My Expectations For The Disney Live Action Mulan - 花木蘭

Mulan (花木蘭) is set to be released on September 4th on Disney+. I do not know how it will be released in the rest of the world. The movie is based on an folklore character from Zhong Guo.

The movie was originally set for release in March, but the Covid-19 pandemic set it back to July. But US recovery has been slower than the rest of the world and it was push back to August. Eventually, it was taken off the release cycle completely. About a week or so ago, Disney decided to release it through its Disney+ platform for a fee.

If you've had any time to go through my blog post through the years, I watch a lot of stuff from Taiwan and Zhong Guo. Recently, the stuff out of Zhong Guo has had some stand outs. In any given year, I am watching 10-20 movies and/or dramas out of Taiwan or Zhong Guo. I particularly love watching all the Jin Yong (Louis Cha) remakes through the years. I get to keep in touch with my heritage along with trying to keep my Mandarin language skills sharper.

When I watch the Mulan trailers, I am particularly disappointed. Because it feels like it did not come out of Zhong Guo. Just goto your Netflix and bring up trailers for God of War (movie), Eternal Love (drama), or Double World (movie). All three "ancient" series have a distinct feel. Mulan does not have that feel. If anything, it makes me feel like it is an offshoot of The Forbidden Kingdom (功夫之王). A movie made with an Asian cast, but does not feel like it would have come out of Asia.

I will be watching this movie to support it, because it does have an Asian cast. I do not think it helps with diversity much in Hollywood because the setting is not in the US. And it uses all the "Asian" stereotypes in the trailer. I don't know about you, I haven't seen "honor" show up in any of the stuff I watch from Taiwan and Zhong Guo recently. And I spend 75% or more of time watching Mandarin language stuff since quarantine started.

I will support Mulan, but I don't expect it to be very good. Maybe it will surprise me. I hope so because I watch movies to to entertain me, not to depress me.

且听凤鸣 - Dance of the Phoenix - On Air

且听凤鸣 (Dance of the Phoenix) is an 2020 drama out of Zhong Guo. The drama stars Yang Chaoyue, Xu Kaicheng, and Fu Jing. Yang Chaoyue and Fu Jing were former teammates on Rocket Girls 101. The drama is part of the Xian Xia ( fantasy) genre where they have magical powers that they cultivate. As the Wu Xia genre has decreased in recent years, Xian Xia has taken over this past decade or more.

My whole family is currently obsessed with this series. We rush to the viki app everyday to see if new episodes are available. We fell in love with Yang Chaoyue during 炙热的我们 (We Are Blazing) and this series has put her as one my daughters favorites. I hope she makes a good transition into show biz and has a long career.

The drama itself isn't overly complicated and kinda reminds of another series that I got obessed over a decade ago, 仙劍奇俠傳三 (Chinese Paladin 3). Both take a video game approach to the story. The main star of Yang Chaoyu as Feng Wu is the star of the series. Yang is immediately likable and has the beauty to carry the show. I don't know how ratings go on Tencent, but our family loves the show and can't wait for it to continue.

Can it go 60-80 episodes?

Ford v Ferrari - 賽道狂人

Ford v Ferrari (賽道狂人) is an 2019 film. The movie stars Matt Damon and Christian Bale. The supporting cast include Jon Bernthal, Caitriona Balfe, and Josh Lucas. The movie is based on a real life events of the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans.



Christian Bale plays Ken Miles, a British professional race car driver trying to make a living in SoCal. Matt Damon plays Carroll Shelby, a retired race car driver part of the team that won the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans. Ford Motor company's Henry Ford II wants Ford to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Enter Carroll Shelby. Shelby convinces Miles to be his driver for the event. The two spend the first half of the movie trying to build a car that could be enough to run and win the race. The second half the film is focused on the actual race.



This was a really good movie. I was sad that I couldn't have supported this film while it was in the theaters. I got this via digital copy from iTunes when quarantine started.

