random mixtape - that's why i love fall.

girl in red | we fell in love in october. the xx | shelter. caribou | sun. sonic youth | hey joni. alice glass | blood oath. health | nice girls. you love her coz she's dead | blood lust. caribou | hannibal. bikini kill | for tammy rae.

Reading List: February.

Non-Fiction: 

 

Chris Baker, Pasuk Phongpaichit: A History of Thailand. 

Thongchai Winichakul: Siam mapped: a history of the geo-body of a nation.

 

Fiction: 

 

Margot Douaihy: Divine Ruin. 

Yoko Ogawa: The Memory Police.

Ellis Avery: The Teahouse Fire. 

Jean Kyoung Frazier: Pizza Girl.  

Tan Twan Eng: The Gift of Rain. 

Nina McConigley: How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder.  

 

Films: 

 

Qing mei zhu man (1985, Edward Yang). 

Kong bu fen zi (1986, Edward Yang).

Ma jiang (1996, Edward Yang). 

Yi yi (2000, Edward Yang). 

Revolver Lily (2023, Isao Yukisada). 

Rosemead (2025, Eric Lin). 

Kaj ti je deklica (2025, Urška Djukić). 

 

Shows: 

 

Pluto the Series, Season One. 

The Loyal Pin, Season One. 

Friendly Rivalry, Season One. 

Revolver Lily

There is a deep sadness to the idea of being incredibly good at something, perhaps even one of the best in the world, but for that talent to be associated only with death and sadness. At the beginning of Revolver Lily, Yuri Ozone (Haruka Ayase) has retired from her career as a famed assassin. She has settled into a life where she keeps the company of rich men happy to pay for having drinks with a beautiful woman. She lives with two women she seems very close to, one like a daughter, the other like a partner (later she will say that they are "pledged to death" to each other). The year is 1924 (a year after the devastating Great Kantō Earthquake, the political context, which plays an important role in Isao Yukisada’s film, is Japan’s military ambition as bloodthirsty leaders of its army and navy struggle for the resources to build up for future wars of conquest. Yuri is forced back into the life she has left behind when a boy (Jinsei Hamura), the last survivor of a brutal attack on his family (by, as we later find out, army men in civilian clothes), seeks out her help. She reads about the murder of the family in the newspaper and finds the name of someone she knows, and knows not to be a murderer, associated with the crime, and goes to investigate. Shinta comes across her accidentally, but she happens to be the person he was told to find for help. He is carrying vital documents, she is deeply reluctant, but can’t help but use her abilities to save him, again and again, as he gets himself into increasingly desperate situations, from those who seek to harm him. As she returns to her old life, memories of her past trauma – the loss of her own family, her own child – haunt her, explaining why she approaches this responsibility with stoicism and the sadness that comes with having to return to something she has left behind for a reason. Eventually, when she realises how personally connected she is to Shinta’s family, her full frustration at being unable to live in peace and away from the violence comes out. It is thanks to Ayase’s outstanding performance that her complex emotions shine through in spite of Yuri’s toughness and strength. It becomes apparent immediately how good Yuri is at causing harm. Her abilities outweigh her opponents even when they are armed with weapons superior to hers, her movements so precise and fast that in the blink of an eye, she leaves only devastation behind. The fight scenes are beautifully choreographed, especially when she is fighting a worthy opponent who challenges her. It’s difficult not to be in awe.

The true accomplishment of the film is the inherent dissonance at its heart: Revolver Lily is a film opposing militarisation and warmongering, but to achieve these goals, its main character has to resort to – practised, precise, devastating – violence. The film pits the individual but reluctant heroism of Yuri against both the individual ambitions of powerful men and the institutional violence of a military apparatus that is seeking future glory, with the actual history of Japan throughout the 1930s and 1940s looming over the narrative as the known outcome that nothing Yuri accomplishes here can ultimately prevent, only delay.

Visually, Revolver Lily is stunning. The sets and costuming are beautiful. The film captures a period of transition in Japan, expressed through the presence of Western dress alongside traditional clothing. It juxtaposes the modern army – uniformed, armed with rifles and guns, not swords – against older styles of one-on-one battle. Nothing expresses the confusion and chaos of this period in-between better than a small moment between Yuri’s attorney and adviser Iwami (Hiroki Hasegawa), who seeks the help of an old friend who is working on his Cubist painting in the middle of his traditional living room. This is a society undergoing radical change, a moment of flux, and Yuri alongside her friends and companions is attempting to steer it towards a less violent outcome – ultimately a doomed effort, but Revolver Lily makes the attempt look spectacular. 

