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Claiming our BL biases

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Last week, a reader commented to express concern that my work with DMP’s Digital Manga Guild for Inside the DMG might result in a bias towards their releases when reviewing for BL Bookrack. Whereas I feel that I’ve taken steps to avoid bias or misrepresentation (all earnings are going to the CBLDF as stated since the beginning, and I’ve been completely up front about my participation), it’s certainly up to each reader to choose how she (or he) wants to interpret my reviews, based on that disclosure.

But even if I feel absolutely comfortable that I’m critiquing DMP and/or DMG releases with a fair mind (and I do) it would be incorrect to say that I have no biases when it comes to BL. I most certainly do have biases, and they’re pretty freaking obvious in all of my reviews. It’s just that they’re more about content than whose logo is on the spine.

Like most fans of romance (BL or otherwise) I have very specific tastes, some of which may make or break a title with me. I’ve outlined my deal breakers pretty thoroughly in the past, so I won’t repeat it all now. In a way, it’s these biases/tastes that, in part, make my reviews (or anyone’s) valuable. Since there is no truly objective way to evaluate or talk about fiction, it’s our individual backgrounds and tastes that make multiple reviews of the same book worthwhile. Readers who share my general tastes (for instance), especially my most specific peculiarities, will have that in mind as they read my reviews—and this goes for readers who don’t share them as well. Both our similarities and differences with other people help to guide us to what we’ll most identify with or enjoy.

So, to take this conversation in a positive direction, I thought I’d take a moment to list the BL titles I’ve read over the past few years that have best conformed to my specific tastes since I began reviewing BL manga and manhwa. These are titles that have my biases written all over them. They are, quite simply, my favorites. Take that as you will!

Wild Adapter (Kazuya Minekura, Tokyopop)
Ichigenme… The The First Class is Civil Law (Fumi Yoshinaga, 801 Media)
The Moon and the Sandals (Fumi Yoshinaga, Juné)
Future Lovers (Saika Kunieda, Deux Press)
U Don’t Know Me (Rakun, Netcomics)
Red Blinds the Foolish (est em, Deux Press)
Age Called Blue (est em, Netcomics)
One Thousand and One Nights (Jeon JinSeok & Han SeungHee, Yen Press)
Totally Captivated (Hajin Yoo, Netcomics)
Roureville (E. Hae, Netcomics)
Color (Eiki Eiki & Taishi Zaou, DokiDoki)
Kiss Blue (Keiko Kinoshita, Juné)
Seven Days (Rihito Takarai & Venio Tachiban, Juné)
A Liar in Love (Kiyo Ueda, Juné)
Only Serious About You (Kai Asou, Juné)
You & Tonight (Keiko Kinoshita, Digital Manga Guild)
About Love (Narise Konohara, Juné)
My Darling Kitten Hair (Haruko Kumota, JManga/Libre Publishing)

Looking at this list, I’d identify my tastes as these: I like long, plotty series or quiet/ideosyncratic character studies much more than anything that falls in-between. I like Fumi Yoshinaga, Keiko Kinoshita, and est em. I like Korean BL (man do I like Korean BL—somebody please license more!). I don’t really care if the stories have sex, but I definitely want romance and/or intense emotional intimacy. I like emotional messiness and complication. I care more about the development of a relationship than I do its consummation. I don’t require realism, except when it comes to emotional truth (The Way to Heaven really almost made this list). I like (though can’t always get) stories where at least one character actually identifies as gay. Other books that (inexplicably) came very close to making this list include Deeply Loving a Maniac (801 Media) and Oku-san’s Daily Fantasies (SuBLime).

If you share my biases, I recommend you check out these titles. And I promise you let you know when I find more, no matter who has published them.

And now I put it to you: Readers, what are your BL biases? What makes a story work (or not) for you and what titles have most closely fit the bill?

Disclosure: MJ is currently under contract with Digital Manga Publishing’s Digital Manga Guild, as necessitated for her ongoing report Inside the DMG. Any compensation earned by MJin her role as an editor with the DMG will be donated to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Juné, 801 Media, DokiDoki and Digital Manga Guild are all imprints produced by Digital Manga Publishing.

Adventures in the Key of Shoujo: Sakura Hime Vol.1

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Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura | By Arina Tanemura | Published by VIZ Media | Rated: T, Ages 13+

I think I might have just hit my first brick wall in reviewing shoujo. I’ve found a title that I really, really like that I’m confused by at times. The cast is grand, but one or two of them drive me nuts and it doesn’t help that I’m unfamiliar with the time period in which it’s set. The title is Sakura Hime and this is going to be all over the place, okay, so please bear with me. Please?

The story revolves around Sakura, a fourteen year old girl who is betrothed to Aoba, the second in power next to the Togu (person in charge?). Anyway, from what I can gather, the Togu is the Emperor Palpatine and Aoba is Darth Vader. Sakura and Aoba have never met, though they have communicated through letters. Anyway, Sakura is descended from a princess who once came from (and has gone back to) the Moon, is charged with defeating Youko (demons that look like something out of a Zelda game), and must never look at a full moon. She’s not told why, just told not to. No points for guessing where this is going. Anyway shenanigans happen and Sakura comes into possession of a sword that she uses to kill the Youko, but it doesn’t quite behave itself. Then halfway through the volume, Sakura is betrayed and has to go on the run from Aoba and the Royal court.

Okay, first up I have a lot of problems with the whole setup of this story. Why the hell is Sakura on her own? Her parents are dead, okay. Her brother is dead, fine. But why is she living alone with her attendants? She’s the fiancée of the second in line to the throne! The royal court was involved in all aspects of court life, even back in the Heian period according to my research, and they couldn’t or wouldn’t supervise her? Second, when Aoba and the court officials betray Sakura, it’s because they’ve known for a long time that Sakura was their enemy. Why didn’t they kill Sakura before she came into possession of Chizakura (her misbehaving sword)!?! It doesn’t make any sense and the reason why it doesn’t is that these are actions outside of the control of our leading character. Therefore, such actions shouldn’t have any bearing on how the characters are presented. Yes, I know if Aoba and Co. offed Sakura when she was five then we wouldn’t have much of a plot or manga but still that kind of logic should have been anticipated. Another infuriating thing is the manner and reactions of the character Oumi. Is she a member of Sakura’s household? Is she a royal court-appointed lady in waiting? I don’t bloody know, and that makes what happens with Oumi in relation to Sakura’s betrayal just that much harder to swallow.

