Chinese Solo Artist: Coco Lee (李玟)

Posted by Charlie @ Discovering Mandarin Friday 4 September 2009 0 comments

乐队(band): 李玟 Lǐ​ Wén Coco Lee
专辑(album): 东西 dōng​xī​ East to West
国家(country): China
发行时间(release date): August 2009


Coco Lee is probably the Chinese equivalent to our Madonnas or Beyonces. Coco is a singer, songwriter, record producer and actress. Coco Lee sang the song "A Love Before Time" for the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. For that performance, she received huge worldwide exposure when she sang the song live at the 73rd Academy Awards ceremony.


Warner Music present her new album 'East to West' which includes songs that have a strong RnB and soul feel to them. They have strong melodies and driving rhythms. A couple of videos for the songs are below as is a link to download the album.

Party Time: Despite reminding me a little of Daniel Beddingfield's "Gotta get through this" Party time is a great pop song with a solid grove.


流轉
liú​ zhuǎn​
Flow / Turn


In addition to her status in the Mandarin music market, Lee's English-language performance has also received recognition. Her love song "Before I Fall In Love" was included in the soundtrack of the movie Runaway Bride. And "Do You Want my Love?" has also been released making headway in American and the UK Music market.

Do You Want My Love?





Album: East to West
Release Date: 18th August 2009

Tracklist:

01 美麗的主題曲 (Beautiful Theme Song)
02 Party Time
03 流轉 (Circulation)
04 愛要現在 (Love Right Now)
05 BYOB
06 影子 (Shadow)
07 Ready Or Not
08 我愛看電影 (I Love Going To The Movies)
09 三角心 (Three Hearts)
10 既然愛了 (Already Loved)
11 東西 (East And West)

Download East to West free
(as always if you are the content owner email me and I will remove this link)

Daily Chinese Proverb: Working Hard

Posted by Charlie @ Discovering Mandarin 0 comments

This proverb suits my past week, it is often used to describe someone who has worked extremely hard. Recently I have taken on more projects than my watch can handle, (at least whilst keeping up with my unpaid jollys) and if I could stop time to finish and spend all the time I want to on each thing, I would love to.

做牛做马
zuò​niú​zuò​mǎ​
lit. to work like an ox, to work like a horse



Vocab:
牛 niú​ Ox

New Song: Sodagreen

Posted by Charlie @ Discovering Mandarin 0 comments

Sodagreen have got a new song: 狂熱 (fever?) It is ridiculously catchy. It is not as calm and relaxed as the songs I posted last week.

Sodagreen have a new album due out soon, and a world tour upcoming.



Mandarin Movie: Ashes of Time Redux

Posted by Charlie @ Discovering Mandarin 3 comments

Ashes of Time Redux [1994 / 2008]


'Ashes of Time Redux' is a good film, dreamlike, disjointed, and possessed a stunningly complex narrative poetry. Often hard to follow and the colouring of the desert scenes is at times rather overexposed and abstract. Though the front cover quite clearly has a swords man this film is more about self-meditation and thoughts of the protagonist than out and out action.



The action scenes that are included are blurry and snarly, not cut together particularly well. However, the purpose of these scenes is to illustrate the tale, and provides this purpose well. The early storyline(s) are tough to follow, but are explained as you go. It had me and my housemate staring at each other in confusion early on.



Ashes of Time Redux (東邪西毒:終極版 : literally meaning "The Heretic East and the Venomous West": The Ultimate Edition) is set in five parts, five seasons that are part of the Chinese almanac. The story takes place in the jianghu, the world of the martial arts. Ouyang Feng the main character is a hard man to figure out, and at the end still leaves you pondering whether he is wise, or an idiot.


Ashes of Time Redux is inspired by characters from Louis Cha’s martial arts novel ‘The Eagle-Shooting Heroes’. It centers on a man named Ouyang Feng. He left his home in White Camel Mountain when the woman he loved chose to marry his elder brother rather than him. Instead of seeking glory, he ends up as an agent hiring skilled swordsmen to carry out contract killings. His wounded heart has made him pitiless and cynical, but his encounters with friends, clients and future enemies make him conscious of his solitude...
The novels the film is based around actually have the lords of the east and west as much older men and arch nemeses. I would be very interested to read the books at a later date. All in all a good film; if you have the patience to navigate the honestly, mind boggling first half, of a somewhat abstract poetic film.





Ashes of Time Redux [1994 / 2008]
Wong Kar-Wai: Director
Leslie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Tony Leung Kar Fai

Mandarin w/English Subtitles

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