[Episode theme]

In this episode, we talk about the latest Marvel blockbuster, “Shang-Chi: legend of the ten rings.” At the time of publishing, Shang-Chi has become the first pandemic film to gross over $200M at the box office. We dive deep into what we love and appreciate about this film — the various styles of fight scenes, Tony Leung, care paid to language and dialect. And where we find the movie to be falling short — the ambiguity of Taluo, the tired narratives when it comes to womanhood, motherhood, and a woman’s role in the marriage. 

[Timecode]

• 1:19 — Guest intro and first impressions 
• 8:00 — How Marvel creates an “anti-hero” the audience loves (Wenwu) 
• 15: 00 — Are the Chinese dialogue and dialects in this film legit?
• 26: 24 — The references of Wuxia style in this film, and a smart appropriating of Chinese fantasy elements  
• 32: 21 — Awkwafina is the first female Asian character whose main use is to be a getaway driver (we dig) 
• 34: 11 — Is the story of Taluo holding up under scrutiny? What are the weaknesses of world-building in this film, when compared with “Black Panther”? Do we need this type of ambiguity in geography and history? Do we need an Asian “Wakanda”? 
• 49: 00 — Marvel commoditized the identity movement of Asian Americans but did not dig deep into their stories in this film 
• 51: 20 — The movie’s polite but ultimately inadequate nod to feminism 
• 56: 16 — Are we tired of the same old narrative of a woman sacrificing herself for a relationship 
• 59: 00 — As a part of the Chinese audience, how should we understand cultural creations that belong to Chinese Americans? 

[Guest introduction]

 Frankie: Chinese American illustrator 

 Kao: Host of the podcast “Overcooked” https://overcooked.typlog.io/ 

[Audio editor]

Joshua Odgen-Davis

[Be our sponsor]

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in USD, suitable for listeners who live in the U.S.): https://www.patreon.com/loudmurmurs. 

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in RMB)：

https://afdian.net/p/e0a54e82ebd111e9bd2d52540025c377

【Links & resources】

越烤越糊

https://overcooked.typlog.io/

清醒梦播客救母那集https://hekukaixin.com/2021/05/22/%e6%b8%85%e9%86%92%e6%a2%a6-e18%ef%bd%9c%e4%b8%ad%e5%9b%bd%e6%96%87%e5%8c%96%e7%9a%84%e6%95%91%e6%af%8d%e4%bc%a0%e8%af%b4/

【Business collab】

Please reach out to us at [email protected] for any business inquiries. 

【Listen to LMM】

Find Loud Murmurs in the iTunes podcast store, Google Play, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts (e.g. Pocket Casts, Overcast)! Please subscribe, enjoy, and feel free to drop us a note and leave us a review. 

• RSS feed: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/258327.rss 
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Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/loudmurmurs)

In this ambitious three-part series, we want to talk about time travel through some of our favorites ---- Tenet, Loki, and Interstellar. As viewers, we experience movies frame by frame; as human beings, we experience time through the relentless one-way time arrow. Through subverting our familiar narrative structures and disrupting causality, time travel can raise important questions about the universe we live in and its physical rules.

Time Code

• 1:43 So what is “philosophy of physics”?
• 4:35 Time travel as a genre, and our first category of time travel stories as represented in Tenet 
• 7:19 The logic of "traveling through time" and "changing the past"
• 12:23 The Closed Time Loop in Tenet
• 16:47 "bUt wHat aBouT FReE WiLl"
• 22:10 The symmetry of Protagonist’s journey and Time Reversal Symmetry ---- where did the Arrow of Time come from anyways? ?

Our Guest

Shelly Shi - Ph.D. candidate in UCSD, with research interest in Philosophy of Physics

Edited By

Valerie Chen

Support Us

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in USD, suitable for listeners who live in the U.S.): https://www.patreon.com/loudmurmurs. 

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in RMB)：

https://afdian.net/p/e0a54e82ebd111e9bd2d52540025c377

Business collab

Please reach out to us at [email protected] for any business inquiries. 

Listen to LMM

Find Loud Murmurs in the iTunes podcast store, Google Play, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts (e.g. Pocket Casts, Overcast)! Please subscribe, enjoy, and feel free to drop us a note and leave us a review. 