On the plus side, I love the majority of the characters. They are so different! Sakura seems like a spoiled brat, but she really is a kind, considerate person. Aside from my problems with Oumi, she’s a nice person who does care about the people she protects. Asagiri is, um, well I don’t quite know how to describe Asagiri. She’s not much bigger than a plushy, she turns up in the folds of all of Sakura’s clothing, and nobody seems to mind that she’s there. Go figure. Byakuya is a servant (?) in Sakura’s house, but she goes all mystic warrior monk on Aoba’s rump. I approve of this action. And then we come to Aoba himself. I really want to like him. He’s got a good heart and he does try to be more considerate than his swarmy older brother Fujimarusaki (the Togu). But he’s such a bloody git, pure and simple! If you love someone and know you’ll never become best egg in the bunch because of it, you sure as hell wouldn’t try and put an arrow into her! I can’t speak of Kohaku, the young ninja girl whose family has served Aoba’s family for generations. She doesn’t show up until the end of the book. But she’s such a vibrant girl, who wants to be the best at what she is trained to be.

The moments when, after killing a Youko, Chizakura disobeys Sakura and spins her round like a top genuinely make me smile. Humour isn’t really something that gets played up here a lot. If it did, I wouldn’t consider reading much more of it. I think the volume’s main weakness is the rapid shift in tone after the betrayal happens to Sakura. Wallop! She’s a hunted animal hiding out from the court’s soldiers. There is a half of a page of foreshadowing and then we get the carpet pulled out from under us. If the next volume doesn’t give either a release from the pressure or some kind—any kind—of a bloody explanation as to why this is happening to Sakura other than she’s suspected of being a monster, I am dropping this book like a stone. The most positive thing I can say about Sakura Hime is it’s got this way of wrapping you into a little macrocosm of royal intrigue, betrayal, and the paths of love. The book has a good cast with an intriguing idea and I hope it gets some legs on it and has a chance to run with it.

Normally, I would speak of the artwork in general cursory terms, talking about the cleanness of the art or if the action and rhythm are good. But this is one of most stylized shoujo series I’ve picked up. Look at the cover. Sakura’s eyes are huge. But they are so detailed and precise. Mangaka Arina Tanemura, whose other works I*O*N, Gentlemen’s Alliance, and Full Moon O Sagashite I have not read yet, fills her pages with speed, vim and clarity. She can do really detailed work and she writes in her author notes that this is the first time she’s tackled a Heian era story, so the costumes and background (at least from my perspective) are quite good. I couldn’t tell you what authentic Heian clothing looks like, so I’ll have to venture and say since nobody’s complained about inaccuracies, it’s probably a good try. That said, the author does say how difficult it was to design a battle costume for Sakura, given the restraints of the period. The character designs range from the energetic Aoba and Sakura, the prim and proper Oumi and Asagiri, the regal, disdainful Fujimarusaki, and the ironed-out Byakuya. Given the period they are in, I wonder how their designs would translate into a modern setting?

All in all, I do like most of Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura. It has a solid cast, an engaging premise, and highly stylized artwork. Its crippling point is the abrupt third portion of the volume, which threatens to destroy any forward momentum gained. I am trying to branch out and find more “unsafe” fare. Given this review, am I succeeding? Please write in and let me know. In any event, Tanemura has taken the Japanese fable of the Legend of Princess Kaguya (explained at the back of the book) and given it a good spin. I hope it has lots to go before it has to finish.

50 Shades of Morally Unambiguous, Part 3: The Sparkle-Fairy Edition

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Hello, MB! This is the 4th (or 5th, but who’s counting) post in a series of posts rebutting last week’s Dear Author series on fanfiction. And it’s the third of a set of posts responding to one post in particular: “Fanfiction: A Tale of Fandom and Morality.” TODAY IS THE VERY SPECIAL FAIRY EDITION OF THIS POST.

In the previous two posts, I talked about the ways in which trying to police how influence works itself out in fiction is nearly impossible, and ultimately bad for the works on either side of the equation. I also talked about how it’d be a bit hypocritical for us to do that in the case of 50 Shades of Grey, our current controversial work of fanfic-turned-pro, given that one of the things publishers want writers to do is to appeal to the audience who shelled out for Twilight.

In the original post, author Has asserts, “Taking an entire fanfiction story and turning that into a published book is:”

  • ethically wrong
  • a cynical ploy to market books… an easy way to cash in because there’s already a built-in fanbase that is able to market the book via word of mouth
  • [an indication] that the author does not believe what they wrote is strong enough to stand on its own merits but decided to publish it so they could profit by exploiting their fanbase
  • disappointing
  • might start off an ever-crazier circle of fanfiction based on fanfiction.
  • very detrimental to fandom and fanfiction

I’ve already pointed out, in the previous posts, how the “marketing ploy” argument is hypocritical to criticize a fan author for doing exactly what publishers want them to do in terms of appealing directly to a rich consumer base. As for the second bullet point: the whole weight of history is behind the act of spinning old works and characters into new versions and iterations. The idea that the fan author’s writing can’t stand alone/isn’t good enough to be publishable is one fanfiction authors have been saddled with for decades. I’ve already rebutted this argument very thoroughly, so I’ll just add: this argument, that fans surely couldn’t write an original plot, not only debases fanfiction, but it seems to target members of female fandom spaces. It also completely sidesteps the whole point that in most cases, the fanfiction that gets converted into original fiction winds up far removed from the source material. And in many cases already was to begin with.

Okay, now for bullet #4 (I’m skipping around, okay): might start off an ever-crazier circle of fanfiction based on fanfiction.

Hahaha. Okay, well, for one thing, people have been writing fanfiction based on fanfiction for fucking years. How is that bad? I’ve had several works of fanfiction written for my own works of fanfiction, and like every other member of fandom I know, I’ve never been anything but extremely flattered. Just like getting fanart or a podfic of your story, fanfic based on one of your own stories is seriously one of the best things ever that can be gifted to you in fandom. There are even remix challenges that invite authors to write fanfic of fanfic, all over fandom. This is not a serious criticism of the “danger” of published fanfiction, and no one who understands how remix culture works would ever offer it up as one, because the whole point of being in a remix culture is that we’re all gleaning, transforming, and passing on what’s come before.

Which brings me to fairies.

 

Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert has an amazing 2009 TED talk entitled “A New Way to Think About Creativity,” where she talks about trying to find new ways to “manage the inherent emotional risks associated with creativity.” ((transcript) I would never encourage you to read EPL but I would urge all of you to watch her talk because I think it’s completely brilliant, and her ideas, while they are offered in the context of taming genius, also are extremely relevant to the way we frame the argument about fanwork. Gilbert asks if we can “go back to some more ancient understanding of the relationship between humans and the creative mystery:”

[In Ancient Greece], people believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit… a “genius” was this sort of magical divine entity who was believed to literally live in the walls of an artist’s studio—kind of like Dobby, the house elf. So, brilliant, there it is, that distance—that psychological construct to protect you from the results of your work. ….

