Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with Mia Wong

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with Mia Wong · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bechde Cast, the questions asked if movies have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Eph and Beast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Hey, Jamie, Hey Caitlin, let's be sisters and best friends.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Okay for now? That is wow.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Oh you don't want to be my friend? Well, let's
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: see how you fair is my enemy?
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: And then the best fight scene I've ever seen. It
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: was so fun. Well, I think that that actually is
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: a full recap of the movie in a way. There's
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: also two guys.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Yea sometimes, but they're not very important.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: There's two guys, there's a kiss. Oh and and then
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Jade Fox.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I think my favorite character Jade Fox rock. Well, anyways,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: we gotta start the show. We gotta start the show.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: It's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Day on the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: My name is Shamie Loftis.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: My name is Caitlin Deronte, and this is our show
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point. Jamie,
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: could you indulge us and tell us what even is that?
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so indulgent of me to do. Living deliciously here, okay.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: The Bechtel Test is a media metric created by queer
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: cartoonist Alison Bechdel, originally created as a sort of one
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: off joke in her comic collection Likes to Watch Out For.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of different versions of the test. The
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: one that we discussed in this show requires that there
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: be two characters of a marginalized gender with names that
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: talk to each other about something other than a man
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: for more than two lines of dialogue. But we talk
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: about a lot of other stuff too, because that would
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: be a very short show. Even though to this day
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: it is the easiest way to find out if someone
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: is lying to me. When they say they've listened to
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: this show, they're like, yeah, that's the one where you
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: for two hours. I was like, do you think we
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: go through the script, like, what do you think happens?
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: I we don't know.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: It's baffling to me, but I appreciate the lie, and
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I think I mean that. Oh yeah, I love being
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: lying too, and that is a big problem in my life.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: But enough about that.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: I would never lie to you, Jamie.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Unless but see, that's what a liar would say, Oh
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: my cerience. Liars love to call attention to the fact
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: that they would definitely never lie in this essay. I will.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Let's get our guests in.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Yes, let's she is a podcaster host of It could
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Happen here on Cool Zone Media.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: It's me a Wong Welcome.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think you all asked for me,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: so now now you're getting me along.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: It's true that our our listeners in fact demanded it.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: You've been a popularly requested guest on the show, and
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: we're so happy to have you here. How are you.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I'm hanging in there. I'm excited to be here. I'm
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: hoping that the absolute chaos of the last year is
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: somewhat lifting. Yeah, we're gonna We're gonna go from there
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: and proceed on the assumption that I'm gonna be fine
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: and not start dying. Halfway into this recording.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: Everything is let us hope not.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Everything's coming up me. I can just feel it.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: So we're talking Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Miya. What is
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: your relationship with this movie?
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: So, my mom loves kung fu movies. She also she
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: reads unfathomable numbers of kung fu books. She's watched indescribable
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: numbers of kung fu movies, and so I grew up
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: on I guess kind of weirdly early two thousands kung
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: fu movies. So things like House, The Flying Dagger, A Hero,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: and then this movie, which okay, So I I was
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: home to go to the doctor and I was like, hey,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: do you want to watch? As I talked to my parents,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: like do you want to watch watch this movie with me?
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: And they were like sure, and my dad goes, I
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: remember not liking.
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: This movie, and I was like huh, and then my
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: mom was like, oh no, what she she okay, So
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: like she she has watched so many of these movies
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: that like, when this movie.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Starts, she is doing like power level rankings based on
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: like their cheekong and like like the their their their
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: ability to do the thing where everyone has like a
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: floaty jump and they can sort of like soar around
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: in midair. She's like, ah, this character she is weaker
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: for the other.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: I was like, God, your mom sounds great, and that
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: also sounds like a very stressful way to watch a movie.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fun too, because She's like, she also did
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: martial arts, so she was like a blackie and Kashi
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: kempow and so it's a it is a time watching
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: watch movies.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: That's so.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: How how did she feel revisiting it?
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: It was kind of unhappy because it has I guess
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: spoiler alert for you. So there's there's a trope in
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: kung fu movies, particularly the Chinese ones, somewhat less so
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: the like Hong Kong kung fu movies. But at the
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: beginning of the movie, she said, Okay, so every every
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: kung fu movie has one plot, which is someone's either
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: mother or their teacher dies and then someone gains a
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: great power to go avenge them, and then everyone dies
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: at the end. And that is also this movie's plot
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: more or less. She's like, everyone dies at the end.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just kind of like a doubled up version
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: of that plot. Yeah, everyone's teacher dies.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah damn. But so you you watched this movie with
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: your mom? Is that right?
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: As a yeah? Yeah, as a kid. I think Actually,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: if I'm remembering right, I think we actually watched this
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: movie in a hotel in Beijing in like a It
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: was a very weird situation. It's like we had this
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: hotel and there's it's almost like a bunk floor. So
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: there's like this one giant window, and then there's like
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: these beds on the top of on like the top floor,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: and then there's like a ladder and you go down.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: And so my mom and my dad were watching the
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: movie on the TV. My sister and I were like
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: supposed to be going to sleep. We were watching the
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: movie in the window.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, oh, I love sneak watching a movie.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Ah, my dad used to watch I think I've brought
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: this up on the show before. My dad used to
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: watch IFC movies at night after we went to bed,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and that was the only way I could see boobs
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: on TV. Even though it's just like I just should
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: have learned how to, Like, I don't know why. I
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: was like, I could have just googled it. I was afraid.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I lived in fear of everything. So I was like,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: all right, I have c boobs are the only boobs
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: in this house.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: You know, that's probably a reasonable, pretty reasonable way to
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: engage with the Internet. I feel like we should be
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: more afraid.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Of it, honestly, yeah, conditioned to be afraid of it.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I went through a phase where when I was in
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: college where I was like I was raised to fear
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: this great tool, and then you're like, no, hold on,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: it is trying to kill everybody.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: It's like the ocean, very scary, Jamie, what is your
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: relationship with this movie?
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I had? I saw this movie again. I feel like
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: this is my story for every movie that came out
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: in the early two thousands. I saw it on TNT
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: at one point, and I don't think that this movie
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: would have gotten as heavy an edit as some of
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: my TNT faves. It's not a cussing movie and there
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that there is there is some sex.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I saw it when I was probably in
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: junior higher high school. I remember enjoying it, and then
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I saw it again when it was just re released
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: in theaters. I think it was just like a couple
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: of months ago. So I saw the re release and
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: that was really fun. I mean, this movie is so
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: cool and a gigantic theater. It was very, very exciting.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so it's not a particularly interesting history, but
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: it is somewhat long, and I also I'm just like
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: interested in Angley's career trajectory is like very fascinating to me.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: He's got range.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: The man's got range. And also I was just reading
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: about I was just you know, perusing scholarly journal, Wikipedia,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: and he and Spike Lee were classmates at NYU, and
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Angley like worked as a crew member on Spike Lee's thesis.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, cool, you know everything I hear
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: about n YU. I'm like, good for them. Caitlin, what's
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: your history with this movie.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: It's a very short one because I didn't see it
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: until the re release in theaters of February of this year.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: I intended to see it sooner. I bought it on
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: DVD many years ago, thinking Oh, if I have it
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: on DVD, I'll definitely watch it because there's so many
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: things on my watch list, but they often to quote
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: a star was born, Okay, they fall by the wayside.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, But I was like, Oh, if I have
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: it on DVD, I'll definitely watch it. But I also
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: bought it on DVD long after the medium of DVD
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: was popular, so I still didn't get around to it.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: But when I heard it was coming out in theaters again,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: I was like, Oh, this is a perfect opportunity anyway,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: just to see it on the big screen, because this
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: is one of those movies that feels like a movie,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: you know, like.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: I really go to the theater type film.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. So I saw it a couple months
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: ago for the first time and thought it was awesome.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: I loved the fighting and the story and the characters
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: and in general it rocks. I love it.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Pretty sad though it is right pre fucking depressing towards
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the end, which I knew it was a trope, but
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I was like, I mean that's not a criticism, it's
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: just a fact.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, to be fair, To be fair, this
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: movie's survival rate is actually pretty high for a kung
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: fu movie.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: Because I mean, Michelle Yeo's character she survives.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think both of both of the Jen lives, right,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't seem like Jen dies.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: I don't understand exactly what happens at the end, and
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: I need help interpreting it.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have. I have a thesis about this, but
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: we can I guess, wait for it.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, Okay. I was just like, my thesis is based
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: on nothing except I just like, I was like, she's fine, Yeah,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: she survived worse than this, She's fine.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Yes, well, shall I do the recap and we'll go
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: from there.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: So we meet a warrior named Schulin that's Michelle Yo.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: She is visited by Lee Mubai that is Chow Young Fat.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: They are friends, but also there's a bit of romantic
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: chemistry between them.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: God, there's so much. Yeah, there's a lot of a
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: lot of people holding tension in their shoulders and their eyeballs, yes.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Great, and their beautiful faces. And Mubai is also a warrior,
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: a Wudan fighter, And just some context that I hope
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: I'm getting this correct, but Wudan refers to a class
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: of Chinese martial arts as well as a fictional martial
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: arts school that appears in several works of Wusha fiction,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: and it's named after the place where it's based, which
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: is the Wu Dang Mountains. So there's a lot of
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: references in the movie to Wudan as a place of
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: study and also as a specific martial arts style. So anyway,
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Mubai is a legendary fighter who studied at Wudan and
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: he's been there practicing meditation, but he recently decided to
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: break his meditation and leave. It seems like something is
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: weighing on him.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: I know it's oversimplification to say that he got so
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: horny he had to drop out of school, but.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: This is effectively what happened.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: But that is kind of that's how it that's how
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: it exists. In my notes, like too horny had had
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: to drop out.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: There's this great thing where he's like describing he like
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: he's meditating. He's like, is he this place beyond space
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: and time? And Michelle Yone's like, oh, did you reach enlightenment?
