May 24, 2018
Wolf Warrior II
Wolf Warrior II raked in $854 million in China alone.
It certainly held my attention better than any Star Wars installment since 1980. Though, to tell the truth, my reaction to the whole bloody (literally) shoot-
As I said, it's no cinematic work of art. But it is a decidedly important political statement delivered in the decidedly non-political package of a by-the-numbers actioner.
As with every action movie of this stripe, Jing Wu (acting and directing) plays Leng Feng, an ex-special forces guy who got himself court-martialed for Standing Up For The Little Guy and now is a Lone Wolf doing missions Nobody Else Can Do. He's Rambo with better martial arts skills, more charisma, and a less somber mien.
This really is the saving grace of the movie. Bruce Willis takes himself seriously in Tears of the Sun (2003) a movie that takes itself more seriously than it should. Sylvester Stallone takes himself seriously in Rambo 3, a movie that is impossible to take seriously, despite being about a serious subject.
Jing Wu doesn't take himself too seriously in Wolf Warrior 2, a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously either, despite having a way higher on-screen body count than Stallone's war movie about an actual war. The intricately choreographed gun fu and kung fu at times turn the non-stop violence into a bizarre ballet.
Though it does get numbing after a while. Jing Wu needed somebody on the set to wave his arms now and then and shout, "Enough already!" They must have ordered squibs by the container ship. I got to wondering who was responsible for cleaning up all the fake blood and doing the laundry.
Anyway, Wolf Warrior II borrows plot points from Tears of the Sun, in which Bruce Willis leads his SEAL team into war-torn Nigeria to evacuate a pretty doctor (Monica Bellucci) from a besieged hospital.
Having exiled himself to a fictional African country that soon plunges into a brutal civil war, Leng Feng steps up to rescue a pretty doctor (Celina Jade) from a besieged hospital. He was supposed to rescue her boss but the boss got killed first. (This happens an awful lot when you're getting rescued by Leng Feng.)
Although he starts out as a one-man army, Leng Feng gains a couple of allies along the way, including PLA veteran He Jianguo (Wu Gang). The unqualified respect shown for this character (who thankfully manages not to get killed) is a good indicator of where the movie is thematically headed.
Meanwhile, the entire (shiny and modern) Chinese Navy is camped out in the Gulf of Aden, all ready to pitch in and help as soon as they get permission from the United Nations. Here is where we depart from the Hollywood formula. No American Man of Action needs permission from the United Nations to do anything.
For good reasons, as the movie amply illustrates.
In Japanese military actioners too, the United Nations makes a convenient moral cover for whatever means are justified by the ends. And if you're Jing Wu, it probably is more politic to point at third parties obstructing the hero's journey and not your own national government (local government is a whole different matter).
Which may also explain a puzzling hole in the plot, namely what exactly is motivating "Big Daddy" (Frank Grillo) and his merry band of sociopathic mercenaries. What they're after can be easily inferred, but this isn't a genre known for subtlety. A stereotypical appearance from Big Pharma would have fit the bill here.
But vilifying Big Business isn't in the cards either (though like local government, little business catches a few sharp elbows). Instead, the bad guys are bad guys because they're, well, really really bad.
Well, in any case, the whole purpose of this foot-dragging is to raise the dramatic stakes. When permission comes, it's a regular fireworks show. Guided missile destroyers sure are neat! (And uncannily accurate.)
As Leng Feng races his convoy of survivors to safety, there's one last battlefield to cross. In a scene that could have been inspired by Eugène Delacroix, he ties a Chinese flag to his arm and perches atop the cab of a truck. The warring parties part like Moses at the Red Sea. Because Nobody Messes With China!
To be honest, I found the scene rather stirring. Unabashed, unironic patriotism is an endangered species these days, and it casts the movie in its own unique light.
A brief coda at the end sledgehammers that message home. Across the image of a Chinese passport, the text tells the citizens of China that "no matter what corner of the world you may find yourself in, your country will always have your back."
This "reminder" ties into a scene early in the movie, in which a Chinese businessman tells Leng Feng he's ditching his citizenship in the name of profit—and then backtracks when all hell breaks loose and a Chinese-flagged ship is the only available refuge. He gets to stay alive because he made the right choice.
Welcome to the century of Chinese exceptionalism.
Labels: china, movie reviews, politics, social studies
July 16, 2017
Prison of Dusk (4)
Rikkan literally means "six ministries," the equivalent of the cabinet: Administration, Education, Protocol, Defense, Justice, Public Works. Also known as the Ministries of Heaven, Earth, Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.
The Chousai (title) heads the Ministry of Earth and serves as the "Chief Cabinet Secretary" of the Rikkan.
Lingchi (凌遅), often translated as "death by a thousand cuts," was a form of torture and execution used in China from roughly 900 AD until it was banned in 1905.
"Eikou knelt and bowed with his hands locked together in front of his chest." The word in Japanese is kyoushu (拱手). The Chinese reading of the word (gong shou) should be familiar to viewers of Chinese historical dramas.
The Chousai (title) heads the Ministry of Earth and serves as the "Chief Cabinet Secretary" of the Rikkan.
Lingchi (凌遅), often translated as "death by a thousand cuts," was a form of torture and execution used in China from roughly 900 AD until it was banned in 1905.
"Eikou knelt and bowed with his hands locked together in front of his chest." The word in Japanese is kyoushu (拱手). The Chinese reading of the word (gong shou) should be familiar to viewers of Chinese historical dramas.
