It’s a long weekend in Hong Kong thanks to the Chung Yeung Festival on Friday, and there are plenty of things to do for those who opt to stay in the city. Here are our top five suggestions. 1. The Wheel of Time – Woe of the Seasons The Chinese calendar splits the year into … Read more
4/5 stars Chris Sanders may not be as famous as some of his Pixar counterparts, but he is surely one of the finest animation directors in Hollywood right now. He created the now iconic blue alien character Stitch in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch for his 2002 directorial debut, later following it with the equally popular … Read more
I am not really one for crunching through popcorn while watching a film – but if you insist, a mix of salted and caramel please! – nor the whole 4D cinema trend, but tell me you will be serving dishes from the plot and I am in. Recently, I attended the final session of Savour … Read more
“This film, set in the near future, brings to life the inevitable sadness and the beauty of the human experience as we follow a relationship between a man grieving a lost marriage and his new-found AI companion.” 2. Jojo Rabbit (2019) Glass never thought a comedy-drama set in Nazi Germany during the second world war … Read more
Most of Yakushima was logged at some point, starting early in Japan’s Edo period (1603-1867), but the forest has been conscientiously replanted since logging ended in the late 1960s. The author hikes up a trail in Yakushima. Photo: Fiona Ching Now the circular island is a protected national park criss-crossed by hiking trails and dotted … Read more
2/5 stars Striving to be a people-pleaser can leave your own life empty and unsatisfied. This is the lesson learned by high-schooler Hiiragi in A Whisker Away co-director Tomotaka Shibayama’s new animated fantasy, My Oni Girl. The second feature film produced by Studio Colorido exclusively for Netflix (after 2022’s Drifting Home), My Oni Girl follows … Read more
The mixed responses came despite Miyazaki’s well-known anti-war stance in Japan, where he made headlines in 2015 as he urged his country’s leaders “to say clearly that aggressive war was completely wrong, having brought enormous damage to the Chinese people”. Miyazaki, a co-founder of Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli and director of films such as … Read more
China is banking on tourism and consumption to power its post-pandemic economic recovery, as a deepening property sector crisis and weak private sector and foreign investor confidence continue to weigh on overall growth. Ching Ming or “tomb sweeping” festival is a day for honouring the dead, by sweeping their resting places and burning paper offerings. … Read more
For the first time in Hayao Miyazaki’s decades-spanning career, the 82-year-old Japanese anime master is No. 1 at the North American box office. Miyazaki’s latest enchantment, The Boy and the Heron, debuted with $12.8 million US, according to studio estimates. The Boy and the Heron, the long-awaited animated fantasy from the director of Spirited Away, My Neighbor … Read more
There’s something Aristotle said in his Poetics about the effective use of metaphor. Boiling it down, he observed that while coming up with metaphors takes genius, overstuffing your story with beautiful — but confusing — symbols doesn’t leave you with a timeless piece of art. Instead, you end up with “nothing but riddles or gibberish.” Apparently, … Read more
