The Fate of Lee Khan "迎春閣之風波" (1973) directed by King Hu

 After A Touch of Zen (1971), King Hu did a slight, but important change-up. Ying-Chieh Han, who had been the action director on King Hu's films since Come Drink with Me (1966) was replaced in the role by the prodigy and contemporary of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung. Hung had played roles as an elite mook in various other King Hu films (most noticeably in A Touch of Zen where he is one of the personal bodyguards too the final boss). While Han's fighting-style for cinema, rooted firmly in Beijing Opera, Hung (who grew-up in a Beijing Opera school with Jackie Chan) was part of the generation that was directly influence by of the generations that was directly influenced by Bruce Lee. Because of this, while Hung's action directing and choreography is greatly in Beijing Opera the quick movements and minimalist techniques of Bruce Lee is very apparent in this film compared King Hu's previous ones. Even Ying-Chieh Han's fighting is accelerated more than in the films where he was action director. I'll talk more about Han later. 

This movie, like Dragon Inn (1967), takes place mostly in an inn. Like Kenji Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff, the movie is named after the antagonist. What sets this movie apart (also like 'Sansho') is that it is set in the Yuan/Mongolian era of Chinese imperial history—an era that is not usually filmed. Most historical Chinese films take place during the Ming or Qing dynasties (the Ming Dynasty is King Hu's preferred setting). This means that the costumes are very different from what we are used to seeing—especially with the antagonists.

This story is another King Hu espionage caper—but this time he is not putting his protagonists against the secret police, but the regular government. The protagonists are at a place called the Spring Inn to thwart the plans of the brutal regional Lord Lee Khan. The problem is that both Lee Khan and the Han rebels have spies everywhere.

Another interesting thing about this movie is the playing-against-type going on in this film. Ying-Chieh Han had always played antagonists in King Hu films (most notably the final boss in A Touch of Zen), but this time he is on the side of the protagonists. Meanwhile Hsu Feng–who was the main female protagonist in A Touch of Zen–is The Dragon in this film (Lee Khan's fateful daughter). It is amazing to see these two in the role-reversal and it reminds me of Feng's role in Raining in the Mountain (1979).

At two hours, this is one of the shorter King Hu films and possibly the most normal one to get into of his. I also like that, while it is a "Han vs..." film it does not engage in the same crude xenophobic-stereotyping of the antagonists as so many Shaw Brothers films do. And it is a Golden Harvest co-production to-boot (home studio of Bruce Lee). I am happy to watch another King Hu film, and happy to recommend it to you. Happy New Year!

My Goodreads Review of The Promised Neverland, volume 17

The Promised Neverland, Vol. 17 by Kaiu Shirai
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the last English-translation manga volume of The Promised Neverland for the year. This has been such an exciting book to read this year and it is crazy to think it will all be over in 2021. Of course, the Japanese-language version has already ended and season two of the anime is expected to premiere early 2021. In any case, this title has been one of the most interesting and intriguing comic books I've ever read and I can't wait to give my overall thoughts of the franchise when I read the last volume next spring/summer.

This volume has the beginning of the final battle. The parties to that conflict though may not be who we think, though. Emma and Norman have completely different agendas that will see the final conflict play out very messily and sorrowfully.

Posuka Demizu art work is almost better than the story, the dynamism on every page is just incredible and in an action-packed volume like this is used to great effect.

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My Goodreads Review of God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont, art by Brent Anderson

This is I believe my first (non-Japanese) comic book review posted on this blog.

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Despite watching the 1990s cartoon as a child and watching the movies, I have read relatively few X-Men comics since I started reading comic books in 2013. Most of what I have read has been of the newer works—particularly Brian Michael Bendis' run on the books. I have not read a lot of the classic stories though I most of what they are about because of how they have been adapted for film and television. This is one of the most famous X-Men stories written by their most prolific writer Chris Claremont as a stand-alone graphic novel. It is illustrated by Brent Anderson pre-Astro City. It's one of those stories that sticks with you from the word go.

The graphic novel begins in a way that few comics would dare do in this era to establish the atmosphere, with the lynching of two black mutant children by an anti-mutant militia under the orders of a disgraced veteran turned right-wing evangelical named William Stryker. Stryker's aim is the full extermination of all mutants and he uses his militia, the Purifiers, with the goal of carrying out that plan. Their bodies are quickly discovered by Magneto, the Malcolm X avatar of the X-Men world who declares full on war against Stryker. If you've seen X2: X-Men United then you know where this plot is going. It is certainly an interesting story to read in 2020. The art is very interesting look at early Anderson who've I've only ever looked at in Astro City. Despite this book being a fairly heavy book, it is still obviously a book set in the late-Bronze Age of Comic Books (which where the majority of Claremont's works come out of) and the social realism is very apparent. Claremont wrote this book in response to the rise of Christian fundamentalism in during the Reagan era. Interestingly he pits a religiously-motivated antagonist against the most famously-religious superhero team in comics (this book in particular uses Kitty Pryde (Jewish), Nightcrawler (Roman Catholic), and Storm (traditional/Nubian)). It creates a very interesting dynamic when they go up against Stryker.

