#XUE DI ZI (1975)

[defconprime]

TREKMATCH! # 383 - Continues's "To Boldly Go" vs 1975's The Flying Guillotine

THE FLYING GUILLOTINE aka XUE DI ZI

After a random dude invents the titular flying guillotine (a maybe/maybe not real ancient Chinese weapon that is lobbed onto a victims head dropping a curtain over said head, and then blades are released within to discreetly chop the person's head off returning the weapon and head to the assassin - ok now that I type that out I realize it probably wasn't real at least in the way this movie portrays it) the emperor creates a flying guillotine assassin squad. The top guy in this guilloteam though has second thoughts and quits, but the emperor doesn't like that so much! It's a fine wild action flick but the best part is when a street performer makes up a song on the spot about how she only knows one song and this is very hard for her.

GRADE: C-

STAR TREK: CONTINUES   - "To Boldly Go"

Kirk and the Enterprise are heading home after their legendary five-year mission when they get pulled into One Last Mission to stop some super powerful psychics from becoming space gods and stealing a Constitution class ship. Well they don't necessarily stop em before all that, so they have to team up with the Romulan Commander from The Enterprise Incident (played by the original actress's daughter who looks the exact same as her mother). It's a great finale for the best fam production out there!

GRADE: A-

Victory to Trek, so Trek is up 194-189!

[erickmalpicaflores]

Erik Malpica Flores Erik Malpica Flores recommends: What is Coming to Amazon Prime Video in March 2019

Photo: Amazon Prime Video

Several Prime original series are coming to the streaming service in March 2019, including THE WIDOW and HANNA, as well as season 2 of TIN STAR. We’re also going to get a fourth and final season of CATASTROPHE. On the movie front, you can catch classics like DOUBLE JEOPARDY (which I will always watch on TV no matter what) and DEATH AT A FUNERAL.

March 1

A Sky Full of Stars for a Roof (E per tetto un cielo di stelle) (1968)

A Woman Possessed (1958)

Abduction (2017)

Amelia’s 25th (2013)

American Beauty (1999)

Baba Yaga (1973)

Basic Instinct 2 (2006)

Big Night (1996)

Black Cat (Gatto nero) (1981)

Black Sheep (1996)

Boomerang (1992)

Boston Legal, Seasons 1-5

Carpool (1996)

City of the Living Dead (Paura nella città dei morti viventi) (1980)

Death at a Funeral (2007)

Deep Red (Profondo rosso) (1975)

Double Jeopardy (1999)

Dude, Where’s My Dog?! (2014)

Enter the Invincible Hero (Heugpyobigaeg) (1977)

From Beneath (2012)

Jig (2011)

Karl Rove, I Love You (2007)

La clave (2008)

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (No profanar el sueño de los muertos) (1974)

Little House on the Prairie, Seasons 1-9

Lone and Angry Man (Una bara per lo sceriffo) (1965)

Chinese Hercules (Ma tou da jue dou) (1973)

Major Payne (1995)

A Man Called Blade (Mannaja) (1977)

Mary Loss of Soul (2014)

Murimgori (1982)

Nacho Libre (2006)

Overkill (1987)

P.O.E.: Project of Evil (2012)

Prison Girls (1972)

Rambo III (1988)

Ride Out for Revenge (1957)

Setup (2011)

So Young So Bad (1950)

Still Waiting… (2009)

Tapeheads (1988)

The American (2010)

The Apple (1980)

The Bank Job (2008)

The Chumscrubber (2005)

The Crazies (1973)

The Dead and the Damned (2011)

The Four of the Apocalypse (I quattro dell’apocalisse) (1975)

The Invincible Armour (Ying zhao tie bu shan) (1977)

The Mighty Quinn (1989)

The New York Ripper (Lo squartatore di New York) (1982)

The Practice, Seasons 1-9

UFO (2018)

The Unit, Seasons 1-4

Us and the Game Industry (2014)

Valerie (1957)

Vice Squad (1982)

Waiting… (2005)

The Widow (Prime Original series), Season 1

Woman Avenger (Shi mei chu ma) (1980)

Xue lian huan (1977)

Yin yang xie di zi (1977)

You Did This to Me (2016)

March 8

Costume Quest (Prime Original series), Season 1

I Can Only Imagine (2018)

Tin Star (Prime Original series), Season 2

March 10

March 11

March 12

Acrimony (2018)

Colette (2018)

March 15

Catastrophe (Prime Original series), Season 4

March 16

March 22

Cold War (Prime Original movie) (2018)

Leng zhan (2000)

