YeinJee's Asian blog

Asian Culture, Lifestyle and Entertainment

Armed forces

An Officer and a Gentle Cat

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A cute photo series amidst the Covid-19 lockdown in Malaysia. Armed forces are present to assist the police to enforce the Movement Control Order (MCO) across the country. And the soldier is on guard near Masjid India – a red zone in Kuala Lumpur – when a street cat decides to keep him company.

The MCO has been extended until April 28. Don’t quote me on this but the order will probably extend again considering the trend. Happy to be wrong (for good) but the number of new cases have to drop by a huge margin in the next few days to avoid another extension.

In the meantime, enjoy the lighthearted pictures by Aizuddin Saad / Harian Metro.

Malaysia movement control order MCO soldier and cat

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Top Gun: Maverick movie trailer is beautiful

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Trailer for American film Top Gun: Maverick, a sequel to 1986’s Top Gun. Beautiful is not the usual word to associate with action movies, but I cannot find a better term to describe this teaser video… because it is really beautiful. In cinemas in June 2020 in Malaysia and the United States etc.

Not much thought about the first movie, it was a long time ago. Regardless, the film made Tom Cruise a superstar, and he is reprising his role after more than three decades. There are actually films with longer gap between sequel, such as the Blade Runner (1982-2017)…

There’s probably no feature film that stars the same main lead with such a huge sequel-gap like Top Gun though. Tom Cruise is THE leading actor in both movies. In other cases, the main cast may return but usually in lesser roles for a sequel that comes 20-30 years after the previous one.

Top Gun: Maverick is directed by Joseph Kosinski. Besides Tom Cruise, the main cast also includes Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman and Ed Harris. Val Kilmer, who played a key part in the original movie, also returns but with a small role instead.

Not much info about the plot, it looks like Cruise is becoming a mentor for some new fighter pilots. The film is going to be a hit as long as the story isn’t too bad. The visual effect looks great, and there’s always the nostalgia factor. This trailer certainly gives it a good head start.

Malaysia Airlines MH17 crashes in Ukraine

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A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane crashes in Ukraine, near Russian border, on Thursday, killing all 298 people aboard, mostly Dutch. It’s believed that the plane was shot down by pro-Russian separatist.

It’s a sad and shocking tragedy. Condolences to the families, and may the victims rest in peace.

I’m afraid there will be no justice though, if the Russians were really behind this. They are going to deny or ignore the matter and walk free with blood on their hands. The countries at stake don’t have the power to touch them, and the rest of the world will offer very little support against them.

The aviation industry needs to reflect on this too. Hundreds of commercial airlines flew over the conflicted region in the prior week before the MH17 crash. Not sure why they deemed the route safe – or perhaps they never thought about the situation at all – but it’s obviously a wrong judgement.

This is the second disaster involving Malaysia Airlines this year. Flight MH370 disappeared in March; it’s still missing and presumably crashed in the Indian Ocean with 239 people on board.

Female models pose for Japanese military calendar

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Scanned images of the 2014 calendar for Japan Self-Defense Forces, featuring some pretty models-actresses to “boost morale” of the military forces. Not sure if it’s an annual practise or a one-off thing; the 2014 girls are Anna Konno, Azusa Yamamoto, Narumi Konno, Erina Matsui, Mai Fuchigami, Mai Hakase and Rina Nagai.

Anna Konno Japanese military calendar 2014

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Black Friday for Somali pirates

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January 21 was a bad day for the Somali pirates as two of their hijacks were thwarted by the Malaysian and South Korean navies.

The Malaysian navy commandos rescued a Malaysian chemical tanker and its 23 crew members in the Gulf of Aden just after midnight following a distress signal from the vessel. A total of 18 pirates were captured, three being injured.

Hours later in a separate operation, the Korean navy special forces stomped a vessel which was hijacked on January 15 in the Arabian Sea and rescued its 21-person crew. Eight pirates were killed and five were captured.

There’s no serious injuries among the navies and crews. Job well done for both, which were aided by the fact that most of those less equipped Somali pirates had decided to surrender instead of going berserk.

The piracy off the Somali coast has been a threat to international shipping for the past few years. Some countries have sent out military escorts for their cargo vessels as countermeasure, which together with other anti-piracy efforts, have managed to cut the piracy activities in 2010.

The bad news is that the piracy activities will not be completely halted despite the fresh setbacks. There’s other complicated social-political issues involved.