The simplicity called ‘Halfway’

So, as you may know from my recent posts, I’ve been crazy about Okada Masaki, the cutie 23 years old Japanese actor who has such a beautiful voice and curly-bordering-to-messy perm hair. He’s a good actor and a lovely boy at the same time. After watching him in Raiou, I watched his other movies/series, up until I landed in 2009 Halfway, a movie by Kitagawa Eriko, starring Masaki (as Shinozaki Shu) and the cute Kitano Kie (as Konno Hiro). And once again, I was hooked.

Halfway is a very simple movie, such that it reaffirms my belief of the excellence that the Japanese own in making simple yet beautiful movies. Halfway has a total indie feeling all over it, it is refreshing and bringing contemplation at the same time. The premise was simple. You are a girl in the 3^rd class of high school in a small town. You are going to enter university next year. What will happen if you have just dated a cute boy (one of the cutest in school, in fact), and he wants to go to a university in the capital city instead? Are you going to let him go? Or are you going to beg him to stay, whatever it takes?

That is Halfway. Below is the English-sub trailer and this is where I watched it.

The girl is Hiro, and the boy is Shu. They lived in Hokkaido. Hiro always liked Shu, the basketball sweetheart of her school. But Shu never took notice on her, or at least, she thought so, until one day he overheard her babbling over how she liked him a lot (when she was laying on the school hospital bed after an anaemic attack). To Hiro’s surprise, Shu asked her out the next day. After a moment of hesitation (and a very cute bike accident), they began to date.

The Dream Manager: the importance of dreams for companies and employees

One of my best friends lent me a book last night, titled The Dream Manager (by Matthew Kelly). At first, I thought the book is about managing one’s dream, or to fulfil one’s dream. I wasn’t that wrong, because the book IS talking about how to fulfil one’s dream... through the eyes of a company manager.

The Dream Manager is a guide book for managers who want to keep the turnover rate of their companies low. Not only that, this is a book for managers who want to create a happy, positive environment in their companies, an atmosphere that makes people stay and do more for the company, because they are fulfilled and happy. 

I cried when I read the first 23 pages. 

Here’s what Kelly wrote in pages 3 and 4: 

Taira no Kiyomori: What happened to Minamoto no Yoritomo?

I’ve been watching the first five English-subbed episodes of NHK’s Taira no Kiyomori , until I realised that the 6^th episode had not yet been subbed. In fact, no one has subbed the 6^th episode onwards since a few months back. The sole translator had been sick (God bless him, may he recover soon), thus we – non Japanese speaker Taiga fans – are left without knowing the details of what happened to Kiyomori (Matsuyama Kenichi), the leader of the Heike clan (Heike literally means ‘the House of Taira’) and the rest of the characters.

Taira no Kiyomori seems to be having low viewing rate. My Japanese friend suggested that its Heian setting seems to be the problem for Japanese viewers, for Heian Era was about 900 – 1,000 years ago and not many understood what really happened then. But then again, wouldn’t it be the good reason to watch it? Other than watching a series of hot guys playing samurai and emperor in ancient garb? Some netizens said that the Heian Era depicted here was too gloomy and dusty, and indeed the samurai and commoners portrayed in this series were in total need of total bath! But that is much more realistic than, say, having them all flashy and neatly dressed a la the Emperor and his cronies.

Taira no Kiyomori!

I am currently watching the first episode of Taira no Kiyomori, NHK's 2012 Taiga drama. I am so excited! The cast is superb, many of whom I've seen in Japanese dramas, delivering great performances. I am a bit bias here: the first drive for me to watch it is to hear Okada Masaki's lovely voice narrating the drama as Minamoto no Yoritomo. But when I saw the trailers etc, I realise the drama's potentials. I just hope that I can discipline myself and watch it just one episode per day. That is, hopefully my online links are not broken. This drama is still airing in Japan anyway, so fan-based attempts to sub it might be seen as breaching the copyright. Which is SO not the intention of those hard working fans who have been subbing this drama!

The Lightning Tree (Raiou)

I saw another movie on RED last night, and it made me saaad again. I have to stop watching those cute but sad Japanese movie. But I can't help it. The star couple were so cute together. Anyway...

