Red Cliff (2008)

We celebrated October with scary movies each Tuesday, but I’d forgotten to cue up the DVD, so one night began with previews. All the chatter subsided, and everyone stared at a war between ancient Chinese factions. Units of footmen formed tortoise-shell defenses, luring the cavalry into a trap. Heroes threw back six foes at a time while their brooding masters pored over maps, wrote poetry, and studied cloud formations.

When the preview ended, everyone turned to me. “You want to see that one instead?” I asked, knowing I had it in the vault.

Did they ever.

After a decade spent making movies in Hollywood, John Woo returned to his native land. There he undertook a film version of one of the famous battles of China's Three Kingdoms period.

On this blog, I’ve used the term “kung fu” pretty loosely, but this time I need to point out that this film is a war epic. While there are some impressive wirework stunts in Red Cliff, the film is far more concerned with the leaders of the opposing camps, the flaws and virtues of their characters, and the particular strategies they use to take advantage of their foes’ mistakes. That said, once the action begins, it will kick your ass all the way up to the fiery finale.

The movie opens by establishing the influence Chancellor Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) has over the young emperor. Seizing power over the military, he turns his forces against the lords who have resisted his control. Soon after, the heroes Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Yun display superhuman fighting prowess in a retreat against the imperial army. Any one of those heroes could be the star of a film, but here they are the supporting cast.

The learned and brilliant strategist Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) proposes an alliance between his master, Liu Bei, and the reluctant warlord Sun Quan (Chang Chen), who comes around after a lesson learned during a tiger hunt. Quan places Zhang Yun (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) in charge of the combined forces, and the unified rebels prepare to meet Cao Cao’s vastly larger force, including an enormous navy.

The battles that follow reflect the personalities of the faction leaders, each clash somehow topping the previous for audacious tactics. The drama among the allies is equally gripping.. In a desperate hour, Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liange wager each can achieve a seemingly impossible task—assassinating the opposing admirals, and acquiring 100,000 arrows—and the stakes are their lives.

Men are not the only combatants in Red Cliff. Both Zhou’s wife, Xiao Qiao (Lin Chi-ling) and Sun’s sister, Sun Shangxiang (Zhao Wei) play pivotal roles in the conflict. The beauteous Xiao surrenders herself to the enemy in a ploy to delay the lustful Cao Cao, while tomboyish Sun Shangxiang serves as a spy in the enemy camp, where she bonds with a dim but sweet-hearted enemy soldier.

Such a brief description can’t do justice to a 280-minute film. The 148-minute North American cut is said to be quite good, but I wouldn’t want to miss any of the subplots or deliberately paced character development leading up to the spectacular fights.

Dark Fantasy in Kung Fu Movies

The fine folks at Flames Rising have posted a survey of five of my favorite Chinese fantasy films. I hope this will make up in part for my last few weeks of conventions and catching up on writing.

Look for more kung fu movie recommendations here soon.

Hero

Hero (2002) is the first in a thematic trilogy of wuxia films by director Zhang Yimou, previously known for art-house dramas like Raise the Red Lantern. That was until this film broke all previous box-office records in China and went on to critical acclaim worldwide.

Jet Li plays a nameless prefect who claims the bounty on three assassins who have previously tried to kill the king of Qin. By turning over the weapons of these famed warriors, Nameless receives rewards and is permitted to sit progressively closer to the king. Dubious that an unknown minor official could defeat the assassins who nearly took his life, the king demands that Nameless tell him the story of each battle.

The first pits Nameless against the spear-wielding Sky, played by Donnie Yen. Wuxia fans had long desired a rematch between the two actors, who fought a famous duel in Once Upon a Time in China 2. While that fight scene is great, Hero tops it with a spear vs. sword contest set in a rainy chess court. The music, action, and choreography set the bar so high that it’s hard to imagine the film exceeding its first set piece … and yet it proceeds to do just that.

To defeat the lovers Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung) and Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), Nameless incites a jealous quarrel by requesting a scroll from the famous calligraphy school where they reside. As the Qin army attacks with clouds of arrows, Flying Snow and Nameless defend Broken Sword’s work in a display of epic-level deflecting of incoming missiles. After watching this scene, no Pathfinder player will ever again feel satisfied knocking aside a single arrow.

