Seven Swords, and a bit of scifi
I am in the middle of watching Chinese Martial Arts Epic Seven swords. (I did a humongous picspam of it here). The story is set in the 1600s. The government imposed a Martial Arts Ban, forbidding the practice of martial arts altogether in order to gain control and order. Wind Fire, an unscrupulous military official, sees this as an opportunity to make a fortune for himself by helping to execute the new law. Greedy, cruel, and immoral, Wind Fire ravages the North-western China, and his next goal is to attack the final frontier, Martial Village. Seven Swords are the seven martial artists who band together to prevent this from happening.
I am a bit less than an hour in (have to do RL stuff etc) but I love it. I really recommend. I have to warn you that it’s very violent though, and has some other pretty disturbing stuff (rape implications) which I was fine with, but YMMV.
What do I like about it? A lot of things. But what really struck me (and very pleasantly) were the women characters.
So far we have four. There is the General’s underling who is evil and combat effective and is pretty indistinguishable from the men. That’s kinda twisted gender equality, but it’s cool. And then we have three more positive female characters. There is Fang, my favorite, who is the village school-teacher who is opposed to violence and killing. She is the OTP of Han, one of the Seven Swords (who is a young man from this village), but she doesn’t just sit around mooning on the sidelines. Actually, it’s Fang who enables the man who came to warn them to escape and to go ask for help, even at the risk of her life, and it’s Fang and Yuanyin (another woman) who convince Han to take the man on the trip to get the Seven Swords. It’s Fang who hides the children in the heat of battle, it’s Fang who wants to pack seeds to take with them so the village would survive.
Then there is Yuanyin who is the mover behind this whole ‘help this guy escape take him to seek help for us’ situation. She is one heck of a strong woman. Not only that, she actually becomes one of the Seven Swords. The Seven Swords are composed of the man who came to warn them (a former executioner by the name of Fu), four great warriors from the Heavenly Mountain whose help Fu went to seek, and Han and Yuanyin. That’s pretty cool.
And then there is Green Pearl, the exquisite Korean slave girl, the plaything of the General. At first glance, she has the most traditional role of the bunch: beauty enslaved (and she IS gorgeous). But that’s not really so. In fact, when we first meet her, she’s been captured and brought back because she’s escaped him. And the scene that follows is deeply disturbing, as she is dressed in these beautiful robes and chained, and she is starving so she is devouring the meat on the plate, and she is so hungry, so used to the brutality of her life, that she doesn’t even pause in her eating as the General basically starts raping her (the parallel between her biting into the chicken and his biting her back, not gently at all, is both repulsive and clever). She is about as outside the society as you can get: she has no village structure. Not only is she a slave, she is a foreign slave. She submits, as what else can she do, but she never gives up. And the scene I really loved? She ends up being taken as a hostage by the bad guy (actually the female underling) in the fight between the bad guy and one of the Seven Swords (a long-haired guy who is actually my favorite male character. ETA: According to koalathebear's write-up, his name is Chu Zhaonan and he is played by Donnie Yen). Chu Zhaonan kills the woman who held her hostage, and Green Pearl’s reaction? “Take your stinking paws off me.” She only shows interest when it turns out the swordsman also speaks Korean. But when I really decided to like her, was when he asked her if she liked being the General’s slave and she retorted “all you men want the same thing. You want to control my destiny and I want to be free. Just let me be.” (paraphrase). Of course Chu Zhaonan picks her up and walks off with her, saying “You are with me. From now on, where I go, you go” and then she asks “so, am I your slave now?” (and she isn’t as bitter as she could be, because not only is anyone better than the General, so far they’ve been talking for all of five minutes and he hasn’t tried to rape her which might already elevate him above 90% of the men she knows) and he responds “You can think whatever you like” and they are so my newest OTP. Of course, being a Chinese movie, this is bound to end badly.
So yeah, interesting women. I like the men too, my favorite so far being Chu Zhaonan, because:
a. His hair is longer than mine. Which makes me jealous.
b. He is all uber-intense. Got to give props to the guy who is literally meditating in a sealed ice-cave when we first meet him.
c. When he tells Fang “if you drink the blood of your enemy, you won’t be afraid of him” and offers her a cup? I can see why he has to pick up women through other means.
I also like Han who is sweet and a bit outclassed and very earnest. And one of the swords (according to koalathebear his name is Yang Yunchong and he is played by Leon Lai), who kinda quasi-bonded with that little kid.
