Scatters and Slays with his enchanted Sword
Wednesday, 23 November 2005 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freckles_and_doubtThe Army of Reconstruction put about two-thirds of the roof on the garage this afternoon, a process which entails much thumping, shouting, drilling and, apparently, a substantial proportion of the Riverdance company performing mass co-ordinated tap-dancing across sheets of tin. In clogs. I finally fled the cacophony and went to see House of Flying Daggers instead.
As I think I have remarked before, I love martial arts movies, particularly the ones with the flying wire-work. There was less of the mad floating in this movie than in others of the genre - and more impossible archery and dagger-throwing - but it more than made up for it by the beautiful, sumptuous, dreamy visual feel - amazing sets, amazing cinematography. The misty bamboo forest was incredible, as was the supernatural snowstorm in the final battle. The fight choreography was even more stylised than usual, almost ritual dance at points - no attempt at realism. Stunning. And, unlike Hero, which felt a bit thin to me, this had a very powerful emotional focus; the plot was layered, twisted and surprising, but it was the characters who gripped.
I found myself wondering, though, why it is that so many of the films in this genre are not only love stories, but specifically tragic love stories. The cosmic pattern is Romeo and Juliet, always supposing Romeo and Juliet had perished more or less on each other's blades after a convoluted series of flying swordfights involving at least one love triangle as well as a random mix of mistaken identity, political shenanigan, lone heroism, gender-swapping and, at some point, a forest of bamboo. (In fact, a lot of that sounds suspiciously like Shakespeare*, proving that cultural difference ain't, so much.) But, thinking it through, tragedy is inevitable. Swordfighting at this mythic level is about an intense, compulsive physicality that transcends minor issues like gravity. If your focus is intense physicality, sooner or later it's going to come down to sex, so a lot of stories in this genre are also intense, compulsive love-stories. Equally inevitably, the participants are locked into a mythic system that more or less equates sex - or love - and death, because death is the natural outcome of the intense physicality of the swordfighter. Therefore all love stories in this genre will be tragic; the participants have to die not only because death is what they're most serious about, because it's the only outcome that adequately expresses the intensity of their union. Generally I hate sad movies, and avoid them when at all possible, but in martial arts movies tragedy is so inevitable, and flows so naturally from the circumstances of the story, that it's not traumatic, it's somehow right, and I don't feel impelled to sob. Much.
Actually, I don't watch enough of these things to make sweeping statements like this, I'm pretty much extrapolating from Flying Daggers, Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but indulge me here. Or bring on your counter-examples, of course. Although anyone who mentions Kung Fu Hustle gets shot.
In other, non-martial-arts news, I have over the last few days discovered that I loathe and detest playing Starcraft, to which I have been driven by a brief hiatus in activity while I wait for the press to tell me to go ahead on the book updates. (Or not, I suppose). Starcraft is boring. Starcraft unit AIs are incredibly stupid. The only thing more stupid than Starcraft unit AIs is me, since this game demonstrates, with crushing, inescapable finality, that I have the tactical ability of a stunned herring. Wolverine_nun, your nice husband needs to give back Shadowmagic!
* not the bamboo, obviously.
As I think I have remarked before, I love martial arts movies, particularly the ones with the flying wire-work. There was less of the mad floating in this movie than in others of the genre - and more impossible archery and dagger-throwing - but it more than made up for it by the beautiful, sumptuous, dreamy visual feel - amazing sets, amazing cinematography. The misty bamboo forest was incredible, as was the supernatural snowstorm in the final battle. The fight choreography was even more stylised than usual, almost ritual dance at points - no attempt at realism. Stunning. And, unlike Hero, which felt a bit thin to me, this had a very powerful emotional focus; the plot was layered, twisted and surprising, but it was the characters who gripped.
