Monday, April 22, 2013

Ooku - End, Tender is the Night - End, Borgen Season 1 - End, Borgen Season 2 Eps.1, Shaft, A Week in Winter

This weekend I was able to charge myself thank God.

Ooku has ended. Now that I have finished the series, maybe I'll understand it better. The thing is Ooku is a successful Manga. They have adapted it for TV and the show I have watched is the first chapter of the story with hopefully more to come. Now as the series ended Shogunate is completely ruled by the women. Men are so scarce that even the heir of the Shogun is chosen among the girls. Chie has passed away leaving Arikoto to care of Ooku and the next Shogun who is still a kid. This girl is the eldest of Chie's children and Arikoto recommended her since she is the eldest so this will avoid conflict with the other kids. It is a wise decision since the two fathers, warrior and our Gyokei both lobby for his daughter to be appointed as the next Shogun. Anyway there was a small teaser for the next segment called Ooku:Eternity. As this one took me out of my viewing funk, and really made me shed tears, I'll look forward for the second installment.

Another show that caused the tears to flow, unexpectedly was Borgen Season 1. Casper's story was so touching and so well presented that it was impossible for me to remain neutral against it. Also I ship Casper and Katherine very much but my Danish TV show viewing experience, meager as it is, taught me not to expect a happy ending in love. Anyway Borgen Season 2 also started nicely with a decent conflict: Afghanistan. Does the occupation help the citiziens? Are the horrors of war overcome by the good that is done towards female population and children? Borgen's writers opted for the occupation to continue until peace is restored there and Taliban is completely removed.

Shaft As a change of subject, I got stuck on this while flipping channels. I remember watching it in theaters and apparently it didn't leave any trace except Jeffrey Wright's character Peoples. Man that guy is a good actor. His scenes with Christian Bale were impressive.

Tender is the Night ended as expected and this is my second fave after Gatsby. Dick Diver is a character I sympathised with since I too am trying to be good person. I hope I'll not make the mistakes he made (or were they mistakes?) and that I'll succeed in my endeavours. The book left an impression of me because of Nicole too. Even though it would have been easy to make her the evil one, Fitzgerald didn't do that. She had her own troubles and her own issues to deal with. In the end she was not as sympathetic but not a demonic figure either. I loved her sections towards the end of the book, the way she is relased from Dick's hold on her.

I needed something no nonsense but comfortable after Tender is the Night and who better than Maeve Binchy, whose formulatic but emotional novels are usually exactly what I need after a substantial but scarring read. Now I have  started A Week in Winter and simply happy with everything in it so far.

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