Just let me lie here on the tile

Only the River Flows, Zhu Yilong's latest movie, had two showings in the Cinemasia film festival in Amsterdam and I picked the second showing, because the first one was late at night on Friday and the second a much more comfortable Sunday afternoon. The second showing also had a Q&A listed on the program, and I enthused to mumblemumble about this, saying "I'll have to think of a decent question to ask that isn't just 'What was it like working with Long-ge?'" She told me that in a similar situation during a film festival showing in Germany, the Q&A turned out to be a prerecorded Zoom call, so I assumed it would be the same here.

It was not. The director Wei Shujun showed up at the end with an interpreter, and fielded a bunch of questions with flair. There were a lot of stylish young Asian women in the audience, and half of the questions were in Chinese.

Why did he pick the Albert Camus quote at the beginning? He got a laugh because he'd forgotten the exact words, but the gist was that he wanted to signpost the absurdity of the story at the beginning. I think he used the word 'absurd' (or whatever it is in Chinese) three or four times in all.

Why did Ma Zhe insist on smoking when that would have been so bad for the baby? This made me laugh, and the director apologized for the bad influence but it didn't feel like a heavyhanded moment, and he added that it was both a stylistic and a historical touch.

Then I screwed all my courage to the sticking place and asked my question, which was along the lines of “In this role Zhu Yilong seemed to play a very interior character - was that due to your direction?” My head was red as fire during this but the audience lights were still low, good for me.

Wei Shujun said that Zhu Yilong had read the book and arrived on set with a specific idea of how to play the character, and they worked on it together. They rehearsed a lot, even for moments that might look spontaneous or like they would only need one take, because they kept adjusting how many words Zhu Yilong would say and how much movement he would show. Basically wanting to do a lot with very little. Also because film is expensive, they couldn’t shoot a lot of takes. He mentioned the moment Ma Zhe discovers the suitcase under the bed, and the moment he lies down on the bed, as examples.

My thoughts on the movie: I didn't fully get what the story was doing, and possibly that was the entire point, but I really enjoyed it anyway. Seeing it in a slightly dilapidated theatre (my chair seat cover was ripped into shreds and so was my seatmate's) added to the ambiance and the vibe. There were a lot of beautiful little human moments as well as stylish set pieces, and I thought Zhu Yilong absolutely pulled off the minimalist, interior acting that still made me feel intensely connected to his character. Also I'm glad I went into this movie unspoiled because I feel like that's part of the experience, watching it unfold, so I'm hesitant to give any details.

I want to see it again and I'll watch it on the Spanish streaming site I mentioned earlier. As a first experience of seeing Zhu Yilong in a theatre, this was a total joy.

Quick headsup (thanks to wenella's feed and lunarriviera pointing out that this service is accessible outside Spain) that Zhu Yilong's latest movie Only the River Flows is available streaming on this Spanish streaming service: https://www.filmin.es/pelicula/el-silencio-del-agua

With Chinese audio and English subs available, hooray. I was hoping to get to see this in cinemas, but the trek to Germany to see it there was too much for me right now, alas.

You pay 8 eur for a monthly subscription, which you can then immediately cancel (I don't speak any Spanish but it was easy enough: go to top right for your profile, hit Configuracion, and you'll get an option to cancel your subscription) and still have access to content for the next month.

It was really nice of Zhu Yilong to record another one of those Thermos ads in what feels like a very fannish setting - a cozy cabin in the snow, quite an idyll, complete with piano and cat and a raging snowstorm outside. I'm not sure why he would want to leave it for CGI land, all he needs is someone to knock the snow off their boots and join him in the cabin...

Meanwhile, we're having ridiculous late-summer weather over here: 21C tomorrow, or 68F. Which is incredibly welcome, since we're also in an energy crisis and any excuse not to turn on the heating is welcome. (It's frustrating that I want to write 'gas crisis', but the US uses the word for the stuff they put in their cars.)

I've not been doing super great for various reasons, but one third thing that cheers me is that I'm making progress on finishing the long Guardian AU I've been working on intermittently since...somewhere in early 2020, apparently. I'm thinking of posting the first chapters once a week or so, while I work on the back end, as it were.

I've never actually posted a serial on the AO3 before - anything I should be aware of? I presume you can still change tags, ratings, etc, as the story progresses?

