little tony

Avenue of Stars, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong, May 2009.

Tony Leung, of Hero, Infernal Affairs, and Wong Kar Wai fame. Last week, I finished watching Red Cliff—John Woo's recent 5-hour costume war epic that he starred in.

I started watching it almost a year ago, sometime while I was in Seoul, 20 minutes at a time every night. A typical one was grabbing dinner for takeout at a kimbap shop around 8 or 9pm when I was finished with classes and prepping for the next day. I'd walk back home in darkness, maybe pick up some ice cream from a 7-Eleven or Family Mart, and take the elevator up to my tiny 5th floor studio, turn on either the AC or the ondol floor heat, and settle down with my bi bim bap, kimchi jigae, or donkatsu in front of my computer monitor to watch either 20 minutes of a movie, or an episode of John Stewart or Colbert; Comedy Central's streams was the only network I could find that didn't region block its streaming sites in Korea.

Incidentally, I was amused to find that Two and a Half Men, How I Met Your Mother, and The Big Bang Show are some of the most popular, most-pirated US TV shows in Korea. They have online groups that fansub TV rips of new episodes in the days after they're broadcast in the States—just like we do to anime over here.