#and it's even better when they somehow coalesce into a relative plot

[yours-the-author]

Dmitri: наглость этой ведьмы

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This idea popped into my head during work today and I had to make it. Bonus points if you know where the dialogue is from!

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Enter the Dragon (Clouse, 1973)

This review contains mild spoilers.

I think with this rewatch, I'm finally warming up to John Saxon in this movie. Yes, there is probably too much John Saxon in this movie, which a result of Warner Brothers being apprehensive about the success of a movie with an Asian and lead therefore insisting on a multiracial trio to hedge their bets. (Bruce Lee apparently put in the introductory scene at the Shaolin temple to hedge against his screentime being cut down to a supporting role.) Yes, Jim Kelly probably should have gotten the screentime that Saxon did, given that Kelly, on top of being an extremely charismatic presence and having a more sympathetic backstory for his character (on the run after standing up to racist cops, as opposed to Saxon's gambling debts), is an actual martial artist. I've previous maintained that somebody like Chuck Norris might have worked better in the Saxon role, given Norris' martial arts prowess. But Saxon is a much better actor than Norris, and his interactions with Lee and especially Kelly have a nice sense of camaraderie and humour. And as for his martial arts abilities, well, he's really trying and deserves an A for effort, not to mention that the movie gets some mileage out of him being outmatched and underestimated.

I understand Lee had to tone down the fight scenes somewhat to appeal to the American market, which had seen some martial arts films become hits (the success of Five Fingers of Death convinced Warner Brothers to go ahead with this movie) but was still relatively inexperienced with the genre. (You'll notice that for most of these earlier scenes, only Saxon's fights seem to be cut all that quickly, likely to hide his relative lack of skill and athleticism.) This definitely shows in the earlier fight scenes, which are shot with clean setups with the camera pulled back and look almost like documentary footage of exhibition matches. This is trying to sell the concept of martial arts films on top of working as one, so you get the competition plot couched in spy thriller type elements and a travelogue feel, as if to dazzle audiences. There is some exoticism in the movie's depiction of Hong Kong, but also some compassion as we get a look at an impoverished part of the city. As Kelly's character sympathetically remarks, "Ghettos are the same all over the world. They stink."

If anything, for most of the movie Lee is being juggled alongside all the other elements, which the movie is delivering quite engagingly. But when we get to the third act, and Lee sets off an alarm as he's sneaking about the villain's lair, it's as if the movie is announcing that he's finally unleashed. As he takes out hordes of henchmen, it almost feels like he's bursting out of the screen and making a direction connection with the viewer. The movie catches up quickly, using slow motion to draw out every hit, every kiai squeal, every pained expression so they become larger than life, almost existing outside the previously conventional movie in which they're contained. The final confrontation with the villain is an all-time fight scene, Lee following him into a house of mirrors, cautiously and strategically trying to smoke him out in between surprise attacks, choreography, mise-en-scene and character all coalescing into one.

Additional notes (thar be spoilers):

It's interesting that the villain opts to kill Kelly but try to let Saxon in on his scheme, a move not unlike what Warner Brothers pulled on the cast (Saxon somehow getting paid more than Lee and getting more screentime than Kelly). Maybe it's the movie hinting to us the unfortunate behind-the-scenes reality.

Kelly's famous last words: "Man, you come right out of a comic book."

I always keep forgetting that Angelo Mao is in this, and actually does a decent amount of fighting, even if she only appears in a flashback.

Out of Bob Wall's three movies with Lee, his death scene here is the most dignified. Least dignified is in Way of the Dragon, where he gets hit in the balls so hard he dies.

I previously thought Hitler mustaches in Bruceploitation were an inexplicable touch, but I finally noticed the guy with the Hitler mustache taking bets during one of the fights.

The score fucking slaps.