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: And he's like, no, I got horny. Really sad because
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: it's amazing.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, although I almost like good for him, because I
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: think a lot of people would often misconstrue horniness with enlightenment.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: True.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so at least he was able to recognize the difference.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And he's like, fuck this, I'm out.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: He's like, regardless, I am too horny to be here.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I need to get out of here.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: And so he goes to Schulan and gives her his
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: legendary sword Green Destiny is its name, and he wants
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: her to give it to a guy named Surtey for
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: safe keeping. He also mentions that his master, who taught
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: him to be a wood on fighter, was murdered by
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: someone named Jade Fox.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, where we get a good, a great classic twist
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: in the near future where it's like Jade Fox is
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: a whoa whoa classic cinematic twist. I just want to
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: add because he doesn't appear in the movie very much.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: But there's als. I don't know what their role is. Really,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: it seems to be like he's like an old servant
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: or works with Michelle Yeoh's character, but it felt like
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: he was really shipping Mubai and Schuman, where he's like,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: come on, why don't you just just kiss allready?
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's like surtey, that's curte Okay, yeah, he.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Wants them to kiss.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: I liked, Yeah, he's like, why don't you just like
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: stop being so silly and admit your feelings for each other?
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: And Michelle was like, I don't know what you're even
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: talking about, Tea, it's so good.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: It's Angley does that. I mean like that's like Angley's
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: whole movie can and basically is like just forbidden love.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: It's like because that's like sense and sensibility that's broke
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Back Mountain. Like it's like he just loves to keep
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: the lovers away from each other. Why listen.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: There's is kind of this thing in this like every
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: old character who knows both of the two main characters,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: like every old person who's immediately trying to thrust them together.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Like there's this scene later on where like Michelle Yo's
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: at like her hideout and she she tells one of
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: her servants who's like an old lady, that like he's
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: coming over, and she's like old bedroom. She's so excited.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: This is like he's been waiting for this for like
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: forty years. So good.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed that because I feel like, very often,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: can you hear that? Oh?
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I don't. There's not much I can do about it,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: but I just wanted to acknowledge that it's happening. I
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: feel like it is more tropy for the elder generation
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to be like no, you must stay apart. So I
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: found it very fun and refreshing for all all the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: older characters to be like no kiss.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Life is short, right, So anyway, So we meet Mubai
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: and he's like Jade Fox murdered my master and he
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: wants to avenge his master's death. Shuln travels to Picking
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: and delivers the sword to Sir Tay. There she meets
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: a young woman named Jen played by Jean Zi.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, can I can I interject a bit about the
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: subtitles in this movie? Here?
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, please see.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: This is the first time. This is important. Something very
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: very strange happened with the subtitles in this movie.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: I think it has to do with the fact that, okay,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: so this movie is in Mandarin. Most of the actors
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: do not speak Mandarin. They are Cantonese speakers, and so
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: they are doing the Mandarin lines like completely phonetically. Yeah,
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: and I okay, so I can't tell if like that's
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the thing that screwed up the subtitle people, or if
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: there was like a weird direction thing. But there's a
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: few things in the subtitles that are very very weird.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: One of them is there there's like two characters like
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Jen is one of them, and then there's another character
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: will be later whose names they just randomly change. And
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: this is kind of important. This young lady's name in
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Chinese is it's like you jowlong, and so her name
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: is Dragon, like beautiful dragon. And this is the thing
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: that is capital f foreshadowing in Chinese. But for some
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: reason they named her Jen in the in the in
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: the subtitles, and so it's completely incomprehensible. I don't know
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: why they did this.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Well, Ang Lee, I think, is the one who subtitled
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: the movie from Mandarin into English, so it is his choice.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's very He made a lot of he made
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of stunningly incomprehensible decisions.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know your own lead like that.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: It's just like, I'll just leave this one and it
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: is a treat for the Mandarin speaking audience but no
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: one else. It's very weird.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I read. I'm excited to talk about that later
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: because I knew that Michelle Yeo had to learn her
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: lines phonetically for this movie for the most part. But
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: a which is like I don't have the knowledge to
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: understand that this is happening. But yeah, apparently the entire
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Beijing crew of this movie was incredibly frustrated by the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: number of accents that appear within this movie that are
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I guess not authentic to the story. Although that is
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: like sort of a bizarre thing. We'll get there.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: So Schulan meets Jen, who is the daughter of the
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: wealthy and powerful governor. You Jen admires the sword. She
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: also admires Shoul's lifestyle as a warrior because she's free,
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: she can roam around, she doesn't have to get married.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: Jen is to be married soon, and she doesn't seem
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: happy about it. That evening. Jen's governess, played by Cheng Peipei,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: is like, you should not be hanging around with Shulin,
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: and Jen is like, I'm gonna hang around with whoever
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: I want, actually, And then later that night, a thief
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: steals the Green Destiny's sword. We soon learn that the
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: thief is Jen.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: So obvious it's Jen.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: I also appreciated that the movie doesn't make you sit
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: in that mystery very long, No, and also like doesn't
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like it would have been
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: an undercutting of Shulin's abilities for her to not realize
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: that basically right away. It's like, you just spent an
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: hour with this girl today, right.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: But there's this like gar I think, a guard named
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Bo who is trying to stop her, and he thinks
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: that the thief is a man because like, her face
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: is somewhat concealed, but not enough that you wouldn't still
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: recognize her anyway.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Especially if she's like locally famous, right, everyone would know her.
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: Well.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: I think it's an he's kind of like like the
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: way he's depicted is it's just as being really incompetent.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Like he he's fighting with this like staff. It's I
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: get that's making It's like a staff with like a
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: uh with like nunchruck thing at the end of it,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: and he's like hitting himself in the head with it.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: She's like this man, this man has weak kung fu.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Kung fu is not strong getting clowned on.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: And she is a far more skilled fighter than him,
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: and like everyone in the movie, and she seems to
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: be able to fly around and do all these like
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: special gravity defying moves.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's is that what your mom was ranking?