And for me, the best contemporary example that I have of how to do that is the musician Tom Waits, who I got to interview several years ago on a magazine assignment. And we were talking about this, and you know, Tom, for most of his life he was pretty much the embodiment of the tormented contemporary modern artist, trying to control and manage and dominate these sorts of uncontrollable creative impulses that were totally internalized.

But then he got older, he got calmer, and one day he was driving down the freeway in Los Angeles he told me, and this is when it all changed for him. And he’s speeding along, and all of a sudden he hears this little fragment of melody, that comes into his head as inspiration often comes, elusive and tantalizing, and he wants it, you know, it’s gorgeous, and he longs for it, but he has no way to get it. He doesn’t have a piece of paper, he doesn’t have a pencil, he doesn’t have a tape recorder.

So he starts to feel all of that old anxiety start to rise in him like, ‘I’m going to lose this thing, and then I’m going to be haunted by this song forever. I’m not good enough, and I can’t do it.’ And instead of panicking, he just stopped. He just stopped that whole mental process and he did something completely novel. He just looked up at the sky, and he said, ‘Excuse me, can you not see that I’m driving? Do I look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment when I can take care of you. Otherwise, go bother somebody else today. Go bother Leonard Cohen.’

And his whole work process changed after that. Not the work, the work was still oftentimes as dark as ever. But the process, and the heavy anxiety around it was released when he took the genie, the genius out of him where it was causing nothing but trouble, and released it kind of back where it came from, and realized that this didn’t have to be this internalized, tormented thing. It could be this peculiar, wondrous, bizarre collaboration kind of conversation between Tom and the strange, external thing that was not quite Tom. ….

This is hard. This is one of the most painful reconciliations to make in a creative life. But maybe it doesn’t have to be quite so full of anguish if you never happened to believe, in the first place, that the most extraordinary aspects of your being came from you. But maybe if you just believed that they were on loan to you from some unimaginable source for some exquisite portion of your life to be passed along when you’re finished, with somebody else. And, you know, if we think about it this way it starts to change everything.”

I like this idea a lot. I like it because it makes ideas a community process of receiving, sharing, and passing on. I like this idea for its potential to revise the way we think about storytelling and narrative theory. I like it because it’s anti-capitalist! I like it because it reconfigures creativity with communal narratives at the center of a kind of group process in which we all give and receive ideas as they come to us. And I like it because it implies an equal balance of agency between us as creators and the fairy-like muses that gift us with stories and ideas.

What if we viewed creators as being strands along a larger, interconnected web of ideas? What if we could agree that original works and the works they inspire could co-exist alongside of one another—since we know they already do—and that maybe that’s okay? And what kinds of new business models could we derive from thinking about creativity this way? What if I write a book that I am willing to openly claim is based on an idea that I drew from your book, and instead of you sueing me, we work out a deal where “Inspired by (Your Book)” goes on my cover? What if, after a certain number of copies sold, both of our books are reprinted and we share the wealth?

What if taking inspiration from someone else’s works didn’t have to get conflated with “plagiarism” (which is when you explicitly copy something and don’t credit) but could instead be seen as a form of literary sampling? Dear Author actually has a post from 2010 arguing for compulsory licensing for ALL fanfiction (um, how about no); but what if a conversation about licensing and royalties could be had without thinking of these things as a way to proscribe the boundaries of fanfiction? What if they could be seen, instead, as potential ways to make it easier for attributed transformative work to be sold openly and linked back to its source inspiration, for the mutual benefit of all parties?

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the down-side of this new world of Free Love And Published Fanfic! But for now:


(source)

Damn straight!

Manga the Week of 4/4

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It’s a first week of the month at Midtown, and we’ve got the usual Viz suspects, some Kodansha runoff from last month courtesy Diamond, some new Vertical titles (also a week late, also courtesy Diamond), and… two very odd releases.

Bandai may be dead, but it apparently had quite a backlog of titles to keep releasing. Thus we get Vol. 5 of both of their Code Geass doujinshi anthologies – Queen for the male readers, and Knight for the female ones. I’m going to take a wild guess that these are the final volumes we’ll see from Bandai here.

Kodansha has another volume of the Negima re-release, which updates the translation with its current version provided by the Nibley twins. This volume has Vols. 10-12 of the original, covering a great deal of the tournament battle, which, unlike many shonen tournament battle arcs, was really where Akamatsu came into his own. There’s some great stuff here.

I didn’t get a chance to use GTO as my featured image when Vol. 1 came out, so it goes here. The second volume of 14 Days in Shonan is almost nonstop action, and really packs a kick. As does its hero. There’s also the 3rd omnibus volume of Drops of God, containing the original Vol. 5 and 6. It looks as if we may finally get to see the First Apostle. As well as lots more wine.

Then there’s the huge pile o’ Viz. A Devil and Her Love Song got the image last time instead of GTO, but Vol. 2 excites me just as much as Vol. 1 did. There’s also a new Dawn of the Arcana, Kamisama Kiss, Sakura Hime, and Skip Beat!, giving you lots of shoujo goodness. If shonen is more your thing, well, this is Jump week. New Bakuman, new Bleach (still not at all caught up with the online releases), new Blue Exorcist (man, this and Kamisama Kiss come out FAST), A new Rosario + Vampire Season 2, a nicely retro new Slam Dunk Vol. 21, and the 9th Toriko. Lastly, they also have the first volume of that Voltron Forge graphic novel to excite sentai fans.

As an aside, this is my 100th post tagged ‘Manga The Week Of’. I hope it’s proven of interest to you, as it’s mostly just an excuse for me to geek out, and also keep track of what’s been coming out when. What whets your appetite to read over the Easter weekend?

Wild Adapter OVA announced

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Fans of Kazuya Minekura’s unfinished BL action series Wild Adapter have been holding out hope for years that the series might one day be continued. News last year of its move to Ichijinsha provided a glimmer of real positivity, as it seemed that artistic differences may have been at least partially responsible for the series’ discontinuation, though of course a change in publisher can’t magically resolve the author’s persistent health problems, which have been ongoing since 2004.

Still, we may soon have something to hold us over as we continue to wait and hope. Earlier this week, ANN reported that a video anime has been green-lit, along with a new “vocal CD, a ‘Kubo-Toki’ live concert event, and a new art collection book titled sugar coat excess.”

