Posts Tagged ‘hoff dylan’

May 19th, 2008 hong kong to taipei to tokyo

i finally did it. i sat through the entirety of dragon heat! as far as avant garde hong kong cinema goes, eric kot was lucky to even make the film in 1999, as such an indulgent piece would be superfluous when fewer and fewer features are being made each year, and the dollar return means more.

after reading reviews online, i honestly thought i wasn’t even going to make it past the flickering opening credits. blink and you’ll miss their names, so i capped some of the cameos for your convenience, which are equally fleeting (ekin cheng, jacky cheung, stephen fung, shu qi, cheung chi lam, anita yuen etc)

most laughingly, the jackie chan cameo (not pictured here) is probably not one he agreed to, and is actually footage of him at a wedding! director kot is into crazy stuff like that…

the slight irritation to the film is just the switch between a regular shot to a shot of the same image on a video screen, to black and white, to a different resolution image, and back to colour again. but at least there’s a very silly saturated homage to wong kar wai. was i supposed to explain the plot to you? isn’t one really, and there’s an awful lot of repetition of everything.

but yet i don’t mind, and i still paid about ten dollars for a crappy ex-rental vcd of this film (understandably out of print). as an extended music video, i don’t mind the music either (mostly carl wong composed, with a soundtrack you can buy with lead actress “the me” singing).

okay, so what’s the real reason i bought this? a cameo from hoff dylan, who attempt to hold up a chinese place for all their char siu ramen. nice try…

and the favour goes both ways, as eric kot records a cantonese sort of ode to his hometown in the album version of hoff dylan’s to the world…

vague translation as eric rambles too fast: “everyone don’t run away, listen! …welcome to the paradise of the beauty and fashion city, hong kong! … remember to go on the star ferry across the sea to central! yi er san si wulong tea, for fighting there’s jacky chan, singing there’s jacky cheung. for a good looking man there’s andy lau, andy lau sa ii ne. japanese people say a u e i o, chinese people say buo puo muo fuo. … there’s still more! … dragon dumplings, swallow them whole, swallow them and be full. umai! yum cha, eat prawn dumplings, pork buns, wonton noodles… subarashii! so cheap! …hong kong is my hometown i hope you really like it … obviously i missed a bit of it as his mouth moves way too fast.

but the lyrics of the original song, written by komiyama yuhi, go:

hong kong to taipei to tokyo
going down to l.a. to mexico
all the world i’ve seen
all the world to see is next to you…

on another one of his trips to the u.s., posting images of food and streets, i can’t help but be bitten by the bug, and wish for travel.

download: to the world by hoff dylan.

November 14th, 2007 ehhhhh?

and following the last post, here is the new jacket:

i was hoping they’d go from scratch, but perhaps they didn’t want to waste the photography collaboration. it does retain some of the characteristics while being different to the luke perry photography, therefore nobody can point the finger anymore…

today’s comzo podcast discusses it a little, but some of that is “censored” with crappy music - what can’t be broadcast?

not really exciting, but still disappointing that it had to happen.

November 11th, 2007 well now

apparently parody in japan is too much. on komiyama yuhi’s blog today, a big long statement from both hoff dylan members apologising for the pulling of the jacket for their next single, which was designed to look like an old single the band released previously (see previous post):

no specific party was named, but maybe the record company was afraid of the repercussions, or even spelling entertainment didn’t like the idea. who owns the rights to a likeness? would luke perry object? the photographer who took the 90210 promo pictures? (-edit- according to this, it was the licensing group behind beverly hills 90210 who objected)

under plagiarism laws in the west, parody is generally accepted if it makes comment upon the original, moreso in a humourous and creative manner. on the other hand, the japanese supreme court previously has stated in a case:

To use another person’s work without his permission is legal only when one uses it in such a manner as not to cause the essential characteristics in the expressive form of the work to be perceived directly as such. In this case, however, essential characteristics can be perceived , so the use is unlawful.

if comedian nagadi takeshi is thought to look too alike the picture of dylan mackay/luke perry then his parody is not equated with fair use under Japanese law. but without looking similar, how can anyone get it?

up until now the single was to be released on the 21st of november, so now they will have to take some more time to come up with new artwork. but who could beat that photograph? sigh.