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: It's yeah, it's like this. It's called the Weightless It's
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: it's the thing that's like you you can basically become weightless,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: is how it works, and then you're just a power
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: in it lets you float more and yeah, walk up
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: walls and do stuff like.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: That's so cool. I read that Michelle Yo tore her
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: acl in the second week of production on this movie. Yeah,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and then just kept making the movie.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all of those people, all of the actors, everyone
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: who came out of like the eighties era, like seventies
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: and eighties era of like Hong Kong action movies. Those
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: people are so unbelievably tough, Like they don't they don't
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: have stunt doubles. I mean, people have seen small never dies.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: I think it was the Bond movie she's in where
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: she's hanging off the side of a car and she
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: is actually physically hanging off the side of that car.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: That car takes a wrong turn and she goes flying
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: and she she is just doing it right. Like all
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: these a lot of these people get really, really badly
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: hurt because I mean everything that is there is just
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: them actually physically doing the thing. So hey, they are
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: unbelievably impressive people.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: I read or heard maybe in an interview with Angley
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: that later into filming Michelle, you'll broke her back.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I also read that, and that in the final
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: scene where they're won't spoil it, I get for ten
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: more minutes, but where the lovers are together, they had
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: to angle that shot very carefully because Michelle's very obviously
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: broken leg was just like flopped over to the side.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: It's like or like a cast or something. They were
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: just like she was in the trenches by the end.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: They're like, we have to frame this shot so you
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: can't tell that we almost killed her.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're just I think this is partially a thing
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: that was possible in Hong Kong and probably wouldn't have
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: been possible in other places. Is because the labor standards
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: are really weak because everyone is really heavily invested in
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: like union busting, but the labor conditions on these sets
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: are up and it's horrible.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Damn god. Yeah, that's I mean, which is like true
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: across entertainment, but this I was like that you broke
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: her back and she still had to go to work,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: like oh yeah there, Oh I had another thought, but
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: it's gone. It'll come back, we'll see anyway.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: Well, so this fight is happening post this sword being stolen,
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: and Schulin hears the commotion and goes after the thief.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: There's this amazing fight sequence between them, and then Shulin
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: realizes whoever this is has trained at Wudan, hence these
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: special moves.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Anytime Shulin and Jenner fighting, it's just like it's a
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: good day. It's a good day for us, and.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: There's so many great fight sequences, so eventually the thief
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: aka Jen, manages to escape with the sword. The next day,
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: everyone is upset and trying to figure out who the
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: thief was. Many suspect that it is Jade Fox, who
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: is thought to be hiding somewhere in Governor U's household.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Shulan pays a visit to Jen. It's not super clear
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: if she knows that Jen is a thief at this point,
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: but it seems like she but she is suspicious.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she does this thing. I think it's just the
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: scene where she intentionally knocks a teacup off the table
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: to get to catch it.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: I think there's a later scene.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm getting I'm getting no, no, no, so good.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Though, And I did, like I fell for the when
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I saw it in theaters recently because I didn't remember
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: very much. I did fall for the fake out of
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Jade Fox. Like originally you think like, oh, she's of
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: a different generation, she thinks that women shouldn't be sword fighting,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: But then it's like no, she's she's the ultimate sword fighter,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: and she thinks you should only be fighting for me, right, yes,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: other fun fake mm hmm.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Anyway, so Shulin pays a visit to Jen, and Jen
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: is like, let's be best friends. You're my sister now,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: and Schulin's like okay, And then Mubai shows up and
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: we learn that Shulin was engaged to a friend of
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: his who died, and she and Mubi grew close after that,
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: but they didn't want to disrespect the other man's memory,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: so they never got together. Mubi's clearly trying to tell
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: Shulin his feelings, that he has feelings for her, but
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: they're interrupted and it doesn't happen.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: And I loved Jen's reaction there, where she, at least
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: as it's translated, she's like, well, that sucks for the
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: guy who died, but like, what does that have to
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: do with you having sex today? It's like, yeah, yo,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: good point, Jen.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Honestly, great point. Meanwhile, there's this police inspector and his
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: daughter who are trying to catch Jade Fox because Jade
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Fox killed his wife. His wife, and Jade Fox sends
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: them a note saying we will settle this at midnight.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: So they meet up at midnight and battle, and we
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: get that reveal that you were just talking about, Jamie,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: that Jade Fox is a woman, specifically Jen's governess.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: A really fun Bechtel test pass in this scene, let
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: me avenge my mother's death, You'll soon be like her,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: you little whore, and you're like, well, imperfect metric, but
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: it has passed. Yeah, sure, nuts.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: So we get the reveal of Jade Fox's true identity
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: and we come to realize that Jen is her disciple.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: They've basically been like working and training together in secret
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: for I think ten years.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Yeh.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Mubai shows up to help with this fight and he
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: battle Jade Fox. We learn here that Jade Fox had
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: infiltrated Wudan, stole the secret manual, and poisoned Mubai's master,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: and then she spent the last ten years teaching herself
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: to be a Budan fighter, but she's still no match
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: for Mubai. And then Jen shows up in her disguise
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: and fights him.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Well wait, there's that moment though, where it's like you
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: get a lot of important context for Jade Fox because
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, Jade Fox, Yeah, she's she's done crimes,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: but I'm a lot of the time, I'm like, she
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: did what she had to.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: Do, right. I was gonna save that for the discussion
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: because it's so steeped in gender.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: She's like, oh, he was fine sleeping with me, but
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't teach me shit, so unfortunately he had to.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: Go, so she had to kill him. Yes, so Jen
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: shows up and she's fighting Mubai and she is more
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: of a match for him, but then she and Jade
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Fox escape after Jade Fox kills the police inspector. Shortly
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: after that, Mubai crosses paths with Jen again. Also, by now,
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Schulan definitely knows that Jen is the thief slash Jade
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: Fox's disciple, and Mubi is like, Jen, you should be
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: my student. I will train you because you have so
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: much potential, but also you're messy, and she's like pass
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: and she runs away and meets up with Jade Fox,
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: but they argue because Jen isn't sure what to do
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: about her future, but she doesn't really want to pal
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: around with Jade Fox anymore, which upsets her, and like
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Jade Fox is upset that Jen is more skilled than
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: her and that she kept some details and secrets of
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: the Wudan Manual from Jade Fox.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Ah, which is like A really, I don't know. Their
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: relationship is so interesting, I'm excited to talk about it.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: Same. Yeah, then A man named Low played by Chang
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Chen shows up in Jen's room and we cut to
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: a flashback where when Jen's family was traveling through the desert.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: This flashback is so long.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, I want I want to interject a little bit
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: to do the the second piece of very very important
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: subtitle thing that's going on here. Yes, So, okay. One
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: of the things that happens this would be a lot
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: is people will say something is happening in the West,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: but the actual word they are saying is shing John. Now,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: mark that down. That is going to be a very
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: important sort of ideology thing. You you you may you may,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: you may know what Shan John is from the news
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: now about the the autonomous region of China where Muslims
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: are being put in camps, and you know, the sort
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: of general like people's war on terror stuff is going
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: on that that I think is important to what's going
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: on in this movie. We'll talk about that later. It
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: isn't It is interesting that on the chooses to say
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: what like capital W West right and not tell you
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: quite what's going on. Yeah, there's there's stuff going on
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: there that's interesting.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Okay. I'm excited because I was, I mean and we'll
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: get back to this too, because I was trying to
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: do I mean, in the effort to research this movie historically,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: only kind of makes it intentionally difficult because it could
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: happen at any point in a range of four hundred years.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: And yeah, also, I think he's actually made it easier
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: to figure out that he thinks he does because of
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: some of the historical stuff.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Then really, Okay, Oh, I'm excited to talk about it.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: Same. So we're in this flashback now where Jen's family
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: was traveling through the desert and attacked by bandits led
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: by Dark Cloud, whose real name is Low, who we
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: just saw.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: He's the other character who has an actual Chinese name,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: but they just translated as Low for some reason. I
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: don't know what they're doing with that. This one's less important,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: So his gang pillages Governor use like convoy I guess,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: and he steals Jen's comb, so she runs after him,
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: and after a lot of fighting and chasing, they end
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: up in his cave hide out where he has taken
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: her to like feed her and nurse her back to health,
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: but also taken her as a prisoner, and then they
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: end up kissing and having sex and now they're in love.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: So there's that.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, that's that.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: We'll circle back to that.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. One other thing I want to say is
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: that so Low thinks that Jen is Han Chinese and
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: she's not. She is Manchurian. Right, well, she's she's manchuw
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: that's a that that That's another interesting thing I think
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: is kind of important that we'll get into later. But
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: I guess the the mediate context for this is that,
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: so this is such an the Ching dynasty. The Ching
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: dynasty is not a Han dynasty, which is sort of
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: a kind of unusual. It's a there was the history
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: has been complicated. The very very cliff notes version of
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: it is that the previous Han dynasty's falling apart, and
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: they kind of like negotiate a handover to this Manchu
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: dynasty that's coming out of Manchuria in order to sort
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: of stop a peasant revolt from toppling both of them. Okay, yeah,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: so that's that's why everyone has like that haircut. That's
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: the like all the guys of the haircut. It's like
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: the shaved bald head and then the long like punnytail
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: things like. That's like a specific Ching Dynasty thing imposed
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: by like the man choose on other people, got it?
