World Cup. Which can be seen from their performance in the on-going World Cup Qualifiers, especially highlighted in the recent 2-0 defeat to Saudi Arabia on home soil in a must win match. And though Singapore was dubbed the Asian Football Confederation's 'Mover of the Year' in 2005 by achieving a rank of 20 that year, their world ranking hovers around the 100-140 range. Which is a far cry from the heyday of Singapore football when Fandi and Sundram were around when Singapore was ranked 73 in the world in 1993. And that team couldn't qualify for the World Cup either..... So I guess it'll be far beyond 2010 before, if ever Singapore will qualify for the World Cup. Or perhaps we could host it, since Singapore's been hosting a lot of such big sports events lately.

I am all for the naturalization of talented foreigners, however focus must not be lost on the development of young Singapore born talent.

The inclusion of the Singapore U-23 team into the local league for the purposes of improving the crop of young players for the future is commendable. Though I felt that more could be done such as sending the Singapore U-23 team to play in the leagues of overseas countries or possibly even in the lower leagues in European countries. The purpose of this would be two-fold. One to improve the players and secondly to put our young players up in the overseas market. A younger set of players, perhaps the U-19 team should then compete in the S-League proper. This would help to speed up their maturity on the pitch against faster, stronger and wiser opponents.

I know that the Football Association of Singapore might never do this and will probably continue their Singapore Foreign Sports Talent Scheme until the whole team is full of unwanted Brazilians and Argentinians. And I shall continue saying that unless the focus remains on the youth that is Singapore born, we are not going to get anywhere football wise.

Onto Goal 2100!

Where can I get me some films....

I'm miffed....pissed more like it. There were three damn good movies that were scheduled for release in the first quarter of this year (and one that was already released early in the year) that did not even manage to get picked up by any of the cinema companies here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for your commercially viable movies like Iron Man, Indiana Jones and all that. At the same time though, I still yearn for movies that are not just a fancy CGI, action packed, blood spilling, wit churning vehicles. I mean, have a look at the trailers for the movies that got passed over and you tell me.....

I know that there are the cinemas like The Picturehouse and Cinema Europa (those are the only two that I know of - if any of you know more, please tell me) that caters to independently made movies and films that veer off the commercial mainstream, of which I am thankful for. And their current line up of Black Book and Shine A Light (respectively) are good in and of themselves, however it is amazing that for a multitude of good, award-winning movies that there's only two cinemas in Singapore dedicated to them. Perhaps the rest of the cinema operators need to consider having a single cinema dedicated to such films, which would ultimately increase the number of cinemas to at least four.

Now if the problem was in the assessing on whether a movie is good enough to be shown (or bring in economic returns) then look to hire me. I am in need of a new job... *hint* I'd be more than happy to screen award winning films for potential future screenings in Singapore and of course get paid to do it (yeah, I wish)

And to think this country of mine has its own film festival when in truth such films are not even supported well enough by the industry the rest of calendar year.....

True Pretense

I pretend to live
To be alive, to be in existence
Executing installed programming
Like a robot, some humanatronic device
The whim of a mad scientist gone insane
Silent whirring gears
Clicking beats of an animated clock

I pretend to work
To act with busy-ness, with presence
Neither caring nor wanting to
Zombiefied
Diluted by fabricated barriers
Of coulds and could nots
On a path preset, premade and unrelenting
A routine washing, waning
Of my once dogged interest

I pretend to know
Of this world, within and beyond
Of each grief and bliss
The suffering of the one, the many
Innumerable, transcending, esoteric, hysteric
A gospel-less prophet
Regurgitating epiphanies of ancient times
In a modern era of cynicism

I pretend to care
Of your plight and of mine
Of the need to render assistance
To the oppressed, suppressed
In the eradication of poverty, inequality
Upholding freedom and liberty
And the very causes that were and are noble

I pretend to pretend
So that I need not live
Need not love, need not wish
For hope and dreams are just concepts
Never to be realized, never to manifest
In the truest facet of life's reality

To be or not to be
I choose to pretend