Unable to get an available flight to Spain to visit my very pregnant sister (who is due at the end of this month!!), I have resigned myself to the fact that I must remain in Japan for the holiday of Golden Week. Little trips here and there are planned at the moment, but I must say that I have mostly in part been losing myself in the cinematic world (but then again, what else is new??). I have plowed through drug films (Traffic, Blow), Elizabethan dramas (Elizabeth, Orlando), the horribly depressing 21 Grams, and now the classic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Although I've seen a few of these films before, I still love watching them again, experiencing them once more with new emotions.

Such beautiful imagery and choreography. It literally takes my breath away. The music is incredible, evoking the emotions expressed on-screen perfectly.

I remember watching this for the first time in the theatre and hearing bits of laughter coming from some of the members in the audience. At first I didn't quite know what they were laughing at, but then it dawned on me: they were laughing at the flight scenes, deeming it impossible cause it's so obvious it's cablework!

I guess since I grew up watching these Chinese fantasy films with such skilled choreography that it didn't even occur to me how absurd it was that Chow Yun Fat and Zhang Ziyi were balancing on delicate, bent bamboo trees, as light as a feather.

I wish I could do that.

Well, I will continue to consume more films over the next week or so, cause if I can't escape to Spain physically, I might as well transport my mind to somewhere else.

Next planned rental: Cronenberg's M.Butterfly (1993). How someone could be deceived for so long is beyond me...