• RSS feed: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/258327.rss 
• Itunes: https://apple.co/2VAVf0Z 
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• Pocket Cast: http://pca.st/nLid 
• Overcast: https://bit.ly/2SL7MNJ 

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/loudmurmurs)

In this episode, our hosts Juan, Diaodiao and Ina, joined by our guest Alex Lawyer, dive into HBO’s new limited series, “Mare of Easttown.” We dissect character arcs and plot points to dig deeper into the real story: the story of a blue-collar mostly-white community that’s plagued by the opioid crisis. 

What we discussed

• 2:27 First impressions, potential spoiler warning 
• 05:30 What makes this show a good thriller? Entertaining plot points, can spur in-depth discussions around social issues, and framing the thriller within familial and community relationships
• 8:57 The show is actually a career-oriented show that focuses on Mare, her role as detective and the glue that brings the town together
• 14:09 The deeper social issue: how the opioid crisis impacted Easttown
• 15:43 Society’s reaction/policies to the opioid crisis, progressing from “war on drugs” to seeing it as a public health issue 
• 22:25 “Hillbilly Elegy”, “Tight Rope”, and social darwinism
• 27:58 Opioid crisis in China 
• 32:54 There’s no real “big bad” in this show 
• 34:42 Easttown as an example of a swing town/county and the lack of politics in the show
• 39:12 What’s the verdict? (spoiler alert, we discuss the ending of the show)

Our Editor

Zhang Quan

Support Us

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in USD, suitable for listeners who live in the U.S.): https://www.patreon.com/loudmurmurs. 

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in RMB)：

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Read More

• Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Collaborate with Us

Please reach out to us at [email protected] for any business inquiries. 

Find Loud Murmurs in the iTunes podcast store, Google Play, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts (e.g. Pocket Casts, Overcast)! Please subscribe, enjoy, and feel free to drop us a note and leave us a review. 

• RSS feed: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/258327.rss 
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• Pocket Cast: http://pca.st/nLid 
• Overcast: https://bit.ly/2SL7MNJ 

In this episode, we talk about film "In the Heights" — a film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2008 Tony Award-winning musical — with our friends from podcast 城市罐头. We mused on a few galactic questions: What exactly is gentrification? Why should we care, and how do we understand it in a Chinese context? Is commercializing the culture of a community the way to protect it? Why does this film feel lacking in 2021? 

• 02:53 Introduction to the film 
• 07:21 What is gentrification, and why should we pay attention to it?
• 14:00 Why is gentrification considered as a “foreign” concept to Chinese people?
• 19:58 Gentrification in the context of Chinese urban development
• 25:03 For a community struggling with gentrification, is commercializing its culture a feasible solution? 
• 33:05 “Selective blackouts” and environmental racism
• 38:55 How do you design a good community? Can you? 
• 45:56 Is getting out of the ethnic enclave a symbol of progress? 
• 48:15 The common pitfall of films adapted from musicals
• 54:50 Casting controversy

Guests：Xiao Wang and Yao, hosts of 城市罐头 — A podcast about consumer culture, city life and urban planning.

Hosts: Diaodiao, Juan, Ina

Edited by: Valerie Chen

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in USD, suitable for listeners who live in the U.S.): https://www.patreon.com/loudmurmurs. 

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in RMB)：

https://afdian.net/p/e0a54e82ebd111e9bd2d52540025c377

Please reach out to us at [email protected] for any business inquiries. 

【Listen to LMM】

Find Loud Murmurs in the iTunes podcast store, Google Play, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts (e.g. Pocket Casts, Overcast)! Please subscribe, enjoy, and feel free to drop us a note and leave us a review. 

• RSS feed: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/258327.rss 
• Itunes: https://apple.co/2VAVf0Z 
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• Pocket Cast: http://pca.st/nLid 
• Overcast: https://bit.ly/2SL7MNJ 

[Episode theme]

This is a special episode. Afra went to the two-week-long Shanghai International Film Festival and talks to our friends Xiaoran and Yaqin about their experiences. In 2021, the success of this event alone feels like a rare victory for Chinese cinephiles.

[Timecode]

2:28 Why did we go to the Shanghai International Film Festival? 

7:50 The cinephile community in Shanghai 

16:10 How do hardcore movie lovers make the most out of these festivals? 