The interesting about this book is that, like Batman: The Killing Joke, this was meant to be a one-off story not in-canon with the main X-Men story. Like Killing Joke the publishing company ignored that fact after it became a hit and Stryker and the Purifiers have been popping-up ever since. Even still, this story still holds it's relevance as one of the most significant stories of this franchise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srwfA...

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My Review of Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999) directed by Jim Jarmusch

 A curious film, pretty much de facto produced by the Wu-Tang Clan (Rza actually scored it, first film with an original hip-hop score). Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai (1999) was directed by Jim Jarmusch and stars Forest Whitaker as a hitman that follows the code of Bushido. 

This films feeling of loneliness and uncertainty of the coming millennium is one of the beautiful things about it. The protagonists and antagonists are looking into the year 2000 not certain what will happen to them. Their lives of the 20th century have become laughably obsolete--like Kierkegaard would say they are all tragic-comic. But before they can go into this void, some business has to be taken care of. The film is almost as apocalyptic as Eugene O'Neil's The Iceman Cometh. 

This movie is part adaptation of Le Samouraï (1967), concerning a mysterious hitman that works personally to a mobster in New Jersey. The twist is that this hitman–that refers to himself only as Ghost Dog–models himself after a Japanese samurai and regularly reads from the Hagakure, the most famous commentary for the code of Bushido. When he does a hit that goes wrong because of his boss' error, a hit is placed on Ghost Dog himself and while he realizes that as a "good samurai" he has to answer for this regardless of who's fault it was, he makes sure that the big bosses who control his "lord" answer before he does.

The theme of loneliness and uncertainty at the end of the 20th century are the two most dominant for me. The mobsters are facing an existential crisis over there future as they no longer command the sort of power that they once had. They try to keep their traditional lifestyle going, but it does not work as it use to. Gangster films like Casino (1995) also deal with some of these themes, but in as stark a terms. At the same time, the loneliness that the regular people who Ghost Dog encounters throughout this film is shown in such an intimae and beautiful way that defies my attempt to describe it. He unfortunately misses an opportunity to kill Marlo Stanfield—one of the few mistakes of this film😉. These themes almost risk overwhelming the film spiritually, but are sonically balanced by the Hip-Hop score. Though this is not the best Hip-Hop score made for a film, it ain't the worst and it definitely gives you enough of the feel of 1990s East Coat Hip-Hop. 

Jim Jarmusch is one of the greatest of the Indie film-makers and this movie further shows his talent. This is his penultimate film with the legendary cinematographer Robby Müller, who's cinematography is so masterful here as it is in most of his films.

My Review of King in the Wilderness (2018) directed by Peter W. Kunhardt

 There have been a few docs that cover the late years in the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but this may be the lengthiest examination of it. These days we have the Santa Clause-version of MLK that even his enemies now invoke for their agenda. This documentary looks at the darkest time of his career from the vespers at Watts to his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee (1965-1968). He'd never been popular in his lifetime with a majority of white Americans, but he looses ground with the younger generations of black Americans as well when the Black Power Movement begins. When he come out publicly against the Vietnam War he looses much of the remaining support outside of his inner-circle. The doc has a lot of photos that I had never seen before and certain footage that I had seen, but from different angles. This is King at his lowest point, but also at his maturest morally and revolutionary. I definitely recommend this to people who aren't familiar to post-Selma MLK.

My Review of The Way of the Dragon (1972) directed by Bruce Lee

 Happy Birthday to Bruce Lee!

I decided to celebrate by reviewing his only movie as director and his most ambitious Golden Harvest film completed during his lifetime: The Way of the Dragon (1972). This movie takes place in Rome, Italy and stars Lee as a martial artists from Hong Kong who comes to Rome to defend the Chinese community there. It is the second movie after The Big Boss (1971) to find Lee's character acting in such a capacity. We see the action increased as the henchman are more dangerous (I mean it is the Italian Mafia) and they have recruited a deadly martial artist of their own (Chuck Norris). The climatic fight at the Roman Colosseum would be one of the most spectacular one-on-one clashes in Kong Fu cinema until Enter the Dragon (1973).

Besides the action sequences, the most notable (and noticeable) thing about this movie is Lee's involvement behind the camera. Besides co-production of Raymond Chow (the Run Run Shaw of Golden Harvest Studio), the cinematography of Tadashi Nishimoto (a veteran of Hong Kong cinema despite being Japanese), and be edited by Yao Chung Chang, all the major roles of the crew are by Lee himself. This really shows the contrast between a professional like Lo Wei and someone who gets the idea, but is not polished. Lee as a film director is a little rough, but he was fortunate to have Cho, Nishimoto, and Yao working with him. Luckily, his skills as action-director are more than able to compensate for his skills as a screenwriter and film-director. The truth is, the fight between himself and Norris is the pay-off for everything we have to sit-through leading up to that point. The stretching sequence of those two in the lead-up to their fight is the most intense warm-up I've ever seen on film. Even without Enter The Dragon, this movie would've made him an international superstar either way. This film and The Big Boss are at the bottom of my personal Bruce Lee list, but are still worth checking out. Happy Birthday to the Master.

