Wow... insane amounts of snow... I guess I got my wish. About time, tho... sheesh. :P Went to see DS and caught the last showing of the Last Samurai with Caro. Good one. It reminded me of the Dances with wolves (another movie I enjoyed very much). It's supposed to be inspired by a true story, but very much of it is Hollywood. I definitely thought the ending reaked a liiiiiittle too much of Hollywood, but I enjoyed the movie very much overall. With my impression of the film aside, I'm pretty sure this will somehow trigger an outrage in the Asian community about how Hollywood is stereotyping Japanese women... -.-; *puts flame suit on*

The movie reminds me of the story of Heungsun Daewongun who had adamantly opposed the western culture and refused to do commerce with them back during the late 19th century. Many argue that if it weren't for him we (that would be the Coreans) would have become "modernized" before the Japanese did and the rest would be a newly written history. I guess we're mostly bitter cuz the period eventually lead to the Japanese occupation. I don't believe it's at all worth arguing whether it was "right" or "wrong" to have accepted the western culture for the sake of becoming modernized. I don't believe that's the point of the story. The point is merely to reiterate the idea that even as we stand in this so-called modern world, we need to remind ourselves to look back at our roots and learn to appreciate what our ancestors had done for us in order to get us where we are now. This reminds me that I should get back to my history readings. I always tell myself I need to know more about my own country than any non-Korean person does, but I always manage to come up with some lame excuse revolving around this guy from the "Lim" family and his lack of spare time. I'll have to whoop my ass to read at least one history book on the way to and from Japan this winter. *Hmph*