I found myself wondering, though, why it is that so many of the films in this genre are not only love stories, but specifically tragic love stories. The cosmic pattern is Romeo and Juliet, always supposing Romeo and Juliet had perished more or less on each other's blades after a convoluted series of flying swordfights involving at least one love triangle as well as a random mix of mistaken identity, political shenanigan, lone heroism, gender-swapping and, at some point, a forest of bamboo. (In fact, a lot of that sounds suspiciously like Shakespeare*, proving that cultural difference ain't, so much.) But, thinking it through, tragedy is inevitable. Swordfighting at this mythic level is about an intense, compulsive physicality that transcends minor issues like gravity. If your focus is intense physicality, sooner or later it's going to come down to sex, so a lot of stories in this genre are also intense, compulsive love-stories. Equally inevitably, the participants are locked into a mythic system that more or less equates sex - or love - and death, because death is the natural outcome of the intense physicality of the swordfighter. Therefore all love stories in this genre will be tragic; the participants have to die not only because death is what they're most serious about, because it's the only outcome that adequately expresses the intensity of their union. Generally I hate sad movies, and avoid them when at all possible, but in martial arts movies tragedy is so inevitable, and flows so naturally from the circumstances of the story, that it's not traumatic, it's somehow right, and I don't feel impelled to sob. Much.
Actually, I don't watch enough of these things to make sweeping statements like this, I'm pretty much extrapolating from Flying Daggers, Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but indulge me here. Or bring on your counter-examples, of course. Although anyone who mentions Kung Fu Hustle gets shot.
In other, non-martial-arts news, I have over the last few days discovered that I loathe and detest playing Starcraft, to which I have been driven by a brief hiatus in activity while I wait for the press to tell me to go ahead on the book updates. (Or not, I suppose). Starcraft is boring. Starcraft unit AIs are incredibly stupid. The only thing more stupid than Starcraft unit AIs is me, since this game demonstrates, with crushing, inescapable finality, that I have the tactical ability of a stunned herring. Wolverine_nun, your nice husband needs to give back Shadowmagic!
* not the bamboo, obviously.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
hmmm
Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 02:49 am (UTC)Thak.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 06:41 am (UTC)Not that I didn't like it, but when the two leads' excellent tooled leather bracers and scabbards/quivers hold my attention more than their relationship foibles, there's something wrong (Possibly with me!).
-KhoiBoi-
no subject
Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 10:04 am (UTC)I noticed the cool bracers and I loved the archery (Legolas also ran), but they didn't detract from the story for me. I really enjoyed the plot twists, with the layering of double-cross. Although I could tell that Leo was going to be a central character from the staging of the first scene, actually. Coding. Such fun.
no subject
Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 10:22 am (UTC)I much preferred Hero, in every way, apart from perhaps its dodgy politics. The "tragic love story" bit in HoFD had me yawning, and I found the constant impossible escapes from ambushing hordes a bit repetitive. (Don't challenge me on this, I may be remembering rather more repeats than there actually were, but surely the mere fact that it left that impression is itself a problem...)
scroobious
Shadowmagic
Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 07:02 am (UTC)wolverine_nun
no subject
Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 07:28 am (UTC)House of Flying Pandas
Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 08:25 am (UTC)if you didn't like starcraft, perhaps you should try warcraft? i think you still have my WC2 cd around somewhere. have you tried WC3? it's more fantasy-rpg oriented. orientated? it's like a mix of diablo and warcraft. and it has panda samurai (the above-mentioned pandarin).
-jo(ty) (did i even have to sign my name?)
Re: House of Flying Pandas
Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 08:34 am (UTC)-jo(ty)
Re: House of Flying Pandas
Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 10:11 am (UTC)Yes! Warcraft 3 sounds great, although I may not be quite so enthused about the pandas as you are. You have a copy, yes? I may borrow, yes?? Currently I need something I can play in 20-minute bursts between frantic bouts of encyclopedia-entry-writing.
Wondrous weather
Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 09:34 am (UTC)- Cara
Re: Wondrous weather
Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 10:17 am (UTC)Re: Wondrous weather
Date: Thursday, 24 November 2005 12:50 pm (UTC)- Cara
Kung Fu Hustle
Date: Thursday, 1 December 2005 10:14 am (UTC)Re: Kung Fu Hustle
Date: Thursday, 1 December 2005 02:08 pm (UTC)Okay (through the clouds of acrid smoke)... Kung Fu Hustle annoyed me, because it was too graphically violent for a comedy, and too comic for a serious swords movie. I rant about it briefly here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/extemporanea/34349.html), and more in the comments.