My Goodreads Review of How To Be An Antiracist by Ibrahim X. Kendi

I am always weary of reading library books of non-fiction. It is tricky with ebooks, but because I was already trying to get through an even longer ebook I was going through this book at a very fast pace so I have not been able to give my whole soul over to this book but I have gave it at least half my mind. Consider this more a first impression more than a full review.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi


"An antiracist idea is any idea that suggests the racial groups are equals in all their apparent differences—that there is nothing right or wrong with any racial group. Antiracist ideas argue that racist policies are the cause of racial inequities."

"The most threatening racist movement is not the alt right’s unlikely drive for a White ethnostate but the regular American’s drive for a 'race-neutral' one. The construct of race neutrality actually feeds White nationalist victimhood by positing the notion that any policy protecting or advancing non-White Americans toward equity is “reverse discrimination.” That is how racist power can call affirmative action policies that succeed in reducing racial inequities “race conscious” and standardized tests that produce racial inequities 'race neutral.'"


I was mildly-interested in this book even before BLM II kicked off this summer of 2020, but my interest in this book was definitely peaked a little. When I recently discovered my library got a digital copy of it I checked it out. This book is a semi-memoir, semi-essay/manual/history. It is modeled in the mold of books like We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates or more aptly Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois. Ibram X. Kendi uses his life to explain the concept in all it's dynamics of antiracism. As well as showing his journey from being a racist to an antiracist he documents this journey in W.E.B. Du Bois. It is an interesting book in seeing his personal stories, but the hype I had heard over the policy is one of those things where I am being told things simply which I had already learned the long way. Had I read this book between 2008-2012, it would've been my bible, my handbook. Unfortunately, I read it in 2020 after discovering a lot of these concepts that are antiracism on my own. If you don't want to spend so many years reading like me, this book is the cheat-sheet.

I agree with pretty-much 90%-95% of what Kendi articulates in this book. Most of it is pretty didactic straight-forward telling you how to be antiracist. I do get annoyed at that very common new-intelligentsia habit of trying to rename certain academic terms ad hoc. I was not totally convinced at his arguments concerning institutional racism, but he makes an interesting argument when he says: "Policymakers and policies make societies and institutions, not the other way around. The United States is a racist nation because its policymakers and policies have been racist from the beginning." Beyond that he tries to give antiracist advice on every conceivable issue and he leaves almost no stone unturned. It is fascinating and I was impressed at how relatively simple he makes it (I wish he could have made it more simple, but this is the best you'll get out of these Gen Xer academics). Towards the end he gives his antiracism credo:

It happens for me in successive steps, these steps to be an antiracist.
I stop using the “I’m not a racist” or “I can’t be racist” defense of denial.
I admit the definition of racist (someone who is supporting racist policies or expressing racist ideas).
I confess the racist policies I support and racist ideas I express.
I accept their source (my upbringing inside a nation making us racist).
I acknowledge the definition of antiracist (someone who is supporting antiracist policies or expressing antiracist ideas).
I struggle for antiracist power and policy in my spaces. (Seizing a policymaking position. Joining an antiracist organization or protest. Publicly donating my time or privately donating my funds to antiracist policymakers, organizations, and protests fixated on changing power and policy.)
I struggle to remain at the antiracist intersections where racism is mixed with other bigotries. (Eliminating racial distinctions in biology and behavior. Equalizing racial distinctions in ethnicities, bodies, cultures, colors, classes, spaces, genders, and sexualities.)
I struggle to think with antiracist ideas. (Seeing racist policy in racial inequity. Leveling group differences. Not being fooled into generalizing individual negativity. Not being fooled by misleading statistics or theories that blame people for racial inequity.)

I had not expected this book becoming available to me as fast as it did so I have rushed through it and have not had time to really sit more with it to give a deeper analysis here. I read this as a library borrow on my Kindle, but because it temporary I have not made my notes and highlights from it public. If I buy the book then I'll give a more thorough breakdown of this book. I can't tell other people how essential this book will be to their development, but it was not as essential to me as I thought it would be. It is a fundamentally idealistic book which may put more realist/pessimistic-leaning people off. In the end, what it teaches is fundamental.

"I represent only myself. If the judges draw conclusions about millions of Black people based on how I act, then they, not I, not Black people, have a problem. They are responsible for their racist ideas; I am not. I am responsible for my racist ideas; they are not. To be antiracist is to let me be me, be myself, be my imperfect self." – Amen Brother Kendi, amen.

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