I think you'll find plenty of HK and Asian movie FANS on FB.  I'm about the only academic type kicking around there, and I'm more involved in the Leslie Cheung fan community than I am the Asian film community (though I do keep in touch with folks from that group on FB).  Grady Hendrix (the wildman fanboy cum legit critic of Asian film is on FB) as are Sylvia Rorem, the guys from HKCinemagic and a whole raft of female martial arts/wuxia pian film fans who belong to the Heroic Sisterhood - The Ladies' Asian Action Cinema Appreciation Society!  I think you'd have a blast.  A lot of fans of Shaw Bros and Golden Harvest films, lots of trivia, bad subtitles, etc.  All a lot of fun and nothing terribly serious.

This is the second time today I've actually thought about joining the world of Facebook.  Maybe.  

No I don't know the movies you're referring to so I guess I'll just have to wait.  I have nada to contribute to film history scholarship.  I was just thinking the other day how much I just enjoy the movies and even after repeated viewings how I just get lost in the movies and don't study them.  I am the PERFECT audience member!   That's my role!

Oh, and there is also a little book review of Helen Leung's take on Farewell My Concubine that should be up on HKCinemagic any minute now.  I'll past the link here when it appears.

If you are on FB, send me a private message and let me know how to friend you there.  As you might imagine, there is an extremely active HK/Asian film community on FB and a lot of the people you probably know here from AnD are also on FB.

Thanks for the compliment. :)  You are the first person to say something that nice about it.  Actually, there have been very few comments, overall.

I got the distinct impression in reading so many interviews that Johnnie To, filmmaker, is every bit as much a character as any character in his films.  He stick pretty close to the script and just changes the emphasis depending on what his aud is at that given moment.

Up next?  A study with the current working title of "Uses of the Past."  I will look at 3 pairs of films that have some important relationship to one another.  Two are HK films from the 1990s that consciously evoke the golden age of Shanghai cinema and another film is a 2001 HK film that evokes the golden age of HK cinema.  Beyond that, it is hard to say.  Research has just started and I have a lot of work ahead of me.  I anticipate that I will get this one published on-line in early 2013.  As with most research projects--75% of what I read won't actually get used directly in the piece, but it will shape my thinking and inform my opinions in a more general way.  BTW, one of the films stars Leslie Cheung and one was directed by Johnnie To (not the same film).  You should be stumped.  If not, I haven't chosen the right films. :)

Very comprehensive survey of the critical take on To's filmography.  And To's view of himself which seems to morph depending upon what he wants out of it.  Very nicely done.   

I never really did understand when someone gains status as an auteur except it seems to get conferred on them.  

I like that To is a pragmatist.  Gotta pay the bills and I'll do it in a charming, winning, profitable way.  Nothin wrong with that.  

Now I know I have so much more to see than I have seen.  

No pressure but.....what's next????? hahaha

Not too much to ask methinks.  

I copied and pasted the article from that website.   That site makes my eyes swim.  I'll finally get to really read it now.  What I've read so far is just beautiful work Marie.  But you don't need to hear that from me.

Yes, Flagday, it is such a relief to finally have completed this project.  As with all such projects, what looks completely manageable when you start begins to take on monster proportions about half way through.  It seemed like such a simple and circumscribed topic when I proposed it.  Little did I know, once I started really digging into the research, how rich a topic it was.

I didn't get to interview To Sir for this article.  I haven't been back to HK since last March-April, and I didn't begin working on this project until last September.

I hope he will read it, appreciate it and let me meet him next time I'm in HK.  It would be an honor to have tea with one of the world's great filmmakers.

YOU MUST BE SO HAPPY!!!!!

Congratulations Marie.  Such an accomplishment.  

I didn't read it yet.  Did you get a chance to interview Mr. To?  I hope he reads and responds to your contribution to To scholarship.  

WOO HOO!  As they say in academic circles, haha.