Here's a little about the two shows i've watched, Brotherhood and 2046. I find that Brotherhood is a really good show sporting a tragic story. Tragic stories are usually good shows, coz it injects a doze of realism, reminding us that not all things live happily ever after, not all dreams come true, and fairytales are just fairytales.



Take a look at titanic. It is a very good story (read story and not show) and most certainly tragic. Yeah, so maybe little rose went on and live to old age and all, but it is merely a facade that movie makers feel obliged to include. They couldn't end shows on sad notes, coz any suicides would then be blamed on the show. Which in turn made the ending utterly lame, considering that any sane person would pawn the priceless necklace for a retirement fund rather than dunking it into the bottomless ocean. But the show does capture the hearts of many fans, and i would believe, simply by being a tragic love story.



Titanic was such a success, and a drag, that the fan club became divided into three distinctive groups. The first group were those that really loved a good show and a tragic story. The second group of fans begin to love Titanic becuase it became fashionable. And the last group of fans, hated Titanic. Yes, critics are also fan clubs. This last group consist of a lot of people who choose to hate the show, simply because it became fashionable. Doesn't make sense? Actually it does make sense.



Time and again, one would see young people stand up and say, i'm not part of this mindless crowd. Whether anot that person is part of the crowd is not a point to contend. What is note worthy is the desire of that person to not be merged as the larger mob. The person wants to be controversial, different, individual and unique. And they begin to reject Titanic simply because it became fashionable.



Back to Brotherhood. Brotherhood is a story about two brothers whose lives got messed up when war came upon them. The elder brother had a gf and the brothers and gf lived together with their mother. When war was upon them, the brothers were drafted into the army to fight. The elder brother then began volunteering for dangerous missions to buy his brother's freedom.

Throughout the show, we see small little tokens of love. The elder brother's gf made a handkerchief from her skirt to give to him, for him to wipe his sweat coz he was always using his sleeves to do it. And when the gf suffered a bullet wound, the elder brother used that same handkerchief to press onto the wound to stop the blood flow. And the gf went like, "You kept the handkerchief with you all the time..."



The handkerchief was but a material token. But its sentimental representation was much greater. The fact that such tokens of love did not begin with the significance due it, makes it all the more wonder inspiring. It was not like the gf asked the guy to keep the handkerchief becuase it was her token of love to him. It was given to him to use to wipe sweat to keep the sleeves clean. And such an act, resulted in the handkerchief becoming a token of love.



So it does makes me wonder if people of today still keep these little tokens with them, be it handkerchiefs or metal pens, or even tiny wishing stars made from drinking straws.



On to 2046. 2046 is a slow boring story and full of music which i didn't like. But its story is rather tragic and the overall show does appeal to me. 2046, sports a number of metaphors. The story revolves around tony leung, a journalist staying in a hotel room, numbered 2046. He began writing a fantasy story about people going to the future year 2046 in a train, to look for loved ones, and never coming back.



All who went to 2046 never returned, well, all except one. I particularly loved the bit of the show where the person who was returning from 2046 on the train was asked two metaphorical questions. The reply to the questions seemed to be always in some kind of third person speech, mainly because the written story was intricately entwined with bit Tony's own life and the questions were like him asking himself as he was writing the story.



"Why do you want to leave 2046?"

The narrator said, "I gave a vague answer to that question."

The next question was, "How long does it take for the train to leave 2046."

To which the narrator replied, "It all depends, some people take a short time to leave 2046 while others take a long time."