After the love triangle reaches its tragic climax, Flying Snow faces Moon (Zhang Ziyi) in a duel surrounded by falling autumn leaves. The flying and wind-mastery of this fight take the wirework to a new level, yet the grace of the performers (and SFX artists) will win over those averse to the idea of swordswomen soaring like superheroes—which is important for a following scene in which the combatants literally fly above a lake.

Later scenes show off different combinations of foes, each dominated by a different primary color, and finally revealing the true purpose that brought Nameless to face the king. The final twist of the story became controversial: The word “Tianxia” was initially translated into English as “All Under Heaven,” while later iterations changed it to “Our Land” to avoid the suggestion that the movie’s message was one of global unity by Chinese conquest. (“Tian Xia” is also the name of the setting of Master of Devils.) Regardless of the political fuss, critics and audiences loved Hero, and despite its art-house sensibilities, the film drew thousands more North American fans into the world of wuxia films.

The strongest influence of Hero on Master of Devils comes from its splendid fight choreography. Readers who’ve seen this film and Yimou’s other wuxia pictures (House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower) might also notice an echo of character names and a blend of heroic and tragic destiny.

Zu Warriors of the Magic Mountain (1983)

The previous few movies I recommended are relatively new and thus hard to find in North America. Thus, this week we turn to Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, which you can find on DVD practically anywhere. This is the film that not only established Tsui Hark’s reputation but also influenced American filmmakers like John Carpenter (Big Trouble in Little China) and Sam Raimi (Evil Dead).

Not to be mistaken for the CGI-muddled 2001 remake, this action-comedy-horror-romance-satire introduced wuxia fantasy to many of us western fans. If you aren’t braced for its breakneck speed and everything-including-the-kitchen-sink approach, it can seem overwhelming with its quick shifts in tone and genre. But if you’re in the right mood, preferably late at night with a group of friends and a case of cold beer, Zu is hard to beat for sheer fun.

In response to American blockbusters like Star Wars, Hark fills the screen with special effects. Only instead of laser beams, his characters shoot bolts of magic energy or entangle their foes with long, prehensile eyebrows. The effects include a rough approximation of lightsabers and Sith lightning, for what it’s worth, but it’s when Zu doesn’t resemble its American influence that it’s the most fun.

You needn’t know anything about Chinese history to understand the satire of war in the brief first act. Acrobatic Blue Army scout Ti (Yuen Biao) flees a death sentence for agreeing with both of his generals because they disagree with each other. He blunders into a Red Army soldier (Sammo Hung), but they soon find themselves allied against forces of four more armies: Orange, Green, Yellow, and Teal. Ti cries, “What a colorful war!”

Escaping the fray, Ti falls down a cliff that turns out to be the proverbial rabbit hole. He enters the world of the Magic Mountain. There he encounters a swordsman who wields black and white magic swords, whom he begs to accept him as an apprentice to fight the evil in the world. They soon meet a mystical monk and his young apprentice. The proud and jaded veterans squabble, leaving the altruistic young men to form the friendship that allows them to cooperate against a powerful Blood Demon. Only the moon mirror of a venerable warrior known as Longbrows (also Sammo Hung) can hold the monster at bay, and that only for 49 days. Before that time is up, the heroes must find another pair of magic swords (green and purple this time), the only weapons that can slay the Blood Demon.

Along with the haunted jars containing black-flag ghosts, evil cultists, cymbal-wielding monks, and animated skulls, our heroes face slow-acting poison, shape-changing adversaries, flying statues, and deadly blood crows. What follows is just about the closest thing to a fantasy roleplaying campaign you’ll ever see on screen, but be prepared for me to say similar things about other movies I'll recommend soon. Much of the story takes place in what can only be described as a vast dungeon complex, leaving only when the group must seek magical healing from the beauteous Countess (Brigitte Lin) in her temple among the clouds. Naturally, one of the Countess’s beautiful acolytes joins the smitten young men for the third act, which culminates in a day-glow spectacle of matte effects worthy of a 1970s Saturday-morning children’s TV program.

