EvoWest 2k7 Streetfighter

Crazy people but you will be able to see how things look when people spend a lot of time perfecting their thumb buttons.

A Chinese History Lesson: Shaolin Legends

Part 1

Part 2

And so it begins…

It was the Dawn of the Third Age of Mankind… oh wait, we’re talking about Chinese history. However, the Shaolin history shares one thing with Babylon 5: they’re both long as heck.

Not for semi-literates living on the internet and not for people who get bored reading anything longer than 2 paragraphs. Oh you’d be surprised how many of those there are on the net.

Here’s a modern example of Shaolin conditioning.

Plight of a Scriptwriter

Here he is, the creator of Carnivale’s story and characters, without any censorship or hesitation.

When I create, I do so with unconditional passion, pride and dedication. Whether the results are worth the effort may be debatable, but what is not debatable is the cold hard fact that I love every one of them as I would my own child. To see them locked up, languishing on a dusty shelf rather than woo and thrill and seduce and move an audience is intolerable.

Worse, I have grown increasingly impatient with playing Mother May I with a bunch of timid, arrogant punks.

Every good writer and showrunner I know is absolutely miserable in the current production environment. Virtually no creative decision—no matter how trivial—can be made without being second, third, fourth and fifth-guessed by terrified rabbits. To resist or discuss—much less argue—the validity of a network note is tantamount to career suicide; if one doesn’t immediately and cheerfully comply with even the most egregiously bad “suggestion,” one risks being branded difficult and suffering years of unemployment.

People may be familiar with Firefly and Babylon 5. Both suffered from the same issues. It isn’t something exclusive to tv series. It isn’t something exclusive to Hollywood movies. It isn’t something exclusive to cable networks. This is a problem they have had ever since Hollywood forgot how to make patriotic movies. When people no longer love their country, they will soon begin to hate original ideas from other people. Those with a true passion, who are truly dedicated to achieving something productive, are often well adjusted and balanced personalities. Those who are not, often lack something vital. Something you cannot describe, but it is still lacking.

Red Belt, Ninja Assassins, Reign of Assassins

2008, 2009, and 2010 respectively.

I thought Red Belt had an interesting plot line, although things at the end were setup too artificially in order to instigate the fight lines. The fights were more along the lines of Gracie Jiu Jitsu, thus weren’t as interesting as the earlier plot developments and social relatonships. This movie is mostly a conflict between principles and cash/other values. Personally, like Kelly Muir of Instructor Revolution, I believe that if you present quality training and principles, people will join and it will be made economically sustainable. But the movie presents a mutually exclusive dichotomy to better show the effects of corruption.

Reign of Assassins, the movie I saw after Red Belt, is in Chinese with English subtitles. It’s functionally the same as watching Japanese anime with Eng subtitles, except I understand Chinese grammar better than Japanese grammar. I felt this was a pretty well balanced movie between story and fighting action. The plot was pretty complicated with some time intensive reveals at the end. The presentation was smooth even though it was complicated and the fights had variety and often adapted a definitive move or weapon for each character. Reminiscent of Asian or Japanese titles which emphasize greatly a warrior’s name and his special abilities to distinguish it from other warriors. This was historically accurate as well, since Chinese Wu-Shu or kung fu started off on the reputation of a few warriors who had developed “special” moves that they had perfected. And thus warriors of legend were known for these special abilities. Additionally, it’s a good way to brush up on my Chinese.

Ninja Assassins came in last on the viewing order. The fights here were pretty action centered, so there’s not much story here. The real story is basically all focused on the main character and his background. While simple, it’s told in time compressed reveals as the plot unfolds, so much of the audience’s attention is held by the gory fight scenes which are high speed and have definite impact on the senses. They could also be called “overthetop” but I like things like that.

All in all, these movies were very different from the usual Hollywood offerings seen in AMerica or in the rest of the world. None of them had even one sex scene, which Hollywood seems obsessed with as if sex and snorting cocaine were the only things they can spend their money on in Hollywood. Not a chick flick, even though Reign of Assassins had courtship and marriage and married life as apart of the central plot. Reign of Assassins is also rather egalitarian, showing initially a weak husband protected by his wife. But given the Asian and Chinese reliance on patriarchy and male dominated power, I suspected it wasn’t quite going to end like that.