Labels: 12 kingdoms, china, hisho, translations
February 23, 2015
Pax Sinica
In a recent Spengler column David Goldman foresees an ascendent China, but not on purpose.
This is a good description of Japan's foreign policy as well. In its 1500 years of documented history, the final decade of the 16th century (two pointless invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597) and the half-century of military adventurism from 1894 to 1945 were the disastrous anomalies.
Emerging from its self-imposed isolationism in 1868, Japan found itself surrounded by paper tigers. Flailing about for a raison d'être, it seized once again (after almost 300 years) on Oda Nobunaga's dream of a Pax Japonica in Northeast Asia.
It took Japan another fifty years after that to figure out it was really bad at European-style colonialism.
The problem was, in the short turn, the Japanese navy in particular proved itself quite capable at winning individual battles. But the government had no idea how to rule what its soldiers and sailors conquered. The era of European colonialism was almost over. Japan came to the imperialism party a century too late.
Even so, by the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Japan did rule over an honest-to-goodness island empire stretching from Sakhalin down to Taiwan.
Japan would negotiate away Sakhalin (it was too big, too underpopulated, and too far away), and it would have eventually had to give up Korea (as England was to Ireland and Scotland, Japan was to Korea and Taiwan). But an empire it was, giving Japan complete control of the sea lanes across Northeast Asia.
Ah, if only Japan had stopped there. The Chinese Communists would never have come to power: a Japan not at war with China would have happily helped Chiang Kai-Shek exterminate them. Alas, Japan couldn't let go of the dice and inevitably rolled snake eyes a hundred times in a row.
After the Occupation, the Japanese went back to being Japanese. For a while on the global stage, it looked like it might win economically what it had lost militarily. But then the economy crapped out too. With a collective shrug, the Japanese went back to being Japanese.
The 250 years of the isolationist Edo period define the national character far more definitively than the hundred years after. Those were the good old days.
Likewise with China. The lesson of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) was that any interlopers would be assimilated. The collapse of the far-flung Mongol Empire proved the point. Its sabre-rattling notwithstanding, China will ultimately settle for outwaiting Taiwan, just as it is absorbing its other "lost" provinces.
Despite its Security Council posturing, China greatly benefits from the current status quo. The U.S. (and its ostensible allies) kick the hive while China collects the honey. But the status quo isn't going to last.
More fracking and more pipelines (one way or another) will leave the U.S. even less dependent on oil imports from outside the Americas. The burden of securing the flow of Mideast oil will increasingly fall on China, arousing the radical elements in the Mideast to start playing chicken with the Far East.
That should be interesting.
China has an additional motivation here: to keep Japan from seriously rearming. To do that, it will have to pick up where the U.S. military leaves off. Except Goldman is right: that's the last thing China wants to do.
But to keep its economy going and the Mandate of Heaven secure, China won't have a choice. Well, as Uncle Ben could tell them: "With great power comes great responsibility."
China is not planning to take over the world. It doesn't want the world. It doesn't like the world--that is, the world outside of China. Unlike Greeks, Romans, Muslims, and European imperialists, it does not want to plant its flag outside its borders, send its young men to conquer and defend new territories, or subject other peoples to colonial rule. Nonetheless, it may inherit the world, reluctantly and by default.
This is a good description of Japan's foreign policy as well. In its 1500 years of documented history, the final decade of the 16th century (two pointless invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597) and the half-century of military adventurism from 1894 to 1945 were the disastrous anomalies.
Emerging from its self-imposed isolationism in 1868, Japan found itself surrounded by paper tigers. Flailing about for a raison d'être, it seized once again (after almost 300 years) on Oda Nobunaga's dream of a Pax Japonica in Northeast Asia.
It took Japan another fifty years after that to figure out it was really bad at European-style colonialism.
The problem was, in the short turn, the Japanese navy in particular proved itself quite capable at winning individual battles. But the government had no idea how to rule what its soldiers and sailors conquered. The era of European colonialism was almost over. Japan came to the imperialism party a century too late.
Even so, by the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Japan did rule over an honest-to-goodness island empire stretching from Sakhalin down to Taiwan.
Japan would negotiate away Sakhalin (it was too big, too underpopulated, and too far away), and it would have eventually had to give up Korea (as England was to Ireland and Scotland, Japan was to Korea and Taiwan). But an empire it was, giving Japan complete control of the sea lanes across Northeast Asia.
Ah, if only Japan had stopped there. The Chinese Communists would never have come to power: a Japan not at war with China would have happily helped Chiang Kai-Shek exterminate them. Alas, Japan couldn't let go of the dice and inevitably rolled snake eyes a hundred times in a row.
After the Occupation, the Japanese went back to being Japanese. For a while on the global stage, it looked like it might win economically what it had lost militarily. But then the economy crapped out too. With a collective shrug, the Japanese went back to being Japanese.
The 250 years of the isolationist Edo period define the national character far more definitively than the hundred years after. Those were the good old days.
Likewise with China. The lesson of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) was that any interlopers would be assimilated. The collapse of the far-flung Mongol Empire proved the point. Its sabre-rattling notwithstanding, China will ultimately settle for outwaiting Taiwan, just as it is absorbing its other "lost" provinces.
Despite its Security Council posturing, China greatly benefits from the current status quo. The U.S. (and its ostensible allies) kick the hive while China collects the honey. But the status quo isn't going to last.
