just watched 'da vinci code' with xiaoyun, crystal and zhenhao. tot it was a good movie, well staged and directed. v entertaining as some radio djs suggested. having read the book before, i tot the movie was q quite clear in the exposition of the 'holy grail'. but crystal and zhenhao (who nv read it) was q blur after the movie. hmmm. (probably also because they are not christians and nv read about christ before)

anyway, let me try to explain the story which the whole controversy revolved about. the holy grail. well, according to dan brown, contrary to 'popular belief', jesus is just a mere mortal, nothing supernatural or divine. jesus married to mary magdalene, whom (according to dan brown) the church smeared as a prostitude. jesus and mary married and had children. the problem is that the church did not want this 'side' of jesus to be revealed and hence did their best to kill the heirs. the church also did other atrocious acts to keep the secret. the holy grail therefore refers to this 'secret' (which ironically the whole world now knows).

ok. the above is wat dan brown says, and it's debatable whether wat he wrote or the movie showed is true. if u type 'da vinci code' or 'holy grail' in google, u'll find many websites (other than the official ones) which contain discussions of the historical/factual inaccuracies in his book. some say that he has distorted facts and proven hoaxes to suit his hypothesis. of cos, dan brown will argue otherwise, claiming that they are victims of the
great coverup or accomplices of this conspiracy.

watever.

(while dan brown does not claim wat he wrote is fiction) i think as a piece of fiction, it's rather interesting. in fact, i do not see it as anti-christ (but it's rather anti-church). dan brown did not in anyway try to undermine jesus and his teachings. nor did he defame christianity as a religion. (well, at least to me lah)

wat he did was to bring up some questions to provoke thinking. and i quite like the final quotes by robert langdon(tom hanks) in the movie.

"Is human divine? ... Does the heir (of jesus and the accompanying secret) destroys faith? Or does he renew faith?"

yeah. i think sometimes when pple get too zealous in promoting their faith, they tend to forget the true aim of their religion. that, which i think, is to improve the lives of everyone and to bring about spiritual happiness to everyone.

yeah. "Is human divine?" from a buddhist point of view, the answer is yes. yes, if u accept the fact that divinity is nothing more than just understanding how life works and how the universe moves (or wat we call the law). buddhahood refers to the state of life whereby one is enlightened to the law, and the buddha is someone who is in the state of buddhahood.

contrary to 'popular belief', the buddha is NOT some god we worship to to. in fact, it is a state of life which we constantly worked towards to. yes. u can say it's a concept created by man. but so what? i think the values taught are correct and relevant for me to cope with life.

ok. shall stop the preaching. the movie was a good one.

ron howard's adaptation of the book is a good one, though i still preferred the book. but this adaption of 'da vinci code' is much better than his adaptation of 'the beautiful mind'. something is interesting is that he likes to have scenes where his character will still while the surroundings move in a ghostly manner. it happened when john nash (russel crowe) got some revelation in game theory. it also happened many times in 'da vinci code' when langdon and teabing described the history.