Polemics
Really, I wrongly misplaced a Werner Hezog for Fearless at Video Hut tonight. And I'm so glad I did.
Watching DVD's uncut version instead of the theatrical release has its benefits: think I was spared of Jay Chow's unsavory rappings of a theme song and several delected scenes crucial to the development of Huo Yuan Jia (Jet Li)'s character. Minding that I have a very uncompromising childhood raised on Sun Yet-Sun fetishes and wu shu ethics, from constantly reading Jin Yong novels in an English girls' school, it's no surprise that I have to wax lyrical about this long indulgence of mine. Hey, Fearless in Los Angeles is almost a B-grade movie title in itself.
And I little care that I have missed a Herzog for a Jet Li, that I am going to risk what appears as my dreamt of research topic on a badly translated film title. Fearless is about Huo Yuan Jia, who is far from merely fearless. Perhaps not unlike the Western code of honour, Huo's life is humility, misjudgment and ultimately, character, duty, ethics: 義. As Li's martial arts swan song, the movie works, ultimately. As Huo says before collapsing in the ring, it is to know that when one fights, it's never just a two-by-two; there is always a (n +1). Wu Shu must teach how to concede.
My favourite phrase lately, 'that's so mob' is a frivolous composition of Hong Kong Triads, martial arts novels albeit sneaking in some Godfather here and there. For lack of a more sophisticated translation, I have found my earlier immersion in The Condor Heroes, the Book of the Sword, etc, etc, in thinkers who are friends and whose friendship has taught the best of philosophy, ethically.
Hence polemos, the outright antagonism that can be classified as war must have all the asymmetrical bearings of stasis, internal, civil war. Age old, the relation counts on being able to count one's friends from one's enemies. Neutrality is a strange phenomenon; hence International Relations would always be my bed-time fodder. If I cannot help always recount growing up with such stories, it's not to assert any "masculinity" whatever that means, or to justify "why" I buy into this wholeheartedly. Less reasons, more 義 ．
Watching DVD's uncut version instead of the theatrical release has its benefits: think I was spared of Jay Chow's unsavory rappings of a theme song and several delected scenes crucial to the development of Huo Yuan Jia (Jet Li)'s character. Minding that I have a very uncompromising childhood raised on Sun Yet-Sun fetishes and wu shu ethics, from constantly reading Jin Yong novels in an English girls' school, it's no surprise that I have to wax lyrical about this long indulgence of mine. Hey, Fearless in Los Angeles is almost a B-grade movie title in itself.
And I little care that I have missed a Herzog for a Jet Li, that I am going to risk what appears as my dreamt of research topic on a badly translated film title. Fearless is about Huo Yuan Jia, who is far from merely fearless. Perhaps not unlike the Western code of honour, Huo's life is humility, misjudgment and ultimately, character, duty, ethics: 義. As Li's martial arts swan song, the movie works, ultimately. As Huo says before collapsing in the ring, it is to know that when one fights, it's never just a two-by-two; there is always a (n +1). Wu Shu must teach how to concede.
My favourite phrase lately, 'that's so mob' is a frivolous composition of Hong Kong Triads, martial arts novels albeit sneaking in some Godfather here and there. For lack of a more sophisticated translation, I have found my earlier immersion in The Condor Heroes, the Book of the Sword, etc, etc, in thinkers who are friends and whose friendship has taught the best of philosophy, ethically.
Hence polemos, the outright antagonism that can be classified as war must have all the asymmetrical bearings of stasis, internal, civil war. Age old, the relation counts on being able to count one's friends from one's enemies. Neutrality is a strange phenomenon; hence International Relations would always be my bed-time fodder. If I cannot help always recount growing up with such stories, it's not to assert any "masculinity" whatever that means, or to justify "why" I buy into this wholeheartedly. Less reasons, more 義 ．
The two fundamental principles of Empedocles -- philia and neikos -- are, both in name and function, the same as our two primal instincts, eros and destructiveness, he first of which endeavours to combine what exists into ever greateer entities, while the second endeavours to dissolve these combinations and to destroy the structures to which they have given rise... And no one can forsee in what guise the nucleus of truth contained in the theory of Empedocles will present itself to latter understanding (Freud, qtd in Derrida, Politics of Friendship 112).
posted by msl at 1:49 AM
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