Twitter is now choosing to let me see about five tweets from any account before I get a "log in to see the rest" popup. I can kill the popup, but the entire page freezes so I can't scroll, anyway.

You may ask "why do you care, if you don't want to be on Twitter" but the thing is, all through the pandemic I have kept a single Twitter tab open to wenella's feed of wonderful Zhu Yilong pics and gifs and it has been a real mood-booster. Ditto for the links to fanart and Guardian-related content on twitter that I can click on, thanks to @clevermanka and @plingo_kat posting them here.

So I want to be a ghost on twitter, and clearly they don't want to let me waft around anymore. Anyone got any way around this? (I know, I could open an account and that would solve it, but that is exactly what I want to avoid.)

Related news, I can't believe that Zhu Yilong made a Lenovo ad in 2018 that looks like it was meant to snare Guardian fans, with Z1L saying "I promised you that we will meet again" against a suspiciously glowy, spacy background... (If they hired Bai Yu to make the counterpart ad, fandom would have told me, right?)

Edit: suggested workarounds in comments, thanks all! I haven't tried out Incognito mode in Chrome yet (since I use Firefox and a bunch of ad blockers, add-ons, etc) but what does seem to work is deleting all the twitter-specific cookies from my browser. Which I will probably have to do every day, then.

Edit II, brother of Edit: nitter.net is an open source front end for twitter - very low key, type in the account name you want to look at and go. Thanks to @trobadora for linking me to this!

The developer has also created browser extensions - there's the Nitter one, but there's also a more nuclear option that "redirects Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Google Maps, Reddit, Medium, Google & Google Translate requests to privacy friendly alternative frontends for those sites". That is the kind of thing I am here for.

( It's big, red, and bulbous )

So we've all seen those Refa roller ads where Zhu Yilong lovingly holds them up against his face (aka: the game of Dildo Sex Chicken, courtesy of yantantether ) but this...really is just a coffee ad? Where Z1L gives coffee machines to all his friends? 

HOWEVER. :hands:

The makers of the ad had to know what they were doing here. Right??

Congratulations, dear US friends! Ugh, big relief, and thanks to everyone who worked to get the vote out.

Apparently I have a paid account now? Dear Dreamwidth, could you not have TOLD me? Thank you very much, dear benefactor! <3

Zhu Yilong in leather pants to brighten all our days - I can't wait for the official photos for this shoot.

This small gif (warning: loud music) of Zhu Yilong eating an apple two ways is haunting me. Way 1: innocently stuffing his face like a chipmunk. Way 2: laying waste to your life and soul.

This is an Entirely Gratuitous Post of Zhu Yilong looking lovely and defiant and sleeveless - I couldn't find any caps for this specific moment in Lost Tomb ep 26 so I made some. No spoilers at all, just hotness.

( Wu Xie has no fucks to give, and also no sleeves )

LOOK LOOK naye made more caps and they are spectacular!

And how do the cap and goggles look so good on him?

It's honestly starting to feel like the makers of Lost Tomb had a bucket of tropes (or a h/c bingo square?) and they were determined to use Every Last One. You won't hear any complaints from me about this.

Two screencaps:

( Zhu Yilong's FACE, with spoilers, yes his face is a spoiler now )

I am still enjoying the Iron Triangle's shenanigans a lot, but it's okay if I just

( avoid something spoilery )

I watched the first four eps of Lost Tomb on ipad, #3 and #4 today after going to the dentist (on a tram full of people, at least in facemasks, but still lots of no fun).

It was an excellent reward, and I had to keep pausing to make screencaps, so I will share below.

These are 100% spoiler free because all they feature is Zhu Yilong's face and his ENORMOUS DEER EYES,not to mention those cheekbones that are worryingly sharp,

( someone please feed him )

Two happymaking things:

1) the new trailer for Zhu Yilong in Lost Tomb, where he wields a sword, spits blood, gets drenched and looks unreasonably gorgeous as always, PLUS is not dressed in Louis Vuitton:



(many thanks to wenella for the subs!)

2) the staggeringly gorgeous Guardian fanart by LovelyPlant, of which my favorite is Professor Shen wielding his blade, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, but please also check out her lambent Ye Zun and this Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan dual portrait that should be a giant billboard somewhere.

Oh dear me Zhu Yilong MUST YOU come for me like this?

I mean I had plans for today.

Bonus: this fan edit showing just what to do with those ReFa rollers.