Big Fish

just went to watch big fish at jp.

i haven't watched a movie that made me tear in a damn bloody long time, but this show really tugged at my heartstrings pretty hard, so it's not my fault.

to begin with, it's a pity i'm only halfway through the book (geez what a slow reader i am!) but from all that i've read, the movie adaptation of edward bloom's tales and adventures have been slightly tweaked a tad bit. now don't get me wrong, the movie's not unrecognisable, and i really like what tim burton's done (i like all his shows!), but there're instances when the scenes don't play out as has been read in the book (like the day edward left ashland or the girl in the river story). nonetheless the movie plays out the present (edward dying) and the past (his exaggerated tales perhaps?) quite seamlessly, melding the stories into storytelling instances by people who repeat his tale.

i honestly regretted not having read the end of the book before i entered the cinema and henceforth had no chance to do any comparison. but the end was a heartstring-tugging, warm finale of what the whole movie/ (hopefully) book seemed to be trying to get at, the reconciliation between son and father, father and son. following steadily behind the successful formulaic footsteps of finding nemo, this show (unlike nemo) charms its viewers with the tearjerking unfortunate ending (cheap stunt) that spelt out emotions of finally finding AND THEN losing a loved one. haiz, good story-telling indeed.

on a lighter note, look out for the typical asian stereotypes and all things lame that the western world makes of us yellowskins. on the secret mission into china, edward (played by ewan mcgregor) is seen busy reading an ENGLISH-to-ASIAN dictionary/translation guide on the plane. i didn't know they had combined different asian languages into one dictionary. also which the communist performance was hosted/ventriloquisted in chinese, the siamese twins first perform an english song to an obvious chinese audience (maybe they understood every bit of it) and then later in their dressing room, start conversing in cantonese, which (no surprises here) edward seems extremely fluent with. kudos to the scriptwriters for selecting an asian cast that spoke identifiable languages that made sense (quite audible in fact - the chinese mc actually says the ventriloquist deserved to be shot while the twins' bickering was distinctly hongkee cantonese). ewan mcgregor, on the other hand, sounded like a constipated clay aiken trying to speak japanese.

well enough lah, whoever reads this i say the show comes highly recommended by me, you might wanna do so AFTER reading the book though. val on the otherhand, disagrees and thinks it should be done vice versa. hmph.

bring a loved one. and more kleenex.