The Stinky & Dirty Show (Prime Original series), Season 2

March 29

The Domestics (2018)

Hanna (Prime Original series), Season 1

American Renegades (2017)

March 30

March TBD

Made in Heaven (Prime Original series), Season 1

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[afishtrap]

Until 1530, sculptural images of Confucius and varying numbers of disciples and later followers received semiannual sacrifices in state-supported temples all over China. The icons' visual features were greatly influenced by the posthumous titles and ranks that emperors conferred on Confucius and his followers, the same as for deities in the Daoist and Buddhist pantheons. This convergence led to visual conflation and aroused objections from Neo-Confucian ritualists, culminating in the ritual reform of 1530, which replaced images with inscribed tablets and Confucius s kingly title with the designation Ultimate Sage and First Teacher. However, the ban on icons did not apply to the primordial temple of Confucius in Qufu, Shandong. Post-1530 gazetteers publicized the distinction by reproducing a line drawing of this temples sculptural icon, and persistent replications of this image helped to popularize his cult. The same period saw a proliferation of non-godlike representations of Confucius, including his portrayal as a teacher, whose iconographic origins can be traced to a painted portrait handed down through generations of his descendants. In recent years, variations of this teacher image have become the basis for new sculptural representations, first in Taiwan, then in Hong Kong and the Chinese diaspora, and finally on the mainland. Now installed at sites around the world, statues of Confucius have become a contested symbol of Chinese civilization.

Julia K. Murray, "Idols" in the Temple: Icons and the Cult of Confucius, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 68, No. 2 (May, 2009), pp. 371-411.

Various efforts in recent centuries to foreground the moral dimension of Confucius’s legacy have obscured practices and beliefs involving icons, along with other religious aspects of Confucianism. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Jesuit missionaries tried to convince papal authorities in Rome that Confucianism was an ethical philosophy (Jensen 1997, 63-70, 129), so that efforts to spread Christianity in China would not be stymied by requiring converts to give up rituals for worshiping Confucius Similarly, in the nineteenth century, the Protestant missionary-translator James Legge argued that the ancient Confucian classics merely needed to be supplemented with Christianity, just as the Bibles Old Testament was completed by the New Testament (Mungello 2003, 590). Moreover, from the sixteenth century onward, Confucian temples were austere buildings where inscribed tablets were displayed, unlike Buddhist temples and popular-cult shrines with sculptural icons in sensuous pro fusion.2 Although Kang Youwei  (1858-1927) sought to establish Confucianism as Chinas official religion (zongjiao) at the end of the nineteenth century, on the model of Christianity in Western nations, he made little headway before falling from power in the coup that reversed his 1898 reforms (Chen 1999; Goossaert 2005, 2006). Because regular worship of Confucius was on the official Register of Sacrifices (Sidian), and thus was closely identified with the imperial system, the collapse of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) undercut subsequent efforts to create a religion based on Confucianism. In the early decades of the twentieth century, some nationalist modernizers wanted to discard Confucius altogether, while others found it expedient to present him as Chinas counterpart to the Wests great rational philosophers. Suppressing what they considered to be idolatry and superstition, they emphasized a Confucius who did not concern himself with "ghosts and spirits." And in recent years, global advocates of "New Confucianism" have focused on his ideas about self-cultivation and morality.3 To some, Confucian concepts of reciprocal responsibility in a hierarchical society suggest an Asian alternative to Western-style democracy. These different efforts have created a widespread conception of Confucianism that is defined by a set of ancient texts, the civil service examination system based on their mastery, and the promotion of social virtues such as benevolence (ren), filial piety (xiao), propriety (li), and righteousness (yi).

[...]

Other conceptions of Confucius emphasized his roles as a teacher and as an expert on ancient ritual, instead of as a preternaturally insightful and prescient leader who communed with heaven. In some parts of the Analects (Lun yu), Confucius is portrayed as a human being who endured much travail and disappointment, especially while traveling the ancient states in search of a ruler who would take his advice (Csikszentmihalyi 2002).7 By the late Eastern Han period, this more mundane Confucius had largely overshadowed the superhuman figure. Nonetheless, the messianic sage was featured in the so-called apocryphal texts (weishu It H) of the late Han and post-Han periods (e.g., Wang Jia 1966,3:4?5). In addition, the "modern text" traditions retained their vitality in South China well into the Period of Disunion (Wilson 1995, 32). Furthermore, the Kong lineage perpetuated and embellished the legends in oral traditions and written genealogies, even down to the present day.8 Claiming descent from Confucius, lineage members had a vital interest in preserving a heroic conception of their ancestor and in maintaining their own cohesion (Wilson 1996). Emperors from the Han through the Qing dynasties awarded noble titles, tax exemptions, official positions, and lands to the descendants who maintained sacrifices to Confucius in Qufu.

