BOOKS

• Hidden Love #5 Graphic Novel
• Hidden Love #6 Graphic Novel
• Hidden Love #7 Graphic Novel
• Hidden Love #8 Graphic Novel
• Ice Planet Barbarians (Review)
• The King of Shanghai: The Triad Years by Ian Hamilton (Review)
• Turn Left, Turn Right by Jimmy Liao

Currently reading: Defeated By Love

Starting off the year in a very strong way in my opinion and hoping that I’ll be able to keep it up. While I did read a lot of short books like Chinese Graphic Novels (aka Man Hua) and finished off the Hidden Love books. I wonder if it is complete since it feels like its just the first half that was adapted. Either way, that is besides the point because this version is also pretty fun to read plus the artwork is really nice as well.

In terms of actual reading though, a chat with one of my really great friends brought up the whole Ice Planet Barbarians series that I had read the first book years ago when Kindle still had free books and I had picked that one up. Who knew that that conversation will lead to knowing that that book series had a dozen books already (if I remember correctly). I’m not going to read the whole series but I did go back to re-read the first book since I remembered not enjoying that much and was wondering maybe a few years and some more erotic fiction would change my mind. The answer to that is still no although the review there might be a little harsh than how I feel about it this time around. Maybe I’ve grown less critical on books since my main literature the past few years has been children’s books so the change in pace to some more adult stuff was a good change in pace.

While this year’s Goodreads Challenge is set at 25 books (for now), my actual goal is try to get through one decent length novel every month, preferably a bunch of books I’ve pulled off my bookshelf that I want to read this year. I do love reading and nothing makes me remember it like diving into an Ava Lee series book as I continued with its next book, The King of Shanghai. I even got a review out for that so I guess I’m trying to say that book reviews will be coming back gradually if the whole plan works out to read more. Check out the review if you’d like but in short, I loved the book and can’t wait to catch up to the next few books in the series that I currently own. I have a side goal this year to try to chip away at the backlog of everything regardless of books or games or physical movies that I own so here we are.

Nice job on saying that because I did pick up some new books from Taobao to add to my Jimmy Liao collection. While I haven’t seen the film adaptation for Turn Left Turn Right in decades, I’ve always wanted to read the book it was based on and I honestly think its a great read. Now to find some time to give the film a long-awaited rewatch because who doesn’t like a romantic story with Takeshi Kaneshiro and Gigi Leung.

MOVIES

• Bring Her Back (2025)
• Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023)
• Village of the Damned (1995)
• Mary Poppins Returns (rewatch 2018)
• The Quiet Earth (1985)
• The Day of the Beast (1995)
• Wishmaster (1997)
• The Aristocats (rewatch 1970)
• Inferior Decorator (rewatch 1948)
• Heart Eyes (2025)
• Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
• It Feeds (2025)
• The Royal Tenenbaums (2001 rewatch)
• Inside Out 2 (2024 rewatch)
• Ballerina (2025)
• The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970)
• The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)
• My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999 rewatch)
• Inside Out (2015 rewatch Review)
• Sinners (2025)
• Dangerous Animals (2025)
• Mary Poppins (rewatch 1964)

Between starting off the year trying to wrap up the incomplete films from Oh My Horror Challenge from 2025 and getting back on track with this year’s projects and challenge while trying to work through some Crave titles before the subscription ended, this is how the month went. Its a pretty decent way to start to year to be honest. I rarely start the year with such strong films and everything here was a pretty decent time other than one. Yes, I’m looking at you, The Strangers: Chapter 1. I can’t believe there’s two more chapters of this and seriously wondering whether out of curiosity of how things will pan out whether I’ll watch it. If there’s anything I learned from watching the film, its that I can’t seem to get back the franchise in general. The first film had promise and ended up being a disappointment. The second film was more acceptable but had some silly moments as expected in these types of horror films but this one, I don’t really have any words for this other than its effort to go back to its roots but having some incredibly silly pair of victims who made some useless choices.

Bring Her Back was my last minute body horror pick for Oh My Horror Challenge 2026. I haven’t watched the previous film by this director duo but this was a pretty neat horror film which took some interesting turns in its execution. French Canadian horror comedy Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person is a mouthful to say but filmed around the suburb where I grew up in some parts so it not only felt close to home but had a quirkiness that worked for me. The endgame was pretty expected with how the story went but the flow of the story was an entertaining one. Village of the Damned, The Quiet Earth and Wishmaster all has similar sort of feeling as they all had a decent story and the film overall was a good time but I can’t say that its a rewatch for myself.

