You may think this video is a bit too Japanese for a Chinese blog -- I mean that in the most neutral way possible; on second thought, what a regrettable opening line for a post -- but this work is a tribute to director Akira Kurosawa (Rashoman, Seven Samurai), who none other than China's Zhang Yimou called "the quintessential Asian director."
The video is by Ken Tanaka, who you might remember for the video "What Kind of Asian are You?"
We leave you tonight with a breakdancing street show via the freshest kids in china, featuring world-champion Russian b-boys, George Zhi Zhao, et al. at Shanghai's famous Nanjing Road. (The music is an instrumental Philippians remix.) Stay cool, y'all.
Today on C4: Kung-Pao chicken madness, demolitions of buildings and hosts, Shenzhou-10, and it's a bird, it's a plane, it's... an alien?
Also, check out the guys' new Tumblr, from which we get this image:
Hello Beijing Cream readers. My name is Morgan and I work at this other website called SmartBeijing, wherein we specialize in faking the funk on nasty dunks. The Tao is outsourcing these Friday Musical Outros to me so he can concentrate on… well, hey, look at that… pretty tame week. Human suffering seems like it was somewhat minimal this week… no toilet babies… no… oh. Oh wait. Yep, there it is. Yes!
Ai Weiwei has managed to upset and alienate many groups during his reign as China’s national gadfly, particularly within the past five years, a period in which the 55-year-old's public profile has swelled to supernova proportions. A respondent brought up the "Ai Weiwei Effect" in last month’s roundup of critical reactions to Ai Weiwei and Zuoxiao Zuzhou’s song “Dumbass,” and on the eve of the release of The Divine Comedy -- the six-song album on which Dumbass appears -- it's worth asking again: how do we perform aesthetic analysis of the outspoken artist-cum-activist's work when our perceptions are so colored by sentiment?
Ai Weiwei Studios has just released the music video to a second single, Laoma Tihua, which you can watch above. It's off Ai's forthcoming album, The Divine Comedy (music by Zuoxiao Zuzhou), which will be released on Saturday morning.
The Freshest Kids in China is a project focusing on Chinese urban culture, featuring art, song, and dance. They are cooler than you or I. Check out their latest work, a timelapse at the graffiti wall on Shanghai's Moganshan Road, featuring French artists JB, Ador, Storm, and Dezio.
