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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Lee Sol-hui (director), Greenhouse, 2022. 100 min. Lee Sol-hui’s film Greenhouse is a domain of sickness. There is illness everywhere, physical, mental, social, degenerative. The only character…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on The Woman in the Purple Skirt. Natsuko Imamura (author), Lucy North (translator), The Woman in the Purple Skirt, Penguin Random House, 2021. 224…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Jopy Arnaldo (director), Gitling, 2023. 105 min. The world’s noise fades into the background when you’re with the right person. Gitling (or Hyphen in English) (2023) is…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Kumar Shahani (director) Maya Darpan, 1972. 107 min. Kumar Shahani (1940-2024), one of the doyens of Indian parallel cinema breathed his last on 24 February this year.…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Life Ceremony. Sayaka Murata (author), Ginny Tapley Takemori (translator), Life Ceremony, Granta Books, 2022. 266 pgs. Dubbed “Crazy Sayaka” (クレイジー沙耶香) by her readers,…
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [REVIEW] “A Sobering Read: Mahasweta Devi’s The Murderer’s Mother” by Jack Greenberg Mahasweta Devi (author), Arunava Sinha (translator), The Murderer’s Mother, Seagull Books, 2023. 248 pgs. The Murderer’s Mother (Murderer Er…
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[REVIEW] “Poetics of Cinema Under Jesters’ Spirits: Qiu Jiongjiong’s 𝐴 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑂𝑙𝑑 𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑦” by Octavia Chen
📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Qiu Jiongjiong (director), A New Old Play, 2021. 179 min. After watching this film you will briefly be aphasic, with equal amounts of excitement and despondency, and…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Ryo Takebayashi (director), Mondays: See You “This” Week!, 2022. 102 min. Ryo Takebayashi’s time-loop film Mondays: See You “This” Week!’s most obvious film of comparison is Groundhog…
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茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [REVIEW] “Living On: Xi Xi’s Mourning a Breast” by Susan Blumberg-Kason Click HERE to read all entries in Cha on Mourning a Breast. Xi Xi (author), Jennifer Feeley (translator), Mourning a Breast, New York Review Books, 2024.…


![[REVIEW] “Rather Demolish Ten Temples Than Destroy One Marriage: Tiantian Zheng’s 𝑉𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝐼𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑐𝑦” by Laurence Westwood](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/violent-intimacy-family-harmony-state-stability-and-intimate-partner-violence-in-post-socialist-china.jpg?w=1000)
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “A Domain of Sickness: Lee Sol-hui’s 𝐺𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒” by Oliver Farry](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/greenhouse-2022-film-still.png?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “Obsessed: On Natsuko Imamura’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑢𝑟𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑆𝑘𝑖𝑟𝑡” by Nirris Nagendrarajah](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/the-woman-in-the-purple-skirt.jpg?w=925)
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Love In Translation: Decoding Jopy Arnaldo’s 𝐺𝑖𝑡𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔” by Richard Muñiz](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/gitling_film-still-3-1.jpg?w=1000)
![[REVIEW] “An Aesthetic Exploration of the Trials and Tribulations of a Woman: Kumar Shahani’s 𝑀𝑎𝑦𝑎 𝐷𝑎𝑟𝑝𝑎𝑛” by M S Murali Krishna](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/maya-darpan-the-illusory-mirror-1972.jpeg?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “Feasting on Futuristic Melancholia: Sayaka Murata’s Life 𝐿𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝐶𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑦” by Zifei Wang](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/life-ceremony-sayaka-murata.jpg?w=977)
![[REVIEW] “A Sobering Read: Mahasweta Devi’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑟’𝑠 𝑀𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟” by Jack Greenberg](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/mahasweta_murderers_mother__15926.jpg?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “Poetics of Cinema Under Jesters’ Spirits: Qiu Jiongjiong’s 𝐴 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑂𝑙𝑑 𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑦” by Octavia Chen](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/a-new-old-play.jpg?w=687)
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Over and Over—Ryo Takebayashi’s 𝑀𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠: 𝑆𝑒𝑒 𝑌𝑜𝑢 ‘𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠’ 𝑊𝑒𝑒𝑘” by Oliver Farry](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/the-pigeon.png?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “Living On: Xi Xi’s 𝑀𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎 𝐵𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑡” by Susan Blumberg-Kason](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/mourning-a-breast_xi-xi_jennifer-feeley.jpg?w=938)