Heart Eyes, It Feeds, Ballerina and Sinners were all Crave offerings that I caught before the subscription ended. It Feeds is so far my favorite film of the year so far. Its not weird since I’m really seeing how Black Fawn Films has grown over the years and the sophistication of the execution. Heart Eyes is a decent horror film which is a little on the formulaic side but the whole unknown two people who meet and run for their lives was pretty entertaining. Sinners was a watch after seeing the Oscars nominations list and while I thought the film itself was done really well especially the music and had From Dusk Till Dawn vibe, and Michael B Jordan is a great actor, the second half after the horror twist reveals is the more engaging part. Finally, the spinoff for John Wick world Ballerina wasn’t exactly a bad time but a lackluster one. Ana de Armas is a great actress but what she lacks perhaps is the fluidity of the fight choreography which feels very scripted and rigid at times to make it have the excitement of watching a John Wick film.

With that said, there were some surprises this month like The Day of the Beast which I finally finished and its an great Spanish horror comedy that takes some fun twists as it has a ragtag crew formed by a priest, a metalhead and an occult fraudster which truly delivered some funny bits. Bad Times at the El Royale is a long film but it holds up to create some director trademark for Drew Goddard while delivering a great cast and a nice twist on the events going on in a hotel which a hidden agenda. As I try to dive further into Dario Argento’s filmography, his directorial debut is the first to hit the lineup with The Bird With the Crystal Plumage which was an interesting flow of events. Not quite as great as Deep Red and the reveal was a bit of goofy overacting. Finally, Dangerous Animals which was promoted as a shark film but its only one angle of the film as its so much more.

TV

• Stranger Things Season 5 (2025)
• Rouge Tears 胭脂淚(2025)
• Being Pampered During Pregnancy 孕妇被霸总宠上天 (vertical series 2025)
• She’s Fiercer Than Gunfire她比枪火炙热 (vertical series 2025)
• Sheng Sheng Xiang Xu 声声相许(vertical series 2025)
• Shine On Me 驕陽似我(2025)
• Falling Into You 熾道(2022)
• Queer Eye (Season 10, 2025)
• Master of My Own 請叫我總監 (2022)
• Sinful Marriage 罪嫁 (2025)
• Bridgerton (Season 4 Part 1, 2026)

Currently watching: Affinity

TV has been a real mix of spontaneous choices of short dramas, vertical series and full length dramas along with a few more deliberate offerings on Netflix. While there were some meh moments mostly with two of the vertical series, the other series were all a decent time especially since I’m trying to really make some bank on my Youku subscription by starting to work on some of the older series and started going from 2022 where I had more series I wanted to watch.

As usual though, vertical series and short dramas are more by random choice although I’ve been watching this one actress Fang Jin a lot so I ended up watching Sinful Marriage as well. Its a pretty good watch to be fair. It started with a plot that I though was pretty basic but the cast did a good job and I constantly am pleased with the different roles Fang Jin has in each series she’s done that I’ve seen especially with the latest Affinity which is just a fantastic time both from innovative plot, world building to character design and the casting. In a world of lower budget TV, its showing that there is a real shift on the short drama scene where these series are getting some good writing, at least less formulaic than some full-length ones.

I honestly don’t really want to go to deep into vertical series since its so shameful to talk about a series called Being Pampered During Pregnancy and it wasn’t all that good but its the second time I’ve seen this pairing so the chemistry is decent but then this pairing is very one tone as its similar to the previous one that I saw called Addicted Only To You. Both of these series are pretty basic, other than the male lead being a good looking man, there’s not a whole lot of value here. With that said, in the world of vertical series, She’s Fiercer Than Gunfire is a pretty great one although I do like Austin Yao and Han Le Yao who are my discoveries in the short drama/vertical series world and the show overall has a Young and Dangerous vibe even if its a budget version. Plus, I’ve seen the actress Han Le Yao before in a short drama and her outing in this vertical series was a good one as she plays two different roles. On the other hand, Sheng Sheng Xiang Xu was pretty silly and it was unnecessarily long so wasn’t exactly a great offering. On that note, Rouge Tears was also a pretty good one. I’ve seen the female lead Daisy Li before in The King’s Avatar but recently have seen her a lot in short dramas while I’ve only caught one or two before this (I can’t remember) but Rouge Tears, while has the familiar revenge plot, is a pretty good production as well. On that thought, are they ever going to do a King’s Avatar.

