The Killer (1989) [SPOILERS]

Sydney: "Don't you want to check the weapon?"
Ah Jong: "There's no need. I trust you."

Chow Yun Fat is the confident and elegant hitman Ah Jong. He is unlike any cold-blooded killer -- he is the ideal image of a man. He is heroic and has a strong sense of honour and loyalty that's becoming a hindrance in this ever changing complicated world.

The Killer is a romantic film centred on friendship, redemption, and honor.

However, like the redemption which Ah Jhong seeks was never fulfilled in the end, the friendships between the characters are not without some sort of power struggle either.

I love every aspect of this film, especially the stand-off sequence between Ah Jhong and Lee (an obsessive policeman) in Jenny's apartment. However, the more minor storyline between Ah Jong and Sydney (Ah Jhong's manager and friend) is what I would like to focus on.

Foreigners speaking Mandarin

Mr. Leung's blog post on "Foreigners speaking Cantonese" inspired me to do some further research to assist my own little ongoing 'project' which started sometime last year.

Earlier this year while I was back home for the first time in three years, I noticed an increase in foreigners (by this, I mean mostly white people). There's foreign exchange students around TWTC, Caucasian men (teachers, sons-in-laws, expat...), and even Muslim girls at the supermarket.There's a popular nightly talk show which features "foreign brides" as guests on TV, and even a Taiwanese (Min Nan/Hokkien) language teaching program co-hosted by an American.

It may not seem like such a big deal in this multicultural society, but bear in mind that I'm talking about a country with 23 million people (similar to Australia), of which 98% are ethnically Han Chinese and 2% Aboriginal. Rarely could you spot a white guy on the streets outside of certain areas of Taipei City (excluding Mormon missionaries. Many of them travel to Taiwan around 18 years of age).

Anyway, back on topic.

I've gathered some videos found on YouTube for my own reference and anyone else interested. For the moment, I did not include the many videos of people practicing Mandarin songs (some of them are quite interesting). I also did not include videos of people from language backgrounds other than English.

I will continue to update further info/delete dead links whenever I can be bothered to.

My notes are written primarily for myself just as a reminder, so there's absolutely no offense intended even though I may comment on some speakers' pronunciation...etc. (From a general linguistics point of view, there are no right or wrong anyway).