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, So that actually does narrow down the period of
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: time this movie takes place in.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Very Yes, it's yeah, well we'll narrow down some more
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: in the next.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's so excited you're here.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Yes, okay. So then we cut back to the present.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Lowe has come to Picking to stop Jen from getting married,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: but she's like, our relation is over. Sorry. But the
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: next day, during a like procession slash ceremony I think
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: for the upcoming wedding. Yeah, Low like wedding crashes it basically,
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: I mean that's one way to describe what happens. And
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: a big ruckus is caused, and Shulan and Mubai are
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: like they like pull Low aside and they're like, what
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: are you doing, Like if you actually love her, get
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: out of here and go to Wu Dan and wait there. Meanwhile,
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: Jen has run away and she goes to this tavern
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: disguised as a man named Master Long. A bunch of
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: men try to mess with her, but she just like
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: kicks all of their asses, like dozens of men. Incredible sequence.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: They're all like really sort of incredibly funny, like stereotyped different,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: like like a different kung fu guys, Like there's the
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: guy who has a giant club, There's a guy who's
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: a monk. There's the guy the first guy is like,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: this guy is like I am iron arms long, and
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: then like yeah, she she like goes his sleeve and
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: there's just like literally an iron like brace on his arm.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: So that's why his arms so smart. It's so good.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: It was so enjoyable, and she's just like not only
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: like physically dominating them, but like hurling these incredible insults
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: at them along the way.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so quippy. That scene is like the funniest scene.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I mean it's like not a super funny movie, but there.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: But every time Jen is fighting, she just like her
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: inner stand up comedian comes out, like something comes alive.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: There's a scene equipping I think it's the first scene
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: when she and move By fight and he's like, how
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: did you learn that move? And she's like, I'm just
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: playing around. Okay. So Jen has bested these dozens of.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Them, all five hundred.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Well, like so they're they're in this like tea house,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: and this tea house is when I say destroyed at
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: the end of this. It's not like, oh they broke
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: it to like giant sections of like it's like a
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: multi story thing and hold in the center, Like giant
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: sections of the building have collapsed from how hard she's
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: broken people through them. It's amazing and it makes well.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: It makes me feel bad for whoever owns that tea house.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: And it's just like, yeah, but I's gonna pay for that, you.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Know, but it's you own a Kung Fu tea house, right,
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: Like this is good. This has to be like factored
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: into the budget.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Like they're well insured. They're definitely really well inshured.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Oh I want, I want to There's one more really
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: funny scene right after this. There's this scene that has
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: like every all like like the the hundred people she's
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: defeated are all like standing around in this crowd, and
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: all of them are like wearing casts and like split breed.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so funny, right, because Shulin and Mubai are like
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: kind of questioning people around to find out where Jen is.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: But then Jen finds Shulin and they get into an
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: argument because Jen has caused so much trouble for like
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: everyone around. So the two of them have this huge
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: incredible sword fight.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Jen for for all of her like ability and power
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: is still such a teenager in a lot of scenes
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: where anytime she's confronted about like, so, what about those
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: five hundred guys you just killed, she's like what, They're
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: just like.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Excuse me, fair, I don't think she killed any of them.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: I think I think they're all fine because they're all
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: kung fu people and therefore they have incredible ability to
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: just get tossed around, right.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: They also have good insurance. They're good.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So this amazing sword fight is happening. Eventually Mubai
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: shows up. Then he and Jen are flying through and
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: fighting in the trees. Eventually, Jen is saved by Jade Fox,
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: who takes her into a cave. Shulin and Mubai follow
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: her there, only to find out Jade Fox has drugged
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: Jen and intends to kill her because she feels betrayed
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: by Jen. Jade Fox shows back up, Mubai and her
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: attack each other. Jade Fox is killed, Mubai is poisoned.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Jade Fox gives a Shakesaurian send off, ooh great, can't
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: wait to talk about that.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so he's been poisoned and they think maybe there's
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: no antidote, but Jen is like, no, there is and
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: I know it. She wants to help them to redeem herself,
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: so she leaves to get the ingredients and prepare the antidote.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: But by the time she gets back, it's too late.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: Mubai dies in Shulin's arms after they have perfer fest
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: their love for each other.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: There's those of those kind of free things, like he
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: like dies and well he knows the thing where he
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: was like, ah, this is like my final breath. And
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: then he like dies, but then she like kisses him,
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: and then he's like alive for a few more seconds.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Don't underestimate Lubaye's horniness. Horniness sustains him.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it gives you just a few extra seconds.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he has a brief snow white moment. He's back, baby.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So Jen has returned. It seems like Shulin might
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: kill her, but she spares her life and says, promise
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: me one thing and never let go of that promise.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Whatever path you take, be true to yourself. And Jen
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: is like, I'll never let go of that promise, and
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: then she goes to the Wu Dang Mountains to reunite
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: with Low and then the movie ends. And like I said,
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: I might I think the ending is maybe too metaphorical
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: for me to understand. But she jumps off the mountain
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: in reference to a legend that Lowe had told her earlier.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: It has been interpreted in different ways, but the movie
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: ends with her jumping off the mountain the end.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then low is like, why did I tell
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: my girlfriend this story about jumping off the bridge?
