a Romance Comedy that is practical... (for once)
*单身男女* Don't go Breaking my Heart*
Synopsis
Cheng Zhi En (Gao Yuan Yuan) comes from mainland China and works as an investment analyst in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong her personal love life and career are not running smoothly. His ex-boyfriend is married and the investment market suffers from financial crisis.
Her work is always stressful and her best consolation is a male executive working opposite her office called Zhang Shen Ran (Louis Koo), who is handsome and always advises her during the times of need.
One day while she is taking a tram she accidentally meets up with her ex-boyfriend (Terence Yin) and his pregnant wife (Selena Li), and leaves them immediately. During that incident she almost get knocked down by a car. She got saved her life by Fang Qi Hong (Daniel Wu) who dresses like a beggar.
And in order to thank him she gives all the things given by her ex-boyfriend to him so that he could sell them away. Actually Qi Hong is a frustrated architect and always get drunk. Zhi En encourages him to quit drinking, start from scratch once again and leaves him a horned frog.
Zhi En has plan to date Shen Ran but he already have an appointment with another lady. She feels sad like a broken hearted woman after knowing this. She also has an appointment with Qi Hong at the park but she herself fails to show up.
Three years later Shen Ran becomes Zhi En's boss. She feels his boss is very low class due of his 'playboy' character and Shen Ran has intention to marry Zhi En. At the same time Qi Hong quits drinking and becomes the country's renowned architect.
Qi Hong moves to the office building opposite Zhi En's and the two get back together once again. He also has love interest with Zhi En. Both men are after her at the same time. Who will Zhi En choose in the end?
Cheng Zhi En (Gao Yuan Yuan) comes from mainland China and works as an investment analyst in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong her personal love life and career are not running smoothly. His ex-boyfriend is married and the investment market suffers from financial crisis.
Her work is always stressful and her best consolation is a male executive working opposite her office called Zhang Shen Ran (Louis Koo), who is handsome and always advises her during the times of need.
One day while she is taking a tram she accidentally meets up with her ex-boyfriend (Terence Yin) and his pregnant wife (Selena Li), and leaves them immediately. During that incident she almost get knocked down by a car. She got saved her life by Fang Qi Hong (Daniel Wu) who dresses like a beggar.
And in order to thank him she gives all the things given by her ex-boyfriend to him so that he could sell them away. Actually Qi Hong is a frustrated architect and always get drunk. Zhi En encourages him to quit drinking, start from scratch once again and leaves him a horned frog.
Zhi En has plan to date Shen Ran but he already have an appointment with another lady. She feels sad like a broken hearted woman after knowing this. She also has an appointment with Qi Hong at the park but she herself fails to show up.
Three years later Shen Ran becomes Zhi En's boss. She feels his boss is very low class due of his 'playboy' character and Shen Ran has intention to marry Zhi En. At the same time Qi Hong quits drinking and becomes the country's renowned architect.
Qi Hong moves to the office building opposite Zhi En's and the two get back together once again. He also has love interest with Zhi En. Both men are after her at the same time. Who will Zhi En choose in the end?
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Something more solemn n dark...
*Inside Job*
The subject of Inside Job is the global financial crisis of 2008. It features research and extensive interviews with financiers, politicians, journalists, and academics. The film follows a narrative that is split into five parts.
The film focuses on changes in the financial industry in the decade leading up to the crisis, the political movement toward deregulation, and how the development of complex trading such as the derivatives market allowed for large increases in risk taking that circumvented older regulations that were intended to control systemic risk. In describing the crisis as it unfolded, the film also looks at conflicts of interest in the financial sector, many of which it suggests are not properly disclosed. The film suggests that these conflicts of interest affected credit rating agencies as well as academics who receive funding as consultants but do not disclose this information in their academic writing, and that these conflicts played a role in obscuring and exacerbating the crisis.
A major theme is the pressure from the financial industry on the political process to avoid regulation, and the ways that it is exerted. One conflict discussed is the prevalence of the revolving door, whereby financial regulators can be hired within the financial sector upon leaving government and make millions.