More fracking and more pipelines (one way or another) will leave the U.S. even less dependent on oil imports from outside the Americas. The burden of securing the flow of Mideast oil will increasingly fall on China, arousing the radical elements in the Mideast to start playing chicken with the Far East.
That should be interesting.
China has an additional motivation here: to keep Japan from seriously rearming. To do that, it will have to pick up where the U.S. military leaves off. Except Goldman is right: that's the last thing China wants to do.
China leaders are bemused by America's sudden and unexpected withdrawal from strategic responsibility, for example, in the Persian Gulf, and are struggling to devise a response that would ensure the security of oil supplies without entangling alliances and risky military commitments. It is a comedy of errors rather than a conspiracy.
But to keep its economy going and the Mandate of Heaven secure, China won't have a choice. Well, as Uncle Ben could tell them: "With great power comes great responsibility."
September 24, 2012
Riotous times
Every few years, with suspiciously convenient timing, the Chinese populace decides en masse that a few acres of volcanic rock in the middle of the East China Sea is the MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD!!!
This time around, at least, geography has edged out history, or the Chinese leadership simply can't muster the galactic chutzpah to complain about the accuracy of Japanese middle grade history textbooks.
We're talking about a country, after all, that has a hard time telling the truth about what happened last week, and where nothing of historical importance apparently happened between 1949 and 1989.
In this game of international tag team wrestling, this year that job was left to South Korea in its geographical dispute with Japan over yet another outcropping of uninhabited volcanic rock.
Meanwhile, Russians living in Tokyo blithely lead unaccosted lives despite Stalin having stolen ("fair and square") the very much inhabited South Kurils ("a non-disputed part of Japan") in 1945.
Whatever the cause, the enraged public then sets about torching Toyota factories, dealerships, and the like, oblivious to the fact that Japanese don't own the franchises or work at them. The Toyota Camry
Having run out of convenient targets, the rioters next attack "Japanese" businesses like McDonald's, Samsung, and Rolex. (The flipside, I guess, of the Japanese propensity to tag any Caucasian foreigner as "American.")
The more interesting question is what makes $345 billion in trade a toy Chinese dictators would risk playing financial chicken with. Three possibilities spring to mind:
Speaking of Broadway productions, a verbatim conversation:
And in Shanghai, the Wall Street Journal reports that, aware of the "Pottery Barn rule" for foreign consulates ("You break it, you pay for it"), the mayor was eager to avoid a repeat of the last and very costly rampage.
Observed one of Peter Payne's Japanese employees, "It's just a festival they hold every few years." The "Kremlin watching" of the good old Cold War days has evolved into riot watching.
This time around, at least, geography has edged out history, or the Chinese leadership simply can't muster the galactic chutzpah to complain about the accuracy of Japanese middle grade history textbooks.
We're talking about a country, after all, that has a hard time telling the truth about what happened last week, and where nothing of historical importance apparently happened between 1949 and 1989.
In this game of international tag team wrestling, this year that job was left to South Korea in its geographical dispute with Japan over yet another outcropping of uninhabited volcanic rock.
Meanwhile, Russians living in Tokyo blithely lead unaccosted lives despite Stalin having stolen ("fair and square") the very much inhabited South Kurils ("a non-disputed part of Japan") in 1945.
Whatever the cause, the enraged public then sets about torching Toyota factories, dealerships, and the like, oblivious to the fact that Japanese don't own the franchises or work at them. The Toyota Camry
is produced in Guangzhou with 80 per cent local content and 100 per cent local labour . . . All of the Japanese automakers have state-owned Chinese partners that will also be missing out on sales of Japanese cars.
Having run out of convenient targets, the rioters next attack "Japanese" businesses like McDonald's, Samsung, and Rolex. (The flipside, I guess, of the Japanese propensity to tag any Caucasian foreigner as "American.")
The more interesting question is what makes $345 billion in trade a toy Chinese dictators would risk playing financial chicken with. Three possibilities spring to mind:
1) The average guy on the street can't protest against the government (without going straight to jail) and so takes the opportunity to protest against whatever else is available (the U.S. busy being rioted against elsewhere).
The problem is, wildfires are hard to put out once lit, as Monday's home-grown riot at a Foxconn factory demonstrates.
2) The much heralded transition to the new regime is generating more friction behind the scenes than anticipated, as illustrated by leader designate Xi Jinping's mysterious two-week sabbatical. The government needed a distraction.
3) A distraction from the economical situation as well. China's real economy is headed south faster than a Roadrunner with a Coyote on its heels, as illustrated by this banking strategy straight out of The Producers:
Chinese authorities are investigating a number of cases in which steel documented in receipts was either not there, belonged to another company or had been pledged as collateral to multiple lenders, industry sources said.
Speaking of Broadway productions, a verbatim conversation:
Hebei fellow: Where should we go?
Policeman: Are you here to work, or to protest?
Hebei lady: Umm, protest.
Policeman (pointing across the road): That way and turn right.
And in Shanghai, the Wall Street Journal reports that, aware of the "Pottery Barn rule" for foreign consulates ("You break it, you pay for it"), the mayor was eager to avoid a repeat of the last and very costly rampage.
This week's Shanghai protests were smaller and more orderly, and indeed some protesters got transported to the scene by police. As they were corralled between riot barriers protecting the consulate, demonstrators were stripped of any eggs and bottles.
Observed one of Peter Payne's Japanese employees, "It's just a festival they hold every few years." The "Kremlin watching" of the good old Cold War days has evolved into riot watching.