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: Damn well, you do this.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: I have regrets the one thing you never do.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: So that's the movie. Let's take a quick break and
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: we will come back to discuss. Okay, we are back.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I'd love to just jump right into the historical context,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: if that's cool with you, Miya, yeah.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. So a lot of what's happening in this movie,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: so okay. So one of the you can't even really
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: call it a sublime it's like a third of the
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: movie is sort of about the West. So the U family,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: who were like Gen's like father is a governor and
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: he his thing is that he made his bones like
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: in the West, right, and what this is is that. Okay.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: So in the seventeen seventies, the Qing dynasty does this
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: push into Shing John. They do like basically around the
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: time the US is being formed, they do this invasion
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: of the state that had been in Qing John and
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: they do a genocide so that the people who had
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: been ruling the state were like a sort of like
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: a Mongol speaking people, they are basically all dead. The
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: Qing dynasty exterminates them. They do a genocide, and then
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: after that they bring in sort of like Han and
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: weaker settlers to sort of recolonize the land of these
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: people who they've killed. And that's sort of the backdrop
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: of this whole thing, which is that the Qing dynasty,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: So the Ching dynasty is the last dynasty of China, right,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: they're the people who are eventually going to be not
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: off by I guess the nineteen eleven revolution, but there's
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: people who lose, like the Opium warst the British that
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: the people yeah, so, and that that's usually the part
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: of the Ching Chines see everyone remembers, is the part
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: where they're just sort of like getting kicked around by
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: a bunch of other imperial powers. But before the eighteen
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: like really like the eighteen forties, the Qing dynasty is
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: a a really really brutal and expansionist empire. They're they're
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: the people who are they're like they're really the first
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: people to like establish Chinese control over Taiwan. They try
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: to push into Tibet. They're pushing basically like they're they're
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: pushing westward away from the sort of like traditional quote unquote, well,
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, okay, it's hard to say traditional here because
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: the Chinese dynasties controlled just complete, almost completely random territories
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: at different times. But they're pushing into places that are
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: like not han like very distinctly like they're pushing into
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: places that are usually Muslim, and this creates the situation
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: and where you you know, you have Shing Jan or
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: sort of the west that they're talking about, which is
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: it's this is this is China sort of frontier, right,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: it's kind of unruly. Their control over it isn't great
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: because it's you know, it's it's really hard to do
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: force projection like that far away it's deserts, it's planes.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: But you know, but there's some very interesting things like
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: part a lot of some of them, like the roof
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: shots you get in this movie are like shot in
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: a room Chi which is this the sort of capital
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: city of u Shing John and you know, and so
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is also question, like this helps date
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: the movie, right, Like, it's pretty clearly like after the
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Conquest but before well, I mean, okay, so there's another
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: interesting thing here. Sorry, I'm sort of like going.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: On no, this is all very helpful to context.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: So on Lee, when he is discussing this movie, is
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: talking about how this is his like dream of what
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: China is, right because and this is another thing. Okay,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: So another thing I think is important about this is
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: that on Lie is from a very very specific generation
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: of Taiwanese people, which is actually like the generation that
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: like my like my family comes from. His family's way
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: closer like is so okay, So there's there's a Chinese
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: civil war from nineteen forty five nineteen forty nine, right.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Right, which his parents escape from where they survived.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, But so they're on the side of the KMT,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: which is the Nationalist Party, which is this like I
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: don't know that that's a civil war where there are
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: no good guys. Really like the KMT is this right
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: wing like Narco death squad party. Basically they've allied with Hitler.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: They suck, Yeah, I mean, they're awful. They are going
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: to do a lot of there, They're kind of like
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: the first prototype of like a new model of like
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: right wing narco anti communists like death squad state. You're
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: gonna see in like Guatemala and Al Salvador and they're
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: like deliberately exporting this stuff. And so like only grows
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: up in this so the but you know, the people
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: who are aligned with the KMT like flee like flee
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: the civil war tr Taiwan. My family does this too. Now.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: The different there is that my my grandpa was a
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: paper boys. He was not like that. He was not
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: like a KFD guy on leave, like grows up in
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: like a village for like military dependence, like the children
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: of people in the army. So he has a very
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: so he's part of this generation in Taiwan that like
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: I'd call him like the gloomy Dong brats because they're
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: the kids of the people. But yeah, and it's it's
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: they have a very very weird relationship with China. Because
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: like if you're a kid in the generation, like my
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: mom was like under this too, like you know, you'll
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: be like a seven year old, right and you'll be
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: like in school, you will be singing songs about how
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: one day you're going to reclaim the motherland because again
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: this is like a horrified military edctatorship. Yeah, and and
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: so they have this, they have this very weird conception
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: of what China is, right, and like a lot of
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: this movie is also it's based on like specifically like
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: mandarin language kung fu movie from Hong Kong, which is
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: another kind of export that happens because there's all of
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: these So most of the Canton people flee to Taiwan,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: but some of them flee to Hong Kong. But those
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: people are Mandarin speakers and not Cantonese speakers like most
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: of the people in Hong Kong. And so there's this
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: sort of like mark like this is sort of like
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: very specific kind of kung fu movie that emerges that's
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: like Mandarin speaking that's mostly designed for like the the
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: manage speaking people in Hong Kong and like the Taiwanese audience.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: And so he has this weird kind of i don't know,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: like a very weird understanding of like his image of
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: China is interesting and kind of bizarre.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: I mean that's an extremely specific lens to be bringing. Yeah.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's interesting too because it's like like this
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: is something that like I'm like one generation removed from this, right,
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: So like I kind of like like I look at that,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: I look at like ugly, and I'm like, oh okay,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: like I get where he usually get what's going on here?
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: You're you're you're you have weird dasp right angst about
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: China because you're Chinese but you didn't grow up there
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: and your family is sort of it's Taiwanese, but you
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: have this complicated relationship this you know. And he also
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: ends up going to the US, And so I was
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: thinking this last like, ah, yes, I see, he has
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: the direct he has the diaspora anxiety.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: Well, that context is also interesting when you consider that
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: this movie is a multinational co production between companies in China, Taiwan,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: Hong Kong, and the US. So companies from several different
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: regions are coming together to make a movie that's also
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: going to be widely released in these different regions.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of wonder, I mean, and anytime Mia
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: to you, does that feel like a conflict or I
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: guess I just like always wonder what the conversations between
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: those production companies have to be in order for this
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: movie to come out.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Well, so for me, the thing that's really interesting about
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: this is if you look at the sort of arc
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: of I can't play I'm talking about Chinese developmental politics
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: on the film podcast, but okay, I'm gonna go to
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: barrel through this, which is a little bit of Okay.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: So China is very very isolated from international capital from
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: about the like mid nineteen fifties until really the eighties,
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: and even then not really until the nineties. But when
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: China opens back up to capital markets, they tap into
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: this thing called a Bamboo network, which is this network
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: of sort of like Chinese capital based on sort of
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: family lines that has been like sort of spread out
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: across East Asia in the US. And so the way
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: this process works is you get a bunch of money
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: from like, you know, people like people who were rich
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: who fled China who end up either in the US
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: or they ended up in Taiwan, and that money flows
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: through Hong Kong and then it goes through this sort
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: of like currency control capital gate thing, and then that
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: money gets injected back into the Chinese economy. And this
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: is how a bunch of the sort of like Chinese
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: economic miraical stuff happens. It's funded by this capital that
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: had been sort of taken overseas by people fleeing the
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: civil war. And if you look, if you look at
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: the companies who are involved in this, right, these are
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: all companies from the places that are directly along the
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: paths of sort of the bamboom network. Right. You have
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: an American company, which is sort of one end of
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: the sort of capital spigot. Right, you have Taiwanese company,
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: you have a Hong Kong company, and you have the
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: Chinese state down industry. And this is you are directly
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: tracing the path of capital that is the thing that
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: sort of reindustrializes China after this period, and we sort
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: of like turns China like capitalists again after this sort
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: of period where it hadn't been. And I think that's
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: because there's a lot of debate about how authentically Chinese
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: this movie is, and I think that's a lot less
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: interesting than the sort of economic configurations that are what
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: brings China. Because this movie is also released like a
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: year before China gets admitted into WTO again, I think
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: it's either on let me let me check my dates
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: on that. Sorry, the movie.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the movie comes out in two thousand.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's one. Yeah, so it's like it's like
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: a year before or China like really like completely fully
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: reinterest the economy, and I don't know, I think I
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: think there's okay. So this is also my explanation of
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: the ending of the movie. Is this capital stuff, which
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: is okay. So I think what's going on at the
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: end of the movie is that Angle knows that he
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: has to sell this movie both to a bunch of
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: like American conservatives, American liberals, and then also Chinese reactionaries
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: and also Chinese liberals and the sort of holdouts of
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: whatever communists are left, because that there are actual, like
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: in two thousand, there are still like communists in China, right,
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: like there aren't many of them, but they're still around.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: And in order to do that, he has an ending
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: that deliberately can be read in feminist or anti feminist ways.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Interesting, okay, And this is like this.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Is my sort of crank theory about it. But like,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: you know, you can read Jen jumping off the cliff
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: as like, oh, she's realized that she's strayed from like
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: her like duties and obligations and she can't bear it anymore.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: In so she like kills herself. You can also read
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: it as like, well, she's fulfilling the thing of the
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: myth the man jumping off the cliff. You know, so
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: this is how she fulfills her dream. But outside of
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: patriarch expectations, there's a reading of it where she's just
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: running away because she can use cheekong and like falling,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: you can't if you can change your weight to zero
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: or like negative weight, how are you going to die
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: from falling?
