The Secret Origins of Stephen Reyes

[tylik]

^{*is a bit of a martial arts film geek*}

So, did the course cover/have you seen Iron Monkey (少年黄飞鸿之铁马骝) and Fist of Legend (精武英雄)?

^{*wonders what an actual martial artist thinks of these films*}

Those are both favorites, if for somewhat different reasons. Fist of Legend is such an awesome movie on almost any grounds - it's technically a remake of Fist of Fury, of course, but there's just so much more there - none of this angry young man and rampant xenophobia. (I mean, Bruce Lee is worth seeing, but... meh.) And the fight seen with the older Japanese martial artist is one of the best filmed. Absolutely classic. (The cultural notes interest me almost as much - that Chen Zhen starts out the movie in Japan, studying engineering, IIRC (hugely historically accurate - for some time if you were Chinese and wanted a western or technical education, you got it in Japan. Lu Xun - OMG, one of my favorite Chinese authors evah - took this route). That he is incorporating fighting techniques he learned in Japan. His general restraint and evenhandedness (certainly compared to the earlier movie).

Iron Monkey is just plain fun. And gets brownie points for incorporating traditional training techniques into gorgeous fight scenes. (Like the fight on top of poles at the end, which plays off of some traditional bagua training - and possibly other styles as well, but I ran into it in a bagua context.) Yet another Wong FeiHung movie, of course ;-)

(Actually martial artist? Where...? Oh. Darn. You'd think I'd be used to that...)

[Bunny M]

^{*is a bit of a martial arts film geek*}

So, did the course cover/have you seen Iron Monkey (少年黄飞鸿之铁马骝) and Fist of Legend (精武英雄)?

^{*wonders what an actual martial artist thinks of these films*}

Those are both favorites, if for somewhat different reasons. Fist of Legend is such an awesome movie on almost any grounds - it's technically a remake of Fist of Fury, of course, but there's just so much more there - none of this angry young man and rampant xenophobia. (I mean, Bruce Lee is worth seeing, but... meh.) And the fight seen with the older Japanese martial artist is one of the best filmed. Absolutely classic. (The cultural notes interest me almost as much - that Chen Zhen starts out the movie in Japan, studying engineering, IIRC (hugely historically accurate - for some time if you were Chinese and wanted a western or technical education, you got it in Japan. Lu Xun - OMG, one of my favorite Chinese authors evah - took this route). That he is incorporating fighting techniques he learned in Japan. His general restraint and evenhandedness (certainly compared to the earlier movie).

This. Also, I got a huge geek on for the fact that I could look at some of the fight scenes, especially between Chen Zhen and his Japanese 'mentor' and go ZOMG, it's kempo just from having watched waaaay too much Ranma over the years. ^*blushes*

Iron Monkey is just plain fun. And gets brownie points for incorporating traditional training techniques into gorgeous fight scenes. (Like the fight on top of poles at the end, which plays off of some traditional bagua training - and possibly other styles as well, but I ran into it in a bagua context.) Yet another Wong FeiHung movie, of course ;-)

Always up for a good FeiHung movie, regardless of who is playing him. IM is a just plain fun movie, plus it has great fight scenes, is highly unusual in that the nigh-unstoppable master martial artist is the bad guy, and the two heroes have to work together to defeat him. Really hard.

(Actually martial artist? Where...? Oh. Darn. You'd think I'd be used to that...)

Yes, you, lass.. ^{*geeks a bit more 'cause you've studied bagua*}

[tylik]

This. Also, I got a huge geek on for the fact that I could look at some of the fight scenes, especially between Chen Zhen and his Japanese 'mentor' and go ZOMG, it's kempo just from having watched waaaay too much Ranma over the years. ^*blushes*

*cracks up*

Always up for a good FeiHung movie, regardless of who is playing him. IM is a just plain fun movie, plus it has great fight scenes, is highly unusual in that the nigh-unstoppable master martial artist is the bad guy, and the two heroes have to work together to defeat him. Really hard.

It reminds me of a CWTA favorite, T'ai Chi Master II (which was filmed in Shifu's home town) - a ton and a half of fun, and almost ridiculously wholesome at the same time.  (Also, it has wushu tango.)

Yes, you, lass.. ^{*geeks a bit more 'cause you've studied bagua*}

Well, I believe you mostly just have my word on that. But it is funny about how persistent one's self-image can be. In my head I'm still bespectacled geek chick (and, well, it's not like I'm not bespectacled and geeky) - and in some ways, training in the same setting for so long made it easier not to see how much I'd changed. D Sigong was so right that I needed to be out on my own for a while.

I only have a couple of years of bagua, and never when I was soley focused on it, though I'd love to study more. For years it was the one art I could see challenging the position Chen had in my heart... but that was before I met Shaolin Long. (Really, it's sometimes hard for me to convince myself that Chen and Dragon aren't really the same style. At least when I do them.)

[tylik]

So after looking at "Breathe" I of course had to go on to "Knock on Coffins"... and in there someone wondered what came between Reyes and a brilliant academic career.

So do you think there is one big Reyes backstory, or a couple? Because I could see it going either way... I mean, one big one seems enough for anyone, but if there were, say, a small but traumatic one, from his family, maybe, back when he was younger, it could be part of the reason he made the connection when the big one came along that this wasn't a matter of single unrelated anomalous events, but that there was some kind of connection between them.

[Jezabella49]

I don't have any hard evidence for it, but my feeling is multiple stories.

[txanne]

I don't have any hard evidence for it, but my feeling is multiple stories.

My hard evidence is the Stephen Reyes we see on screen. He's way too layered to have had only one trauma in his life.

[tylik]

I think I tend towards the multiple stories theory because darn it, when you look at all the anomalous manifestations we've seen, they seem pretty diverse. How many would you have to see to deduce some kind of common cause? (I'm assuming that there is a common cause, and back in the secret archives there's enough information to make the case to government types and get funding.)

[txanne]

If there's more than one cause of gammabilities, we are *so* screwed--and not just in a "we need the WTF stat!" way, either. Fortunately the Anomaly has the story-nature, and a bunch of unrelated causes don't. I trust TPTB to tell me a story that makes sense in the end....

[jennygadget]

I think I tend towards the multiple stories theory because darn it, when you look at all the anomalous manifestations we've seen, they seem pretty diverse. How many would you have to see to deduce some kind of common cause?

This is a very good point.  Also, I'm assuming a common cause simply because a non-common cause would be highly improbable.  The manifestations themselves may be very diverse, but thay are all quite "out there."  We've also got a pretty specific set of secondary symptoms and other things that make a clear pattern.  It's not like cancer* where it makes sense that a whole bunch of things can cause it.   Gammas having varying root causes would be more like a rash of instances of spontaneous combustion not being linked in some way.

*oh, look.  another disease metaphor.

[DavidG]

I trust TPTB to tell me a story that makes sense in the end....

I trust TPTB to leave questions unanswered! Why break the habits of a lifetime....