Celebrity 20in20

I strongly suggest watching the movie first.

Don't click on the spoiler cut here in this post before you've seen it.

Here's my non-spoilery review post of the movie: https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/811203.html

the twist explained - spoiler!

So Zheng Yuxing's secret is that he's gay.

The gender of his crush, DJ Ming, is never mentioned throughout the movie.

In spoken Chinese, the personal pronoun is gender neutral, so that works fine.

Of course, Chinese movies by law have to have subtitles, and the movie makers apparently decided to intentionally mislead the audience by using the female pronoun whenever Zheng Yuxing talks about Ming. I'm not quite sure why they did this. I don't think it was to get around censorship because an offscreen mention of a gay relationship would not be subject to censorship. But maybe they just enjoyed making the audience assume the wrong thing at first, just like with Chen Chen's secret.

Zheng Yuxing's doorman friend at the disco accuses him of bringing Chen Chen as his beard because he was dumped by Ming.

Ming never speaks when Zheng Yuxing calls him on the phone, so we never hear his voice.

The first real clue is when Zheng Yuxing's father tells the other parents that his son would never do anything to Chen Chen. This is slightly annoying, since in a western show/movie, I would expect this to be a normal attitude. In all Asian dramas I've seen so far, this is sadly not the case. Everyone always assumes that all men are horndogs and not to be trusted when alone with a woman. So, in a Chinese movie, this was the first dead giveaway.

The second real clue is when Chen Chen and Zheng Yuxing arrive at the music festival and look at the poster of DJ Ming, and Zheng Yuxing says, "Now you owe me a secret," because even though we don't see Ming's face, Chen Chen does and that alone constitutes knowing his secret.

The third clue is in that same scene, when some girls pass by behind them and say "Ming is so handsome" (帅 shuai), which is - just like in English - only used for men. The English subs ruin this, too, by translating it as "Ming is so cool." :/

All of these are easy to miss, but taken together, they're pretty clear and obviously intentional.

my thoughts - also spoilery

I loved all the "we need to be brave and more honest with ourselves" talks Zheng Yuxing and Chen Chen had with each other, because she unknowingly helped him accept himself. And it's just such a wonderful motto for a movie in general. <3

I loved how everyone is wrong about everyone else in this movie. The teacher is wrong about the kids, Chen Chen is wrong about her mother, her parents are wrong about her, Zheng Yuxing is wrong about Ming. It's so well done.

I still don't know whether Chen Chen originally tried to kill herself in the pool or just went in there to think, and then came up with a better solution than killing herself. The scene at the festival with the lady on the string implied that going to the festival/music had something to do with... saving her life? Or just making her see reason and becoming an adult? I have no idea, that was a bit too symbolic for me. :D

I wonder in hindsight how open and naive Zheng Yuxing is at school. If he felt inadequate or unaccepted for being (secretly) gay, I would suspect him to be a bit less carefree. It's possible for him to be like this, that he really doesn't care about being an outsider, I just thought it less likely, because the movie shows us in other scenes how very lonely he is. For me, it doesn't match with the carefree attitude.

It's almost cut off by the fade to black, but when Zheng Yuxing collapses in the hotel lobby, after his father stands back at first, he then rushes to his side after all. <3

I love how Zheng Yuxing is not at all interested in school or doing well in the exam, and I expected this to be shown as a negative thing in a Chinese movie. But it wasn't. He was obviously very motivated to be the best at music, and he put all his energy into that, rightly so, and in the end he did make his dream come true. I thought that was amazing.

Even after watching it several times, I'm still not sure whether Zheng Yuxing and Ming really were in a relationship or whether Zheng Yuxing was just following around his crush like a puppy and it was never reciprocated from the start. Both seem possible to me. He himself isn't even sure if it was a relationship or if there was a breakup or not. My personal headcanon is that Ming treated Zheng Yuxing like a groupie, probably had sex with him, but wasn't really interested in a relationship.

I'm not sure he really would have kissed Chen Chen - that kiss felt like fan service more than anything. I guess I can see a young guy who's just been told that he's her crush go, 'Maybe I will like kissing her,' and only after that finding out that he really doesn't. But - again - it seems unlikely. He would have hugged her instead. (That said, I am not complaining about the fanservice. I am a fan of that kind of service.)

I wish we could have seen a little bit more about their relationship in the coming years, not just her going to the concert. That felt a tiny bit abrupt, but overall, the movie answered all my other questions, and it felt like a satisfactory ending.

ETA: there's one scene where Zheng Yuxing and Chen Chen post a video on social media from a location they don't want to reveal. Zheng Yuxing says to the camera, "我们在哪里" (women zai nali? Where are we?). This is a tradition between Wu Lei and his fans. He will make a selfie video like that with his fans wherever he has a public appearance. I checked, he started doing that in 2018, so the video in this movie is not the origin of the tradition but rather a fourth wall break.

Movies

I went to see a German movie ("Ach diese Lücke, diese entsetzliche Lücke") at the theatre this month, which was good, I can recommend. (Although it is a lot about death, so CW for that. ymmv. I thought it strikes a wonderful balance between sad and funny.) It's an adaptation of the second book of Joachim Meyerhoff's autobiographical novel series. The first one is about him growing up in a mental asylum because his father works there, and I've neither read the book nor seen the movie. This second movie is about him deciding to study acting in Munich. All the roles are excellently cast, especially Senta Berger as his eccentric grandmother. Since it's all set in the 90s, everything looks wonderfully retro (and everyone's smoking everywhere omg). There's not a lot of plot, it's all about him growing into his own, and about dealing with death. I really enjoyed the movie, and I could watch it in its entirety for once without it making me nauseous. Yay!