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: Right? So she's unkillable?
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And so I think I think Onley deliberately
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: makes the ending like this so that it can be
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: sold so many different markets, different markets.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I buy it. I that that is
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: first of all, thank you for all that extremely helpful context,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: because it is like Only is a fascinating figure to me.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: I mean I I like his movies, except for his
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: Hulk movie, which I feel like, yeah, you know that
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: was Look, everyone's allowed to flop, it's fine. I remember
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: I saw that movie in theaters and I was like Edward,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: even as even as like a nine year old, I
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: was like Edward Norton, I don't buy it. In any case, yeah,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Only has a fascinating career. I didn't understand the context
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: of how he grew up and what his relationship to
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: China would be. And this goes back to Mia. Have
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: you read Red Carpet. It's like a book that came
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: out last year, but it basically traces the relationship between
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: the Chinese movie industry and the American movie industry throughout
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: the nineties and two thousands, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: comes up in a section of it. Because this was
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, this movie was a huge hit in the West.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: It was not a hit in China at all. True
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Lies was the big American that's funny.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: James Cameron.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: James Cameron, he doesn't flop even when he should. I
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: haven't seen True Lives, so I can't speak to it.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: It's pretty fun.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: But this movie was intended to because there was like
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: this whole period throughout the nineties and the two thousands
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: where there was like this sort of like pie in
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: the sky dream between international movie industries. So it's like,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: we're gonna find a movie that everyone likes. We're gonna
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: do it, and I think, I mean, for a number
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: of reasons, including to oversimplify Americans are racist and hate
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: to read. There are very few international movies that cross
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: over into the US. This was one of them, but
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: it was not a hit in China at all. It
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: was mostly reviewed as either boring, derivative, confusing, offensive, Yeah.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: And also also everyone everyone's really bad that again he
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: forced a bunch of actors who don't speak Bandarin to
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: do an entire movie in Mandarin, a language they don't speak,
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: which is like this, this happens multiple times to Michelle Yo,
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: and she deserves better than this shit. Like, I just
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: it's so infuriating.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: It's not the actor's fault at all. Yeah, it's like
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: it's I mean, especially because Michelle Yo is just a
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: treasure to all the fact that she had, she broke
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: her back, and like they didn't even set her up
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: for success in the lines like what are you doing?
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think this is like I think this
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: is a diaspora brain thing too, right, because he has this,
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: you know, he has this whole sort of like she's
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: trying to like create this sort of like one China,
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: one tin of out right, but he's trying to create
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: this sort of like this like mythical China that on
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: the one hand never existed, but on the other hand
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: is sort of like excessible or comprehensible to everyone, you know.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: But he, but he runs into the classic trap of
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: thinking that China is a real thing, which is that
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: like China, Okay, this is this is gonna be, this
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: is gonna be the argument that I make that gets
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: everyone really mad, but I.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Go for it.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, there is there is a there was a very
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: very good argument that like China as like a single
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: unified thing is is basically a European economic category and
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: has nothing to you know, there's a lot of accounts.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: You can read accounts in like sixty hundreds right of Portuguese.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: Like merchants will go we'll go into parts of China
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: and they will ask people about China, and no one
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: has any idea what they're talking about, right, because you know,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: if you're living in China, what you're living under is
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: like a series of sort of like okay, well you
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: have like a king, right and your king prajuice leagues
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: to like another guy who pledges the legion to the emperor, right,
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: Like you're not sort of like that. That conception of
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: China as like like a unified a single unified entity,
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: that that's a very Western concept because this is this
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: is how sort of like Western traders understand it because
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: they don't really get that it's not like a single
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: unified entity, and so they project that onto what China is.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: But then you get this this sort of rebound thing
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: where China gets taken over by like rivaling clicks of nationalists. Right.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: But the problem is, like you know, both the CCP
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: communists and the k MT are both like Western their
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: Western educated intellectuals, and so their conception of nationalism and
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: what China is like is the Western version of it.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: And so they they come back and now like everyone
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: thinks that this is sort of like naturally what China is,
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: and that like you know, people people are projecting back like, oh,
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: there's this continuous state that goes for five thousand years,
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: and it's like like it's a state that's in it's
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: in different places with different ethnic groups, run by different people.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: It splinters into multiple states many times. People have this
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: sort of like this this sort of nationalist mythos like
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: takes over and I think this is actually this isn't
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: I think importance to the fact that like what hin
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: Jon is doing in this movie and what the sort
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: of like the the quote unquote like ethnic other is
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: doing here where like on these using these people who
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: are not Han, who come from sort of like the hinterlands,
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: who gen like Jen literally called Lowa barbarian like the
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: first time they be right, And that is a very
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: that that is a very classic Chinese thing, and I
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: guess to be fair isn't the right word. I also
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: think that Europeans are barbarians, which I think is more
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: accurate than everyone else I think is a barbarian. But
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: you know, she's using them as this sort of like
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: other against which Hanness is defined and where you know,
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: because like because Lowe is the guy who's like, oh,
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: well you should like, you know, we should get buried together.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: You shouldn't be bound by the sort of like restrictions
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: of patriarchal like Han society or whatever. You should run
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: off with me.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: But then but then he like claims her as his property,
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: saying multiple times like she's mine.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah there, And there's that I felt like weirdly like
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: flirtally presented line of like well, if I was going
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: to rape you, I would have done it by now.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: And you're just like yeah, it's like this, I mean,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: this is truly because I have very little of this context,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: and so now understanding more of of the historical context,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: I think it's like I'm curious what your opinion is
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: because in interviews about this movie, Onley was very very
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: vague about when it took place. He like, when asked,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: could you be more specific of when it is? And
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: he's like no. And it feels like this movie, I mean,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: it's like not surprising to me that it wasn't very
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: popular outside of the West, because it feels like in
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: some ways obviously not all, but that like it it's
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: made with a Western lens or it fits in very
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: cleanly with like the West's like just under education on
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Chinese history and what like. I mean, I think your
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: average like American would watch this movie and have no
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: idea when it takes place, and have no idea, you know,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: what any of the context would be for it, and
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: so take.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: It and just like assume like, oh, this is so
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: historically accurate like this, because it seems it seems flying well.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, the thing I would say about that is
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: it's not like it's not I mean, like okay, so
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: like obviously like there's there's there's depiction problems going on here.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: But it's also not not true that like the Ching
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: have this whole sort of frontier esque thing going on
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: in the West where they're sort of fighting these kind
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: of insurgencies and there's this sort of I think it
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: becomes clearer what's happening historically now than it was in
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: two thousands, because in like in two thousands, this movie
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: is a pre nine to eleven movie, right, And I
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: think that's actually really important in the way that Shing
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: John is portrayed, because I mean, things don't get like
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: as bad as they are now in Chijon until like
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: the Race riots, and that's like two nine eleven when
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: theyse get like really really bad. But also like this
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: is this is a period like right before the world,
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: like right before the War on Terror like gets taken
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: up by everyone, and it gets taken up by by
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: China like as much as it does by the US, right,
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, the state of the state of emergency in
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: in Shing John is called the People's War on Terror,
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: And you know, like there were like people from who
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: are like nominally at least supposed to be from East
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: Turkmenistine separatist groups who the US tortures in Guantanamo for
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: the CCP, and I think I think it becomes more
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: clear what really and only I think is also deliberately doing.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: He's he's deliberately drawing parallels between this sort of and
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: you know, Shan John also it literally means new frontier,
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: right like that, That's what like the word means. And
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: he's he's deliberately drawing parallels through the cinematic language to
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: the sort of like American frontier, right like that when
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: when when Lowe's band is attacked, they do they do
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: the thing where all the horses are like circling around
