We've had some threads before about direct historical influences in Avatar, but I thought it'd be interesting to have a more general thread, just for things you've found interesting or entertaining from Asian culture or media. I think it's pretty safe to say that my love of Avatar was the main cause of me starting to learn Mandarin, and so I'm trying to find more of (ancient) Chinese culture (hopefully I don't end up the Chinese version of a weeaboo in the process, I'm trying not to!).Anyway, my research on the ancient Chinese repeating crossbow (something I'd love to see in Legend of Korra! :P) led to someone on LJ recommending "Red Cliff" to me. I finally finished it today, and it's really stunning and I'm surprised I hadn't heard of it before.It's basically a historical epic directed by John Woo taking place around the Three Kingdoms period. The only Chinese films I had seen with such production values were wuxia films, and it was interesting to have a different sort of movie with battles of massive scope, and a less "fantastic/mystical" feel (though "Red Cliff" does have a "heroic epic" tone to it, it's meant to be more historical than the exaggerated accounts in Romance of the Three Kingdoms). It's visually wonderful (probably would make for great inspiration for backgrounds and stuff for fanart), it's got a great soundtrack, and if you get satisfaction from seeing wonderfully complicated plans come together, you'll love it. I admit it made me a little sad inside to see a glimpse of how wonderfully an Avatar movie could have been done ;_;.As an aside -- it made me realize that one thing that Avatar never really had were massive volleys of arrows filling the sky (a big thing in the movie "Hero" too), or archery in any large numbers -- though of course that sort of thing would never get past Nick and be effective at all. ;) Also, just from a perspective of cinematography, it's interesting to see techniques that feel outdated or out of place in our movie culture (wipe transitions galore, and a habit of "freeze-then-dissolve" transitions that is initially pretty jarring).One thing -- if you're wanting to get this (I, er, "acquired" it from less-than-legitimate sources, thus continuing the grand Chinese tradition of flagrant copyright infringement), I recommend going for the full version (technically 2 movies, over 4 and a half hours total, but totally worth the time and "breathing room" that length provides) and not the condensed American release (I don't see how they could have possibly cut the whole thing down to 2 and a half hours!). OK, Jesus Christ what's with all my parentheses, sorry.So, if you guys know of some neat films or snippets of historical info or whatever involving China/Japan/Korea/anything possibly connected to the Avatar-world, post it here! I've already seen a few of the really well-known ones (Hero, Crouching Tiger hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers, Fearless). I'm particularly looking for less modern stuff, but I'll take anything you think has good choreography or whatever. My kung fu movie lists are pretty short and need filling!I guess as an interesting linguistic bonus, here's some Chinese profanity:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese_profanityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_profanityAnd a Chinese kids' coloring book on military weaponry!http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpasden/sets/72157594376071750/
Oh, and in case you guys haven't seen it, I really recommend Iron Monkey. It's got great fights, and seems to have tongue pretty firmly in cheek. It's a favorite of my family and I think we actually have found it more enjoyable than Crouching Tiger.Plus, FUCK YEAR FLYING SLEEVES.I think Evil Magistrate is a pretty cool guy, eh kills guys with cherry pits, throws bitches in front of knives, and doesn't afraid of anything
And for something a bit more historical, I've fallen in love with the design of these tǔlóu village-fortresses. Their circular shape and density reminds me of a cross between that fortress in the episode "The Avatar State" and Ba Sing Se.http://www.flickr.com/photos/66972807@N00/sets/72057594059830826/http://www.chinadwelling.dk/ <--- Blueprints, blueprints everywhere
One other bit of Chinese art I have an obsession for is the "scholar's rock." There's just something about the idea of this very natural shape of stone that's had a base made just for it and placed in a study as an object of contemplation. Does anyone remember if they ever showed up in Avatar? One of these days when I have money and a place to keep decorative stuff, I want to get one of these.The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC has a wonderful collection of these rocks, which were a highlight of my trip there. http://www.metmuseum.org/special/scholar/scholar_more.htmlhttp://www.spirit-stones.com/
As I watched that trailer I kept thinking "THIS is how The Last Airbender should have been".They should reboot it and give it to John Woo to direct. That man is a genius when it comes to these kinds of films.
Red Cliff production budget was $80 mill for 240 minutes. Paramount got scammed by Shyamalan! lol
>>84068 Oh yes, 'Red Cliff' was amazing! The whole time I was watching it all I could think of was that THIS is how TLA should have been done. Having Takeshi Kaneshiro (my own personal Fire Lord Ozai) didn't hurt either, mrowr.
>>84081A lot of film that was shot ended up being edited out, which goes a long way towards explaining why it cost so much and is still so short.
>>84084 Haha, I know right? dat Kaneshiro Anyway, as I was rewatching some clips from Hero, particularly the first fight in the rain, it got me thinking about Go again. At least, I think it was Go in that scene, even though the stones were being placed inside the squares instead of their intersections... who knows. Both my dad and I are (casual) players of Go, and every time I visit we have to have at least one match. I think he, as an artist, got a lot of enjoyment out of finding, staining, and wood-burning a portable 9x9 board with two boxes for stones inside. Anyone here play it? I don't think I'm very good, but it would be fun to play with someone here online. While I'm on the topic of questions, does anyone know some good software to play Mahjong -- that isn't the solitaire "eliminate all the blocks" puzzle you see installed on so many computers but is actually the "real" game? My family has a mahjong set (currently a thousand miles away :P) but I don't know if we've ever played it -- I for one never did anything more with it than use it as a set of interestingly-designed child's building blocks. But there is a card game called Mhing that's supposed to be based on mahjong. I doubt anyone here has played it, as it seems one of those obscure games that's decades old and you have to order online if you ever want to find it. But my relatives and I always liked to play it, and I always enjoyed the designs on the cards. Just thought I'd mention it and give a strong recommendation for it!
I'm a fan of the early-modern Chinese period, though admittedly it's the most cliche of all the favorite Chinese periods (right up there with the Three Kingdoms). What distinguishes the late Qing dynasty from all the others is the increased interaction with the West, and it's great to bring some international intrigue on the scene. And Cixi the Dowager Empress could easily be Azula... without the murderous insanity.The Song dynasty seems to be the most underappreciated. I've only seen one soap about the Han Emperor, and I'm sure there is plenty of material on Qin Shi Huang. Frankly, I'd rather see more of China's mythical ancient period (Xia-Shang-Zhou).>>84059I'm a Hakka - we apparently dwell in those things. Apparently, we were also a big part of the Taiping Rebellion, a major conflict in the 19th century.
So I'm sort of half-following this "Asian Art" online course, and I thought I'd post a couple links to online museum galleries that might be interesting:http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/results.cfm?group=Chinese%20Art&start=0http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/asian_art/listview.aspx?page=1&sort=0&sortdir=asc&keyword=&fp=1&dd1=6&dd2=0&vw=1http://www.clevelandart.org/collections/collection%20online.aspx?type=refresh&searchoption=1&csearch=Department:Chinese%20ArtOh and here's something I had found a while back that might be interesting. It's a collection of almost 600 high-res scans of Chinese paintings, over a gig in size. Not all the scans are that high quality, but you might like it!http://www.latestdown.com/297809-ancient-chinese-paintings.html
>>84512>might be interesting>might be interestingGoddammit I need to be more varied. >:|Anyway, I also dig East Asian seals. Here's a demonstration of carving one that was neat (part 2 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhChzTgj6Qk&feature=channel )