Labels: china, economics, japan, politics, social studies
March 08, 2012
Qi Men Dun Jia
The Qi Men Dun Jia (奇門遁甲) is a school of astrology based on astronomical observations and Chinese metaphysics. It is widely used today, as a component of the Luo Pan or Feng Shui compass.
As with blood type divination, the conviction that important activities should be initiated on "auspicious dates" has not diminished in Japan, Korea and China, modernity notwithstanding (or, as with blood type, thanks to modernity).
Of course, as they say, there's an app for that (note the magic square in the center of the compass circle).
In Japanese and Chinese folklore, the more tails a fox spirit has--as many as nine--the more powerful it is.
As with blood type divination, the conviction that important activities should be initiated on "auspicious dates" has not diminished in Japan, Korea and China, modernity notwithstanding (or, as with blood type, thanks to modernity).
Of course, as they say, there's an app for that (note the magic square in the center of the compass circle).
In Japanese and Chinese folklore, the more tails a fox spirit has--as many as nine--the more powerful it is.
Labels: china, japanese culture, kitsune, magic, serpent notes, serpent of time
January 05, 2012
Battle of Red Cliffs
The Battle of Red Cliffs was fought on the southern bank of the Yangtze River at the beginning of the third century AD. It signaled the end of the Han Dynasty and led to the tumultuous Three Kingdoms period, comparable in geographical scope and devastation to the Thirty Years' War in Europe.
John Woo's "50 percent factual" Red Cliff captures the massive expanse of Chinese warfare of the period--a quarter of a million combatants took part in the actual battles--and vividly depicts in the big climax how Huang Gai sent boats full of wax and straw into Cao Cao's anchored fleet.
The movie suffers from too much melodrama, depicting the "bad guys" in black-hatted, vaudevillian terms. The good guys can not only forecast the weather with uncanny accuracy, but anticipate every move the bad guys make. (This confusing of luck with intelligence is a constant gripe of mine.)
But if a DeMillean or Leanean spectacle is what you're looking for, nobody these days does actioners with non-digital "casts of thousands" anywhere but in China. Here are a few more notable examples of Chinese historical spectacles:
Hero
The Emperor's Shadow
The Emperor and the Assassin
Labels: china, history, japan, serpent notes, serpent of time
January 11, 2010
Blame it on the woman!
The bad girl in Yashakiden is a four-thousand year old vampire from China. "Princess" was the favorite concubine of Emperor Zhou (the "Chinese Caligula"), the last, doomed ruler of the Shang (or Yin) Dynasty. Her wanton ways led to the destruction of dynasty.
Kikuchi based this depraved lust-bunny on an historical character named Daji. The Wikipedia entry covers the material cited in the book. The Wikipedia writers (Japanese and English) and Kikuchi were clearly working from similar source material (the novel predates Wikipedia).
Pretty disgusting stuff. Curiously (or not), the fall of the Hsia (Xia), Shang and Zhou dynasties, covering a period spanning over 1500 years, are all blamed on amorous she-devils (Moxi, Daji and Baosi) seducing the emperor, who was supposedly a stand-up guy until she showed up!
Kikuchi makes them all the same person, and weaves into the mix an Indian crown prince and the story of Tamamo no Mae and the nine-tailed fox. (In Japanese folklore, the fox is usually a wily trickster, a slick Dean Martin often paired with a Jerry Lewis tanuki for comic relief.)
And speaking of blaming the woman, the best Sunday school lesson ever.
Kikuchi based this depraved lust-bunny on an historical character named Daji. The Wikipedia entry covers the material cited in the book. The Wikipedia writers (Japanese and English) and Kikuchi were clearly working from similar source material (the novel predates Wikipedia).
Pretty disgusting stuff. Curiously (or not), the fall of the Hsia (Xia), Shang and Zhou dynasties, covering a period spanning over 1500 years, are all blamed on amorous she-devils (Moxi, Daji and Baosi) seducing the emperor, who was supposedly a stand-up guy until she showed up!
Kikuchi makes them all the same person, and weaves into the mix an Indian crown prince and the story of Tamamo no Mae and the nine-tailed fox. (In Japanese folklore, the fox is usually a wily trickster, a slick Dean Martin often paired with a Jerry Lewis tanuki for comic relief.)
And speaking of blaming the woman, the best Sunday school lesson ever.
Labels: china, history, japan, yashakiden
March 12, 2009
Creativity and economic success
Musing about the role of creativity in economic success, and if "creative, brilliant people" are all an economy really needs, Half Sigma observes that
More specifically, per-capita GDP is $35,300 in Japan and $48,000 in the U.S. However, of the G7 nations, Japanese workers put in the longest hours and are the least productive. The problem is not a "credit crunch" but an "effort crunch." At the end of the day, they're all worked out.
This, as Satoshi Kanazawa documents, is a perpetual worry in Japan. The educational system equally and unproductively exhausts students. When Japanese TV writers need a quick way of indicating that a character is really, really smart, they'll tell you that he attended . . . Harvard.
The author Kaoru Takamura concurs. In the typical Japanese corporation,
So knowing how to build a better mousetrap is not enough. You've got to protect the idea, get a business license, attract investment, arrange for manufacturing, set up a retail chain, and hire a bunch of talented people willing to work for you knowing you may go broke in six months.
And then still have the faith and freedom to go back and do it all over again. That requires a high trust environment with a strong--but not overbearing--rule of law. This combination strikes many as the opposite of "creativity," but is necessary for creativity to join hands with capital.
