My Lunch 'date' with Jet Li

Technically, I am not a fan of Jet Li's movies & not an idol of him in his acting capabilities.
His movies are entertaining enough & his acting good enough to be famous. Yet, I was not and am still not dying to catch his next movie.

BUT, as a person, he holds a great attraction for me. This revelation is a result of having watched an interview of him in Shanghai. From this 2 hours of interview (you'll need to understand Chinese to grasp the whole conversation which I'll try to upload here or link it to the site) and discussions about what he believes in, what he is currently venturing on, he has impressed upon me how similar we are in our believes & thought processes. That is a great revelation to me, to find someone out there whom I don't really know anything about for many years & then to instantly find that connection. On top of that, he convinces me about his cause. That is what most people would not be able to convince me of. & for that, I do admire him.

I shall not write to much about what his believes are here as I believe everyone has a chance to discover it for himself/herself (again, you need to understand Chinese to do so). It is a journey into one's core belief if you choose to watch these few videos. These videos have completely changed my prior perception of Jet Li the actor. It is the best interviews I've watched on CBN (China Business News, Shanghai) this year.

李连杰：慈善是一门生意（上）
李连杰：慈善是一门生意（下）
李连杰：天生我才必有用（上）
李连杰：天生我才必有用（下）


Note: You need windows player to play these videos.

P.S. This is the same review I posted on Lunch about Jet Li.

Harry Potter & the Economy

It's said "dark times bring people together".
The winter is over and the summer is just around the corner. Harry Potter & Half-blood Prince will be in theater soon, probably after Angels & Demons.

I've followed every single episode of Harry Potter since the very beginning. Just as I once did Indiana Jones, Star Wars & The Matrix. Why are these movies & books so exciting & endearing? The central theme? To me, imagination, creativity & the good always triumph. Hollywood is that part of America where anything & everything is possible. It is the realm of possibility, of hope & of personal freedom. What's keeping the American spirit in Hollywood will still be what's keeping the American spirit in real if all those in America still believes it. 

We see that deviation in the last decade in America politics. And with it, brought the downfall of its economy.

Today's Read: An organism survives Antarctica, and may be Mars (Time)

Today's Video: Time 100: Are You on the List?

Angels & Demons

Angels & Demons will be in theater May 15

I was very impressed by the novel Angels & Demons when I read it many years ago. Even more so than The Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown did a remarkable job with weaving tale of mystery & murders. I'm looking forward to the movie which will be released in theater next month!

Today's Read: Antimatter, America's Outback: Southern Utah, American Idols Big Tease

Today's Video: Angels & Demons - Science vs Religion Featurette, A new Jesus (National Geographic)

Back to the Future

My colleague sent me a link (The Cool Hunter) to view a private property owned by the Malaysian YTL's boss today. Upon viewing it, it reminded me of the brief period in my life right after college during which I was passionate about designing homes that I had imagined about. I didn't have any training in this field & even though I had aspired to be an architect, my parents didn't think it a profitable field to be in (which proves to show parents don't always know best ;-)) & hence I didn't get the sponsorship to study it in my undergraduate years. Still, I have had those design concepts in my mind & up to today, I still can remember them vividly. One of them involves having a small pool with a transparent bottom in which anyone below it could look up & see the swimmers. This pool would be in the dining (or rather, breakfast) room one floor up. To date, I've yet seen anything I've imagined. Although, I had seen something I had dreamt about. It was so real that I got a chill down my spine when I saw the views from Hearst Castle (I had dreamt about swimming in one of them!) as well as in the movie, What Dreams May Come!

Speaking of movies, The Matrix is one which I had a sense of deja vu. The plot is very similar to some ideas which my sis & I had explored & talked about (aka parallel world) a few years before it was released in the cinema. It may well be the time the author wrote the book. I'm not sure, never did check. But, I do believe some kind of telepathy does exist in this world, as with intuition. I've a good sense of intuition about some major events in the world. One day when I'm ready, I'll write about them. It is something which I can no longer deny that is inherent (despite my early attempts to shrug them off), but I can't based them on any facts nor can I predict nor prove how accurate they are either. It is simply this feeling of knowing (& sometimes, uneasiness) which arises out of nowhere. Spooky, isn't it?

The tie that links architecture & The Matrix is my innate preference for futuristic designs; any design that is out of this world & ahead of its time per se. It does not have to be anything out of Star Wars or anything that is from E.T. It may be something like Sagrada Familia or something like Guggenheim Bilbao. I do like some of Wright's works as well. It often brings me joy to get a glimpse of the future & through some of these (be it movies, gadgets, concepts, thoughts) inventions, I get the lucky feeling that I've been transported through a time machine. It might well be a case of back to the future!