Chinese New Year Celebrations and more photos of food during outings.

Birthday Celebrations with The Changed Man and his girlfriend at JurongPoint:

Outing With Ex-Student At West Mall Swenson's Restaurant Before He Goes Into Army:
Chinese New Year Eve Dinner Preparations In The Kitchen:








Sumptuous Chinese New Year Eve Dinner:

An after-dinner glass of red wine as traditional of my family.

Chinese New Year Day One Breakfast- Fusion of Western and Eastern Goodies:

Chinese New Year Day Three Lunch:

Chinese New Year Day Eight Lunch With YuSheng:

Happy Valentine's Day!

A very short post here. Still busy with celebrating Chinese New Year since I have no Valentine's Day celebrations. Here's one of those songs which I think has done a very accurate portrayal of love. It needs to match like fried youtiao and beancurd drink in order to make love really seasoned. Happy Valentine's Day to all my blog readers!

I will put up Chinese New Year celebrations photos once I have more time. Meanwhile, enjoy yourselves and fatten up with all those Chinese New Year goodies! ^__^

Movie Review: 14 Blades 锦衣卫 (2010)

Movie Review:

I went to watch this movie because I support Donnie Yen's action flicks and I like the actors Sammo Hung and Zhao Wei. The movie is about how the Ming Dynasty's Imperial Guards, also known as The Brocade Guards (due to the silk brocades they wore on the outside), was being used in a power struggle and Qing Long, the commander of the Imperial Guards, was being pursued because he was in the way of the usurpers.

Qing Long felt compelled to prevent the conspiracy, which involved an exiled prince who wanted to get the Imperial Seal to allow him to return to the Imperial Palace to usurp the throne. The Imperial Seal is historically real but was lost in the folds of history. Qing Long, wounded in his failed attempt in one of his missions, decided to hire the services of an armed escort house known as Justice Escorts, in which acted by Zhao Wei was the daughter of the escort chief. The two of them ventured in the outer desert plains of China where the story would culminate into a series of deadly fights between Qing Long, Wu Zhun (who acted as a leader of some desert raider groups), Xuan Wu (acted by Qi Yingwu) and a mysterious and highly-skilled girl called Tuo Tuo (supposedly the adopted daughter of the exiled Prince).

The movie was quite alright since I was looking for some kungfu action from Donnie who managed to deliver despite the fact that he had to lug some heavy-looking box containing fourteen blades used to torture and kill enemies. There were some comical scenes in the show which lightened up the relatively morbid story about how Qing Long had to recover his dignity as an Imperial Guard because of all the treachery and betrayal. Wu Zhun was not much of an actor but at least he looked the part of the charismatic desert raider who bravely fought the mysterious female pugilist. The final scene was about how Qing Long had to face off the female pugilist who was incredibly powerful and the movie ended with a narrative of Zhao Wei recollecting the finer moments of the movie.

I would advise my blog readers not to hold their breath for any good acting close enough to the movie Bodyguards and Assassins but the action scenes were definitely impressive enough to keep my ticket value worthwhile. Zhao Wei was probably the one shouldering most of the heavy acting since almost none of the male leads could act well given their rather stony expressions and rigid body language. I took in more of the beautiful scenery but I lamented the lack of any character development of the main villain, Tuo Tuo, who seemed to only provide pugilistic scenes with too little acting to be connected well.

It's just a three popcorn movie to pass the week before Chinese New Year and I'd be looking forward to see Jackie Chan and Lee Hom's movie Big Soldier and Little General during the CNY period. Have a good Chinese Lunar New Year ahead! ^__^