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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Jun Ichikawa (director), Tony Takitani, 2004. 75 min. Tony Takitani is a film about loneliness and its unwavering cloudiness—the way it makes you want to lie down in a…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Tania De Rozario, Dinner on Monster Island: Essays, HarperCollins, 2024. 192 pgs. Tania De Rozario’s Dinner on Monster Island is a lyrical and multi-faceted speech act. The fourteen essays…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Kim Jee-woon (director), Cobweb, 2023. 135 min. Song Kang-ho (best known for Parasite and A Taxi Driver) in Cobweb Kim Ki-yeol (Song Kang-ho, best known for Parasite and A Taxi…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILM Eddie Tay, Hong Kong as Creative Practice, Palgrave, 2022. 110 pgs. The Palgrave Macmillan series that Eddie Tay’s Hong Kong as Creative Practice is part of is a platform…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILM Ken Provencher and Mike Dillon (editors), Exploiting East Asian Cinemas: Genre, Circulation, Reception, Bloomsbury, 2018. 234 pgs. In the early 2000s, unless you lived in a city in the…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Satyajit Ray (director), Branches of the Tree, 1990. 130 min. Made and released in 1990, Satyajit Ray’s Branches of the Tree arrives as an artefact of a bygone sensibility,…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Meena Kandasamy, When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife, Atlantic Books, 2018. 272 pgs. Meena Kandasamy’s When I Hit You, Or Portrait…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Chloë F. Starr, Red-light Novels of the late Qing, Brill Publishing, 2007. 293 pgs. This book should be recognised as a significant academic achievement. It is the result of…
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📁 RETURN TO FIRST IMPRESSIONS📁 RETURN TO CHA REVIEW OF BOOKS AND FILMS Hayao Miyazaki (director), The Boy and the Heron, 2023. 125 min. This review contains spoilers. For me, what’s perhaps most interesting about The Boy and the Heron is that…


![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Human Loneliness: Jun Ichikawa’s 𝑇𝑜𝑛𝑦 𝑇𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑖” by Yimin Huang](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/takitani.jpg?w=345)
![[REVIEW] “Despite Loss, Magic Persists: Tania De Rozario’s 𝐷𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑛 𝑀𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝐼𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑” by Lydia Kwa](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/dinner-on-monster-island.jpg?w=995)
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “In the Tradition of Film-set Comedy Dramas: Kim Jee-woon’s 𝐶𝑜𝑏𝑤𝑒𝑏” by Oliver Farry](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/first-poster-for-cobweb-starring-song-kang-ho-centers-v0-nlwknv9ea1za1.jpg?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “One Senses a Quiet Revolution: Eddie Tay’s 𝐻𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝐾𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑠 𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑒” by Marsha McDonald](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/hong-kong-as-creative-practice.webp?w=827)
![[REVIEW] “Extreme Asia—A Review of 𝐸𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐸𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐴𝑠𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑚𝑎𝑠: 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑟𝑒, 𝐶𝑖𝑟𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑅𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛” by Mario Rustan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/exploiting-east-asian-cinemas-genre-circulation.jpg?w=568)
![[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “An Artifact of a Bygone Sensibility: Satyajit Ray’s 𝐵𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑒” by Toshi Tomori](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/mv5bndfmztg0mdetytrhzc00mjvilthlywytmdm2mta1ownkzjuxxkeyxkfqcgdeqxvynjm3mdiwnjc40._v1_.jpg?w=1024)
![[EXCLUSIVE] “Two Sonnets for Reid Mitchell” by Andrew Barker](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/reid-michell-impression.jpeg?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “Personal Yet Communal Narrative of Meena Kandasamy’s 𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝐼 𝐻𝑖𝑡 𝑌𝑜𝑢: 𝑂𝑟, 𝐴 𝑃𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑔 𝑊𝑖𝑓𝑒” by Bervinder Kaur](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/when-i-hit-you.png?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “A Niche Book on a Niche Subject: Chloë F. Starr’s 𝑅𝑒𝑑-𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑁𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑄𝑖𝑛𝑔” by Paul Bevan](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/red-light.png?w=1024)
![[REVIEW] “Defying Explanation: Hayao Miyazaki’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑜𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐻𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑛” by e rathke](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2f7d7a1e-94d3-48eb-be56-12bcb518f235.sized-1000x1000-1.jpeg?w=1000)