The movie was "The Lightning Tree" (Raiou), which was basically the Romeo and Juliet of Edo era. It tells the story of Narimichi (Masaki Okada), the son of a Shogun (dunno which one) who disliked his life in general. His father abandoned his mother when Narimichi was still a child, leaving the poor kid bereft of paternal love. To make it worse, the kid had a habit to collapse out of the blue.

One day, when Narimichi was already a gorgeous young samurai lord, he ventured out to a village called Seta to convalesce. There, he met a rascal girl named Rai (Yu Aoi), who taught him how to laugh, dance in the rain, and basically be himself. As expected, the two youngster fell in love slowly but sure. It was a beautiful cliche, full of laughter and promises. I cannot help but hope that the two lovebirds would find their happiness in the end.

School Days with a Pig

There is a good reason why I paid for a paid TV package that includes an Asian channel called RED. This channel, along with Celestial TV, has many good Asian movies. I like Japanese movies in particular, because somehow they often manage to make even a weird theme go alive as humanely possible.

One of such a movie was 'School Days with a Pig', which talks about a class of 6th grade elementary school kids (about 11-12 years old perhaps?) that has a weird class project. Mr Hoshi the teacher (played admirably with sweet cuteness by Satoshi Tsumabuki) wanted to give a life lesson for the kids. He chose to bring a piglet for the class to raise until they graduate, at which time the piglet will be killed and eaten by the class.

I’m waiting for this book...

Ramesh Menon’s Shiva Purana Retold. I’ve always wanted to read Shiva Purana, but I can’t bear the thickness of the book. Not to mention it must be expensive and laced with difficult prose. What’s the use of purchasing an expensive book without understanding its meaning? So when I found that Amazon UK offered this book for a significantly cheaper price than Amazon US, I bought it instantly from the UK site. But since the book won’t arrive until late this week (if I’m lucky), I often clicked around the ‘Look Inside’ to read the ‘Surprise Me!’ link. I found this beautiful passage that I cannot but share with you:

More reasons to love ‘Immortals of Meluha’

‘There is no “your god” or “my god”. All godliness comes from the same source. It’s just the manifestations that are different.’ ~ the Pandit of the Brahma temple.

Shiva stared at [Sati] like a parched piece of earth mesmerised by a passing rain cloud.

Sati      : Thank you for your help, foreigner. I owe you my life and you will not find me ungrateful. If you ever need my help, do call on me.

Shiva   : Can I call on you even if I don’t need your help?

(Sati: !!!

me: Laugh out loud!!!)

The Immortals of Meluha: totally recommended!

For quite some time now, I been searching for and collecting books on Shiva. I have Kramsrisch's 'The Presence of Shiva', Suzanne Fisher Staples' 'Shiva's Fire', Mohapatra's 'The Book of Shiva'... I like those books, tho Mohapatra's depiction of Shiva was the closest one to my liking. But something was lacking in that book of Shiva in the comic format. Shiva wasn't really smiling. Too serious. He was romantic alright, just the way I pictured Him to be. But he wasn't so cheerful. At least, please give him a bit smile. Shiva isn't Krishna, but at least some smiles would not hurt.

The Immortals of Meluha, the first book of The Shiva Trilogy by Amish Tripathi, gave me the Shiva I identified with the most. He did swear too much to my taste (tho I don't mind a bit of swearing, I think it’s natural for a tribal chief), but since the premise was human-turned-to-god anyway, it's not a big deal for me. Other than the swearing, I really like this Shiva. He was so humane and approachable. He made mistakes and learned from them. He became humble because of them, and rose above them. He seriously defended humanity, but he still enjoyed life and made jokes around as well, while he could. He had his demons in the past... and I hope he eventually made peace with them.

The Shiva Trilogy: Immortals of Meluha

I browsed YouTube last Saturday and found this beautiful trailer of a novel about Lord Shiva.



The book is titled The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi and was a big hit in India last year. I have ordered it yesterday, pronto, and the book is being shipped to me now. Yay! I have pre-ordered thesecond book (The Secret of the Nagas), but it won't be shipped until early August! Bummer, grumble, brumble... Oh well, at least I will receive the first book soon enough. Will make a post about it when I have finished reading it.

By the way, The Immortals of Meluha will be made into a movie, I guess this year (?) by Director Karan Johar. Lord Shiva will be played by Hritik Roshan, and Lady Sati by Vidya Balan. I am excited! See the trailers above (which is for the book, actually, not the movie) and decide for yourself!