TV finished

The Company

All done! I really loved this 30-episode show about a time traveller whose time machine is an antique shop. It started out a bit weird in ep 1, but found its pace quickly after that. Watch it on viki here. I'll put the ending under a spoiler cut:

The Company ending spoilers here

I did not like the ending. I mean, they tried to soften it, and it could have been worse, but... I expected something happier. They had all the cards, they could have given them their happy ending - they could even have resurrected his original lover if they'd tweaked it right - any of these would have been possible. Instead, they took one of the ML's memories away, and the other's time machine.

To not make it all that depressing, I guess, they meet again for the first time at the very end. ...How? It's bittersweet at best, and it makes no sense! How did he get there without a time machine?

The whole thing reminded me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and like with everything you've seen done before, the impact just lessens. It worked for me back then, it is still one of my favorite movies!, but here I was disappointed. Pity, because the rest of the show was very sweet and much better than I'd expected.

People tell me that it's supposed to be a happy ending, sending them into a time loop, but imho there are a few points that contradict that. If they wanted to do that, they could have done it more cleanly and elegantly. But maybe I really just misunderstood? Who knows.

Anyway, that dampened my enjoyment of the show just a little bit. I would still recommend it. It's par for the course for cdrama, bittersweet is all you can hope for. At least it's not outright tragic.

Cinderella Closet
I watched this Japanese drama on Netflix - all 12 short episodes of it - within a week. It's about a young woman with little self-esteem meeting a crossdressing man who helps make her more confident by giving her fashion advice and doing her makeup. Uhhh, okay? Of course then they fall in love. It's a bit tropey in places, but it repeatedly does the right things where it counts, like affirm that it's okay to be genderfluid, that he can wear what he wants, that being confident is what makes you beautiful, not what you're wearing, etc. I also really liked both their parents and how they reacted to seeing them together. It packs a lot into its short running time, and I think it got all the important points across well. I liked it overall. He is very pretty in female clothing, too. <3 Watch it on Netflix here.


I watched the almost hour-long cut of the milk endorsement live stream Wu Lei did last week, and thoroughly enjoyed that. It's the usual annoying product endorsement, but I enoyed watching my blorbo. Also, Migaku now supports bilibili, such a game changer! It means I got Chinese and English subs with it, and learned some idioms and the word "volleyball". \o/ (I got Zhu Yilong "oh noes everybody's taller than me" flashbacks when he stood next to the women's volleyball team. :D) I watched it on bilibili here.

TV new (ongoing)

I finally started Wu Lei's Ride Now vlog (the season from 2022, where he goes to a snow field near Ulan Bator and celebrates his 22nd birthday by sleeping in a tent at -25C). The English title has nothing to do with the original title, except for the fact that it's a pun with the word "ride" in it? (The original title 岂有此理 is an idiom, meaning "unreasonable" or "absurd" or "this makes no sense", and replacing the first character with the word "ride" gives you 骑有此理, and I don't know what exactly that means, but maybe something like "biking makes sense"? Idk.) There's no biking in the season I watched (up to ep4) at all, anyway, but there's horse riding, so I guess that counts. It confused me at first. In any case, it's very cute, and Wu Lei's enthusiasm for sleeping in a tent at -25C against the advice of his team is just so very him. Also, I keep thinking about the poor guides who have to lead him through the wilderness while he juggles his selfie stick and doesn't wear his goggles. Lack of self-confidence is not one of his traits, for sure. Unfortunately, the camera movements made me nauseous eventually, so I had to stop after four eps. I'll pick it up again once I feel up to it. I watched it through this youtube playlist of his fanclub, which has engsubs.

TV continued

One more ep of Our Times, the retro Wu Lei show, now on 6/36. He's still cringe in some ways (omg he bought himself a mink coat, what a douche), and I don't quite understand Hou Minghao's character's decisions, but hey. I'm mostly watching for the leads (Wu Lei and Hou Minghao), but I also like the setting. I haven't seen a show this focused on opening up of the business sector in China, and it's actually a period I know a bit about already, so that's interesting to see. It's on wetv and youtube.

I'm finally making headway on finishing my half-finished shows from months ago. First up: A Moment But Forever. I had to rewatch/skim 27 and 28 until I remembered where I had left off, but then got back into it quickly and am now on episode 33/36. It's getting really interesting with people still wanting to kill the ML and the FL trying to save him again and again without giving away her secrets (which the gods have specifically forbidden her from divulging). The evil players have revealed themselves openly now, and it's heading towards the final confrontation. The main draw of this still is how philosophical it is, and how much they're talking about what's right or wrong, about the power of love, and how to shape the kind of world you want to live in. It's quite thoughtful and deep (and the reason AvenueX recced it and I like it (although of course I'm also in it for the romance)). Looking forward to how they're going to wrap this one up. It's on iqiyi.

( the rest - some first impressions and youtube channel recs - under the cut )

I thought this month was below average, and it was. But 11 things is not nothing.

( 11 things )