Confucius 2010 film with Chow Yun-fat
bababardwan
February 08, 2010, 11:49 PM posted in General DiscussionI note a film made in Mandarin on the life of Confucius was released in Beijing on January 14 and stars Chow Yun-fat.The timing was interesting because it has caused Hollywood's Avatar to be pulled from 1600 2d screens across China and has not been as popular.The controversies referred to in this wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_(2010_film)
...I thought particularly surrounding the choice of Chow Yun-fat and the concern his association with martial arts movies would turn Confucius into a kung fu hero,[and also the concern over him being more of a Cantonese speaker],and a descendant of Confucius has come out of the woodwork to bring a lawsuit against the film makers "objecting to the intimations that Confucius was romantically attracted to the concubine, Nanzi"
Has anybody seen this movie yet?
Interesting that we had a recent Advanced lesson on Confucius...I don't recall anyone mentioning this movie...did I miss it? I would love to see this movie even if it isn't being received so well.
changye
As is always the case in China, you can fabricate it, sell it, and buy it.
bababardwan
Well they could go to the dna,but it'd be halved to the 100th power,unless of course we have some consanguineous relations to complicate the calculations which we would have no doubt.Full genome sequencing on genealogical trees should be interesting.
But in the meantime,I'd actually be more interested to see on what basis one was making such a claim.
changye
February 11, 2010, 06:14 AMLet me take "发" (in 周润发, Chow yun-fat) as an example to show a little about historical relationship of hanzi readings among Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Below are (approximate) readings of 发 in different times and regions.
modern Chinese ... fa
middle Chinese ....piuat
modern Cantonese ....faat
modern Japanese ..... ha-tu
middle Japanese ..... pa-tu
modern Korean ..... pal
middle Korean ...... pal
Modern Chinese already lost the end consonant (stop consonant) "t", which existed in middle Chinese, but it's still well preserved in Cantonese and Japanese.
The Korean reading also has an end consonant, but interestingly it's not "t", but "l". Why? There is still no accepted theory, but some linguists claim that the "l" is originated in an obscure end consonant in northern Chinese, which represented a transitional sound between the end consonant "t" and its disappearance.
The same holds true for the character "达".
modern Chinese ... da
middle Chinese ....dat
modern Cantonese ....daat
modern Japanese ..... ta-tu
middle Japanese ..... ta-tu
modern Korean ..... dal
middle Korean ...... dal
hkboy
February 09, 2010, 06:23 AMMy co-worker met Chow Yun Fat. He was so excited.
bababardwan
真的吗？麻烦你，告诉我们多一点儿吧
hkboy
He was so happy. I remember it was April 1st. He came back and told everyone. However, 1/2 of the people thought it was an April Fool's joke. The other 1/2 either didn't care or didn't know him.
hkboy
February 09, 2010, 06:25 AMHey, you changed your avatar.
bababardwan
hkboy,
Wasn't that what you were responding to an hour ago in this comment?:
http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/6801#comment-150492
[I hope that works...it's the first time I've tried to directly link to a specific comment rather than a specific thread].
hkboy
haha. Good job. I like this one much better.
bababardwan
February 09, 2010, 06:31 AM
bababardwan
Chow Yun-fat doesn't seem to be having any problem with his Mandarin in these clips.
bababardwan
February 09, 2010, 06:34 AMI was trying to post videos from non youtube sites in the hope that those in China could view them too,but they don't seem to want to embed here.Here are the links anyway:
http://www.trailerspy.com/trailer/5212/Confucius-Trailer
http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/drama/watch/v19017555eNQKZdqK
bababardwan
February 09, 2010, 06:35 AMChow Yun-fat doesn't seem to be having any problem with his Mandarin in these clips.
bababardwan
February 09, 2010, 06:45 AMhkboy,
Wasn't that what you were responding to an hour ago in this comment?:
http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/6801#comment-150492
[I hope that works...it's the first time I've tried to directly link to a specific comment rather than a specific thread].
changye
February 09, 2010, 12:37 AMAs is always the case in China, you can fabricate it, sell it, and buy it.
bababardwan
February 09, 2010, 12:24 PM真的吗？麻烦你，告诉我们多一点儿吧
bababardwan
February 09, 2010, 12:28 PMYeah,I just wish I could find a release date for Australia.imdb only has release dates for China,HK,and South Korea:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1397498/releaseinfo
changye
February 09, 2010, 12:31 PMI must point out that Chow Yun-fat is too good-looking to play 孔夫子. Here is the link to the most well-known portrait of Confucius.
http://cityofdharmarealm.org/Events/2008/pictures/confucius.jpg
bababardwan
thanks for that link changye.Can you tell us more about that one? Does the portrait have a title and who is supposed to have painted it?
changye
I'm afraid I know nothing about the portrait.
orangina
I notice the confucian descendant didn't object to that little historical inaccuracy...
changye
Chinese people have already grown accustomed to "exaggerated history" in the PRC, hehe.
bababardwan
February 09, 2010, 12:42 PMthanks for that link changye.Can you tell us more about that one? Does the portrait have a title and who is supposed to have painted it?
orangina
February 09, 2010, 01:03 PMI notice the confucian descendant didn't object to that little historical inaccuracy...
hkboy
February 09, 2010, 01:50 PMHe was so happy. I remember it was April 1st. He came back and told everyone. However, 1/2 of the people thought it was an April Fool's joke. The other 1/2 either didn't care or didn't know him.
hkboy
February 09, 2010, 01:51 PMhaha. Good job. I like this one much better.
eupnea63355
February 09, 2010, 12:15 PMI'm glad to know about this movie! I hope it will come out on DVD with subtitles, though...my mandarin is awful.
bababardwan
Yeah,I just wish I could find a release date for Australia.imdb only has release dates for China,HK,and South Korea:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1397498/releaseinfo
bababardwan
February 09, 2010, 12:02 AMI tell you what,I'm intrigued by the notion that someone is able to claim to be a descendant of Confucius.That's fantastic genealogical work to have it all traced/recorded from that far back[must be over a hundred generations].I wonder how many others could also make that claim? I'd love to see the family tree mapped out...that'd be some scroll and I'd love to learn how they make/prove the connection.