Several of us here at Manga Bookshelf (specifically Michelle, David, & I) have been vocal fans of this series for some time, and I find myself receiving this news with both excitement and trepidation. On one hand, I would be very, very happy if a new OVA helped to generate new interest in the series, especially from fans who might not have considered checking it out before. I also hope very much that the animated adaptation remains true to the best elements of the manga, and I feel some nervousness on that front.

What say you, readers?

For more information on Wild Adapter, see last year’s Manga Moveable Feast, including our Introduction to Wild Adapter, BL Bookrack: Wild Adapter Roundtable (with special guest David Welsh), 3 Things Thursday: Wild Adapter, and Fanservice Friday: The Human Touch.

Bringing the Drama: City Hunter

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Anna: For our first Bringing the Drama feature we picked the romantic comedy You’re Beautiful, so for our next column we decided to vary genres a bit and discuss a more action-oriented series very loosely based on a manga, City Hunter. City Hunter is the story of a boy named Lee Yoon Sung who is taken from his mother as an infant and then raised in Thailand by an ex-spy turned Drug Triad Boss as an instrument of revenge against the Korean government. Returning to Korea with a doctorate from MIT, our hero promptly gets a job working in computer security for the government and encounters a feisty female bodyguard named Kim Na Na. Together, they expose corruption and struggle with their mutual attraction! City Hunter is available for streaming online on Dramafever, and Netflix.

City Hunter. Hunts in the City!

Anna: Have you read the City Hunter manga at all? I have the first volume and I’ve paged through a couple chapters, and I have to say that there’s not much resemblance between the manga and the drama, other than the fact that both versions of City Hunter wear sharp looking blazers and have womanizing tendencies.

Emily: It took me a while to decide to watch the City Hunter drama (and I still haven’t finished it, though I plan to). I am a huge fan of the manga, and it’s blatantly obvious that the only thing this drama has in common with the source material is the title. I was only really able to enjoy this by telling myself that it isn’t REALLY City Hunter, it’s a completely different franchise, and the name is just a coincidence :) There is no way Lee Min-Ho’s character resembles my beloved pervert Ryo Saeba, that’s for sure.

Nancy: I haven’t read the City Hunter manga, so I didn’t have to battle the same expectations as Emily did. I really enjoyed watching this drama. I usually choose romantic dramas, so the action in this was refreshing. And it stars Lee Min Ho.

Eva: I haven’t read any of the manga either, and now that I’ve heard from Emily, I’m kind of glad I haven’t. While I understand that a book is a book and a television show is a television show and one is never going to be just like the other, if your show is going to be nothing like the book, why bother licensing it?

City Hunter's Daddy Issues

Anna: I thought that this was one of those series where you really have to watch at least 2 episodes in order to get into it. Not that the first episode was bad, but there’s so much tragic back story in the show to start out with, Lee Min Ho doesn’t show up until over a half hour into the starting episode. What did you think about the shift in tone between the first and second episodes?

Emily: I was also worried, after watching episode 1, that this series would take itself too seriously, and be all dramatic action and depressing stuff. That first episode is all back story, and while I suppose it’s useful, I sort of think that it might have also been interesting to open the series with Lee Min Ho’s character just arriving in Seoul for his job at the Blue House, and for them to let us in on his back story bit by bit as we watch him work his revenge. I was happy to see the dreary tone lighten up a little once Na Na arrived on the scene.

Nancy: I think the first episode needed the gritty beginning to prepare you for the political intrigue and brutality ahead. If you can’t sit through the beginning, you may not be able to take the rest of the drama. There will be blood and violence. There will be mean, dastardly men in power. There will be sweet romance too, but this is a bitter, fatalistic drama. That’s part of the beauty of it. You’re not sure how it can end in any other way than tragedy, so you keep watching.

Eva: I was hooked from the first episode, and that’s rare for me. As I said in our discussion of You’re Beautiful, it usually takes me three to four episodes to really get into a kdrama, which is about how long it takes for the writing team to figure out which direction they’re going to take the show. But City Hunter started off with a bang: tragedy! deception! crime! gunfire! more tragedy! It was fantastic! And then, once Lee Min Ho’s character was introduced, we got a much needed humor break and it was fantastic, too! The second episode gave me even more action hero action and I couldn’t have been happier. I mean, I like me some romantic comedy, don’t get me wrong, but there’s nothing like violence and vigilante-ism to get my heart pumping.

The sad thing about episode two is that Kim Na Na’s back story is so much less interesting than Lee Yoon Sung’s. And the whole Blue House cadre — especially the stupid, stupid, stupid president’s daughter — well, you have to take the bad to get the good, right?

Anna: I feel that any discussion of City Hunter would be incomplete without an examination of how cute Lee Min Ho is. What are your thoughts on this matter?

Lee Min Ho: Great Tsukasa or Greatest Tsukasa?

Emily: Lee Min Ho is very cute, but I admit that I think I liked him best with his ridiculous haircut from Boys Over Flowers. Or maybe I just like him more with his hair off his forehead. I was also happy to see him wearing pants that reach past his ankles. In Personal Taste, his character always wore these floods/highwater type pants that annoyed me so much :) I think he has great chemistry with all of his leading ladies.

Anna: He is my absolute favorite live-action Tsukasa! I agree that he is the type of actor who can manufacture chemistry with anyone. While he wasn’t wearing floods in City Hunter, I found myself sometimes perplexed by his pink pants. They don’t seem like the type of thing anybody would wear if they were engaged in covert action in a city.

Nancy: I really liked Min Ho in this. I think he’s a great action star as well as a romantic lead. At some point you wonder why Lee Yoon doesn’t just run the hell away or off his bastard father altogether, but somehow Min Ho is able to keep you believing in the choices his character makes despite all the craziness happening around him. I prefer him in this to Boys Over Flowers.

Eva: Lee Min Ho is adorable. It’s funny that Emily should mention his hair from Boys Over Flowers, because I was mesmerized by his hair in that series. Lee Min Ho’s hair is about as convincingly curly as mine is (which is to say, not at all), and I loved watching the curls slip slowly down his head whenever the weather was even remotely humid. And that chapter when they were in Thailand? At the hotel right on the water? Hahahahahaha! I think his stylist just gave up at that point and walked away. Hee! It still makes me laugh just thinking about it.