The U.S. is still one of the best places in the world to meet all those conditions (without paying a lot of bribes). John Stossel did a segment about this for 20/20. (Though in another report, he did discover that the easiest place in the world to get a business license was Hong Kong.)
The creative successes of anime and manga are due in large part to the fact that manga artists work as freelance contractors (retaining copyright), and anime is mostly produced by small, independent studios, rather than huge corporate entertainment entities (who just do distribution).
Watch the "making of" segment on an anime DVD like Kanon and you can't help but be struck at what a small, hands-on operation Kyoto Animation (and even Ghibli Studios) actually is.
Anime fans don’t think that the Japanese lack creativity. Whether or not Japan lacks creativity, this hasn't prevented Japan from pulling nearly even, on a per capita basis, with the United States.
More specifically, per-capita GDP is $35,300 in Japan and $48,000 in the U.S. However, of the G7 nations, Japanese workers put in the longest hours and are the least productive. The problem is not a "credit crunch" but an "effort crunch." At the end of the day, they're all worked out.
This, as Satoshi Kanazawa documents, is a perpetual worry in Japan. The educational system equally and unproductively exhausts students. When Japanese TV writers need a quick way of indicating that a character is really, really smart, they'll tell you that he attended . . . Harvard.
The author Kaoru Takamura concurs. In the typical Japanese corporation,
employees are unable to make their own decisions and must constantly refer to their superiors. But because these superiors are also unclear about their own authority, they can't make responsible decisions. Problems just get shuffled around and everyone ends up working longer hours.
So knowing how to build a better mousetrap is not enough. You've got to protect the idea, get a business license, attract investment, arrange for manufacturing, set up a retail chain, and hire a bunch of talented people willing to work for you knowing you may go broke in six months.
And then still have the faith and freedom to go back and do it all over again. That requires a high trust environment with a strong--but not overbearing--rule of law. This combination strikes many as the opposite of "creativity," but is necessary for creativity to join hands with capital.
The U.S. is still one of the best places in the world to meet all those conditions (without paying a lot of bribes). John Stossel did a segment about this for 20/20. (Though in another report, he did discover that the easiest place in the world to get a business license was Hong Kong.)
The creative successes of anime and manga are due in large part to the fact that manga artists work as freelance contractors (retaining copyright), and anime is mostly produced by small, independent studios, rather than huge corporate entertainment entities (who just do distribution).
Watch the "making of" segment on an anime DVD like Kanon and you can't help but be struck at what a small, hands-on operation Kyoto Animation (and even Ghibli Studios) actually is.
June 23, 2008
The Emperor's Shadow
When's the last time you saw an actual Hollywood epic? I mean, when the vistas were vast, and casts of thousands weren't pixels? We're talking David Lean territory, and the only place to find it these days is in China, where the historical epic is alive, and, well, really epical.
The Emperor's Shadow again focuses our attention on Ying Zheng, the king of Qin, protagonist of The Emperor and the Assassin, ostensible good guy in Hero, and first (if temporary) emperor of all of China. A George Washington kind of guy, about whom there's always another inspiring bio-pic waiting to be made. That is, if George Washington were a brilliant, Solomaic, ruthless, and by today's standards, completely sociopathic dictator. With a refined taste in music.
British historical fiction makes for better comparisons. Think Richard III meets A Man for all Seasons, with shades of Hamlet and a Jack the Ripper ending. Wen Jiang does look a bit like a lean Henry 8th. This time around, though, Thomas More is a musician. The soon-to-be emperor-of-everything wants his childhood friend, Gao Jianli (who shows up like Rasputin in all these historical dramas), to compose for him a national anthem. I mean, really, really, really wants him to.
Of course, the king got him to court in the first place by conquering his country and slaughtering everybody he ever knew. So this Thomas More is doing everything he can to get the king to kill him and the king keeps having to come up with good reasons not to, all the while inspiring him create Great Art.
Complicating the king's life is his daughter, a pretty bent nympho dominatrix who would rather not marry the psycho son of Ying Zheng's number one general. I can't comment on the actual facts, but I'm pretty sure history takes a back seat to soap opera and spectacle in this version. Yes, the occasional kingdom falls to armies of millions, but unlike The Assassin and the Emperor, the emphasis is on court intrigues, not that boring nation-building stuff.
Still, every twenty minutes or so you are treated to a scene that makes you sit up and say: Holy Freaking Cow! Nature's violence dwarfs man's while rivers literally run red with blood (for some reason, two thousand year-old war crimes are so much more entertaining). It leaves you wondering if you're supposed to love Ying Zheng or loathe him. It's hard to conclude that director Xiaowen Zhou wants you to loathe him, despite the rivers of blood.
This moral ambivalence lends the film a weight heavier than its substance justifies. After all, Ying Zheng tried so damned hard, and barely lived to realize his vision of a united China when it faded like the morning frost. "It's all about Hearts & Minds," he lectures the neurotic and self-destructive Gao Jianli over and over again. "That's what your anthem should do." Yet it seems to have been a tune he never could quite hear himself, not until his world was laid waste all around him.
The Emperor's Shadow again focuses our attention on Ying Zheng, the king of Qin, protagonist of The Emperor and the Assassin, ostensible good guy in Hero, and first (if temporary) emperor of all of China. A George Washington kind of guy, about whom there's always another inspiring bio-pic waiting to be made. That is, if George Washington were a brilliant, Solomaic, ruthless, and by today's standards, completely sociopathic dictator. With a refined taste in music.