The movie presents a compelling storyline, paired with excellent acting. You got a killer combo. The movie was almost 2.5 hours long and I didn't even notice. It went by so quick because I was completely into the story.

If you're looking for a great movie from 2019, give this a try.

炙热的我们 - We Are Blazing

炙热的我们 (We Are Blazing) is an 2020 variety show out of Zhong Guo. The format is that of a survival show where voters vote for their contestants to move on. There are multiple experienced groups that will complete head to head. After 2 loses, they are eliminated. The first groups to complete against each other are SNH48, R1SE, SIS, Penicillin, Black ACE, and S.I.N.G. After a couple of eliminations, Rocket Girls 101 and Shanghai Choir filled in the empty slots.

Unlike survival shows that focus on forming a group to end the show, this format were established groups PKing each other to determine the Super Group. I really liked this format. A LOT. Because the performances were against each other. Each group wanted to show up the other. In a sense, each group and their company wanted to win each round. This lead to some of my favorite performances of 2020. I have many of the songs from the show on my YouTube playlist playing away in the background. My personal favorite group and performance was from SNH48. It was their cover of New Pants, "Do You Want To Dance". I have that song on all the time. I also liked R1SE a lot too. They really showed up with some really good performances.

All in all, I appreciated the talent level of We Are Blazing much more than other survival shows. Its too bad that recent survival show winners THE9, Bon Bon Girls 303, and UNINE was not able to participate. Or even the temporary group 172 Girls. THE9 and Bon Bon Girls 303 would have had a hard time given that they formed after the start of the show and would've been shown how fresh they were. Rocket Girls 101 was an unknown to me before this show and a few minutes of google, it seems that they stepped up their game for the show too. Yang Chaoyue ended up as the "funny girl" for my kids and we've since started watching her most recent drama.

If you're looking for good songs, good performances, and some fun, this is the show for you. If there was anything I disliked was the ending. The first three quarters of the episodes were the best. If you wanted to, you can skip the last couple and focus on the first 8.

Go watch We Are Blazing on YouTube.

创造营2020 - Chuang 2020 - Produce Camp 2020

创造营2020 (Chuang 2020/Produce Camp 2020) is an 2020 variety show out of Zhong Guo. The format is that of a survival show where voters vote for their contestants to move on. 101 female trainees from different entertainment companies are competing for one of seven spots to form a female idol group.

The show has performances that lead to eliminations. These performances normally include both dancing and singing. There are a total of 4 main votings that lead to the formation of the top 7 for the debut group. Along the way, the show follows how the trainees form different teams to perform the songs. There are filler type episodes that include activities that bring the teammates closer together. I think it also lets you get to know the contestants better too.

Wow, the following two paragraphs were almost directly copy and pasted from my post on Youth With You 2 (YWY2). Because the shows were essentially the same in its format. Public voting through 4 rounds to form an female idol group. This was the third season of this show from Tencent Video. The first season produced 火箭少女101 (Rocket Girls 101).

At first, when this show started broadcasting, Youth With You 2 was 2/3 through broadcasting. My kids didn't want to start on another show. So we started watching 炙热的我们 (We Are Blazing) after YWY2 ended. Which eventually still left a lot of time to fill, so Chuang started to make it onto the family playlist. I only have 1 television in the house so we all have to want to watch something for it to get shown. My kids ended up watching clips on the family tablet.

[START COPY AND PASTE FROM YWY2]
My family ended up getting a little over obsessed with the show and now regularly play the performances via Youtube. Often times, we can create hours long playlist from the clips. Within our family, we each had our favorites that we cheered on. We also have our favorite songs.

We also cried in sadness whenever someone we really liked didn't move on to the next stages. Luckily, all of our favorites made it to final show. Which made the motivation to watch to the end easier.
[End COPY AND PASTE FROM YWY2]

We're just glad that we were able to be exposed to the world of Mandarin language Survival Shows. We are loving them. They don't stop and we are now going back into 2018 and 2019 shows via YouTube and Viki.

