My Neighbour Totoro was probably my first exposure to anime. The scratched up old VHS that had no doubt been copied off a family friend was dubbed in Cantonese, so my three year-old self knew the titular character as "龍貓" and like may children I was completely enamoured by the fantastical adventures on my TV screen. Several years later, Sailor Moon (dubbed in English) burst onto the scene, and to say I was obsessed would probably be an understatement. I would rush home every day after school to catch the newest episode and I still mourn the sizable card collection I had cajoled my poor parents into helping me acquire. But if Sailor Moon paved the way for anime in the North American market, Pokemon opened the flood gates and suddenly there was an embarrassment of riches when it came to family-friendly anime being available on TV. Aside from a special few though (namely Digimon and Cardcaptor Sakura), most of the series that came and went failed to hold my attention. 

Then I discovered through a new friend (a crush, if I'm being honest) that the local kids' channel played the "cooler" and "more mature" anime when I (a deeply shy, uncool and rule-following teenager) was already in bed. As someone who loved to sleep, staying up late was a big ask, but the pretty boys and political intrigue of Gundam Wing managed to entice me into sacrificing sleep. And so I was pulled into the vortex, never to fully escape from the grasp of anime again. I started visiting my new friend's house where we would watch his anime VHS tapes (copied off friends, as is the Asian way. See: Totoro) and we scoured the internet looking to find what our next emotional investment should be.

It should surprise no one that in 1999, the talk of the internet world was Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Between all the online anime sites telling me this was a must watch and the "cool girl" anime fan at school dedicating a whole section to the series on her Geocities website (all the rage in 1999-2000), I was determined that I would get my hands on this series. Knowing only that there were giant robots and teenagers piloting them, I convinced my parents to let me spend my little bit of cash on the first VHS tape through an online anime store. $50+ dollars for a measly two episodes.

I know how old this truly makes me, but man! Kids today really have NO idea how good they've got it.

My friend and I waited with bated breath for the package. When the VHS tape finally arrived, we arranged a viewing date. I still remember the shivers I felt down my spine when the opening song and animation started. This was going to be something special.
 

 

Needless to say, we devoured the first two episodes in one go.

It was a foregone conclusion that I was going to have to purchase the next installment. With each VHS costing $50 and my cash influx consisting only of birthday/Christmas money, Chinese New Year Money, and $20 per "A" on my report card (no weekly allowance for me!), I was going to have to do well in school and live a comparatively frugal teenage lifestyle in order to afford them all. I had enough saved to commit to the next tape immediately, but we were going to have to wait until the following report card to see about any further purchases.

Thank goodness, then, for the advent of DVDs. Not long after I managed to get my grubby little hands on the second tape, ADV Films announced that they would be releasing the series on DVD. $50 for 3-4 episodes seemed to be a much more economical option and the fact that it would be months between releases meant that I could relax a little bit in saving money, even if it was excruciating to wait for new episodes. But over the next year and a bit, I would purchase the newly released DVDs whenever they were available and our little viewing group grew from just the two of us to four or five (depending on scheduling availability). It always felt like an event, the anticipation for these next installments and what they would deliver, soaking in all the  visuals and dialogue and music because we only got three new, precious episodes every few months. I remember all of us laughing a little when we couldn't help singing along to the opening and closing themes. We were absolutely hooked.
-------------------

And I return almost 3 years later to finish this rambling, stream of consciousness about Evangelion! Fitting - I think - given the subject.

My mom got an Amazon Prime account, and with that came Prime Video. She generously shared her login with me, and in one of those mind-numbing, doom-scrolling fits, I happened across the fact that Amazon had the "exclusive" rights to streaming the Rebuild of Evangelion movies! And all 4 of them were available for my viewing pleasure! What!

Honestly, I'd picked a good time to stumble across this (September 2021) as the last movie had only just been made available in North America a month earlier. After - I cannot emphasize this enough - 14 years of production from the release of the first movie until then.