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: the caravan, right Yeah. And he's actually like more right
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: about that than I think people give him credit for,
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: because that that is, like it is a very similar
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: set of the colonial process that goes on when the
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: ching marched through Shing John as what happens when you know,
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: like when when the US is basically doing the same
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: sort of like death march kind of insertaincy thing that
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: they're that they're fighting. So I don't know, I think
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: I think I think he he accidentally discovered something that
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: was going to be very important to sort of like
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: Chinese nationalism, which is that a lot of modern Chinese
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: nationalism is about this resentment that the Qing Empire like
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: wasn't allowed to be an empire and that it was
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: sort of dismantled by Western imperialists because you know, there
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: was you know, an as part of like inter imperialist
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: rivalry stuff, right right, And whether he knew it or not,
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: and I don't know, there's something that he sort of
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: yets maybe accidentally maybe not about how this nationalism functions,
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: about how Hanness is going to be sort of like
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: constructed against this sort of like uncivilized barbarian way that
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: they see, like specifically Muslim people who live in this
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: region that he's gotten before everyone else.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Kind of Yeah, he's good there. I'm so I am
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: fascinated by him. And also, I mean, if you look
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: at the screenwriting credits and the source you know, the
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: source material, it's also a blend of it's the same
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: as the production companies. You have a Taiwanese screenwriter who
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: did a draft, you have an American screenwriter who did
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: a draft. And it's based on a Chinese usha romance.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: Novel, which which that's another thing I want to talk
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: about a little bit because that book a it's weirdly
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: more trans than this one. Oh, like do tell Gen
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: spends a lot more time as like kind of a
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: guy or like kind of someone in between gender when
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: Gen's off being a kung fu wandering nomad who beats
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: up people in tea houses. But there's another kind of
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: interesting aspect of this, which is that like, okay, so
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: the author of the books that this is based off of,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: he gets declared like an old intellectual or like an
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: old literati guy, and so he gets basically like sent
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: to a camp by the CCP. And there's this I
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: think of a kind of interest arc of like I
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: don't know, the CCP going from throwing this guy in
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: prison for being a kung fu writer to and he's
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: like like hated basically by the Chinese left for like
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: a very long time, just sort of like left academics. Yeah,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: for being like a reactionary.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: I real that he was like forbidden from releasing new books,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: like he was sent off to be a school teacher
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: instead of like occupying the any sort of like lipspace.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: It's yeah, but then you know, but there's this interesting
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: thing where like he gets he gets sort of rehabilitated.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: Actually I don't I don't know if he's specifically rehabilitated
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: in the eighties like that. There are some people who
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: are like, like the party is like, oh, hey, we
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: did this person wrong. And okay, I'm not going to
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: say that part. There's a hidden take that you may
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: unlock at some point later. Yeah, but then you know,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: but by the time you get the ninety two thousands,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: like this guy is this is the person that you know,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: the sort of like state media thing is like, oh,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: we can sell this interesting.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, So it is, I mean, because it does seem
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: that he from what I can tell, he you know,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: dies in relative obscurity. And then it's like most of
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: this is posthumous. And I saw that his widow met
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: with Onley during the production of the movie. Yeah, I
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: guess what do you what do you make of that
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: of this work kind of being like reclaimed and uplifted
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: twenty five years later.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know. This is he has a really weird
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: relationship with like this isn't really classic Chinese leadership, but
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: there has a weird relationship with classic Chinese literature where
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: there's this thing at the very beginning, like right after
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: the revolution, where the party makes a bunch of they
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: turn a bunch of like classic Chinese books into like
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: basically like comic books so that like regular people can
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: read them, but they'll have like annotations in like like
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: water Bargain with the story about these like bandits who
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: are like stealing from the rich. They have this thing
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: of like, well, these people, these people failed because they
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: didn't like they didn't have the like the central guidance
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: of the party to follow stuff. So there's all this
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: weird stuff going on, but they have this like complicated
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: relationship with this kind of I don't know if national
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: is even the right term, but this kind of like
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I mean. One of the things that
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: happens during reform and opening is that like so at
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: least rhetorically, the CCP had been very very very anti Confucianism,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: which is like one of their few sort of like no,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: you're right about that. One's like you know, I mean,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: like one of the one of the first things they
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: do when they come to power is it had been
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: legal to like sell your wife.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: And.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: Was like no, like this sucks that you cannot sell
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: your wife, like you know, right, So like like this
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: is the kind of like like this is the kind
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: of patriarchal society that like you're dealing with here, and
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: you know, the CCP ultimately fails for a lot of
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: reasons to really fundamentally undo all of the genders like
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: patriarchy that had been embedded in Chinese study that they
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: where at least nominally trying to get rid of. But
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: one of the consequences of that is that there's this
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: way in which gender egalitarianism becomes sort of like conflated
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: with the Maoist project. And so when reform and opening happens,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: there's this rejection of sort of really forward and like
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: the cultural revolution, there's this like revival of like it
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: takes a little bit. There's like a revival of Confucianism.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: There's like a revival of like traditional gender norms. You
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: get you get the one child policy, which is this
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: very sort of like militant to draconian sort of like
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: intervention of the state into like reproductive politics. And I
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: don't know, I think I think part of them, like
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: ZCP being willing to make movies like this has to
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: do with them them like sort of being willing to
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: go back and sort of like older mythologies that aren't
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: really communists, but are nationalists?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: M okay. Interesting, that's I'm trying to think of, like
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: of another another example of that of something that was
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: oppressed in its time and then is later sort of.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's plenty of them, but I don't I
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: have a functioning brain at this time.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: Who does?
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: Okay? Is there any other historical context that you wanted
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: to discuss me? Is there anything you wanted to discuss Caitlin.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: Yes, but first let's take a break and come back
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: for more discussion. And we're back. And so I wanted
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: to Since we talked a little bit about the kind
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: of like production of this movie and how it was
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: a collaborative effort I think meant to appeal to a
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: bunch of different markets, and that mostly only appealed to
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: a Western market, I wanted to talk a little bit
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: about how the movie was marketed in the US. So
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: I'm basing this off of the official trailer from Sony
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: Pictures Classics, which was the company that distributed the movie
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: in North America. And so basically the trailer frames the
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: male characters as the more prominent and important characters who
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: are driving the narrative, which, as we will discuss shortly,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: is not how the movie plays out. So for example,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: like the voiceover is like the story of a hero,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: and we see images of Mubai.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: He's in like eight total scenes. I know.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: This movie it gets worse. So it's the story of
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: a hero, and we see images of Mubai the woman
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: he loved, than we see images of Shulin, a daring outlaw,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: images of Low, who's in the movie even less. And
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: then a princess destined to become a warrior. And that's
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: when we see Jen. Mubai is framed as the protagonist
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: of the movie. Shulin is reduced to his love interest,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: ignores so much of what her character is, and then
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: Jen is like defined as a princess destined to become
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: a warrior, which is I guess what that story is
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: kind of yeah, I got a princess. And then Low
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: is framed as a much more prominent character than he
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: actually is. Similarly, the poster places Chew Young Fat in
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: the front. His image is the largest. Jen is in
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: the back most because it's sort of like layered images
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: of those four characters. Jen is in the back. Low
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: is on the poster for some reason. Also, why is
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: he in the trailer, Like it's it's all this stuff,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: so I think that will like transition into the conversation
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: about and.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: Also how that I mean, how the I guess the
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: last contextual thing I wanted to talk about was how
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: this movie was. This movie was, like we already said,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: received extremely well in the West. It was nominated for
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: ten Academy Awards, none for acting, which is interesting. And
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: also I saw a there's a YouTuber I really love
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: be kind Rewind who did a cool retrospective of Michelle
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: Yeo's career and mentions multiple times in the video something
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: I never thought about, which is that there should be
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: an oscar for best stunt work. Why is there not
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: an oscar for best stuntwork?