27:25 Why do we still need film festivals? The human connections created through a shared love of cinema are irreplaceable.

39:04 Our favorite films at this year’s SIFF.

51:28 Is SIFF accessible to people with disabilities? How can it improve?

[Guest introduction]

Chen Xiaoran: Founder of DirecTube

Yu Yaqin: Film critic 

[Audio editor]

Josh Ogden-Davis 

[Highlights]

Taking you on a journey through audio to the 2021 Shanghai International Film Festival.

[Be our sponsor]

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in USD, suitable for listeners who live in the U.S.): https://www.patreon.com/loudmurmurs. 

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in RMB)：

https://afdian.net/p/e0a54e82ebd111e9bd2d52540025c377

【Links & resources】

DirecTube: https://directubedotcn.wordpress.com/ 

Yaqin’s articles on FIRST Film Festival: https://www.allnow.com/post/5f281ca0d47fa200018d9c0c 

【Business collab】

Please reach out to us at [email protected] for any business inquiries. 

【Listen to LMM】

Find Loud Murmurs in the iTunes podcast store, Google Play, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts (e.g. Pocket Casts, Overcast)! Please subscribe, enjoy, and feel free to drop us a note and leave us a review. 

• RSS feed: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/258327.rss 
• Itunes: https://apple.co/2VAVf0Z 
• Google play: goo.gl/KjRYPN 
• Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2IWNuRB 
• Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=544416&refid=stpr 
• Pocket Cast: http://pca.st/nLid 
• Overcast: https://bit.ly/2SL7MNJ 

In light of the recent re-screening of Lord of the Rings, we chatted with physicist Cheng Yangyang and LOTR superfan Wenjin about this classic work that we had the privilege to grow up with. We talked about the exiled human king, re-examined the orcs, and mused on the revenge of the ents. We also talked about how the work inspired us, and how we, as diasporas, see ourselves in the wandering steps of Aragorn’s self-inflicted exile -- the act of “dying just a little”.

• 2:44 Our first experience with LOTR
• 10:29 Resetting myself after the apocalyptic 2020 by re-watching LOTR
• 20:15 Is it still worth it to talk about race in LOTR in 2021?
• 35:38 The Isengard flood and the revenge of nature
• 41:10 Aragorn - the orphan raised on a foreign land
• 50:00 The 2021 rescreening and the icy 1-star reviews

Our Guests

• Cheng Yangyang (@yangyang_cheng): Particle physicist, writer, and postdoctoral fellow at Yale Law School.
• Wenjin (@norloth): Host of the podcast "托尔金的树叶", illustrator, and LOTR superfan.

Links & Resources

Some of Us Did Not Die by Yangyang Cheng

Audio editor

Ziyi: a documentarian, podcaster & football lover

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in USD) or AFD (in RMB), and please reach out to us at [email protected] for any business inquiries. 

Find Loud Murmurs in the iTunes podcast store, Google Play, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts (e.g. Pocket Casts, Overcast)! Please subscribe, enjoy, and feel free to drop us a note and leave us a review. 

• RSS feed: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/258327.rss 
• Itunes: https://apple.co/2VAVf0Z 
• Google play: goo.gl/KjRYPN 
• Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2IWNuRB 
• Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=544416&refid=stpr 
• Pocket Cast: http://pca.st/nLid 
• Overcast: https://bit.ly/2SL7MNJ 

“Cruella” is Disney’s latest live-action release where a beloved old movie gets a brand new life, starring two crowd-favorite Emmas: Emma Stone and Emma Thompson. Juan and Diaodiao saw the movie together in the theater, and they dive into the themes of the movie, the complicated history of Disney villains, and the problematic elements in the movie that made us cringe (queerbaiting alert!)