青春有你2 - Youth With You 2

青春有你2 (Youth With You 2) (YWY) is an 2020 variety show out of Zhong Guo. The format is that of a survival show where voters vote for their contestants to move on. 109 female trainees from different entertainment companies are competing for one of nine spots to form a female idol group.

The show has performances that lead to eliminations. These performances normally include both dancing and singing. There are a total of 4 main votings that lead to the formation of the top 9 for the debut group. Along the way, the show follows how the trainees form different teams to perform the songs. There are filler type episodes that include activities that bring the teammates closer together. I think it also lets you get to know the contestants better too.



I have seen other survival shows in the past, but this was the first in a few years for something from Asia. YWY's concepts were borrowed from Korean shows. But the shows themselves have been transformed according to what I've read. Since I have not seen any Korean survival shows to compare, I'll take the internet at its word.

My family ended up getting a little over obsessed with the show and now regularly play the performances via Youtube. Often times, we can create hours long playlist from the clips. Within our family, we each had our favorites that we cheered on. We also have our favorite songs.

We also cried in sadness whenever someone we really liked didn't move on to the next stages. Luckily, all of our favorites made it to final show. Which made the motivation to watch to the end easier.

The editing and presented storylines of YWY, in hindsight, were excellent. Which makes rewatching episodes so enjoyable. Yes, we still regularly rewatch the episodes. Each time, we remember a person more and whom they were teamed up with. There are nuggets of freshness each time we rewatch.

As in my previous post, this was also the show that solidified to my family that we like these survival type shows. It has opened up a Pandora's box of survival shows to me and my family.

Watching Survival Shows

Well, we are living in some unprecedented times. Covid-19 hit the world and the entertainment industry has taken a massive hit. From the US side of things, things have really dried up in terms of content. The regular movie schedule that I have grown accustomed to had slowly faded to black. At the moment, it looks like the movie theather industry will have a hard time gettin back to where they were. Disney, the leader at the box office these last few years has had to re-adjust their movie release schedule. So much so that they had taken Artimis Fowl to Disney+ and the latest to follow is the live action Mulan movie.

In March and early April, I actually purchased many early release digital copies such as Call Of The Wild and Bloodspot. I thought I'd help contribute the industry in my own way. Digital deals from third party venders started to hit the market. Deals like buy 3 Vudu Instawatch titles, get a 4th free. I have purchase many $1.99 digital copies of China Lion releases these past few months.

So, all the above is to say that its been harder to find new and interesting movies or shows. At the time, I was searching around for trailers from China Lion and some recommendations for a Survival Show called Youth With You 2 (YWY2) started to show up in late April. So, I decided to give Episode 1 a try. It was interesting and I thought it would be a good way to improve my kids Mandarin. I encourage them to watch episode 1 with me. From there, we started to watch them from the iQiyi website.

We ended up being about a mouth behind and spent our free time catching up through the 9th or 10th week of the show. We than had to wait patiently as they released 2 shows a week on Thursday and Saturday. By this point, my kids are fully invested in the show and we starting to improve our Mandarin as a whole family. It was getting easier for us to say some names regularly in Mandarin. We are not in the habit remembering zhong wen names so it was hard at first. We started to say, the long hair gal from this and that song. Recently as we have gone back to watch some episodes, we are much better at remembering their names.

When Youth With You 2 ended, we started to watch Chuang 2020. Chuang 2020 was fully available on Youtube with english subtitles. And the episodes were sometimes twice the length YWY2. But only 2 shows were released weekly on the weekends, so we than had to fill in the time.

We started on We Are Blazing, than Super Novea Games S3, and recently, it was Street Dance Of China S3. All these shows have really given me a new perspective of the variety shows in general from Zhong Gao. I kinda like them.

What is your favorite show?