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workin' on the railroad
Feb. 24th, 2011 05:38 amONE OF NEIL GAIMAN'S CORRESPONDANTS: Hey, can you repost that one post with the troubling, dehumanising language from a while back?
NEIL GAIMAN: Hey, sure I can! And in case you crazy kids don't like the troubling, dehumanising language, here's a post I wrote where I said that lots of people complained about the troubling, dehumanising language and that made me unhappy!
You know, one really good way to avoid controversy is to not repeat things that have proven controversial. You're an excellent author, Neil, but you're losing your Messiah points fast. For now, go sit in the corner with the Penny Arcade people. No, I'm not listening. GO. SIT.
New Dragon Gate Inn, a Hong Kong action movie from 1992, has a pretty slow start that prevented me from watching it properly the first time. (I mean, it doesn't look like a slow start. It's all kinds of crazy horseback hijinks. But it has little-to-nothing to do with the story, and since it's the start, that means we don't know what the story is. The first ten minutes could have just been replaced by a title card with a picture of Cao: "THIS DUDE IS EVIL. THE DONG CHANG ARE HIS PERSONAL GUARD. THEY ARE SCARY, AND ALSO EVIL." It's when Mo-Yan shows up that the story actually starts, and even then she takes a moment to pick up steam.) But when it got into its bit, I enjoyed it immensely. Of the four most badass characters in the story, only one has testicles, and while Brigitte Lin and Maggie Cheung occasionally settle into fanservice - Maggie Cheung's sleazy innkeeper more often than Brigitte Lin's virtuous kung-fu paladin - it's always tremendously badass fanservice.
Honestly, Jin Xiang Yu (Maggie Cheung's character; yes, I'm afraid I did have to look it up) is worth the price of admission in and of herself. Flirty and amoral is hardly a unique character choice, but she plays it so brilliantly and with such laughing joy, even when throwing three knives into a target's head, that you can't help being swept along with her. And she manages to imbue her few not-amoral choices with real emotion; the scene where she gives Mo-Yan her flute back lasts for maybe seven seconds and is nonetheless incredibly fantastic.
Which is not to say that everyone else is ignorable. Donnie Yen plays an impossibly badass eunuch villain. (I had to mention to several people during it that "he may not have testicles, but he certainly has cojones".) Brigitte Lin and Tony Leung's characters would be very, very easy to play as the standard "we're the good guys, we do the good things" types, but they both give them a michievous edge and a deeply humanising quality - Lin more than Leung, but then, she's the real main character.
So, yes, highly recommended. I didn't honestly intend to write this much about it.
I'm working up a review of various RPGs I own; as such, they're also getting character sheets. If you're interested in looking at the auxiliary materials before the meat of the thing, they can be found here. (I recommend it. At the rate I usually work, it may be years before I'm done. YEARS.)
NEIL GAIMAN: Hey, sure I can! And in case you crazy kids don't like the troubling, dehumanising language, here's a post I wrote where I said that lots of people complained about the troubling, dehumanising language and that made me unhappy!
You know, one really good way to avoid controversy is to not repeat things that have proven controversial. You're an excellent author, Neil, but you're losing your Messiah points fast. For now, go sit in the corner with the Penny Arcade people. No, I'm not listening. GO. SIT.
New Dragon Gate Inn, a Hong Kong action movie from 1992, has a pretty slow start that prevented me from watching it properly the first time. (I mean, it doesn't look like a slow start. It's all kinds of crazy horseback hijinks. But it has little-to-nothing to do with the story, and since it's the start, that means we don't know what the story is. The first ten minutes could have just been replaced by a title card with a picture of Cao: "THIS DUDE IS EVIL. THE DONG CHANG ARE HIS PERSONAL GUARD. THEY ARE SCARY, AND ALSO EVIL." It's when Mo-Yan shows up that the story actually starts, and even then she takes a moment to pick up steam.) But when it got into its bit, I enjoyed it immensely. Of the four most badass characters in the story, only one has testicles, and while Brigitte Lin and Maggie Cheung occasionally settle into fanservice - Maggie Cheung's sleazy innkeeper more often than Brigitte Lin's virtuous kung-fu paladin - it's always tremendously badass fanservice.
Honestly, Jin Xiang Yu (Maggie Cheung's character; yes, I'm afraid I did have to look it up) is worth the price of admission in and of herself. Flirty and amoral is hardly a unique character choice, but she plays it so brilliantly and with such laughing joy, even when throwing three knives into a target's head, that you can't help being swept along with her. And she manages to imbue her few not-amoral choices with real emotion; the scene where she gives Mo-Yan her flute back lasts for maybe seven seconds and is nonetheless incredibly fantastic.
Which is not to say that everyone else is ignorable. Donnie Yen plays an impossibly badass eunuch villain. (I had to mention to several people during it that "he may not have testicles, but he certainly has cojones".) Brigitte Lin and Tony Leung's characters would be very, very easy to play as the standard "we're the good guys, we do the good things" types, but they both give them a michievous edge and a deeply humanising quality - Lin more than Leung, but then, she's the real main character.
So, yes, highly recommended. I didn't honestly intend to write this much about it.
I'm working up a review of various RPGs I own; as such, they're also getting character sheets. If you're interested in looking at the auxiliary materials before the meat of the thing, they can be found here. (I recommend it. At the rate I usually work, it may be years before I'm done. YEARS.)
