Watched 881 today with the 3I guys and Siu Qey. Being a Saturday it was expensive endeavour, but it was worth it for the company. Not to mention that we had a present for Mark. Well, we didn't actually have the present before getting there, but we did pop by Popular to get a card and a present. We ended up picking out this blackboard cup, complete with chalk to scribble on it. It was in the Teacher's Day Gift section, but we found it cute. The card was also a series of signs to hang on the door knob, and we wrote stuff behind them.

881 actually stands for "papaya", which only makes sense if you know both Chinese and English. 881 in Chinese is 'ba ba yao', that sounds like 'pa-pa-ya' with a little twist of the imagination. The basic storyline follows these two girls called "Big Papaya" and "Little Papaya". The best summation I can think of for the rest of the movie is: the whole movie is like an extended getai. You have the fancy dresses and singing, the over-the-top performances, the rivalry and the flurry of dress-up behind the scenes. The movie doesn't make sense, and it's not really supposed to.

Still, getai is about the 7th month and the dead, so naturally there's issues of life and death wound into the show. For such a cheesy affair, the ending made me bawl. Well, not aloud but I cried for a good 5 minutes and couldn't stop, and after a while I didn't want to stop. It was simple and moving, and as with the rest of the show the music really carried it through. My colleague said it was like a musical, and I have to agree. Even through my crying, it amused me to hear various people ripping open their tissue packs to wipe their eyes.

All in all, 881 is awesome just for the music alone. Mark got the soundtrack, and I'm going to get it off him. *wavy arms of glee*