【Timecodes】

• 3:52 “Cruella” is way more awesome when watched in theaters and with friends 
• 7:39 Disney villains: the moral and societal values they represent 
• 9:29 Who is Cruella (old and new)
• 17:00-17:52 SPOILERS
• 19:02 Cruella as a punk icon and fashion icon 
• 25:36-26:07 What’s Cruella rebelling against? SPOILERS
• 28:55 The commodification of Disney villains 
• 29:38 Queerness and queer baiting in Disney movies 
• 31:27-31:39 SKIP FOR SPOILERS

【Audio editor】

Joshua Odgen Davis 

【Be our sponsor】

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in USD, suitable for listeners who live in the U.S.) or Patreon 's Chinese equivalent (in RMB)

【Links & resources】

• 幕后访谈丨为Cruella设计47套衣服的设计师：70岁，全世界淘古着找灵感
• How Cruella’s Costume Designer Turned Emma Stone Into an Impossibly Stylish Supervillain
• Riot, Rebel, Revolt: The Rise of Vivienne Westwood

【Business collabs】

Please reach out to us at [email protected] for any business inquiries. 

Find Loud Murmurs in the iTunes podcast store, Google Play, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts (e.g. Pocket Casts, Overcast)! Please subscribe, enjoy, and feel free to drop us a note and leave us a review. 

• RSS feed: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/258327.rss 
• Itunes: https://apple.co/2VAVf0Z 
• Google play: goo.gl/KjRYPN 
• Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2IWNuRB 
• Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=544416&refid=stpr 
• Pocket Cast: http://pca.st/nLid 

Overcast: https://bit.ly/2SL7MNJ 

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/loudmurmurs)

In this episode, we continue our conversation on ‘Sound of Metal’, a movie about a drummer whose sudden loss of hearing puts him on an unlikely journey of growth and self-discovery. We also discuss how little we know about the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community.  The conversation is so good and so long that we split it into two parts.  See full transcript in Chinese for part 2 here. 

【Timecodes】

• 3:37 Xinke share her thoughts on the errors in ‘Sound of Metal’ 
• 8:33 the overly complicated U.S. healthcare and insurance system 
• 11:02 we discuss the audism and ableism in the movie
• 15:56 the candid portrayal of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community in the movie 
• 17:13 Yiru shares her experience with Deaf education through music
• 20:25 cochlear implants: Ruben and Xinke’s experiences
• 26:00 the controversy around cochlear implants
• 35:19 the significance of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community
• 38:05 What can we do to challenge ableism and audism in our day to day lives

【Guest introduction】

Xinke Liu (she/her) is the co-founder of a startup that provides medical-grade hearing aids for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. She wore hearing aids in her teenage years and underwent the procedure to have cochlear implants after college. She is currently based in China. 

Yiru Chen (she/her) graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a major in Film and TV production and minors in Psychology and American Sign Language. She is currently a student of the MA program in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.  She is an active member of both Shanghai and New York signing communities and her goal is to promote sign language education and arts in both countries. Her film “Handscape” has been screened at multiple film festivals in and out of China.  

【Audio editor】

Joshua Ogden-Davis 

【Too long didn’t listen】

This is not your typical story of a person overcoming hardship to find himself. It’s not even that inspirational. What it does achieve is portraying one aspect of the vastly diverse and complicated Deaf community to the mainstream hearing community. It’s up to us to learn and educate ourselves about the rest. 

【Be our sponsor】

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in USD, suitable for listeners who live in the U.S.) or Patreon 's Chinese equivalent (in RMB)

【Links & resources】

• Handscape, directed by Yiru Chen
• 36kr interview with Evoco Labs 
• Good resources on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community in China:  
  • 守语者（shouyuzhe2014)
  • 你看起来好动听
  • 手屿
• Relevant Movies
  • Feeling Through
  • Child of Lesser God

【Business collabs】

Please reach out to us at [email protected] for any business inquiries. 

This week, we talk about the movie ‘Sound of Metal,’ a story about a drummer (played by Riz Ahmed) whose sudden loss of hearing puts him on an unlikely journey of growth and self-discovery. We also discuss how little we know about the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community, about sign language and Deaf culture. 

The conversation is so good and so long that we split it into two parts. See full transcript in Chinese for part 1 here.
【Timecodes】

• 3:15 Brief introduction to Sound of Metal
• 8:56 Our first impressions of the film
• 18:15 On-screen moments that moved us: seeing a hearing guide dog, ASL, and deaf music education 
• 20:55 The exquisite sound design of the movie 
• 25:48 What’s currently missing from mainstream awareness of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community, what are the 4 deaf identities, ASL (American Sign Language) as a language, what is Deaf culture 
• 36:48 Why we need to cast more deaf actors in deaf roles
• 44:14 ASL as a language and its role in forming a community 

【Guest introduction】

Xinke Liu (she/her) is the co-founder of a startup that provides medical-grade hearing aids for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. She wore hearing aids in her teenage years and underwent the procedure to have cochlear implants after college. She is currently based in China. 

