Inaccurate Portrayal of "Oriental" People

I seldom watch Channel 5, but this morning I decided to switch to that channel, after getting sick of the constant recycling of kids' drama serials over at Channel 8. So there on Channel 5 was this drama serial titled "The New Adventures of Robin Hood II" which featured some Japanese people. There was one particular character, a Japanese woman to be exact, which I felt was a disaster in character appearance.

If you could not tell what was wrong with her appearance, let me shed some light. First, her makeup was not what a typical Japanese woman in that era put on. I personally felt it was more like what Peking opera actors would wear on stage. As for her kimono, I've never heard of kimonos that is fastened right centre on one's body; only the ancient Chinese wear their dress that way! So you see, the character portrayal is a total flop, with the exception of the hair. But then again, thinking on the logical side, if a woman is constantly on the travel like this character does, it doesn't seem feasible for her to comb this hard-to-maintain hairstyle and makeup.

It is very ironic that such big mistakes can take place in American productions, whereby stylistic realism plays a very important part. Perhaps the designers for this show felt that the western audiences won't be able to tell the difference anyway, but then again it just reflect how badly their research was carried out.

Japanese Puppet Animation

Japanese puppetry is a very high form of art as the puppeteers are able to control the puppets, which are equipped with many sophisticated mechanisms, in such a way that it looked almost like a real human being. Decades ago, there was period of time where Japanese puppetry was integrated into popular entertainment, and that was when Japanese puppetry animation was borned. This form of puppetry animation is unlike other forms of puppet animation from China or Taiwan, whereby it's purely entertainment, the Japanese puppetry animation is just as artistic.

Below here are two puppetry films by famous puppetry master Kihachiro, titled "Ghost" and "Flower Picking". "Ghost" speaks of a popular urban legend that when elderly people were on the verge of death, they'd transform into ghosts and try to eat up their children. For "Flower Picking", a little monk was lured into letting in 2 strangers into his garden with alcohol, who were trying to pluck the beautiful flowers in the garden.