Romeo and Juliet* - Dire Straits

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;--
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title:--Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
(Romeo & Juliet Act II Scene II - William Shakespeare)

I spent 2 hours watching this movie just now:-

OK - the only reason i watched it was because she was in it:-

To be honest, if Zhao Wei was not in it, i'd turned off the telly early - or switched channels to watch tennis or something else.

Zhao Wei did win quite a number of awards for this role (see here). But it was too slow moving for me. And the story really isn't anything special nor new. It's based on Romeo and Juliet - typical story of two lovers not allowed to be together because their parents can't get along. The couple even made it clear that they liken their situation to that of Romeo and Juliet.

One scene did strike me, tho. It was when they both read a portion - prolly the most famous portion of Romeo and Juliet. The novelty for me was that it was in Mandarin - and the subtitles were in the Malay language. Interesting how hearing it/reading in another language can make it sound so refreshing.

The portion they read is reproduced at the start of this post.

Life's like that, isn't it. We have our 'names' - and we give others 'names' too. We are Chinese, Malays, Indians, Christians, Buddhists, Catholics, Protestants, rich, poor, graduates, professionals, blue-collared, immigrant etc. And a lot of times, because of these 'names', we treat them differently. Sad, isn't it? A rose by any other name does smell as sweet.

*Written by their lead singer and guitarist, Mark Knopfler and inspired by his broken romance with Holly Vincent.