I will say that over the years, Lee Min Ho’s acting keeps getting better and better. He’s earning some comedy chops and I was surprised at how well he has pulled off the action scenes. I still don’t find him terribly convincing during the sensitive, romantic scenes, but that may be due to the fact that he’s freakishly tall compared to his costar. There’s one scene where Lee Yoon Sung comes up behind Kim Na Na and embraces her, resting his head on her shoulder. And even though it can’t be seen onscreen, everyone knows that he’s had to bend so far over to get down that low that his butt must be sticking out into the room behind him. Which, for me as a viewer, kind of spoils the mood.

Anna: One of the things I found amusing in the staging of the action scenes in City Hunter is that it seemed like there were some Bourne movie influences in the way Lee Yoon Sung fought his enemies. There were several scenes where he relied on improvised weapons like a rolled up folder or a random spoon. This also underscored his reluctance to kill, because he wasn’t always reaching for a gun to shoot his way out of tough situations.

City Hunter and His Covert Pants


Anna: The main source of dramatic tension in this series was found in the different philosophies towards revenge that the father and son exhibit. Lee Jin Pyo is determined to carry out his revenge through straightforward assassination, but Lee Yoon Sung wants to expose his adopted father’s enemies to public censure instead. Did this conflict, combined with the detective work in hunting down Lee Jin Pyo’s betrayers maintain your interest throughout the series or however much of it you’ve watched?

Eva: I would have liked to have seen more of the father-son conflict in the series, but then again, it was the action/adventure side of City Hunter that drew me to the series in the first place. Lee Jin Pyo was awesome in his ruthless take-no-prisoners approach to revenge (his smug smile of satisfaction was something I found myself looking forward to towards the end of the series), and the conflicting revenge styles made for good drama. What I didn’t like was when the conflict between father and son became an afterthought. What I kept hoping for was what we had with the show IRIS, where it was the romance that was the afterthought and the intrigue that was, well, intriguing.

Anna: I thought that Lee Jin Pyo was also awesomely ruthless his approach to revenge and his wearing of cravats. I wish that there had been a tiny bit more nuance in his approach though, because it did make his behavior and reactions a little bit predictable.

City Hunter is Surprised!


Anna: Does anyone have any theories about the prevalence of “Daddy Long-Legs” type plots in dramas? Having the righteous young prosecutor sending Kim Na Na anonymous notes of encouragement and presents certainly helped cement the love quadrangle that provides a nice contrast to the father-son angst and action scenes.

Emily: Regarding the use of Daddy Longlegs themes in dramas, I know I have seen the trope before, though a specific instance is eluding me. My impression, though, is that it is usually part of what eventually turns into a romantic gesture (as opposed to a mentor/sponsor adult supporting a child in a paternal sort of way) and dramas usually end up making what could seem like a kind of creepy thing into something kind of sweet. I guess you could consider the super nice supportive second lead guys as Daddy Longlegs characters. Like Shinwoo in You’re Beautiful, when he would do nice things for Minam in secret (and losing the opportunity to reveal himself). The helping-the-girl-in-secret thing is, as I thought in You’re Beautiful, nice, but too passive. Given that kdrama heroines are often naive, the bold approach is better. I think the Daddy Longlegs approach would only work with a stronger, sharper, more assertive heroine, because she would figure out who her benefactor is, or at least would have a funny reaction to all the unwanted help.

Daddy Longlegs, prosecutor, hunter of City Hunter, this guy does it all!

Anna: I think there was a fair amount of Daddy Longlegs in the second lead’s approach to the heroine in Coffee Prince too, since he was generally in the quietly supportive mode, taking her out for a makeover and just generally being her cheerleader.

Anna: What did you think of Kim Na Na’s character arc? I confess that I was hoping that she’d be the focus of more heroic action towards the end of the series, just because so much was made of her abilities as a woman of action in the first few episodes. I was a little disappointed, but not surprised that she ended up in more of a girlfriend role at the end.


Eva: I still haven’t seen the last four episodes, so I don’t really know what happens with Kim Na Na at the end. I’m guessing (this is a Korean drama, after all) that her father wakes up from his coma, that Lee Yoon Sung’s mother goes into remission, and that all four live happily ever after eating food cooked by Bae Shik Joong. But I don’t actually know.

Emily: I have only seen half way through City Hunter, so I can’t comment on the end of Na Na’s storyline. But my impression of her from the beginning is that she is a reasonably strong character (working hard to earn her position, skilled at martial arts, etc) even though she still has a bit of that kdrama-heroine-naivety . She doesn’t seem like the weak type that needs rescuing all the time.

Kim Na Na demonstrates her judo skills


Nancy: I think Kim Na Na’s story arc ended before the series did. She was just hanging around, waiting for the ending, and perhaps that could have been structured better, but I feel her character was consistent throughout and she overcame her own set of obstacles. I was not displeased.

Anna: My hopes were probably raised too high after seeing Kim Na Na throw Lee Yoon Sung around so much at the beginning of the series. Still, I think it is notable that Na Na is able to be as much of an action heroine as she is.

So overall, City Hunter is a show with great production values, a good mix of tragedy, comedy, and action, and it features an engaging cast of characters anchored by the always handsome Lee Min Ho. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out! If watching City Hunter prompts you to seek out other action-oriented series, a good one to try next is the spy saga IRIS.

City Hunter

Back in action

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Hi everyone! I’m back from my trip to an Undisclosed Location—all will be revealed shortly! Thanks to Kate for her able stewardship while I was gone!

I’m a bit late in mentioning this—tomorrow is the last day—but JManga is running a yuri promotion right now: They are giving a 100-point rebate (about a dollar) on each yuri manga, although they only seem to have three. Interestingly, the JManga front page is starting to look like the front of a Japanese manga site, crowded with small banner ads offering various deals (50% off on Tsugumomo!) I like this—it’s not very elegant, but it has a feeling of richness—so many bargains!

In other digital manga news, Khursten Santos reviews Viz’s SigIKKI site, which delivers the goods in every way but one: The manga is free, it’s really good, and it is available worldwide, but the site hasn’t been updated since December, presumably because Viz is shifting its efforts toward its app and VizManga site.

Ed Sizemore wraps up the Manga Moveable Feast, which highlighted the work of Jiro Taniguchi, and he also revisits the question of whether manga can be defined in any strict, formal sense.

Reviews: Anna reviews some Harlequin manga from the JManga site at Manga Report.

Zack Davisson on vol. 1 of .hack//CELL (Japan Reviewed)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 19 of 20th Century Boys (Comics Worth Reading)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 5 of Bunny Drop (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kristin on vols. 8 and 9 of Dengeki Daisy (Comic Attack)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 8 of Kamisama Kiss (The Comic Book Bin)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 1 of One Piece (Blogcritics)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 1 of Sand Chronicles (Blogcritics)
TSOTE on vol. 22 of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (Three Steps Over Japan)
Erica Friedman on vol. 16 of Tsubomi (Okazu)

The Condor Trilogy in Manhua: Introduction

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Xiaolongnu and Yang Guo embracing at the bottom of the gorge

This fanart was made by Dy Martino.