British historical fiction makes for better comparisons. Think Richard III meets A Man for all Seasons, with shades of Hamlet and a Jack the Ripper ending. Wen Jiang does look a bit like a lean Henry 8th. This time around, though, Thomas More is a musician. The soon-to-be emperor-of-everything wants his childhood friend, Gao Jianli (who shows up like Rasputin in all these historical dramas), to compose for him a national anthem. I mean, really, really, really wants him to.
Of course, the king got him to court in the first place by conquering his country and slaughtering everybody he ever knew. So this Thomas More is doing everything he can to get the king to kill him and the king keeps having to come up with good reasons not to, all the while inspiring him create Great Art.
Complicating the king's life is his daughter, a pretty bent nympho dominatrix who would rather not marry the psycho son of Ying Zheng's number one general. I can't comment on the actual facts, but I'm pretty sure history takes a back seat to soap opera and spectacle in this version. Yes, the occasional kingdom falls to armies of millions, but unlike The Assassin and the Emperor, the emphasis is on court intrigues, not that boring nation-building stuff.
Still, every twenty minutes or so you are treated to a scene that makes you sit up and say: Holy Freaking Cow! Nature's violence dwarfs man's while rivers literally run red with blood (for some reason, two thousand year-old war crimes are so much more entertaining). It leaves you wondering if you're supposed to love Ying Zheng or loathe him. It's hard to conclude that director Xiaowen Zhou wants you to loathe him, despite the rivers of blood.
This moral ambivalence lends the film a weight heavier than its substance justifies. After all, Ying Zheng tried so damned hard, and barely lived to realize his vision of a united China when it faded like the morning frost. "It's all about Hearts & Minds," he lectures the neurotic and self-destructive Gao Jianli over and over again. "That's what your anthem should do." Yet it seems to have been a tune he never could quite hear himself, not until his world was laid waste all around him.
Related posts
Hero
The Emperor and the Assassin
Labels: china, epic chinese movies, history, movie reviews, ying zheng
May 26, 2008
The Emperor and the Assassin
The Emperor and the Assassin is epic in both length and subject matter. The film takes almost three hours to tell the story of the emperor Ying Zheng and his battles to unite the six kingdoms of China in the 3rd century B.C. At the time, the most expensive Chinese movie ever made, it's an effort that could not be duplicated by Hollywood for ten times that. The grand sweep of palaces and battlefields (not sets, the real thing), thousands of extras (and a sparing use of mattes here and there) provides for the kind of stunning panoramas that I suspect loses much on the lowly television screen.
It starts out as Henry V and turns into Richard III as the emperor goes increasingly off his rocker and is driven to use all means to achieve his ends. It's not hard to read in political allusions to Mao, and one scene is awfully reminiscent of Tiananmen Square. On the other hand, it also caters to the present regime's unification ideology as a divine mandate.
The title comes from a plan hatched by Ying Zheng and his consort, Lady Zhao, to create a pretext for an invasion of a neighboring kingdom by staging an assassination attempt. But that's only one of the plots in this tangled web. You'd need a scorecard to keep track of who's double-crossing who, and whose allegiances are where, and who everybody is related to. As the emperor grows increasingly ruthless and paranoid, Lady Zhao seems to abandon the pretext and would very much like to see him dead, though her motives are hard to read throughout. She chooses her assassin, Jing Ke, and then falls in love with him, but this isn't exactly clear either. Is she setting him up, and does he know he is being set up?
I don't think the allusions to Richard III are accidental, such as the murder of two children who could contend for the throne. By the end, Ying Zheng has become quite the bloody tyrant, he violence and the body count grow a bit numbing, and the plot proves ultimately anticlimactic. Sort as if Richard (or Macbeth) ended with him taking power, and then a brief postscript filled in the rest. Which is how this movie ends. Again, I suspect the problem is the lack of historical context for we uninformed westerners. The postscript tells us that Ying Zheng did consolidate the kingdoms of China, but then only a decade later the Qin were overthrown by the Han, who established the first true dynasty.
Ying Zheng was the guy entombed with the thousands of terra cotta soldiers. Makes sense after watching this movie.
It starts out as Henry V and turns into Richard III as the emperor goes increasingly off his rocker and is driven to use all means to achieve his ends. It's not hard to read in political allusions to Mao, and one scene is awfully reminiscent of Tiananmen Square. On the other hand, it also caters to the present regime's unification ideology as a divine mandate.
The title comes from a plan hatched by Ying Zheng and his consort, Lady Zhao, to create a pretext for an invasion of a neighboring kingdom by staging an assassination attempt. But that's only one of the plots in this tangled web. You'd need a scorecard to keep track of who's double-crossing who, and whose allegiances are where, and who everybody is related to. As the emperor grows increasingly ruthless and paranoid, Lady Zhao seems to abandon the pretext and would very much like to see him dead, though her motives are hard to read throughout. She chooses her assassin, Jing Ke, and then falls in love with him, but this isn't exactly clear either. Is she setting him up, and does he know he is being set up?
I don't think the allusions to Richard III are accidental, such as the murder of two children who could contend for the throne. By the end, Ying Zheng has become quite the bloody tyrant, he violence and the body count grow a bit numbing, and the plot proves ultimately anticlimactic. Sort as if Richard (or Macbeth) ended with him taking power, and then a brief postscript filled in the rest. Which is how this movie ends. Again, I suspect the problem is the lack of historical context for we uninformed westerners. The postscript tells us that Ying Zheng did consolidate the kingdoms of China, but then only a decade later the Qin were overthrown by the Han, who established the first true dynasty.