[taz-writes]

Damn, Feilan is one of the only fantasy stories I've seen which takes place in a planet in a galaxy which is acknowledged, that's one of the coolest WIP things ever. How was the galaxy and all the planets and Illiginia specifically formed? You mentioned the Cataclysm in the oceans ask, is that related to the world formation? What are the Ages of the planet, was there an extinction in any of them? Sorry for the questions the whole galaxy thing is just an awesome concept I'd love to hear more

Fair warning, this is gonna be long. 

The galaxy was formed the way most galaxies are, probably, with the guidance of Nafia--the ‘ultra-god’ of the universe, basically. You have the Four acting as gods of Iliginia specifically, and Nafia is more of a universal deity, whose power and behaviors are more similar to a Christian-esque Eternal God Figure. She tends to act slowly and gradually, and she ‘guides’ the creation of new things by accelerating and motivating what we would recognize as astrophysics and all that good stuff. 

Iliginia was her first real creation, and she built the galaxy and large chunks of the universe out from there, so you could almost say that Feilan is the center of the universe. Except it still rotates around a star like most normal planets do, so it’s not really. It’s just a planet, Nafia shaped it out of stardust, watched it grow and coalesce over millions of years, time isn’t a thing for her the way it is for mortals or even the Four! Though it’s said that she used to be much more active... in modern times on the planet, her name is everywhere but she’s not worshipped nearly as much as the Four, because she’s just not there. People say she spends her time on the Isle (Feilan’s afterlife) and that’s why she doesn’t play with mortal affairs, though goodness knows that hasn’t stopped the Four. Honestly, my theory is that Nafia created the Four not only for company but so she’d have help managing the absolute shitshow Iliginia turned into. She could leave them back on Iliginia to clean up mortal messes and keep them from blowing up the universe, and go on to make more planets and do more things elsewhere. It... uh, yeah, that backfired. The Four are not always helpful. 

The Cataclysm was one of the major shake-up events in Iliginia’s history that divides up their Ages. Feilan’s history, when written out, is generally divided into four Ages. They’re named after the four magical elements, but also after what causes them to end, which is my dumb little private easter egg. OFC the Age of Darkness is wrong now because I made the evil stuff pale instead years ago but Who Cares Anyways?

The Age of Light: The first era. Nobody knows anything about this, because it’s said to be the beginning of civilization and life. Faiana was Queen of Feilan at this time, until she gave up the throne around the time of the white flash at the start of history. This was the event that caused the change of recorded Ages. Nobody has any historical record of anything before the flash, or any evidence that civilization and society even existed before it. This is a big question mark for EVERYONE. The white flash is generally said to be the beginning of the world as we know it. 

The Age of Storm: Not much information survived about this one either, but we know stuff about how it ended, which is better than anything before the white flash. It started with the Great Storm: a period of brutal weather and icy cold that lasted for a few hundred years, and tore apart what was left of any social structure from the Age of Light. Feilan was a much bigger country than it is now, and its new rulers (Faiana’s descendants, the del Aphir family, then spelled del Afiri) had no fucking clue what they were doing. Faiana left them with zero instructions and zero guidance and then vanished without being seen again for hundreds of years. Things started to fall apart, this was a very messy time with a lot of indistinct wars that never went anywhere or changed much. The Irkatzi emerged shortly after the Great Storm ended and conquered a ton of stuff, creating the Empire of Karatza and picking fights with Feilan constantly. The human nations were victims to all of this, the mersprites got shit dumped in their territory, it was stupid and obnoxious and it lasted a hell of a long time. Eventually, things calmed down... and then a big fucking storm rolled up. 