Netflix has its early year offerings as usual with Stranger Things Season 5 having its final wrap-up which I thought was a decent way to end it. It wasn’t all that unexpected but it left space to have an open ending and it felt rather suitable. Queer Eye Season 10 was also its final season for this series that I really do love, even if sometimes there is some bad publicity in the last few seasons, I think its still a positive feel-good experience overall as the message it delivers is an important one and its hard to imagine the ten years its been doing this and all the changes in the world and its own country its gone through. Finally, Bridgerton’s first part of Season 4 was launched and I have rather mixed feelings about it. On one hand, the leads have fantastic chemistry and great characters to discover but on the other hand, its basically a Cinderella story framework. Of course, it really depends where they plan to spin it in the second half to see if it’ll make it better or worse.

As for full-length Chinese dramas, I decided to catch up with Netflix available one Shine On Me which was a shot in the dark for me since I’m not a fan of Song Weilong or Jiao Jinmai the male or female lead respectively. However, Netflix seems to be a big fan of Jiao Jinmai to say the least as there’s been at least 5 series that I can think of so far that’s passed through this platform. With that said, Shine On Me is a true winner since it put two leading cast members I’m not a big fan of and truly took my heart with its plot and chemistry. Its a charming one which I’m not too surprised after realizing that its an adaptation from a Gu Man novel which also brought Love O2O and You Are My Glory. After this, I basically took a dive into the backlogs of Youku platform and ended up watching 2022’s Falling In Love which was a decent watch because of its lead but the plot did drag on near the end as well as 2022’s Master Of My Own which was a story with a strong female lead fighting her way through the corporate finance world from a small executive secretary to becoming a CEO with a little dabs of romance at the same time. Its an empowering story that never forgets where its heart is and casted really well with Tan Songyun.

GAMES

• Little Nightmares 3
• Ahnayro: The Dream World

Currently playing: Ray-man Origins, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy – Justice For All, 112 Operator, The Room Three, Pinball FX, The Gardens Between

I’m not going to lie that I can’t really decide what I want to play at this current moment. My mind’s a big mess of stuff that I want to replay or finish or check out or try out, etc. Part of it is that its entertaining for me and part of it is just a quick jump in jump out sort of gaming. I guess the best way is to start with the one that I’m probably less likely to play more of which is 112 Operator which to be clear, its not that the game is bad. Its actually pretty neat especially since it can lock to your own area and adapts to those street names in the area but its more that its not my type of game. I don’t like games that require so much analysis and planning and management. However, its right up the alley for my husband who actually really enjoyed it and has taken over the game.

Everything else in currently playing is a bit of here and there with most of them being either replay titles like The Room Three which I’ve been replaying the series during 2025 but not sure whether I acknowledged it on these posts or not (sometimes I forget). Pinball FX is a pick up and put down game that I play every once in a while when I’m looking for a quick pinball match. I’m not a really good pinball player but I enjoy it regardless and I’m guessing that’s what matters considering I don’t have to actually put in coins at an arcade. Rayman Origins is a fairly long game but I’ve been enjoying doing little sessions of platforming musical fun while Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy is an ongoing replay. I pick up and play an episode and then stop usually. I should be finishing Justice For All soon though.

There’s nothing like a sense of satisfaction when you go back to finish a game that’s been sitting around incomplete for too long and that is the case of Ahnayro: The Dream World, a game that I had such a fun time playing back at the beginning of Game Warp and one of the first studios we interviewed on the podcast and I finally went back to finish the last puzzle.

Finally, Little Nightmares 3 is now an online co-op experience. Why it doesn’t have couch co-op is still a bit of a headscratcher but then its no longer in the hands of Tarsier Studios and moved on to Supermassive Games and they’ve never done couch co-op with their other games so why should they start now, right? However, more than an online co-op experience that you can still play in single player mode, the bigger problem with the game is probably that it was disappointing. We know visually that Supermassive Games can do the job right but Little Nightmares 3 loses its heart a little bit because no only does the world doesn’t feel like it builds on the lore from the previous two, it also feels more like a tribute to horror games rather than the unique world that it had before. However, Little Nightmares holds a special place in my heart. Its the only game that I’ve actually wanted to spend money to get its collectibles so I might be a little harsher because of the disappointment I felt.