2023, directed by Isao Yukisada, starring Haruka Ayase, Hiroki Hasegawa, Jinsei Hamura, Kavka Shisodo.

Das Lied zum Sonntag

Dry Cleaning - The Cute Things (on Secret Love)

 

I'm willing
To change roles
For you

Beolsae (House of Hummingbird)

In Kim Bo-ra’s House of Hummingbird, teenager Eun-hee (Park Ji-huk, giving a stunning performance) goes unrecognised and isolated in most of the spheres she operates in. As the youngest daughter in her family, her parents pay avid attention to the success and failure of her older brother, but mostly ignore her. This brother, pressured to achieve academic success, lets out his frustrations violently at his younger sister, and is only cautioned for it once when he does it in a way that shows disrespect to his father. At school, she is ostracised – her family isn’t rich, and her talents don’t lend themselves to success in a conventional learning environment. Her blossoming relationship to a boyfriend seems tender and close, but he doesn’t seem to take it as seriously as she does. Her relationship with her best friend becomes strained over time when Eun-hee’s problems become so overwhelming that she stops being able to support or even see her friend’s problems. 
It’s hard to discover your own identity in an environment so unsupportive, where you might as well be a ghost haunting the halls. Without any clear pathways into the future or a sense of who she might want to be, and nobody believing there is anything she could do at all, Eun-hee seems stuck, and in a film where she is in every scene, this lack of genuine connection to others or to herself plays into the sense of loneliness.

There is a shift when a new Chinese teacher begins working at Eun-hee’s cram school. Young-ji (Kim Sae-byeok) takes an interest in Eun-hee, inviting her to stay and have tea with her, and share what she is actually passionate about. She gives Eun-hee a sense that there are ways to exist in the world that she might not have previously considered, ways that are more unconventional than were thinkable to her within the confines of her family. Young-ji has taken a break from University to teach at the cram school, and she seems invested in giving herself time to grow and change. She functions like a window into a world that was previously closed to Eun-hee, a world that might allow her to use her talent for drawing, a world that might actually see her, where she does not have to exist in the background anymore. At the same time, the need for surgery removes Eun-hee from her family and into a hospital environment, where the other patients dote on her – an experience so foreign and new to her that she seems to prefer staying at the hospital to going home to her parents. A girl named Yuri (Hye-in Seol) shows interest in her and it’s the first time someone appears to do so with genuine care and effort. 

Set in 1994, the film works within a historic framework of notable events that are mostly mediated through a television screen. Korea’s progress through the FIFA World Cup, the death of North Korea’s leader Kim Il-sung, the tragic and devastating collapse of the Seongsu Bridge in October that will have repercussions for Eun-hee all happen in the background of scenes until the last one fully draws her attention, the way that events that might have a personal impact, not a theoretical one, do. The disaster robs Eun-hee of who may just be the most important person in her life so far, and yet it can’t take from her the belief that there is a future for her out there that is waiting, in spite of all the obstacles ahead of her. 

2018, directed by Kim Bo-ra, starring Park Ji-hu, Kim Sae-byeok, Jeong In-gi, Son Sang-yeon, Lee Seung-yun, Park Soo-Yeon.

Reading List: January.

Fiction: 

 

Nat Cassidy: When the Wolf Comes Home. 

Sarah Gailey: Just Like Home. 

R.O. Kwon: Exhibit. 

R.O. Kwon: Incendiaries. 

Kevin Chen: Ghost Town. 

Han Kang: The Vegetarian. 

Han Kang: Human Acts. 

Hang Kang: We Do Not Part. 

Clarissa Goenawan: The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida. 

Elizabeth Jolley: The Well.

 

Films: 

 

Daedosiui sarangbeob (2024, Eon-hee Lee). 

Affeksjonsverdi (2025, Joachim Trier). 

Happyend (2024, Neo Sora). 

Chan hang rawang rao (2025, Jirassaya Wongsutin). 

Yunhui-ege (2019, Dae Hyung Lim). 

Yeon-ae-dam (2016, Hyun-ju Lee).  

Beolsae (2018, Kim Bo-ra).

Billie & Emma (2018, Samantha Lee).
Lü ye (2023, Shuai Han).

Peter Hujar's Day (2025, Ira Sachs).

 

Shows: 

 

Jabaekui Daega, Season One. 

Shards of Her, Season One. 

random mixtape - when you fall, you will fall the hardest.

yellow fang | i'm a feeder. lois | diopter. greentea peng | tardis (hardest). cyndi seui | unreal. blood cultures | emptylands. health | ordinary loss. shlohmo | eggtooth. dry cleaning | evil evil idiot. sleater-kinney | ironclad. the spells | the night has eyes.