Ying Zheng was the guy entombed with the thousands of terra cotta soldiers. Makes sense after watching this movie.
Related posts
Hero
The Emperor's Shadow
Labels: china, epic chinese movies, history, movie reviews, ying zheng
May 18, 2008
Earthquakes and mandates
The governing political principle in The Twelve Kingdoms is that of the Mandate of Heaven. It shares some similarities with the Divine Right of Kings that rationalized hegemonic power in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. But unlike the European kings, the Mandate of Heaven was not assumed to continue in perpetuity, but revealed itself in dynastic cycles. A successful coup d'etat was taken as evidence that the Mandate had been loss.
Claiming decadency from the Sun God Amaterasu, the Japanese emperor combined both the Divine Right and the Mandate of Heaven. In practice, by the end of the first millennium, political power had been completely separated from throne. It thus became politically convenient for a new shogun to seek a Mandate by seeking the blessing of the emperor, much in the same way the European kings sought the blessing of Rome.
In The Twelve Kingdoms, institutional corruption and natural and supernatural disasters are directly tied to the dynastic cycle. In medieval China, evidence for the withdrawal of the Mandate could only be offered post hoc ergo propter hoc. Modern technology could change that. This week on NPR, Morning Edition introduced the political implications of the Mandate of Heaven into its coverage of the earthquake in China:
One thing is certain: the earthquake has tragically revealed the consequences of very real corruption in the Chinese construction industry. Inspections recently uncovered similar corrupt practices in Japan, thankfully before an earthquake struck, and the architect and contractors went to jail. In an ever-opening China, politicians will no doubt lay claim to a "new" dynastic cycle, laying these sins at the feet of prior corrupt regimes.
Claiming decadency from the Sun God Amaterasu, the Japanese emperor combined both the Divine Right and the Mandate of Heaven. In practice, by the end of the first millennium, political power had been completely separated from throne. It thus became politically convenient for a new shogun to seek a Mandate by seeking the blessing of the emperor, much in the same way the European kings sought the blessing of Rome.
In The Twelve Kingdoms, institutional corruption and natural and supernatural disasters are directly tied to the dynastic cycle. In medieval China, evidence for the withdrawal of the Mandate could only be offered post hoc ergo propter hoc. Modern technology could change that. This week on NPR, Morning Edition introduced the political implications of the Mandate of Heaven into its coverage of the earthquake in China:
In Chinese political culture, an earthquake, a famine, or a great flood can be seen as the end of the Mandate of Heaven. Heaven bestows power on leaders. But when Heaven sees that those leaders aren't handling the power well, it can take [that power] away. This is sometimes signaled by a great natural disaster.
One thing is certain: the earthquake has tragically revealed the consequences of very real corruption in the Chinese construction industry. Inspections recently uncovered similar corrupt practices in Japan, thankfully before an earthquake struck, and the architect and contractors went to jail. In an ever-opening China, politicians will no doubt lay claim to a "new" dynastic cycle, laying these sins at the feet of prior corrupt regimes.
Labels: 12 kingdoms, china, geology, history, politics
May 06, 2008
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles
A delightful and fascinating lecture by Jennifer 8. Lee (yes, that's her real name) about the origins of Chinese food in America. Guess where Chinese fortune cookies originally came from? Japan!
She also touches upon the strange demographic situation in Fuzhou, China, where the adults immigrate to the U.S. (legally and illegally) and send their children (U.S. citizens) back to China to be raised.
She also touches upon the strange demographic situation in Fuzhou, China, where the adults immigrate to the U.S. (legally and illegally) and send their children (U.S. citizens) back to China to be raised.
May 05, 2008
Hero
Like Napoleon, Ying Zheng's administrative and social reforms far outlived his own short reign. He died a natural death, but entwined with his biography—and illustrative of his life and character—are the stories of the many assassins who tried very hard to make it even shorter. When the people trying to kill you are revered as much as you are, hey, maybe you're not everybody's favorite cup of tea. The hagiographic depictions of Ying Zheng in Hero conveniently avoid this nagging little fact.
The assassin who almost succeeded, coming close enough to tear Ying Zheng's sleeve with his dagger, was one Jing Ke, the historical antecedent for two of the protagonists, Broken Sword (Tony Leung) and Nameless (Jet Li). The movie begins with Nameless arriving at the Imperial Palace claiming to have killed China's Most Wanted, and requesting as his reward an audience with the emperor. To bolster his claim, he recounts before the emperor in detail how he disposed of them.
Director Yimou Zhang borrows heavily from the Kurosawa's Rashomon, beginning first with Nameless's narrative and then retelling it again from the perspective of each of the people involved. However, unlike Rashomon, where in the denouement Kurosawa produces a reliable eyewitness, Zhang's hyper-stylized version casts aside the idea that an objective reality need exist. Which would be less problematic were we not talking about an historical figure.
This is the third biopic made about Ying Zheng in the last decade. The Emperor's Shadow (1996) and The Emperor and the Assassin (1999) take less fanciful (though no less melodramatic) views of the same material. But they also paint a portrait of Ying Zheng that, at least based on my reading, is fairly accurate.
Ying Zheng was, to be sure, a first-order Napoleonic figure, but also one with the temperament of Nero and the management style of Shakespeare's Richard III. He was the nutcase buried with a terracotta army to protect his immortal soul, which, if the Confucians at the time had any say about the matter, needed much protection. (Ying Zheng and the Confucians shared a mutual loathing, the big difference being that what Ying Zheng loathed he had summarily executed.)