In order of Asian influence, I would say Red Belt is the most American, with Ninja Assassin being somewhere inbetween, and Reign of Assassins being heavily influenced because that was their source material: Asia.

Fight choreography, aesthetics, and physics: Red Belt 3/5, Ninja Assassins 5/5, Reign of Assassins 4.5/5. Every attack in Ninja Assassins, almost, had the intent to kill behind it. Meaning you could see that people were putting work into it and applying strength or bodyweight. It is a very different look than bouncing wires or when you have actors with no martial ability trying to slap fight. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1186367/criticreviews One of the ways you can tell is how much Hollywood idiots hated the movie. If they really hated it, then pure and heartland Americans would tend to love it. The main actor, Rain or Raizo, had good abilities. It was said he worked 6 hours a day for 6 months to learn martial arts, 5 hours on martial arts and 1 hour on body fitness. He was primarily a dancer, and thus his ability to get the rhythm of a fight played well in the movie. Not something non-martial artists may appreciate, granted.

Red Belt’s action scenes were mainly MMA, and thus there’s nothing you couldn’t see in MMA like UFC or Pride.

Reign of Assassins uses kung fu and some tricks. They’ve refined the wire system so that physics will still work and people, like me, can’t easily tell how they are using the wires.

Storyline, plot, event complexity, mystery surprises: Red Belt 4.5/5, Ninja Assassins 4/5, Reign of Assassins 5/5. Red Belt started strong in the beginning but with no quality ending of the same caliber, it loses a half mark. Ninja Assassins didn’t have much in terms of background story or plot complexity, but it was done consistently from beginning to end. Reign of Assassins had a great beginning, an interesting middle, and a mystery twist at the end.

Currently watching Bulletproof Monk 2003, which has some weak fight scenes in terms of lacking the intent (to kill). Review will be coming up soon.

First Winner of Sasuke: Fourth competition

Oceanic fisherman setting a goal and making it.

Crazy people do to prove they got balls

Check out that video. Very entertaining.

Yakuza 1974

Suek recommended a movie to me a few days ago.

Suek, the movie you recommended is looking good so far. 23 minutes in…. then skipping ahead.

Sometime later, I finished it and here is what I thought. It is a great way to learn about philosophical differences between West and Japan in terms of how we view life and how they view life. What makes this movie special is that it uses English and Japanese (with english subtitles), so it was produced by someone who actually understood both sides. While it is primarily in English, it is about the Japanese. With the Americans being former occupation military police and administrators (you know, when MacArthur reigned as the American Shogun in Japan) who are in their 50s or 60s. This is definitely not a movie about teenagers with rebellion issues.

 

The Yakuza 1974

Thor 2011: God of Thunder

The more horrible reviews come in, the more I like Battle LA. Same may be true for Thor now.

Thor isn’t bad. Best character development for the main character. The heroine is very attractive and has a striking profile. Very good kingship from Odin.

Unlike the weird CGI movie called Star Wars 1-3, Natalie Portman was given a substantially human role. It was rather fun watching her facial expressions. I think she got the “nervous cute” style there.

Hollywood movies still don’t do special attacks well in order to individualize warriors and heroes. I would have preferred a more Japanese style utilizing named special attacks and slow motion capture in order to grasp the fundamental fighting techniques of Thor’s subordinates. There’s something special about the wind up to a hero’s special attack, initiated by the hero verbalizing the name of the attack. By attaching a name to the fighter on screen, it forms a much stronger attachment. For example, I have no idea what the names of Thor’s subordinates are because they don’t get much screen time. Mumbling people’s names isn’t going to form any connections. That’s a detriment of Hollywood directing styles that hasn’t changed yet.

Hollywood writers are seemingly coming up with semi-original ideas. Asgard isn’t quite the same as the legendary Asgard, though some things are similar such as Odin’s eye and Loki. They made enough substantial changes that I won’t categorize it as copying or plagiarism.

Now there’s two reliable ways to figure out which movies are good. If Hollywood and the Obamanation nation of ignorant wannabe aesthetes hate a movie. Or if it is personally recommended by like minded fellows. I’ve found many movies recommended to me that I liked, if I liked the fellow that recommended it.

Sarah Palin’s Reality TV Debut

Popularity can be a bad thing when you are branded an idiot or witch. Almost impossible to disprove such rumors and innuendo. Until you use it as a weapon and turn the tables upon the foe.

MMA style knockouts