The three novels in Shè Diāo Sānbùqǔ, or as it is known in English, The Condor Trilogy, are the most popular Chinese-language novels of the 20th century. Due to their popularity, the novels have been adapted into TV shows, movies, video games, and of course, comic books (manhua). Because everybody has read the novels or at least seen one of the TV adaptations, the trilogy needs no introduction and I can jump straight to talking about the manhua.

Maybe not.

Even though asking somebody in the Chinese-speaking world “Have you heard of The Condor Trilogy?” would be like asking somebody in the English-speaking world “Have you heard of Harry Potter?,” The Condor Trilogy is strangely obscure outside of Asia. When I discuss the manhua, I want to discuss the manhua, so before we get there, an introduction to the trilogy is in order.

Background

The books in the Condor Trilogy are wuxia novels – wuxia being a Chinese genre which lies in the gray area between historical, action, and fantasy fiction. The term “wuxi a” comes from “wǔ” (which means “martial” as in related to the military or martial arts) and “xiá.” “Xiá” is often translated into English as “chivalry,” but I think that translation is wrong, because xiákè are very different from knights or samurai. Knights and samurai generally belong to the gentry and try to uphold their society’s social hierarchy, whereas xiákè generally belong to the peasant class and are often opposed their society’s corrupt ways. A xiákè has a lot more in common with Robin Hood than Sir Lancelot. Nonetheless, the xiákè are trained fighters and do have a code of conduct referred to as the way of the ‘xiá’.

The Condor Trilogy was written by Louis Cha under the pen name Jin Yong in the 1950s and early 1960s. Jin Yong is considered the top wuxia writer of the 20th century, possibly of all time. The novels were originally published as newspaper serials in Hong Kong, and later collected as books. They had been banned in Taiwan and possibly China too (I know some of Jin Yong’s other novels were banned in China). The bans did not work, because pirated copies were widely distributed. Nowadays, the Condor Trilogy is available unabridged everywhere in the Chinese-speaking world.

The General Story

The plot of the trilogy spans over a century—from the late Song dynasty to the very beginning of the Ming Dynasty. In between the Song and the Ming eras, China was ruled by the Mongol empire, and Mongols play a major role in all three of the novels. However, the Mongol invasion is usually in the background, not foreground. The heroes sometimes choose to collaborate with the Mongols, and the Song and Ming are not exactly depicted in a flattering light. While the Mongols are considered particularly bad because they destroy towns, massacre people, and are not Chinese, there is a general sense that all governments are corrupt and dominated by the power-hungry, and that the common people suffer no matter who is in charge. The trilogy is much more concerned with the lives and relationships of individual characters against the backdrop of such historic events.

Some people say that the trilogy is a martial arts soap opera. They are correct, mainly because there are many scenes like this:

Character #1: (Oh no! Six groups have joined forces to kill off the faction that my maternal grandfather and maternal uncle belong to! I must save them!) “I won’t let you all hurt a single person in this faction”
Crowd: “Who the hell are you?”
Character #1: (If I reveal my true identity, they will force me to betray my godfather) “I am [fake name]. Each of you, send a champion. If I can beat every one of your champions in a duel, then don’t kill anybody from this faction.”
Crowd: “Fine”
[Long elaborate fight scene]
Crowd: “How come this nobody is such a great martial arts fighter?!”
[Long elaborate fight scene finishes. Character #1 won, but is in a bloody heap and, without medical attention, will die soon]
Character #2: “I must kill that person over there!”
Character #1: “I won’t let you hurt a single person from that faction!”
Character #2: “But he kidnapped and raped my fiancée!”
Character #1: “Before you can hurt a single one of them, you must kill me first.”
Character #2: “Even though it is not honorable to kill people who are already bloody heaps, I must get vengeance for her!”
Character #1: “Then kill me, dear uncle.”
Character #2: “You said that just the same way my brother’s son used to call me uncle. My poor nephew, he died years ago… could it be… you are…”
Character #1: “Yes, it’s me!”

In the process of simplifying and de-spoilering this scene, I also significantly downplayed it. The actual scene is vastly more melodramatic.

However, the story of the Condor Trilogy feels as much like a fairy tale as a soap opera to me. There is the constant use of the number three. For example, after a princess saves the life of the hero’s comrade, the hero must fulfill whatever three things she requests as long as they are not against the way of the xiá, do not threaten his faction, and do not threaten his own position (actually, the mere presence of princesses makes the trilogy feel more fairy-tale like). And there are the almost-magical elements, such as a boy getting sword lessons from a giant eagle, or someone seeing what looks like a fairy approaching him on a lake, or a character being pursued by someone who looks so much like the girl she murdered that it cannot be anyone else. The supernatural is never directly invoked, but much of what happens seems almost supernatural.

Furthermore. the novels are also filled with a human-bites-dog, or rather, human-bites-snake logic.

Guo Jing bites a snake.

A snake gets a human-bite.

Example 1: In order to climb an un-climbable mountain, the characters pull out a flock of sheep, chop off the sheep’s legs, and use them to create a ladder (when the blood in the legs freeze, they stick to the side of the mountain so hard that people can step on them).

Example 2: There is a boy who follows a girl and keeps on provoking and harassing a girl so that she will yell at him. Why? To him, being yelled at by a woman is the sweetest sound in the world—in fact, he considers the times he has been scolded and punished by a certain woman to be the best moments of his life.

Example 3: There is a scene where a girl is talking about how a boy bit her and she never forgot him. Said boy and a different girl are eavesdropping. The second girl then bites the boy. Then the second girl asks the boy if she bit him as deeply as he had bitten the first girl. The boy asks her why does she want to know. The second girl answers that she never wants him to forget her, so she wants to make sure that the bite is just as deep.

These off-the-wall moments make me love the trilogy that much more. It’s engaging to not be sure what bizarre thing will happen next and to constantly blurt out (in my mind) “What the hell was THAT?!” Most of all, the off-the-wall-ness makes the relationships feel that much more real. Some of the things that the characters do together are so just odd. In my mind I often treat them more like real people than fictional characters, offering them advice while reading the story, giving them a high-five when they are being awesome, and yelling at them when they frustrate me.

Unfortunately, all of the manhua adaptations tone down the off-the-wall-ness – I suppose nobody wants to draw martial artists urinating on live, venomous snakes.