Yiru Chen (she/her) graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a major in Film and TV production and minors in Psychology and American Sign Language. She is currently a student of the MA program in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.  She is an active member of both Shanghai and New York signing communities and her goal is to promote sign language education and arts in both countries. Her film “Handscape” has been screened at multiple film festivals in and out of China.  

【Audio editor】

Joshua Ogden-Davis 

【Too long didn’t listen】

This is not your typical story of a person overcoming hardship to find himself. It’s not even that inspirational. What it does achieve is portraying one aspect of the vastly diverse and complicated Deaf community to the mainstream hearing community. It’s up to us to learn and educate ourselves about the rest. 

【Be our sponsor】

Please consider supporting us on Patreon (in USD, suitable for listeners who live in the U.S.) or Patreon 's Chinese equivalent (in RMB)

【Links & resources】

• Handscape, directed by Yiru Chen
• 36kr interview with Evoco Labs 
• Good resources on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community in China:  
  • 守语者（shouyuzhe2014)
  • 你看起来好动听
  • 手屿
• Relevant Movies
  • Feeling Through
  • Child of Lesser God

【Business collabs】

Please reach out to us at [email protected] for any business inquiries. 

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/loudmurmurs)

“WandaVision” takes place after Thanos snapped his fingers and eliminated half of the people in the universe in Avengers: Infinity War. The show departs from the usual superhero Marvel movies in a number of significant ways: it’s a TV show, the main character is a woman, the heart of the story is about grieving, trauma and intimacy. 

Like people in the Marvel universe, we all collectively lived through a traumatic event on a global scale and are still far from being completely free from the influence of the pandemic. It’s been said that WandaVision is a pandemic parable. Barring from the typical third act CGI light beam fight in the sky, this story has a lot of elements we can all relate to: living in our TV, being stuck at home and isolated, processing waves of direct and indirect grief. So today, we invited an actual therapist to talk to us about WandaVision. 

Guest: Lola, she/her, licensed therapist based in Chicago. She founded a social-justice informed Fig Tree Counseling (figtreechi.com) in 2019. 

Warning: We spoiled this show, thoroughly, so know this before you listen. Thanks!  

We Talked About:

• 04：16 Why we love WandaVision, and why this is not your typical superhero story. 
• 07：53 How does the show deal with the concept of “trauma”? How does Wanda try to regain control? How does the show visualize grief?
• 12：00 How does the show portray the five stages of grief? 
• 15：12 How does Wanda’s childhood trauma shape her as a character? Agatha — the unlicensed therapist. 
• 19：39 How do we find power in grief? 
• 21：03 Monica Rambeau and Wanda’s friendship 
• 23：34 How should we understand the line “What is grief if not love persevering”? Is the goal of grieving to move on and to forget? 
• 26：16 The moral questions of Wanda’s way of dealing with her personal grief 
• 29：10 Hurt people hurt people. How do we avoid infecting others with our own emotional problems? 
• 32：00 What is it like to lose your partner/spouse? How can therapy help? 
• 35：50 WandaVision is a pandemic parable, so what can we learn from it? 
• 42：00 How to take your first step with therapy? 

Links: 

‘WandaVision,’ a sitcom sendup, was a pandemic parable, too

‘WandaVision’ Lives Inside TV. Just Like We Do.

Find Loud Murmurs in the iTunes podcast store, Google Play, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts (e.g. Pocket Casts, Overcast)! Please subscribe, enjoy, and feel free to drop us a note and leave us a review. 

• RSS feed: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/258327.rss 
• Itunes: https://apple.co/2VAVf0Z 
• Google play: goo.gl/KjRYPN 
• Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2IWNuRB 
• Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=544416&refid=stpr 
• Pocket Cast: http://pca.st/nLid 
• Overcast: https://bit.ly/2SL7MNJ 

Please consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/loudmurmurs. 

Please reach out to us at [email protected] for any business inquiries. 

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/loudmurmurs)