Although the earliest forms of veneration and sacrifice to Confucius occurred in funerary and memorial contexts, the observances themselves increasingly displayed the features of a deity cult. Confucius continued to receive sacrifices at his grave long past the normal period for commemorative worship (Jensen 2002, 180-86; Sima 1982, 47:1945). Moreover, persons with no blood relation to him made these offerings, contrary to the customs of familial worship, which prescribed that a son should lead funerary rites?but Confucius s son had predeceased him. After Confucius died in 479 BCE, his disciples carried out the rites of mourning, and the especially devoted Zi Gong M kept a six-year vigil in a hut beside the burial mound (Sima 1982, 47:1945). Local authorities maintained offerings at this site for generations afterward. The place where Confucius had gathered with his disciples became a memorial hall, and his personal effects were displayed there. The Grand Historian Sima Qian  (145-86 BCE) reported seeing the masters clothes, cap, zither (qin), books, sacrificial vessels, and carriage in the memorial hall when he visited Qufu. In 195 BCE, the Han founding emperor Gaozu (r. 206-195 BCE) performed a grand sacrifice (tailao X ?) to Confucius in Qufu, offering an ox, sheep, and pig, along with wine and other foodstuffs (Sima 1982, 47:1945-46). In 136 BCE, Han Wudi (r. 141-87 BCE) canonized the textual tradition of Confucius and his followers by abolishing the posts of Erudite (boshi) held by court scholars who were experts in texts belonging to other traditions (Wilson 1995, 29). Other Han emperors awarded posthumous titles of nobility to Confucius and gave material support to his descendants and cult, providing for semiannual sacrifices in Qufu after 169 CE (Wilson 2002c, 261).

By the third century, sacrifices to Confucius were also being performed elsewhere, typically in academic settings. The first sacrifice documented outside Qufu took place in 241 CE at the imperial university (Biyong) in Luoyang, the capital of the kingdom of Wei (220-65), and several more were per formed there under the Western Jin dynasty (265-316) (Wilson 2002b, 74).9 During the centuries of disunion, various northern and southern regimes established state-sponsored temples in their capitals for conducting sacrifices to Confucius and his legacy.10 The Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties continued this practice in a reunified empire. The Tang founding emperor Gaozu (r. 618-26) established a temple at the National University (Guozi xue) in Chang'an (modern Xi'an, Shaanxi) and personally sacrificed there in 624 (Ouyang 1975, 1:9, 17). The Tang eastern capital at Luoyang also had an imperially sponsored temple. Initially, it was the Duke of Zhou JH the wise regent to the young heir of the Zhou dynasty founder, who was honored as First Sage (Xian sheng), and Confucius received sacrifice as Correlate (Fei) and First Teacher (Xian shi). In 628, a memorial submitted by Fang Xuanling (579-648) convinced the Tang emperor Taizong (r. 626-49) that sacrifices offered in a school should be directed to a teacher. Accordingly, Taizong ended sacrifices to the Duke of Zhou and designated Con fucius as First Sage, with the disciple Yan Hui II d? as Correlate and First Teacher (Ouyang 1975, 15:373, 375).11 Taizong extended the cult to lower levels of administration in 630 by requiring every prefectural and county school to build a temple to Confucius, thus creating a systematic network of state-sponsored temples (Ouyang 1975, 15:373). Located inside or adjacent to the government schools, these temples carried out regular sacrifices to Confucius twice a year, in spring and autumn.

Tang ritual codes ranked the sacrifice to Confucius as one of several mid-level rites (zhong), prescribing specific implements, offerings, music, and participants.12 The liturgy imitated that of another mid-level state cult, the worship of the Gods of Soils and Grains (Sheji), which had existed in classical antiquity and whose rituals were prescribed in the Record of Rites (Liji). Because the ceremony for sacrifice to Confucius had no fixed classical form of its own, it was susceptible to innovations, and procedural details often changed. Most significantly, portrait icons were introduced into the ceremony, probably inspired by the images of the Buddha and bodhisattvas in Buddhist temples. Starting in the Tang period, the Chan Buddhist practice of using portrait effigies in memorial rituals for deceased abbots and monks (Foulk and Sharf 1993-94) provided an additional model that encouraged the use of icons in Confucian temples.