The Cataclysm was the event that ended the Age of Storm and led into the Age of Illusion. It was a major disaster and apocalyptic near-miss caused by the Ravenharts (then called Rhevyanars, before it got... feyicized? like anglicized but into not-English) and del Aphirs having an unmitigated shitshow magic-flexing contest all over the continent of Againia. As the story goes it was romantically fueled: the younger sister of the Irkatzi Empress had a crush on the del Aphir king but he wound up dating her twin brother. So she tried to kill the king on the wedding day, and inadvertently created a massive natural disaster. Volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, literally just think of any stupid weather thing that could happen and it probably happened. Listhana was her name, but it just means ‘lightning’ in Ancient Feian so it’s probably just a posthumous nickname. She was a powerful electropsychic, meaning she had Storm/Illusion magic kicked up to peak potential threat level, and she was quite literally strong enough to toss around hurricanes and make volcanoes erupt under her own power. Don’t fuck with electropsychics out of Harmonine’s direct lineage, kiddos, they’re OP as FUCK. 

Somehow, the King and prince survived this, because the del Aphir line did continue. Nobody has any clue how that happened, because like I said, Listhana was OP. 

Between Listhana, the del Aphir king, and all the other third parties dragged into the conflict, they sunk half the country beneath the sea, froze up the top of the continent, and just generally made a big stupid mess. Modern historians know more about this shitshow than the white flash or the Age of Light, by a long shot, but historians in Feilan still suck.

History picks up properly with the Age of Illusion: the Age before the modern one, and the one Sayara’s read about the most. The early Age of Illusion was mostly spent dealing with the aftermath of the Age of Storm. Feilan rebuilt itself into the modern 12-tribe system, more or less--the Irkatzi were still independent and fighting, and there were a few more small fringe tribes along the edges--and society got onto a relatively even keel. Nothing interesting really happened in this one. The Irkatzi had a bunch of stupid border wars with Feilan’s Ajrijl tribe, set up trade relations with two other continents, and chilled. Marazzia decided after the Cataclysm to take its intervention politics seriously, and they made a big difference re: enforcing peace. Everything was fine until the FOE showed up. 

The Age of Darkness is the modern age. It started with Calama’s War, which has like twelve different narratives depending on who you ask. Sayara’s got an obsession bordering on special interest territory, she’ll tell you all about it. TLDR; there were two del Aphir princesses, Calama and Cyrenna. Calama, the heiress, did something and got infected by paleness. This was the first time the FOE reared his dumbass head in Feilan. Under his influence, Callie tore a bloody streak through the country, sabotaging her own nation while also actively hunting the Irkatzi with an unprecedented fervor. She was a powerful Light fairy, who also had the legendary bow Starshard in her possession, and she was damn near unstoppable. 

Cyrenna was her younger sister, who fled for her life at the beginning but then got forced to step up to the plate and clean up Callie’s mess. Cy wound up finding Stormcleaver, Kariel’s legendary axe, and facing down against her sister to defeat the paleness and kick the FOE out of Feilan. There were a bunch of other people involved, the Irkatzi had a ton of internal drama, but that’s the general gist of it. At the end of Calama’s War, the Irkatzi had been decimated, and were forced to merge with Feilan for the sake of their society’s survival. Part of this deal stipulates that should the del Aphir line ever end, then the surviving Ravenhart will take over the throne of Feilan at large, since the Ravenharts are the only other established godly lineage. Hence the title Crown Princess for the newly-demoted ex-Empress. 

Calama’s War is pretty relevant to the plot, since their still-mostly-mysterious method of destroying paleness is the only reference anyone’s got for dealing with the FOE. Also, various Ravenharts do talk a lot about killing Kyrina and claiming the throne, since it technically would be their right in that situation...... historically this only hasn’t happened because the Irkatzi are too busy having stupid squabbles with the Ajrijl or fighting amongst themselves to wonder if it would be fun to have an empire again. 

So yeah, those are the Ages. I rambled on a lot but I swear this is relevant. 

There was, in fact, an extinction event in the far reaches of ancient Feian history. I will not say anything more about this event than what I’ve already mentioned in early posts on this blog: there used to be a fourth sapient race on Iliginia, called shrians. They don’t exist anymore, they were all annihilated before history began. Nobody knows they ever existed to begin with. Any ruins of their society that may have survived were destroyed in the Cataclysm.