My Weekly Adventures & What’s Up Week 30

Another double Adventures and Whats Up post is among us. I have been very sporadic this month with posts, especially this week and really there isn’t a whole lot to talk about in terms of anything else. Adventures, will go first and then after it is the Whats Up!

Suffice to say that Fantasia Festival is well under way. Between the festival and increasing overload of work and as a result, overtime, its been a crazy and hectic 2 weeks. I won’t dive too much into Fantasia as I usually do a wrap-up post of sorts once everything is done and giving a general feeling about the whole festival. Lets move on to the other little things that happened.

Dinner at Dirty D

The husband and I don’t do a ton of date nights so when Fantasia comes around and we head for movies, its pretty much our date “nights”. We say two afternoon screenings so not exactly nights but we did head out to try out the dive bar Dirty D at Quartier Dix30 for dinner. I will be sharing my thoughts on it soon.

I forgot to mention it last time but we also went to check out Balthazar in the same complex the week before so that will probably have a little review as well.

Battle of Ingredients at Mama Dumplings

Some of the Battle of Ingredients gang are huge dumpling fans like myself so since the actual Battle wasn’t happening, we decided to go to Mama Dumpling. Everyone’s first time except for me. You can check out my post on it HERE.

This time we tried some that I had never tried before. The husband ordered the Wonton Soup and enjoyed it. We had Chicken Curry dumplings and that was pretty good. We also tried a lamb and green onion or something and I wasn’t too huge on it but then in general, lamb isn’t my first choice meat.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for My Weekly Adventures!

Moving on…

This week has been a bit nuts as well. Its still a whole lot of movies so I’ll try to dive more into that side. TV series has been my writing companion though, so I will talk about that as well.

READING

Currently reading: Within

I’m not going to say much on reading. I’ve read probably 5 pages or something since last week because there’s just no spare time for it. Reading will resume when movies take a break after all the Fantasia reviews are done.

PLAYING

• Bonza
• Dr. Mario World (mobile)

Mobile games are my haven when I need a break from writing. Other than Bonza being my fun little moments taking most priority, Dr Mario World recently got its mobile version and I have played a little of that. I have skipped Mobile Games Roundup for Game Warp for two months but its all a time issue so I will get back on it soon.

WATCHING

• The Father’s Shadow (review)
• Daniel Isn’t Real (review)
• Koko-di Koko-da (review)
• White Snake (review)
• Harpoon
• Depraved
• Riot Girls

As we reach the end of Fantasia with only a few days trickling into the next week, its been a decent week. Some average movies but some really big highlights. Its nice because the beginning of the festival was getting me a little worried to be honest about my movie choices. This week also probably marked the most changes I had made because I swapped a few movies, let go of some of them and then added some others in screening room or screeners. With that said, I loved a lot of these ones. Daniel Isn’t Real, White Snake, Harpoon, Riot Girls all really worked for me, probably all in my Top 10 somewhere (funny how I can’t do Top 10s for new releases in any year but Fantasia alone can have one). Why I chose to highlight White Snake is because its really beautiful as a Chinese animation and shows change and somewhere new to watch out for especially if they keep doing movies to share its culture.

BINGING

• Go Fridge (Season 5)

Currently binging:

• Queer Eye (Season 4)
• Go Go Squid (2019)
• Love Signal 2
• Dream Space 2
• Sugar Rush (Season 2)

Cooking shows or food shows or something are really great companion shows for myself so I went back to finish up Go Fridge Season 5 which I started some time in April or May. It is a fun little show and a ton of laughs and some great looking food. Probably the more important part is the huge currently binging list. A lot of it is near ending and just one episode released and such. Go Go Squid is still the irresistible series for me right now. Full plans on restarting it with full focus, instead of the current multitasking phase to re-experience it.

That’s it for this What’s Up!
Whats have you been reading/playing/watching/binging?

Fantasia Festival 2019: White Snake (2019)

White Snake (2019)

Director: Amp Wong & Ji Zhao

Voice cast: Xiaoxi Tang, Tianxing Yang, Zhe Zhang

White Snake is a 2019 Chinese fantasy animated film about a thousand year old white snake spirit who loses her memory and falls in love with a boy from a snake-catcher village.

White Snake is the first made in China animated film by Warner Bros. in collaboration with Beijing animation studio Light Chaser. It retells the story of the Legend of the White Snake, one of the most popular stories that have been adapted into many forms of art and entertainment from TV series to movies to opera, so on so forth. What makes White Snake stand out is that it is somewhat of an origin story for the White Snake spirit and how her love story came to be.

In fact, the story starts off with the White Snake spirit called Blanca sent from her snake clan to defeat the evil General who wants to absorb the vitality and souls of snake spirits so that he can have black magic and use it to achieve immortality and fails in the process. Being saved from Xuan and brought to the snake-catcher village, her amnesia makes her believe that she is human, discovering her powers and finding her memories back gradually. Caught between her sister Verta who has promised to bring her back, the snake clan who believes that she has betrayed them and the General hunting her down for her thousand year soul, her feelings for Xuan grows stronger but at the same time, she is faced with having to fulfill her duties for her “species”. White Snake ends where most White Snake retellings would start.

The White Snake story is familiar territory for those who know Chinese folklore. However, the animation world of China isn’t. This is where White Snake truly shines: in its visually stunning animation paired up with its use of traditional Chinese music. The details from every dandelion fuzz flying through the air of the movement of its nature and especially in the outstanding movements of its characters, their expressions and even more so, the impressive action sequences makes White Snake an exercise of art. It adds in some Chinese painting elements in the opening scenes and the backdrop that resembles the landscape of Chinese paintings for example. Its stylistic and beautiful.

The story doesn’t take the easy path either, despite its frequent retelling. Those familiar with the story will definitely see where the romance scenes will go and the torturous love between them, however while the film spends a lot of time between Blanca and Xuan, its more of a natural progression of their knowledge of each other (for the most part) and a quest to find her memory. At the same time, its more about the General’s evil ambitions as well as the usual stereotypes of breaking the barriers between whether being a spirit, most often seen as evil is different depending on their nature. At the heart of it, the romance isn’t forced and connects easily. While these two main leads are the heart of the story, its hard to not feel that the standout characters are comedic relief, Xuan’s dog who is given talking abilities called Dudou as well as the sly fox spirit who runs the Precious Jade who is literally two-faced in her design, reflective of the image of the cunning and attractive nature in fox spirits in Chinese folklore. Plus, there are a lot of creative iterations of creatures to give it an extra boost in uniqueness.

White Snake is a spectacular animated film. It has a lot of elements that make it great form visuals to creative retellings while still doing justice to the origin story of how Blanca meets Xuan and finally leads to the more normal telling of The Legend of the White Snake. Its not only an animated film but a creative way to share Chinese folklore to the rest of the world in a charming way.