Adam Daniel Mezei» Blogs

Revisiting the Resplendent, Wind-Bending, Mighty Sword Clanging, and Colorful Cinematic Glory and Mastery of Zhang Yimou’s “Hero/Ying xiong” (circa 2004)

ADM — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:24:27 +0000

Okay, so now that we’ve got that windbag blog title out of the way (how did I do, folks?), let’s get down to the brass tacks of the matter: the iconic and often-imitated-rarely-duplicated cinematographic marvel which was once Zhang Yimou’s Hero/Ying xiong, the 2004 swashbuckling flicker picture that dazzled and titillated, yet somehow didn’t intellectually connect.

To All You "China Bloggers” Out There: There Is No Such Thing As An “America Blogger”

ADM — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:36:14 +0000

Most of my regular readers here at ADM.com are well-aware of colleague Damjan DeNoble’s Sino-following pedigree and of our strong China-centric collaborations. For those others of you who are relatively fresh to this piece of online real estate, you might want to click on through to Asia Health Care Blog, its sister China Health Care Blog, or Damjan’s LinkedIn profile to acquaint yourself a wee bit better with the man behind the lexical magic and a hint of an explanation why I am honored to call myself Damjan’s friend and fellow China traveler.

Peter Hessler Strikes Thrice…And This Time “Dangerously” Behind the Wheel

ADM — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:16:02 +0000

The picture above depicts how vehicular traffic is regulated on the road heading into China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region: plastic “dummy” cops standing sentinel adorning the soft-shoulder, meant to resemble the genuine article to deter traffic violators, wanton drunken driving, and reckless acts behind the wheel across the wide, flat expanses of the barren steppes of the wind-battered Mongolian plain.

Would You Declare War Over Chocolate? Hell Yeah, Some Would!

ADM — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:37:31 +0000

I’m happy I listen to people when they strongly suggest titles to read. In the case of Lawrence L. Allen’s Chocolate Fortunes: The Battle for the Hearts, Minds, and Wallets of China’s Consumers, this was a particularly sweet suggestion and many thanks to Dan Harris of Harris & Moure Law, the perennial award-winning blogmeister and commentator at China Law Blog, or as we Generation Xers like to call it, CLB.

Stuff To Sell the North Koreans When “Bam Bam” Kim Shouts “Uncle!”

ADM — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:09:43 +0000

Awwww…ain’t Yura so cute– oops, Jong-il, shhh, don’t tell anyone that Bam Bam was born in the Soviet Union and not on holy Mount Paektu! I mean, isn’t he? This was shot on his 68th – or 69th, depending on whom you believe – birthday up in Pyongyang. I wonder what the Dear Leader’s toasting to?

Damjan DeNoble and I Talk China | Part II

ADM — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:45:08 +0000

Damjan DeNoble and I come together via email, over a period of weeks, to talk China marketing, Korea, hummer, Yugo’s, randomized processes and more. The common thread of the piece is trying to figure out, how exactly, the Chinese are going to create home-grown brands that can compete globally.

With Cheekbones That Can Slice Turnips…

ADM — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:35:31 +0000

Yet another evening of Hong Kong classic cinema, this time with King Hu’s Shaw Brothers classic from 1966 Come Drink With Me/Da zui xia/Big Drunken Hero, starring drop-dead gorgeous (and Shanghai-born!) Cheng Pei-Pei/Zheng Peipei, as Golden Swallow, prancing around the screen like a prima ballerina and applying a major bad-ass hurt-on to all the baddies.

Dragon Dynasty’s Bey Logan, American Expats Who Speak Pitch-Perfect Mandarin Chinese, and the Ageless Stars of Hong Kong’s Breakthrough Cinema

ADM — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:46:16 +0000

I had the good fortune to get my hands on a number of Hong Kong DVDs lately and last night I finished off Mo gong/Battle of the Warriors, starring HK pop sensation and A-List actor Andy Lau/Lau Tak Wa.

Are You Indispensable?

ADM — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:29:56 +0000

If you haven’t picked up your copy of Seth Godin’s latest primer, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable yet, you might want to have a run on over to your local bookstore.

With strong recommendations from both Chris Brogan and Todd Sattersten, my hardcover arrived in the mail on Friday, and by Saturday evening I’d polished it off.

North Korea’s Humanitarian Aid “Circle Jerk”

ADM — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:02:22 +0000

Pictured above is a North Korean man scraping away inside a tin can for food morsels during the mid-nineties famine in that country. The snap was likely taken around the worst phase of the country’s co-called “Arduous March,” a term borrowed from the Chinese Communists and a plum example of North Korean propaganda par excellence, to somehow explain away the ravages of the shortages which plagued DPRK in the wake of the Soviet Bloc’s collapse, hoodwinking its own population. Though not everyone…