ARYANA KHALILZADEH WRITES – Many people have waited decades for a sequel to the immensely popular 1986 action film Top Gun, and Hollywood delivered with a bang – and a provocative propaganda hit at China. Thirty-six years after the first Top Gun film, its sequel, Top Gun: Maverick has broken…
Full Article TAIWAN: HOLLYWOOD AND MAVERICK COME TO THE RESCUE
GABY RUSLI WRITES (in an ongoing series of Indonesian classics) — Every person has within themselves a personal ‘tiger,’ whether it is vice, trauma, or an immoral act we bury inside of us. We spend our lives trying to subdue this tiger. Some succeed in taming their tigers, while others…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: TIGER! TIGER! (1991) BY MOCHTAR LUBIS — A TALE OF ONE MAN’S BATTLE AGAINST HIMSELF
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Like a hamster sprinting on its wheel, going precisely nowhere, thirty-four-year-old freelance copy editor Fuyuko Irie does not question the mundanity of her daily routine. Japanese author Mieko Kawakami’s latest release, All the Lovers in the Night (2022), follows a character with no real friends, no boyfriend,…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: ALL THE LOVERS IN THE NIGHT (2022) BY MIEKO KAWAKAMI – THE CONDITION OF THE MODERN WOMAN
JARED SIVILA WRITES – Manga (Japanese graphic novels) is a globally cherished medium comprised of emotionally charged and exciting stories accompanied by charming, distinct illustrations. These works are very difficult to produce-just ask the many authors who dare to tackle the high-pressure challenge of producing their manga on an extensive…
Full Article JAPAN: A LEGENDARY MANGAKA IS BACK TO WORK, BUT WILL HE SURVIVE?
JARED SIVILA WRITES – The alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang have cast an uneasy shadow over the rest of the world for months, but with the most recent Xinjiang Police File leak leaders all over the world are calling for immediate action and investigation. What makes this leak particularly…
Full Article CHINA: THE SUSPICIOUS CASE OF THE XINJIANG POLICE FILES
CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – It’s just possible that a favorable diplomatic wind is forming that could alter the trajectory of the storm of war raging over Ukraine, the second-largest country in Europe. Pushing this war out to sea might help clear the gathering clouds of world economic collapse.…
Full Article U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS: WHY U.S. ARROGANCE, NOT THE RUSSIA-CHINA RELATIONSHIP, IS THE BIGGEST BARRIER TO PEACE IN UKRAINE
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Hornclaw is a sixty-five-year-old woman who refers to herself as a “disease control specialist.” The so-called ‘vermin’ she spends her time exterminating for a high price are humans with a certain rodent-like disposition. Never mind her age and perceived frailty –that is how…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: THE OLD WOMAN WITH THE KNIFE (2022) BY GU BYEONG-MO – AN ELDERLY WOMAN ASSASSIN FINDS LOVE AND HOPE
Asia Media International announces the following staff developments: Cristina Pedler, who earlier this month graduated from the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts at Loyola Marymount University with her baccalaureate degree in International Relations, takes over at the helm of AMI, reporting directly to the founder and president of Asia Media.…
Full Article ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL’S NEW EXECUTIVE EDITOR
VIDEO FEATURE – Asia Media International’s Video Anchor Janelynne Galera offers a succinct but thorough overview of the streaming rage in the globe’s most populous country. Janelynne Galera is a junior Business Management and Leadership major at LMU.
Full Article VIDEO FEATURE OF CHINA TODAY: UPSTREAMING AND DOWNSTREAMING
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – In an unnamed country, a family of three settles into a creaking house at the edge of an ominous forest. The father cannot help but notice that something is quite off about this place. Are the trees coughing? No… laughing? As so many…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODS (2022) BY MASATSUGU ONO – THE EXISTENTIAL TERROR OF THE MODERN MAN
CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – The topic of nuclear war is no joking matter, but I was rather tempted to cry out “Get me rewrite!” while dipping into my old book on the nuclear arms race. So much is changing now. My published tome had been premised on the…
Full Article THREAT OF RUSSIAN NUCLEAR ATTACK SHOWS WHY CHINA’S NO-FIRST-USE POLICY SHOULD BE GLOBAL STANDARD
AIDAN SMITH-FAGAN WRITES – Tapio Tokunaga still remembers the first time he saw George Lucas’ Star Wars films. “I fell in love with it,” he tells me, recalling borrowing the DVDs as a seven-year-old in Yokohama, Japan. Tapio would go on to learn as much about the story, characters, and…
Full Article JAPAN AND STAR WARS: IN A SHOGUNATE FAR FAR AWAY
KIANA KARIMI WRITES – « Vous dépendez du pouvoir russe et vous dépendez de Monsieur Poutine…Vous avez contracté un prêt auprès d’une banque russe… Vous ne parlez pas à d’autres dirigeants, vous parlez à votre banquier Madame Le Pen…Vos intérêts sont liés au pouvoir Russe. » “You depend on Russian…
Full Article EUROPE: SELFIES FROM LE PEN AND THE FAR-RIGHT
GABY RUSLI WRITES (in her ongoing series on classic Indonesian literature) — Through versatility and natural eloquence, Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s, The Girl From The Coast (1987), took a seemingly simple story based on the author’s grandmother’s life into a complex metaphor that simultaneously represents female oppression and the exploitative dynamics between the ruling class…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: THE GIRL FROM THE COAST (1987) BY PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOER — A PEASANT GIRL TURNED AN ARISTOCRATIC WIFE
TOM PLATE WRITES – Ever since my initial meeting with Lee Kuan Yew a quarter century ago, Singapore remained in my mind as special. By the time of the brilliant founding prime minister’s passing at 91 in 2015, that assessment was not so novel and was going global; even in…
Full Article SINGAPORE: CALIBRATING A ROLE BETWEEN CHINA AND THE U.S.
KIANA KARIMI AND LIAM ROGERS WRITE — What a scene: White, Blue, and Red stripes encapsulate a Moscow stadium with a crowd roaring in cheers and clad in Z’s giving a grand welcome to a celebration of “unity” while awaiting the illustrious dictator himself, President Vladimir Putin. The Russian government…
Full Article UKRAINE CONTROVERSY: MAKING THE CASE FOR ICC PROSECUTION OF PUTIN