Jpop: C-ute - Love take it all

Disco, disco, it is all disco, in C-ute's "Love take it all", with a jpop touch of course. Especially the visuals has a more flow and less cutesy than normal for the group and it works very well for them, and a love the synth *and* guitar solo. ;-)

• C-ute - Love take it all

Jpop: Juice=Juice - Naked, Naked, Naked Kiss (裸の裸の裸のKISS)

Energetic Juice=Juice has chosen a fiery flamenco theme for their "Naked, Naked, Naked Kiss" video, and the text mirrors this passion, even to a degree that makes me a little uncomfortable as it describes quite a different discourse than the current one in Sweden on when and how a man should woo a woman and when to stop. Phrases like "Notice my sign with my breast cleavage, hey" and "A little forcible action is alright with me" could be taken the wrong way. To be fair, the text as a whole gives the picture of a girl simply demanding some attention and loving from her partner, but I am hoping the translation is to partly blame here.

• Juice=Juice - Naked, Naked, Naked Kiss (裸の裸の裸のKISS)

Movie: Eat Drink Man Woman (飲食男女)

The title of "Eat Drink Man Woman" comes from when Mr Chu tells his friend what his life seems to consist of. And it is impossible to talk about Ang Lee's movie from 1994 without mentioning food. Just the opening scene left me both hungry and fascinated, and cooking is used in the movie to symbolize and illustrate several aspects of family relations.
The film tells a story of a widowed father and his three grown-up daughters. At the start they all three still lives at home, but that changes soon. From the start, the pacing and filming makes it directly evident that this is quality cinema, we are invited to a slow but never boring, colorful but never stressed, tale of parenthood and leaving home, and the balancing of love and loyalty both for parents and children. I just loved this, and how Lee managed to avoid drama while still inciting such strong feelings of empathy for the characters and their lives.

Kpop: SNSD - MR MR

The kpop (girl) group with arguable the biggest fan base, SNSD/Girls Generation, is back with their much anticipated 4th album and headlines this with their "Mr Mr", reaching 2+ million views the first 9 hours. It really doesn't matter much how bad average or even bad their singles are as they sell big anyway, as last January's fail-song "I got a Boy" showed with its (now) 86 million views on YouTube. Therefore it is rather nice that their "Mr Mr" works quite well, and rather surprisingly, it is a song that grows on you. I find myself going from sceptical at the start to quite positive at the end of the video, so this will certainly pass 10 million views in a few days.

• SNSD - Mr Mr