Within the derivatives market, the film contends that the high risks that began with subprime lending were transferred from investors to other investors who, due to questionable rating practices, falsely believed that the investments were safe. Thus, lenders were pushed to sign up mortgages without regard to risk, or even favoring higher interest rate loans, since, once these mortgages were packaged together, the risk was disguised. According to the film, the resulting products would often have AAA ratings, equal to U.S. government bonds. The products could then be used even by investors such as retirement funds who are required to limit themselves to the safest investments.
Another point is the high pay in the financial industry, and how it has grown in recent decades out of proportion to the rest of the economy. Even at the banks that failed, the film shows how bank executives were making hundreds of millions of dollars in the period immediately up to the crisis, all of which was kept, again suggesting that the risk/benefit balance has been broken.
One topic which few others have addressed is the role of academia in the crisis. Ferguson notes, for example, that Harvard University economist, and former head of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan, Martin Feldstein, was a director of the insurance company AIG and former board member of the investment bank J.P. Morgan & Co..
Ferguson also notes that many of the leading professors and leading faculty members of the economics and business school establishments often derive large proportions of their incomes from either engaging as consultants, or speaking engagements. For example, current dean of the Columbia Business School, Glenn Hubbard received a large percentage of his annual income from either acting as a consultant or through speaking engagements. Hubbard was also affiliated with KKR and BlackRock Financial. Hubbard as well as current chair of Harvard's department of economics, John Y. Campbell, deny the existence of any conflict of interest between academia and the banking sector.
The film ends by contending that despite recent financial regulations, the underlying system has not changed; rather the remaining banks are only bigger, while all the incentives remain the same, and not a single top executive has been prosecuted for their role in the global financial meltdown.
The film focuses on changes in the financial industry in the decade leading up to the crisis, the political movement toward deregulation, and how the development of complex trading such as the derivatives market allowed for large increases in risk taking that circumvented older regulations that were intended to control systemic risk. In describing the crisis as it unfolded, the film also looks at conflicts of interest in the financial sector, many of which it suggests are not properly disclosed. The film suggests that these conflicts of interest affected credit rating agencies as well as academics who receive funding as consultants but do not disclose this information in their academic writing, and that these conflicts played a role in obscuring and exacerbating the crisis.
A major theme is the pressure from the financial industry on the political process to avoid regulation, and the ways that it is exerted. One conflict discussed is the prevalence of the revolving door, whereby financial regulators can be hired within the financial sector upon leaving government and make millions.
Within the derivatives market, the film contends that the high risks that began with subprime lending were transferred from investors to other investors who, due to questionable rating practices, falsely believed that the investments were safe. Thus, lenders were pushed to sign up mortgages without regard to risk, or even favoring higher interest rate loans, since, once these mortgages were packaged together, the risk was disguised. According to the film, the resulting products would often have AAA ratings, equal to U.S. government bonds. The products could then be used even by investors such as retirement funds who are required to limit themselves to the safest investments.
Another point is the high pay in the financial industry, and how it has grown in recent decades out of proportion to the rest of the economy. Even at the banks that failed, the film shows how bank executives were making hundreds of millions of dollars in the period immediately up to the crisis, all of which was kept, again suggesting that the risk/benefit balance has been broken.
One topic which few others have addressed is the role of academia in the crisis. Ferguson notes, for example, that Harvard University economist, and former head of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan, Martin Feldstein, was a director of the insurance company AIG and former board member of the investment bank J.P. Morgan & Co..
Ferguson also notes that many of the leading professors and leading faculty members of the economics and business school establishments often derive large proportions of their incomes from either engaging as consultants, or speaking engagements. For example, current dean of the Columbia Business School, Glenn Hubbard received a large percentage of his annual income from either acting as a consultant or through speaking engagements. Hubbard was also affiliated with KKR and BlackRock Financial. Hubbard as well as current chair of Harvard's department of economics, John Y. Campbell, deny the existence of any conflict of interest between academia and the banking sector.
The film ends by contending that despite recent financial regulations, the underlying system has not changed; rather the remaining banks are only bigger, while all the incentives remain the same, and not a single top executive has been prosecuted for their role in the global financial meltdown.