Despite the sometimes silly visuals and the confused deus ex machina of the finale, the fun up to that point is more than worth the journey as long as you can withstand the whiplash of a wild ride.

While I can't think of a specific scene that informed a chapter of Master of Devils, Zu's "everything all the time" approach absolutely influenced my choice of showing different tones of adventure through the eyes of three different point-of-view characters, including moments of horror, romance, humor, and in virtually every chapter a heaping dose of action. Even so, after screening Zu again, how I wish I'd made room for Longbrows!

14 Blades

Donnie Yen is Qinglong (Green Dragon), the foremost member of the Jinyi Wei, a secret police force serving the emperor. Brutally selected and trained from childhood, they are the Emperor's elite warrior-assassins. Dispatched to recover a list of traitors, Qinglong discovers he has been used by the chief eunuch in a scheme to gain the imperial seal, which the traitor intends to use in support of an usurping prince.


Betrayed by his fellow Jinyi Wei, Qinglong goes rogue. When he encounters the Justice Escort Agency, the movie opens up. Qinglong develops a glancing romance with the chief's daughter, Qiao Hua, portrayed by my Chinese girlfriend, Zhao Wei. You might remember her as the cute tomboy in So Close or as the cute tomboy in Warriors of Heaven and Earth or the cute tomboy in Red Cliff.... But she's very good at that role, and the scenes including her breathe life into an initially gloomy tale.

The film's title refers to a box of 14 bladed weapons, each of which serves a different formal purpose. Seeing the box in action is fun, but perhaps not quite as clever as all the build-up would make you hope. Still, for those who like to cross the streams and mix a little steampunk into their wuxia, there's a lot of fun here.

The movie pits several worthy adversaries against Donnie Yen's hero. Sammo Hung is ominous as Prince Qing in an all-too-brief role. Kate Tsui wields a whip-blade and employs a pretty evasion/striptease trick as the assassin Tuo Tuo. Wu Chun is sufficiently boy-band pretty to play second fiddle to Yen as Judge, leader of the Heaven Eagles.

Another of the film's virtues is its use of rival factions banding together for a common purpose. There aren't many surprises, though. When Judge picks a fight with Qinglong, you just know they're going to end up on the same side. And if you don't anticipate the tragic ending, it's only because you love Zhao Wei too much to see her heart broken. Predictable as the story may be, the events unfold with elan.


It might not reach the heights of Detective Dee or Reign of Assassins, but 14 Blades is another film I wish I'd seen before finishing Master of Devils. It probably won't appeal broadly outside fans of the genre, but it's full of exciting action scenes and enough inspiration for a GM to create months of Tian Xia adventures.

Reign of Assassins

Initially reluctant to star in a demanding physical role so long after what seemed to be the height of her career in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Michelle Yeoh eventually gave in to a script with characters as rich as its fight scenes. In Reign of Assassins, Yeoh proves she still has what it takes both as a dramatic actress and as an action star.

The Chinese title of Reign of Assassins is Jianyu, Jianghu, translating literally as "Swords and Rain, Rivers and Lakes." "Jianghu" is the poetic term for the martial arts underworld, roughly analogous to the world of superheroes in western fiction. It's the realm of wushu masters, shapechangers, and magicians. It's where the player characters in Pathfinder's Tian Xia setting live, and if I'd found the film a few months earlier, it would have been a tremendous inspiration for Master of Devils.

Reign of Assassins begins with a fight for control of a prophet's mortal remains, said to grant its possessor ultimate mastery. When the Dark Stone gang murder the prime minister for the mummy, their top assassin, Drizzle, steals away with half of the corpse. After encountering a monk who shows her the fatal flaw in her swordsmanship, Drizzle has a change of heart and leaves the martial arts world to begin her life again, complete with a new name and face, the latter courtesy of a master surgeon whose tools include bone-devouring insects.

Free of her former colleagues, Zeng hides her ill-gotten wealth and lives as a simple cloth merchant. Despite the tireless efforts of her match-making market neighbor, Zeng falls in love with a poor messenger, Ah-sheng. They live happily together until caught up in a bank robbery. To save her husband's life, Zeng reveals her skill, drawing the attention of the Dark Stone assassins.