In other news, I am rereading Ivan Yefremov’s “Hour of the Bull.” It’s a scifi novel about future people landing on a planet thousands of years below in development and I loved it when I was 13. It’s still enjoyable though a bit too polemic and socialist for my tastes. People don’t talk, they declaim.
I am a bit less than an hour in (have to do RL stuff etc) but I love it. I really recommend. I have to warn you that it’s very violent though, and has some other pretty disturbing stuff (rape implications) which I was fine with, but YMMV.
What do I like about it? A lot of things. But what really struck me (and very pleasantly) were the women characters.
So far we have four. There is the General’s underling who is evil and combat effective and is pretty indistinguishable from the men. That’s kinda twisted gender equality, but it’s cool. And then we have three more positive female characters. There is Fang, my favorite, who is the village school-teacher who is opposed to violence and killing. She is the OTP of Han, one of the Seven Swords (who is a young man from this village), but she doesn’t just sit around mooning on the sidelines. Actually, it’s Fang who enables the man who came to warn them to escape and to go ask for help, even at the risk of her life, and it’s Fang and Yuanyin (another woman) who convince Han to take the man on the trip to get the Seven Swords. It’s Fang who hides the children in the heat of battle, it’s Fang who wants to pack seeds to take with them so the village would survive.
Then there is Yuanyin who is the mover behind this whole ‘help this guy escape take him to seek help for us’ situation. She is one heck of a strong woman. Not only that, she actually becomes one of the Seven Swords. The Seven Swords are composed of the man who came to warn them (a former executioner by the name of Fu), four great warriors from the Heavenly Mountain whose help Fu went to seek, and Han and Yuanyin. That’s pretty cool.
And then there is Green Pearl, the exquisite Korean slave girl, the plaything of the General. At first glance, she has the most traditional role of the bunch: beauty enslaved (and she IS gorgeous). But that’s not really so. In fact, when we first meet her, she’s been captured and brought back because she’s escaped him. And the scene that follows is deeply disturbing, as she is dressed in these beautiful robes and chained, and she is starving so she is devouring the meat on the plate, and she is so hungry, so used to the brutality of her life, that she doesn’t even pause in her eating as the General basically starts raping her (the parallel between her biting into the chicken and his biting her back, not gently at all, is both repulsive and clever). She is about as outside the society as you can get: she has no village structure. Not only is she a slave, she is a foreign slave. She submits, as what else can she do, but she never gives up. And the scene I really loved? She ends up being taken as a hostage by the bad guy (actually the female underling) in the fight between the bad guy and one of the Seven Swords (a long-haired guy who is actually my favorite male character. ETA: According to koalathebear's write-up, his name is Chu Zhaonan and he is played by Donnie Yen). Chu Zhaonan kills the woman who held her hostage, and Green Pearl’s reaction? “Take your stinking paws off me.” She only shows interest when it turns out the swordsman also speaks Korean. But when I really decided to like her, was when he asked her if she liked being the General’s slave and she retorted “all you men want the same thing. You want to control my destiny and I want to be free. Just let me be.” (paraphrase). Of course Chu Zhaonan picks her up and walks off with her, saying “You are with me. From now on, where I go, you go” and then she asks “so, am I your slave now?” (and she isn’t as bitter as she could be, because not only is anyone better than the General, so far they’ve been talking for all of five minutes and he hasn’t tried to rape her which might already elevate him above 90% of the men she knows) and he responds “You can think whatever you like” and they are so my newest OTP. Of course, being a Chinese movie, this is bound to end badly.
So yeah, interesting women. I like the men too, my favorite so far being Chu Zhaonan, because:
a. His hair is longer than mine. Which makes me jealous.
b. He is all uber-intense. Got to give props to the guy who is literally meditating in a sealed ice-cave when we first meet him.
c. When he tells Fang “if you drink the blood of your enemy, you won’t be afraid of him” and offers her a cup? I can see why he has to pick up women through other means.
I also like Han who is sweet and a bit outclassed and very earnest. And one of the swords (according to koalathebear his name is Yang Yunchong and he is played by Leon Lai), who kinda quasi-bonded with that little kid.
In other news, I am rereading Ivan Yefremov’s “Hour of the Bull.” It’s a scifi novel about future people landing on a planet thousands of years below in development and I loved it when I was 13. It’s still enjoyable though a bit too polemic and socialist for my tastes. People don’t talk, they declaim.