Hero, in contradiction of fairly well-established facts, depicts Ying Zheng as, well, misunderstood. It is, if not in intent then certainly in outcome, an unabashed paean to Hobbes's Leviathan, a tribute to the thankless job of being an enlightened despot. You can just see China's modern-day neo-coms nodding their heads in earnest agreement. Yeah, it is tough being Darth Vader and having to hold the empire together all by your lonesome.
And yet. It is hugely entertaining. The only really depressing thing about Hero is just how much it reminds you of George Lucas's uninspired and unimaginative arguments for the opposing Lockean perspective, the natural rights of man and all that. Hero is the anti-Star Wars.
Besides, it's hard for me to disparage a film in which linguistics factors so prominently in turning the protagonists towards the light (or rather, towards the Dark Side). I mean, how cool would it be if Vader didn't say to Luke, "I am your father," but instead, "I'm going to standardize orthography across the Empire!" And Luke said, "Hmm, you've got a good point there." No kidding, and it's actually a more profound statement than anything Lucas came up with.
To be fair, Yimou Zhang, whose previous films at times ran afoul of Chinese censors, set out from the beginning to make a wuxia fantasy in the spirit of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, not a historical biopic. So forget all of the above and treat it the same as those chrome-plated Arthurian cinematic extravaganzas that have zero to do with history and everything to do with what we like to pretend about Anglo-Saxon history, including the silly sword & sorcery stuff.
Yimou Zhang has done much more than choreograph ballet-like fight scenes and assemble casts of (digital) thousands. There is as well the sheer, breathtaking vastness of the locations (these days, no one does vast like the Chinese), all magnified many fold by Christopher Doyle's stunning cinematography. Every time the narrative changes perspective and a new version of events is introduced, the entire color scheme changes--clothing, lighting, sets--from gray to red to blue to green to white.
This isn't subtle stuff at all, and could be seen to spill over into artistic self-indulgence. We're talking about vivid, primary colors, palettes of paint thrown across the screen. But, then, this isn't exactly subtle storytelling. And who cares when it's so gorgeous to look at.
And speaking of gorgeous things to look at, the beautiful Maggie Cheung and the handsome Tony Leung, as two of the conspiring assassins, steal the second half of the movie with performances so over the top, so operatic, as to demand a Puccini or Verdi to really do the material justice. Jet Li, on the other hand, has never emoted much as an actor and here he doesn't at all, so it's hard to care too much about what happens to him.
But at least what happens is so very cool to watch, as is this movie.
Related posts
The Emperor's Shadow
The Emperor and the Assassin
Labels: china, epic chinese movies, history, movie reviews, ying zheng
April 16, 2008
Empresses and kings
I've previously referred to this topic in addenda, but I thought I'd explain my word choices in translating "empress" and "king" a bit further. Fuyumi Ono generally uses the word ou (王) only. The "Royal Kei" is Kei-ou (景王). This is a gender-neutral term.
Adding the character for "woman" (女王) specifically makes it "queen" or "empress." When the En refers to Empress Yo, he uses "Jo-ou" (女王) several times. When he introduces Youko to Rokuta, he says "Empress of Kei" (景女王).
But when Rakushun first tells Youko, "You are the Royal Kei," he says "Kei-ou," as does most everybody else, including Youko.
I use "queen" to refer to the wife of a king (as in "Shoukei was the daughter of Queen Kaka, Chuutatsu's wife") and to Seioubo, "Queen Mother of the West," which translates literally as "west + king + mother" (西王母).
When speaking generically, I translate it as "king." When referring to Youko, I use "empress." To be more linguistically consistent, I should perhaps use "emperor" and "empress." But I prefer "king" to "emperor" and "empress" to "queen."
Throughout Japan's history, "emperor" has been a mostly titular role, with the political and military power residing in the hands of the shogun. "Empress" and "king" have more muscular, hands-on connotations to me.
Even in a Chinese context, the late dynasty emperors who spent their lives holed up in the Forbidden City seem pretty close to their Japanese counterparts. The early dynasty emperors like Ying Zheng remind me more of European kings in the Henry V mode.
Adding the character for "woman" (女王) specifically makes it "queen" or "empress." When the En refers to Empress Yo, he uses "Jo-ou" (女王) several times. When he introduces Youko to Rokuta, he says "Empress of Kei" (景女王).
But when Rakushun first tells Youko, "You are the Royal Kei," he says "Kei-ou," as does most everybody else, including Youko.
I use "queen" to refer to the wife of a king (as in "Shoukei was the daughter of Queen Kaka, Chuutatsu's wife") and to Seioubo, "Queen Mother of the West," which translates literally as "west + king + mother" (西王母).
When speaking generically, I translate it as "king." When referring to Youko, I use "empress." To be more linguistically consistent, I should perhaps use "emperor" and "empress." But I prefer "king" to "emperor" and "empress" to "queen."
Throughout Japan's history, "emperor" has been a mostly titular role, with the political and military power residing in the hands of the shogun. "Empress" and "king" have more muscular, hands-on connotations to me.
Even in a Chinese context, the late dynasty emperors who spent their lives holed up in the Forbidden City seem pretty close to their Japanese counterparts. The early dynasty emperors like Ying Zheng remind me more of European kings in the Henry V mode.
Labels: 12 kingdoms, china, history, japanese, language