Since each novel feels distinct, here’s a basic overview of each novel.

First Novel: Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn

English Titles: The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, Legend of the Condor Heroes

More so than the other books in the trilogy, this is an adventure. A Chinese boy who grew up in Mongolia travels south to take care of unfinished business, and in the process he makes friends, makes enemies, falls in love, and of course, learns many martial arts techniques. There is plenty of swashbuckling fun for everyone—getting shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, hiding in a secret room, riding giant eagles, meeting the great martial arts masters one by one, running around a palace, and so forth.

However, in the last fourth of the story, fun and games are over. All of the relationships built up in the first three-fourths of the story are ripped apart. Tragedy strikes again and again. And our humble hero is forced to ask some tough questions.

This was the first novel I ever read in Chinese, and for that reason alone it will always have a special place in my heart. I grew very fond of the characters. Some—such as Huang Rong and Yang Kang—I liked right away (okay, maybe I do not “like” Yang Kang, but I really like reading about him), whereas it took more time for other characters, such as Guo Jing, to grow on me. To me, the plot is of secondary importance. Whenever I experience this story again, it is like spending time with old friends.

Second Novel: Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ

English Titles: The Giant Eagle and Its Companion, Return of the Condor Heroes, Divine Eagle, Gallant Knight, Condor Hero

When you heard or read the story of “Sleeping Beauty,” did you ever think “This story needs a Mongol invasion, a bunch of characters from Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn, and tons of violence and kung fu?” No, me neither. But having read Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ, I think the story of “Sleeping Beauty” is much improved with these additions.

At heart, Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ is still a “Sleeping Beauty” story. However, rather than eliminating all of the spindles in the lands, in order to protect her from having her heart broken, the guardian of “sleeping beauty” instead trained her to kill all emotions to the extent that she is indifferent to the prospect of her own death. So successful is “sleeping beauty” in withdrawing from life that her body does not age—she looks indefinitely like a 16-year old even though she is significantly older. Yet because “sleeping beauty” is not literally sleeping, she has agency and makes choices—that makes her a much interesting character. The story of Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ really belongs to ‘prince charming’—he has a history, he has a personality, and it is not love at first sight—he has to spend time falling in love with ‘sleeping beauty’ only to lose her. “Sleeping beauty” and “prince charming” represent two approaches to the hardships of life: to escape, sacrificing joy to avoid pain; and to expose oneself to the cruelties of the world in pursuit of fleeing moments of happiness.

I would say, of all the novels, this one has the worst plot. But that is unfair, because the plot is not supposed to be good. This novel is all about exhilarating, intense moments. The plot is there to make those moments happen, no matter how much it has to contort itself. Between the amazing fight scenes, beautiful imagery, complex relationships, and of course, the passion, this is my favorite novel in the trilogy.

Third Novel: Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì

English Titles: The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Sabre, The Tale of Relying on Heaven to Kill the Dragon

While Chinese society is falling apart in the first two novels, the society has already collapsed in this story. The Mongols have been ruling China for almost a century. Violence is widespread, even between commoners. The Dragon Sabre and Heaven Sword were created so that the Chinese would eventually be able to drive out the Mongols for good. Ironically, the struggle for the Dragon Sabre, which supposedly contains the secret to dominating the martial arts world, polarizes the martial arts world and inspires the various sects to continue the internecine fighting which prevents them from uniting against the Mongols.

The main character, Zhang Wuji, is constantly defending people who I consider to be scum. I think the characters are scum because of the horrible things they did. One reason there is so much fighting is that, when Character A finds out that Character B did something terrible to Character C, Character A figures that it is okay to to horrible things to Character B. Then Character D finds out about this, and figures it is now okay to do terrible things to Character A. Zhang Wuji, on the other hand, insists on seeing people at the best, not their worst … and that’s how he manages to make things slightly better. When I finally realized this, I was quite humbled to realize I had the same attitude as the characters who were escalating the violence. In addition to being a great martial artist, Zhang Wuji is also a great doctor, and I think this represents that his true role is not to fight the Mongols, but to heal his scarred society.

This is my least favorite novel in the trilogy, mainly because the story does not really get going until halfway through the book, and it has a relatively high percentage of characters I do not like. Of course, even the first part of the novel has its gems—Chapter 10 made me cry. And, while I did not enjoy this novel as much as the other two, it has been no less thought-provoking.

Availability of the Novels

If you can only read European languages, you are out of luck. The only novel which has ever been published in a European language is the first novel, Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn, as La Légende du Héros Chasseur d’Aigles. There are fan translations into English, floating around the internet, but they are 1) in violation of copyright law and 2) incomplete. Three other Jin Yong novels, on the other hand, have been published in English: The Book and the Sword, The Fox Volant of Snow Mountain, and The Deer and the Cauldron.

Availability is much better in Asian languages. The entire trilogy has been published in Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Malay. And of course, if you can read Chinese, you’ve already read the novels, right?

More TV adaptations have been made of the Condor Trilogy than I can keep track of, and some of them are available on DVD with English subtitles. While I have not watched any of them yet, many people say that the 1980s TVB adaptation is the best, and it also happens to be the only TV adaptation which is entirely available with English subtitles on DVD. For people who cannot read the novels, this is how I suggest experiencing the complete trilogy.

And, surprisingly, some of the manhua adaptations—specifically The Legendary Couple by Tony Wong, Return of the Condor Heroes by Wee Tian Beng, and The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre by Ma Wing-shing—have been published in English.

What’s next?

Many people who have never tried wuxia before find the fights confusing. Thus, in the next post, I am going to break down how they work.

Then, I am going to review every manhua adaptation of the Condor Trilogy. There is a manga adaptation—Shachou Eiyuuden Eaglet—which I have not read and will not review.

For each post, I will pose a discussion question. And the question for this post is:

If you do not know the story of The Condor Trilogy, based on this post, which manga/manhwa do you think is most resembles? If you know the story of The Condor Trilogy, which manga/manhwa do you think are not most like it?

I have my own answer, which I will post in the comments section after a few other people have weighed in.

Sara K. has previously written for Manga Bookshelf: Why You Should Read Evyione Part 1 & Part 2, Mary Stayed Out All Night, and The Geeky Heart of Taipei. Her personal blog is The Notes Which Do Not Fit, though there is not much about comics or East Asian pop culture over there. She grew up in Jiujinshan – meaning the city in Jiazhou – and currently lives in Peach Garden County, Ilha Formosa.