Despite my own feelings of ennui and disappointment in the human race with the pandemic still very much a part of our daily lives, I decided to give it go. Misery loves company after all, and this universe in particular was populated with characters that certainly existed in miserable circumstances. And whoo boy, did the first two moves deliver that misery in spades! I remember commenting on a Plurk Post I'd made about it that "this seems more... brutal than I remember". Evangelion is not exactly a series that inspires warm, fuzzy feelings as a rule, but as an adult, with the movies deliberately leaning into the horror of watching these pre-teens be subjected to this level of violence and trauma as "military assets"... well, it was bleak. Which was impressive in its own way, given I went into this expecting nothing less.

The third movie - honestly - was an exercise in frustration for me. Like many, it's a pet-peeve when conflict arises from characters refusing to communicate with each other for absolutely no good reason, and the third movie was filled with this. I have also never been particularly attached to Kaworu as a character. I supposed they did a good job placing me in Shinji's perspective of not knowing what the hell was happening around him and the frustration this would inspire. But to me, the third movie is a bit of a wash, all set-up and little payoff.

... was it worth it? I'm going to say it was a little worth it. Because even as someone who truly has a lot of nostalgic affection for Evangelion, I was shocked by how emotional the 4th movie made me. I had been promised catharsis, and that promise had been delivered.

It's well-known that Hideaki Anno was struggling with depression during the production of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and that he has (mostly) been in a much more stable and happier state of mind since then. I've seen jokes that the Rebuild of Evangelion movie - at least the final one - is "Evangelion on anti-depressants". It's a little funny... but also it's true? My main reaction immediately after the credits started rolling was "I'm not used to so much hope in my Evangelion franchise??" 

Like many of my misguided opinions in life, I've often thought of Hong Kong cinema as somehow universally "beneath" that of the Western world based on my very limited exposure as a child. I remember experiencing no small amount of shock that after having seen The Departed in theatres with friends and Infernal Affairs at home - two vastly different takes on the cat-and-mouse game between moles in the police and local crime gang - I had much preferred the latter despite it's slight over-commitment to melodrama and three paper-thin female characters. The acting choices and expressive face of Tony Leung Chiu Wai particularly drew me in. "Wow", I thought, "There are talented people making movies in Hong Kong afterall."

This didn't mean I started watching a plethora of Hong Kong features afterwards. It was hard to find any in the rapidly dying Blockbusters, the bootleg DVDs in the tiny, cramped shops of Chinese strip malls in Richmond could not be trusted to have reliable and accurate subtitles, and trying to find an active torrent seemed an impossibility. Besides, where would I even start? My parents are hardly cinephiles and I didn't have a friend-group or community to glean recommendations from. I made a point to drag my mother out to any release that featured Chinese actors or stories heavily - even sitting through the very uncomfortable sex scenes in Lust, Caution in theatres with her - but that was the extent of it. Unsurprisingly, I gravitated towards films that focused on the experience of second-generation immigrants and their experiences, including but not limited to Saving Face, My Wedding and Other Secrets, Double Happiness, Crazy Rich Asians, and The Farewell.


Today, in an attempt to have a better appreciation for Tony Leung's immense talents and charisma while not feeling comfortable enough to brave the cinemas for Marvel's newest installment -  Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - I sought out a way to watch the much lauded In the Mood for Love instead. Glory Hallelujah but streaming sites (legitimate or not) have made it so much easier to access more obscure titles, and once I found a link for this movie I jumped on it. It was as visually gorgeous and lush and as emotionally wrought and mildly devastating as I have read about for many (many, many, many) years. I knew of course that for Tony Leung this is a performance that is widely noted as career-defining, having won him the acting award at Cannes. And he was as captivating as expected - much is made of his expressive eyes and it cannot be emphasized enough how incredibly true and accurate all of those plaudits really are. If anyone has a particularly effective longing smolder for the camera, it's him (the last scene in the movie and everything leading up to the culmination of it, ugh). What I didn't expect was how much more this is Maggie Leung's movie, how quietly heartbreaking she is in a way that his character is not quite. Seeing her on her lonely nightly sojourn for noodles, sitting and watching others play mahjong with polite (dis)interest, covering for her boss and his own infidelity, contemplating on how complicated marriage is and the contentment of being single and alone, worrying about the morality of the situation and what the neighbours will think as she seeks emotional comfort from the one person she knows understands her own hurt...