The Wheel King is the gang's whispering leader, possessed of extraordinary knowledge and deadly sword skill. He has replaced the treacherous Drizzle with Turquoise, a courtesan whose charms are as deadly as her blade. The other top assassins include a noodle-loving master of darts and a magician capable of disappearing up a rope to the clouds and setting his swords aflame.

The final act is full of so many revelations and betrayals that I don't dare describe it further. The action is top-notch, in part because of the consultations of the legendary John Woo, credited as co-director. Korean writer/director Su Chau-bin deserves credit both for a thrilling story and for wrangling a multi-national cast, not all of whom spoke Mandarin.

That cast includes the sensational Jung Woo-sung (The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, Musa, and The Restless, the latter two of which I'll describe in later posts) as Zeng's husband, the excellent Kelly Lin (Sparrow, Mad Detective) as pre-reconstruction Drizzle, and the sublime Wang Xueqi (Bodyguards & Assassins, Warriors of Heaven and Earth) as the Wheel King.


Like Detective Dee, Reign of Assassins is not a reinvention of the genre but a loving revival of the best sort of wuxia films from the late 80s and 90s. The action choreography puts to shame the CGI of recent films, and the script and direction strike a perfect balance between outrageous action and human melodrama, with some sweet character-based humor at all the right moments. One of the film's best qualities is the depth of its antagonists, each of whom enjoys some measure of sympathy and even tragedy.

In his director's commentary for his famous film, Ang Lee apologizes to Chinese audiences for the relatively slow start to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, in which he grounds western audiences in the conventions of jianghu before unleashing the wire work. Had he made his movie without regard for culture clash, we might have seen something closer to Reign of Assassins, which is every bit as admirable but even more thrilling for fans of action and fantasy.

PaizoCon 2011

PaizoCon 2011 was a blast, even after an exhausting three-week marathon at the Seattle International Film Festival, itself a blast, but probably my last such visit while I live so far away as to require lodgings.

Notable highlights included catching up with old friends (some of them met only at last year's convention), a visit to the Science Fiction Museum (sadly bereft of its original installation, but the Avatar and Battlestar Galactica exhibits were neat), many fun bar conversations, and a couple of readings of Master of Devils.

The readings were especially fun, since they helped me shake off the rust of not doing public readings for a few years before Prince of Wolves. I look forward to reading more at Gen Con. I'm told the readings have been recorded and okayed for an upcoming podcast. I'll link to it when I learn details.

Tomorrow, watch this space for an excellent guest post by another of my Pathfinder Tales colleagues. You won't want to miss it.

Golem image copyright (c) Paizo Publishing.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

I almost wish I'd seen Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame before writing Master of Devils. The titular Di Renjie is an exiled investigator, not unlike my Count Jeggare, and I now see Andy Lau's striking face whenever I envision the venture-captain.

Some call Detective Dee a Tang Dynasty Sherlock Holmes (the Guy Ritchie version), an apt simplification that covers both the premise and details such as a hint of steampunk and the occasionally dodgy CGI. I Sammo Hung's action choreography and the breathless blend of action and magic that recalls director Tsui Hark's classic 1990s fantasies.

Based on the novel by Lin Qianyu*, the plot offers an excellent template for a Pathfinder adventure. Commanded by the Empress to investigate apparently supernatural murders, Di and a pair of suspicious assistants (including Deng Chau, pictured) explore such exotic locations as a colossal Buddha, the Imperial city, and a subterranean Phantom Market. If the procedural elements are not always convincing, the intrigue, spectacle, and over-the-top action more than make up for the fuzzy border between logic and magic.

Gamers will enjoy the fantasy elements, my favorite of which is Di's sword-shaped mace, able to detect the weak point of any object and destroy it with a blow. Spontaneous combustion, magical disguises, clockwork traps, and conjured animals fit neatly into a Pathfinder game.

At film festivals, I usually skip movies I've already seen or expect to see soon. I'm making an exception for Judge Dee, since I'd like to see it among fellow fans in anticipation of Pathfinder's Tian Xia setting this summer.


* Western audiences met Di Renjie, inspired by an historical figure, through the pulp novels of Robert van Gulik, who called him Judge Dee. Other characters from the film, including the Empress, are also based loosely on real persons.