[Weekly Update] Even More Movies I Want to Review but Don't Know How.

Montreal will see 2 weeks worth of rain.

This is probably Karma for getting the super unlikely clear sky on the solar eclipse earlier this month.

I can feel the mold growing on my body.

CHANNEL UPDATE

Our next video is complete and waiting for sponsorship to clear. It should go live sometime on Monday. Sorry for the delay. But I'm sure you are all used to me delaying stuff by now (sorry).

In the meantime, I'll be slowly working on the Maggie Cheung video to ensure it is perfect. To keep up with the schedule, I'll parallel that with smaller scale projects.

I have always wanted to talk about Nigerian cinema, but their films aren't very easy to find. They usually aren't available on popular streaming services here in the West. If you know where people go to watch Nigerian movies, let me know.

Finally, bonus video will be out on April 30th. It's pretty late, I know. Again, sorry for the delay.

MEDIA TALK

As discussed last year, Chinese cinema is currently doing pretty well. Everyday, it resembles Korean cinema a bit more, which is not a bad thing at all. While Korean cinema produces some of the best films currently, and China hasn't really top the world in a while, the gaps between commercial productions are definitely shrinking.

Long time viewers will notice that I don't cover Korean films very often. And that is partly because I'm not as familiar with the industry as I do with Chinese and Japanese films. But more importantly, the highly commercialized and genre-abide nature of the industry means the films are fairly disposable. I watch them, enjoy them, but they don't stay with me much. This phenomenon also applies to a lot of Chinese productions, which makes my job kinda difficult.

Last year's Wandering Earth 2 and Creation of the Gods were two blockbusters that many reviewers wanted me to talk about. But I only ended up talking about aspects of it in our year-end review. The main problem is, I just don't know what I can add to the viewing experience. Creation of the Gods, in particular, takes a great deal of liberty with its source material, to a point it became a fresh experience for most Chinese viewers. Explaining the mythology behind the film, at best, wouldn't help much. At worst, it'd mislead expectation. I'm pretty sure it'll also make a fairly uninteresting video, offering little insight other than giving you informations you can find on a Wikipedia page.

(That said, maybe one day I'll do something similar to the Dynasty series, and talk about the myth, and compare it to various adaptations)

A Taiwanese movie came to Mainland China earlier this year and was a massive box-office success. The surprisingly well done action and the thrilling plot was very entertaining. But again, I don't know what to say about it. I considered talking about the two primary antagonists in the film (A Hong Kong gangster, and a Taiwanese cult leader) and talk about why they are chosen for this story. But they can all be so succinctly summarized in one sentence each:

The Hong Kong gangster represents Taiwan's dangerous fascination with organized Crime.

The cult leader represents Taiwan on-going plague of cults and superstitions.

And from here, I think everyone can piece together why someone breaking the law and fixing societal issues will be so satisfying. It's literally a TikTok length video idea.

But at the end of the day, the biggest obstacle to these reviews is, as sad as it sounds, the guarantee low view counts.

Having to rely mostly on sponsorships to maintain the channel, I can only do one obscure film highlights around once every 3 to 4 months. That way I can balance the view counts to an acceptable level. It's a business, one which I don't enjoy managing. It makes me understand why you don't hate the player and should hate the game.

The new Slam Dunk movie was a big cultural moment for Chinese millenials. But for people outside of this cultural circle, the video has little appeal. Abang Adik is an excellent film that enjoys little name recognition on YouTube. That's why these films are always in production, but are perpetually postponed when more algorithm friendly topics came along.

Which brings us to the last reason why I can't make videos about all the films I want: Time. With a bi-weekly schedule, we are one of the most productive film channel on YouTube. And I work alone: write, narrate, edit, everything. I certainly would love to finish talking about the Rurouni Kenshin series. But since I already talked about the first three films, the last two new ones aren't as prioritized. The new City Hunter movie is loads of fun, and I would love to talk about it with you. But I still haven't finish my video on Ashiap Man, and I can only pick one.

That's the kind of minor annoyance of doing youTube full time and alone. I said this a lot, but I sincerely do mean it: Your support made this channel possible, and help mitigate many of the aforementioned problems. On social media, I often see people say that their favourite part of our channel is learning about movies they have never heard of. And I want to do it more often.

Anyway, that's the update for this week. See you soon with a new video!