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[REVIEW] “A Quirky Composite Portrait: 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑜𝑓 𝐵𝑒𝑖𝑗𝑖𝑛𝑔” by Sabina Knight
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Bingbing Shi (editor), Fu Xiuying (author, tr. Christopher MacDonald), Xu Zechen (author, tr. Eric Abrahamsen), Xu Kun (author, tr....
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[REVIEW] “A Poem Epic in Length, Powerfully Cautionary: Leanne Dunic’s 𝑊𝑒𝑡”...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Leanne Dunic, Wet, Talonbooks, April 2024. 133 pgs. Interwoven throughout Wet, Leanne Dunic’s most recent book named as one of the...
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[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Spectral Valency: Élise Girard’s 𝑆𝑖𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝐽𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑛” by...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Élise Girard (director), Sidonie in Japan, 2024. 95 min. Sidonie Perceval (Isabelle Huppert) is a writer, or at least she once was....
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[REVIEW] “Found in Translation: 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑏𝑦 𝑎 𝐾𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑢𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑛...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Dennis Würthner (translator), Tales of the Strange by a Korean Confucian Monk: Kŭmo sinhwa by Kim Sisŭp, University of Hawai‘i...
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[REVIEW] “Tantalising with Questions: BuYun Chen’s 𝐸𝑚𝑝𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑆𝑡𝑦𝑙𝑒” by...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS BuYun Chen, Empire of Style: Silk and Fashion in Tang China, University of Washington Press, 2019. 272 pgs. Although the name “Silk...
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[EXCLUSIVE] “Nausea” by Wong Bik-wan, Translated by Vanessa Yee-kwan Wong
Vanessa Yee-kwan Wong’s Note: “Nausea” was published in Wong Bik-wan’s 黃碧雲Tenderness and Violence 溫柔與暴烈 (Cosmo Books, 1994). Inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel of the same name (La Nausée, 1938),...
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[EXCLUSIVE] “A Walk Around the Square” by Paul Bevan
Paul Bevan’s Introduction: This story comes from a series entitled Ways and Pathways. Each story in the series follows an individual, a man or woman, as they walk from point A to point B, and...
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[REVIEW] “A Bilingual Local Tasting Menu: Derek Chung’s 𝐴 𝐶ℎ𝑎 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑎𝑛 𝑇𝑒𝑛𝑔 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Derek Chung (author), May Huang (translator), A Cha Chaan Teng That Does Not Exist, Zephyr Press. 2023. 140 pgs. Reading A Cha Chaan...
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[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “A Historic Thriller Steeped in the Mythical Mists of...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Yangsze Choo, The Fox Wife, Henry Holt and Company, 2024. 400 pgs. One of the biggest challenges a novelist has is that of...
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[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Seeking Freedom in the Midst of Sexual Fetishes and...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Wong Ping (director), Sorry for the Late Reply, 2021. 15 min. “If you’ve ever stepped into the supernatural world during a hike, or...
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[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Inside the Fortune Cookie: Babak Jalali’s 𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑡” by...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Babak Jalali (director), Fremont, 2023. 88 min. “Fortune messages are a responsibility. Consciously, or unconsciously, they are...
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[REVIEW] “Universally Relevant Today: Makoto Shinkai & Naruki Nagakawa’s 𝑆ℎ𝑒...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa (authors), Ginny Tapley Takemori (translator), She and Her Cat, Washington Square Press, 2024....
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[REVIEW] “Esprit of the City: Yiu-Wai Chu’s 𝐻𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝐾𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑃𝑜𝑝 𝐶𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Yiu-Wai Chu, Hong Kong Pop Culture in the 1980s: A Decade of Splendour, Asian Visual Cultures series, Amsterdam University Press,...
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[REVIEW] “Femme Fatale: On Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka’s 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔” by...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka (directors), Stonewalling, 2022. 148 min. The first time she wears the t-shirt she paces before a mirror...
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[EXCLUSIVE] “Anthony Tao at Sunset Bar” by Matt Turner
Editor’s note: Matt Turner recently read Anthony Tao’s new poetry collection, We Met in Beijing, and went to a reading of his in New York. He wrote a short “consideration” about it all and we are...
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[EXCLUSIVE] “The Charred City” by Lok Fung, Translated by Chris Song
Chris Song’s Note: “The Charred City” conveys the manic restlessness Hongkongers felt after 1997. The story is set in the stifling social atmosphere of post-Handover Hong Kong, which was “charred”,...
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[EXCLUSIVE] “Alien Bless You: A Review of Netflix’s 3 𝐵𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑚” by Angus...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Derek Tsang, Andrew Stanton, Minkie Spiro, and Jeremy Podeswa (directors), 3 Body Problem, 2024. We all die. Being a problem-solving...
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[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Enigmatic Pronouncement: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s 𝐸𝑣𝑖𝑙 𝐷𝑜𝑒𝑠...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (director), Evil Does Not Exist, 2023. 106 min. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s follow-up to his Oscar-nominated hit Drive My...
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[REVIEW] “Coexistence of the Familiar and the Unfamiliar: Hiromi Kawakami’s...
RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on People from My Neighbourhood. Hiromi Kawakami (author), Ted Goossen (translator), People...
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[SHŌGUN] “On the Edge of My Seat: 𝑆ℎ𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑛 (2024) Episodes I & II” by e rathke
Cha‘s SHŌGUN Feature Well, after telling everyone how great the 1980 Shōgun miniseries is, I watched the first two episodes of this year’s new adaptation of James Clavell’s 1975 novel. And it’s really...
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