I expected even less to be so emotionally impacted by the Shanghainese influences peppered throughout the movie. The dialect of the landlady and the elderly house attendant, the clothing, the hair, the architecture and personality of the narrow building and the rain-soaked streets, the anxiety about the imminent political changes. These are my maternal grandparents' people in the city my mother grew up in. This time and place - in some ways - has a part in the history of my family roots that I have not seen demonstrated before because I've never gone looking for it.

Perhaps In the Mood for Love was a melancholy way to spend an afternoon, all in the pursuit of staring into Tony Leung's dreamboat gaze. But it turned out to be emotionally productive, one way or another.

(ETA: A summary of our family history as a result of my rekindled Tony Leung infatuation.)

Ah, Little Women. 

(As an aside: I like to try and "pamper" my dad as well, but he's always a hard sell. Paul McCartney's coming to town for a concert? But why would he want to see Paul McCartney, he's not The Beatles! Tickets to the Seahawks game are available? He'd much rather watch the game from the comfort of his own living room anyway. How about going to White Spot for a burger? Eh, he'd rather just have A&W-- no wait, scratch that, he'd rather just have some food from home, thanks. The fact that he said yes to The Beach Boys at the PNE was a huge surprise to me, and that's how I ended up at a Beach Boys concert with six "seniors".)

Movies are an indulgence as well, but it's not often that there's something that both my mom and I are interested in watching. The only sure-bet has been movies featuring Asian characters, which has been far and few between for most of my life. One of my first Christmas presents to my mom was tracking down Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet - a movie she professed to loving and hadn't seen in years. When Lust, Caution came out we watched it together (uncomfortable sex scenes and all) in theaters. I took her to see Crazy Rich Asians, even though I'd already seen it myself, because it was something I wanted to share with her. When The Farewell came out in theaters, it was really only a matter of time.



When my maternal grandmother - who I called MaMa - became very sick, my family tried to convince me that I needn't hurry back to Hong Kong to see her. They couldn't - or wouldn't - tell me what her diagnosis was and told me she would wait until May, likely in denial about how serious her condition was. Unlike Billi, I did not have a particularly close or loving relationship with MaMa. She had been dismissive of me and my parents in the past and my dad had not been on speaking terms with her for over five years. Still, she had mellowed out in those intervening years, and I remember commenting to my mom "I've never seen MaMa smile so much when looking at me before" after a short visit for tea and cake with her in 2013. Beyond all that, she was still my grandma, and I felt compelled to see her. So I chose to fly to Hong Kong for a very tough 5 days to say my own farewell. I read a review that talked about how the conflicts of Billi wanting to be able to properly say goodbye to her grandmother vs Billi struggling with her identity as an Asian and an American do not dovetail nicely and therefore interrupt the rhythms of the movie. But that's the complications of real-life, where you can't just set one or the other neatly aside to be dealt with later. In a different way than Billi, I struggled with both of these things during my time in Hong Kong. I visited MaMa every day, twice a day during that period, and there was only one time that she was awake enough to acknowledge me. But she smiled and nodded when my uncles asked if she knew who I was, and she held my hand. She passed away a month later.

I didn't even get to do that for Bubu. When I returned from my time in Washington, my dad drove me straight from the airport to the hospital. Bubu was sleeping fitfully, oxygen at 95%, heart rate jumping from 45 to 145 beats per minute. Even when she opened her eyes, she didn't seem aware. I had to return to work the next few days and wanted to wait until I could go to the hospital together with my mom. I planned to see her after work on Sunday evening; Bubu passed away early that Sunday morning. Despite being so close for most of my life, I didn't get to say goodbye.

The Farewell feels in many ways like it was made for me, even moreso than Crazy Rich Asians was. We don't all get to fall in love with charming men who are secretly wealthy, but we almost all have to go through the grief of losing a grandparent. And the struggle with fitting in to a culture that I don't feel a part of felt more personal and painful this time around. In one of the last scenes, I looped my arm through my mom's, leaned my head against her shoulder, and cried. I'd thought this movie might be cathartic for both of us, but the movie was so overwhelmingly Billi's that I suspect it only had that effect on me.