Sunday 30 April 2017

'The Heavenly Jade Flute' - new HYS MV ft. Naoki Sato's Hiten


Anyone like Naoki Sato's 'Hiten' from Rurouni Kenshin 2012 movie? I'm using that music for my new Huang Yaoshi action MV above. The title of this video is 'The Heavenly Jade Flute', a combination of one of Huang Yaoshi's signature moves (Jade Flute Swordplay) and Kenshin's Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu (飛天御剣流, Flying Heaven-governing Sword Style).

I've always loved Naoki Sato's 'Hiten', and I totally heart the Rurouni Kenshin Trilogy (Takeru Sato is Kenshin-reincarnated!), so I am happy that Hiten fits this Huang Yaoshi MV. 

Hope you like it! The Dailymotion and Vimeo versions are after the break.

Tuesday 25 April 2017

New Way of the Dragon 2015



I can't believe I missed this series/movie! Michael apparently starred in a 2015 production of the "New Way of the Dragon". Remember Bruce Lee's iconic "Way of the Dragon"? Not that I've watched the old movie, but I've seen enough of snippets to know it's amazing. And If I'm not mistaken, Michael was part of the 2015 remake. Not sure who his character was; I am on a deadline now, but I just HAVE to post this video!

Oh, and pay attention to the way he fought. Michael appears on minute 1:15. He STILL HAS IT! Very little cable, strong, strong stances, strong jabs, AMAZING!!!

Here's the link to watch the series (total 36 episodes), thanks to YouTube User rrden3. I'll post more info about this series when I have more.

Monday 24 April 2017

Making MV subtitles with iMovie (Mac OS El-Capitan)

Huang Yaoshi is always charming, even on raw iMovie...

Since I bought a Macbook 2016 (rose gold!!!) last November, I had been on the edge about using its iMovie to make Michael/Barbara MVs. I’m not that fast a learner for techs like this. But then, my six years old Dell is already so slow that making MVs causing me stress instead of happiness…

So last December, after staring at my laptop for a while, I decided to just bite the dust and make an MB MV with the Mac iMovie. The first one I produced was UWS’ ‘A Thousand Dreams of You’ (ft. Leslie Cheung!). I was quite pleased with the result, hence I kept on using iMovie. FYI, the last MV I made with Windows Live Movie Maker was ‘Eyes on Me’ (CLH, ft. Tanya Chua). 

I feel the need of writing this post, mostly to remind myself of my own tricks to make MVs with iMovie, and who knows, some people might benefit from it too. The most important tips I’m going to make are how to make subtitles in iMovie, cos iMovie Titles suits are surprisingly not superior to Windows Live Movie Maker. And the WLMM that I used was the one for Windows 7; i.e. not the most advanced version…

Sunday 23 April 2017

'You're the Best in the World' Huang Yaoshi MV part 2 (LOCH 2017)



Finally I have time to make another MV of our charming Michael Miu as Huang Yaoshi from the LOCH 2017. I hope YouTube and Huace don't take the MV down... cos I'll be so down... (update 24.04.2017: YouTube so far allows my MV... but Dailymotion blocks it. Go figure...).

This is the second time I used 'You're the Best in the World', the iconic 3rd OST of LOCH 1983, sung by the ever-present Roman Tam and Jenny Tseng. I made the first MV in July 2016. It was a still MV, consisting of still images from the LOCH 2017. Since LOCH 2017 has ended now (yessshhh I haven't finished recapping the episodes...sorry...), we have all the scenes from the series. Huang Yaoshi had very limited fight scenes, and the first few ones were drop dead disappointing because of the excessive use of 'internal strength' (read: CGI-ed wind etc) instead of hand-to-hand combat. But after he encountered the Quanzhen, we finally enjoyed some good fights between them. I also include the Mt. Hua contest between HYS and Guo Jing.

Enjoy! The Vimeo version, the Dailymotion version (blocked by DM),  the translation of the Cantonese lyrics and the Yale romanisation are below the break. Oh, and the Cantonese version of LOCH 2017 will be aired on TVB on 8 May 2017 (thanks Wkeej and CBWarm for the info). I hope we can hear Michael and Ray Lui in their own voices...

Saturday 22 April 2017

Chor Lau Heung’s love to Song Siu Ching

Siu Ching asking if Chor tai-gor liked her (Ep 11)


Phuong has recently left some very nice comments on my posts, particularly the Chor Lau Heung posts. Thank you, Phuong, truly appreciate your presence! Some of Phuong’s recent comments were about CLH’s love to SSC, for I did indeed express doubt on how much Chor tai-gor loved SC.