Bunny Drop, Vol. 5

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By Yumi Unita. Released in Japan as “Usagi Drop” by Shodensha, serialized in the magazine Feel Young. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Quick note: Please do not write spoilers about this series in your comments. They will be deleted.

When we last left our heroes, Rin was a cute 6-year-old, enjoying school, and starting to come into her own. Daikichi was still bumbling along, but generally had gotten the hang of being a good parent and was making inroads on getting closer to single mother Nitani. And so we come to Volume 5… where ten years have passed.

Yes, it’s a giant time skip, and Rin and Kouki are now in high school. Well, I had said that the series needed to shake itself up a little, and this certainly does that. More to the point, however, it manages to shift things to an entirely different place. The basic premise is still the same… we’re seeing Rin grow and Daikichi parenting. But Daikichi has raised Rin to be a self-sufficient, strong young lady. She can take care of the cooking and cleaning when necessary. No, being the parent of a teenager brings fresh new issues. Like romance.

It is fairly obvious throughout this volume that Kouki is completely in love with Rin, and that it seems to be mostly one-sided. Not that she doesn’t like Kouki, but they get compared to brother and sister, and Rin doesn’t think that’s far off. Plus, in some of the gap filling we get in this volume, Kouki apparently has an ex-girlfriend who was not very fond of Rin, and this seems to have soured her opinion of Kouki and romance a bit. Rin is at a point where she’s not sure what she’s feeling. Honestly, the person she’s closest to is still Daikichi, whom she asks for advice. His advice is not particularly helpful, but it’s from the heart. Which sometimes is all that matters.

Then there’s Daikichi and Nitani-san. I had noted in early volumes that I wanted them to hook up, and now ten years later it hasn’t happened. This is quite frustrating to the reader. And to Kouki. And indeed to Daikichi and Nitani-san, both of whom clearly have feelings for each other. We get a flashback in the last chapter to a moment a few years back, where Nitani-san is trying to deal with Kouki acting up and being a delinquent (he’s gotten better by the present day). This scene is one of the most awkward, heartfelt yet also heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen in manga, an encapsulation of everything that doesn’t go right in romance. Sometimes even when everyone wants to… you simply can’t quite make that final leap. There’s several volumes to go, but after this, I honestly no longer expect these two to get together. Which is a shame.

When this series began, we had four volumes of cute, which fit very well with cute little six-year-old Rin. But now Rin is a teenager, which means we’re at that awkward period. And true to form, this entire volume is filled with awkward. People not quite saying the right thing, not getting their point across, unsure of how to handle something. And this is the entire cast, not just the actual teenagers. Bunny Drop has grown with its heroine, and now asks that you stick around while she deals with all these pesky feelings. I suspect I may cringe on the fallout from all of this, but I’ll be riveted nonetheless.

Subtitles & Sensibility: Let the Bullets Fly & K-20

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Let the Bullets Fly is currently the highest-grossing Chinese-language film ever. Essentially a western, it opens with a classic bandit attack on a train. Said train is carrying a new mayor (You Ge) to Goose Town, but since his motives were none-too-pure to start with, he and his wife (Carina Lau) cut a deal with the bandit chief (Wen Jiang, also the director & screenwriter), and off they go to profit.

Profiting turns out to be not that simple, because there’s already a gang in charge and they’re in no hurry to give up their power, let alone their money. Thus we begin with a game of many wits and surprisingly few bullets, double crossing and triple crossing, and hardly a lady in sight beyond the sadly underused Lau, now posing as the wife of the bandit chief.

I was excited to see it because I have been known to enjoy ridiculous, over-the-top action movies, and because, like everyone, I am a fan of Yun-Fat Chow. Unfortunately, the film is over-long, often confusing, and not nearly as funny as it thought it was.

For example, in theory I like the idea of subverting expectations by casting Yun-Fat Chow as the villain gang leader, but in practice, it would have been nice if he had been given something more to do than laugh uproariously at his own cleverness and mug a bit as his own double.

Tonally, it doesn’t work. Obviously a film can be both violent and funny, but it is a delicate balance. A drawn-out scene where a character was manipulated into slicing open his own stomach and a (mercifully offscreen) gang rape were probably intended as further indications of just how bad our bad guy was, but they were also played for laughs, taking me right out of the film.

Let the Bullets Fly does offer lush cinematography and great images (particularly the horse-drawn train, even if the attack effect itself was lacking), and it references everything from Red Cliff to Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid with the broadest of winks, but in the end it isn’t universal enough to work.

Since seeing the film I’ve read in a few places that the humor in particular requires a deeper knowledge of Chinese culture than I have personally, and that it has political undertones (or even overtones) which were largely lost on me. Nonetheless, a better film would have worked on multiple levels.

::

In contrast, K-20: The Fiend with 20 Faces was wicked fun both times I saw it: first at a packed film festival screening and later at home. It’s also an over-the-top, vaguely historical action film. The set-up with K-20 is that WWII never happened, the aristocracy still controls the vast majority of the wealth in Japan, and there is no class mobility.

Against this backdrop swoops K-20, a failed Robin Hood who steals from the rich and keeps it all for himself. He sets up Heikichi Endo (the always-charming Takeshi Kaneshiro), a circus acrobat & illusionist, to take the fall for him.

Since K-20‘s genre of choice is the superhero movie, this injustice sets up Endo to become the hero. With the help of a band of thieves and a band of orphans, he launches into the obligatory training montage. It’s parkour and disguise training rather than the traditional swordsmanship or the like, which is a lot of fun, and Endo’s goal is simple: to clear his name so he can return to the circus.

Along the way he encounters the baron-slash-detective (Tôru Nakamura) who is hunting K-20, as well as the detective’s fiancée (Takako Matsu). She’s a delight, a duchess who considers self-defense “just part of being a lady”.

The film is a little long, but the plot keeps moving at a decent pace, hitting all the points of the classic origin story and a villain off to steal some massive technological weapon. Character-wise I am a big fan of Yoko, the fiancée, who is clever and resourceful, rescuing others far more often than she is rescued.

Visually the movie is pure eye-candy, from the wild steampunk world of the upper class to the dense maze of Thieves’ Alley. And sure, we’ve seen it all before, but it’s still a great ride through all of the best bits stolen from the golden age of comics, with an acrobat and a duchess fighting crime.

All in all K-20 is an absurd movie, but it knows that full well that it’s absurd, and it doesn’t take that as an excuse to sacrifice character development. We care about these people even as we’re suspending our disbelief from here to Japan, and as the end credits rolled (both times!) I wished I knew when I could queue for a sequel.

Review copy of K-20: The Fiend with 20 Faces provided by New People Entertainment.