I like Phuong’s comments on the matter of CLH’s love to SC; she explained it systematically that it works for me, who tends to prefer someone expressing his love, instead of just showing his love. Since Phuong’s comments were posted on a CLH episode recap (Eps11-16) that I wrote in September 2015, I asked her if I could copy her comments onto a new post. With her permission, here they are. I label her comments as “Phuong” with normal fonts and mine as “Icha” with blue sentences. Thanks a lot, Phuong!


Phuong:
I rewatched CLH again (I lost count of the # of times I watched it lol) and I don't think I ever question his love for SC. He seems to be attracted to her the first time he met her as can be seen in the way he treats/talks to her. He only called her miss Song like once (when he introduced her to Zo) and the rest of the time, he naturally called her by her given name vs him calling miss Wah/Koh/Kam thru the whole movie. He also touches her /holding her hands every chance he got. I do agree that they didn't realized their feelings for each other until episode 11 at Dr Cheong's place. It was then that SC realized she loves him and when she asked to call his name again and cried that it touches a part of CLH's heart and he realized he has feelings for her (deeper than just friends) when he was told she had left, hence the shock/disappointment/sadness.

Thursday 20 April 2017

MB Couple Trivia Part 2

Tung Pang-fei and Ho Doh-wan (UWS Ep 12)


It’s been a while since I post my first MBTrivia… Recently, with all the problems around me, I feel like I need something light to ease my day. Hence, the second MB Trivia here, about birthdays, favourite meals and the number of kids that MB characters would have (plus A Leung – Dragon Ying, cos we can’t just leave them out…). Hannah and I did this session last January, but I haven’t been able to post it until now…

Now, moving on! Special thanks to Hannah for this post, she provided most of the answers here.

Oh, and I hope to post the next batch of LOCH 2017 episode highlights this weekend. Deadlines, stay away from me now, God knows I need my MB/jianghu time!

Saturday 8 April 2017

LOCH 2017 highlights for Eps 29-38

Huang Yaoshi (Michael Miu) as he learned Huang Rong had died (Ep 29)


LOCH 2017 has wrapped up this week for iQIYI (and - ahem - YouTube) viewers, and it was an enjoyable  ride. I will make my final impression post later, perhaps the end of next week (cos I have, you know, deadlines...). However, I finally made time to catch up with the rest of the episodes to properly write some comments. Cos I have no time for detailed comments, I will generally just write the contents and highlights of each episode. Episodes were downloaded from Wuxiarocks, so thanks a lot WR for uploading the episodes.


Ep 29

Content: GJ et al escaping WYHL’s boat; GJ et al arriving at the Niu Village, met Shagu and found the secret room inside Shagu’s house; HYS mourning HR; Lu Guanying meeting Cheng Yaojia; and GJHR eavesdropping WYHL’s plan on the Book of Wumu

Saturday 1 April 2017

Fourteen years without Leslie Cheung

Those who watch my MVs might have realised that I'm a big fan of Leslie Cheung. Well, not really big apparently, cos I forgot that 1 April 2003 was his suicide, hence this Saturday 1 April 2017 was already 14 years when Leslie left us...

Thanks to Pangchu from Kaypang Gallery, I remembered just before the day was over. I didn't make the deadline before my midnight, but at least in Asia it's still 1 April now. Hence... these videos are for us all, Leslie Cheung fans...

The Invincible Courage 勇者無敵 From Yang's Saga (1985):




Who was this lady?

Update 24 August 2017: Sally Chan has confirmed that the lady in question was indeed Barbara Yung. Sally scanned the photo from a microfilm a while ago. Thanks, Sally!



A few months ago, Cynthia sent me some photos of Michael Miu and Barbara Yung, many of them I had never seen. One of them was the photo above that I eventually used in the "In the Rain" MV.  Cynthia labelled the photo as an MB photo, hence I took it that the woman on Michael's lap was Barbara. However, I always had my doubts about the photo, because the scan quality is so low. Plus, the woman could very well be Jaime.

Then, a few days ago, a new reader Nelly contacted me and talked about some MB things, including this photo. I asked Nelly if she was sure that the woman was Barbara, and Nelly said she was certain. The woman had a smile diagnostic of Barbara. Then I asked Hannah too, and Hannah also said she thought the woman was Barbara. Since I was still in doubt, I did a simple experiment with the photo to see if the woman was Barbara... or Jaime.