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: Because they don't want to pay stunt for people.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Then they would have to pay them. But just the
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: way that Crouching Tiger Hiden Dragon was received by Western
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: movie critics, so in the year two thousand, majority white men,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: the way that they write about this movie is very
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: particular in a way that I've seen argued seems telling
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: to how this movie works well with Western audiences, where
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, this is actually the greatest, you know,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: martial arts movie I've ever seen. It's like well kind
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: of because it's like partially for you. But you know,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: Stephen Holden at The New York Times said that this
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: movie plucks Hong Kong style action adventure out of its
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: generic niche and lifts it into elegant, lyrical, cinematic poetry.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: And you're just like, okay, just say what you're trying
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: to say the first truly high brow martial arts film.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: So it's just obnoxious. And I love to talk about
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: New York Times film critics as some of the most
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: I mean all of the New York Times really, but
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: their film section historically has just been people pretty dire. Yeah,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: all right, anyways, let's talk about the movie.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: So despite what the marketing of this movie in the US,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: what have you think? Women are driving the narrative. They
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: are the most active characters, Schulann Jen and Jade Fox
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: in particular. The men are the more secondary characters.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Jade Fox makes more sense on the poster than Low
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: for sure. Also with the Western movie sorry, I just
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: like but in an additional point, just to sort of
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: hit home, how even like, you know, Western movie critics
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: working at the highest level still know nothing about movies
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: that are outside of the West. Repeatedly. Jen's character is
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: like a Mulan type, a warrior princess because Mulan came
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: out recently, and they're.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: Like yeah, but you know, I saw academics writing about
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: this who were like, oh, well, it's kind of rare
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: for there to be like shows like this is like
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: a male dominated like hero genre, and it's rare for
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: there to be like a female like protagonist. And I
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: was like, have you watched any of these movies, like,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: you know, say, say what you want about like the
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: politics of like the average kung fu movie. And I
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: think the politics the average kung fu movie are terrible.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: I think this movie actually has above average politics for
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: a kung fo movie. But the one thing you can
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: say about that is every single per regardless of their gender,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: knows how to fight. It does kung fu.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 5: Like that's that's like, that's like the one thing you
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 5: could say is that there are always like female protagonists
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: who just absolutely beat the crap out of people. It's
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 5: like it's like, have you people, like you're both the
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 5: academics and the journalists, like, have you.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: Guys like ever have you guys watched like Picking Up
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: or Blues? Like literally a single other kung fu movie.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: Like reading shit like that in the New Yorker, You're like, oh, like,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: they're my god, there's don't care And it was like,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: didn't do any research. And they're like, oh, yes, the
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: idea of a woman who fights was invented two years
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: ago in an American children's cartoon.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: You're like, no, China is an egg rolls Like it's
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: just like, oh, yeah, it's a lot.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: But anyways, the the Yeah, the movie is absolutely driven
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: by women. Don't believe the poster.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: Don't yeah seriously, And then there are some interesting things
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: happening as it relates to gender and gender roles and
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: expectations in the movie. And I personally know very little
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: about gender politics in China during this dynasty, so I
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: don't know how accurately the movie represents the gender roles
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: of this again sort of unspecified era. But there there
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: are some interesting things happening, such as women are allowed
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: to be warriors as we see with Shulin, but they
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: are not allowed to train at Wu Dan, which I
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: don't know if that means that women are prevented from
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: becoming the greatest warriors. I don't know if the implication
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: is like to be the greatest warrior you have to
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: study at this institution.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: I think that that's implied.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: That seems to be implied, right, because.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: They yeah, like that they have sort of secret techniques
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: that no one else knows that like.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: And Jade Fox is like very enthusiastic about wanting to
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: train there and earn these fighting techniques, and she was
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: not allowed hence her whole like character trajectory.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then it's I have okay question about this
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: because I was like, oh, it's I'm not quite sure
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: how she's feeling here, because Shulin is such a composed
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: character that sometimes I'm like, oh, how does she actually
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: feel about that? Where the moment where Mubai decides I
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: think Jen should train and I will take her on
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: as my student on all all this stuff, I couldn't
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: tell if Shulin was chafing at that idea because she's.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: Like, well, you never asked me, you never wanted me
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: to do it.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: That was sort of I was like, that's how I
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: would feel, but I don't but I'm not her, but
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: it was It was kind of a difficult because I
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: feel like there were certain moments where Shulin was not
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: like upholding patriarchy but like, you know, it's not pushing
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: super hard art and and like right, so I don't
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: know that was an interesting scene because I'm like, how
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: is she? I feel like she has to be a
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: little pissed that he's like I want this person who
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: comes from a ridiculous amount of privilege. I just meant
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: to train. But you who've known my entire life and
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: I'm deeply in love with it never occurred to me.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: Kind of I did wonder about that. There's a lot
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: of interesting things happening about how certain characters feel about
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: certain gender roles and expectations too. Where so because you
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: have like women are allowed to be warriors, this is
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: like a normal thing in society. I think you learn.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: You don't learn much about Shulin's backstory except that she
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: was engaged to a man and that she I think
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: took over her father's line of work in some kind of.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: Like they say it's a security.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, security, he's like a security guy, right.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: So hence her becoming like a skilled fighter.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean there's also like I think was interesting
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: about one of them when she's like walking into Beijing,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: like I don't know, I can't remember who exactly he
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: is like a guy who's involved with the thing tells
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: her that, like she's like she's doing a really good
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: job and like her thing is safer than when her
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: dad was doing it.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: Right, she's even better than her dad. I so good
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: for her.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed that because it's like, not only was
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: that like, oh, you know, this is like very you know,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: hyper competent character, but just like how satisfying would that
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: be if someone was just like, hey, I know your
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: dad did this too, but like you're you're you're killing
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: it by comparison, he fucking sucked. I'm like like hello,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: like it's implied like he's maybe not alive anymore. So
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: I loved that. It's like your dead dad, he's he sucked.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: So we learned this about Shulin and her backstory and
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: just like this is her job and it is accepted
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: by everyone. Then there are other women, such as Jen,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: who are expected to uphold more like traditional gender roles
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 3: of like getting married and marrying a particular person who
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: comes from a quote unquote good family, and the way
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: that various characters kind of view these different expectations based
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: on like kind of like what your position is in life,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: where again, Jen is from this upper class family and
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: is therefore more bound by traditional values of like polite society.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: But she thinks that marriage is a prison, and she
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: wants to be able to like roam freely and go
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: wherever she wants and do whatever she wants. She wants
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: to be a warrior, and she's been training to do
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: that in secret for a decade. Then you have Schulin,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: who is in this position where she is more free,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: she is not bound by these limitations and expectations, but
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: she still holds onto these more traditional values, where she
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: says things like marriages the most important step in a
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: woman's life, and later on she says something like to Jen,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: I'm not an aristocrat as you are, but I must
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: still respect a woman's duty. And she also like seems
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: too long for romantic love and companionship in the way
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: that Jen does not. So they kind of have these
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: like they like conflicting.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: I really I mean, I really love how those sort
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: of kind of chafe with each other. And that always
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: that Jen is constantly wanting to have a blunt conversation
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: that chu Lynn is not willing to have. But it's
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: like that there's so much going on and I feel
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: like very often in movies that are maybe technically feminist
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: but not fun to watch necessarily, it's because it's like
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: all women are allies to each other and that is feminism,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: and you're like, well, no, these are two very different
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: people there, you know, like Michelle Yeo's character is like
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: fifteen years old than Jen. There are basically different generations
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: and different classes, so it makes sense that and totally
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: different life experiences, so it makes sense that these are
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: the things they're going to chave fun. And it also
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: I think like the way that Jen's youth and privilege
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: is commented on, but in a way that doesn't negate
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: her as a person. I feel like it's always really
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: clear why she's doing what she's doing, even when it
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: is like reckless and intense, but it's I don't know,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: I really liked that scene where Jen I feel like being,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: you know, an eighteen year old doesn't understand why, you know,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: Shulin is not completely thrilled with the life that she
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: has becuse she's free, she can do whatever she wants.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: But Julan can't do whatever she wants and is explaining that.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: But it makes sense that that's difficult for an eighteen
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: year old to understand when you're being forced down kind
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: of the straight and narrow expected life. Yeah, their scenes
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: together are a great Definitely.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: The other part of this that I'm wondering about now
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: that was I didn't really think about when I was
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: watching it is the extent to which Schulin's also of
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: the O I guess rolling back to the beginning, one
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: of the sort of interesting things about this movie is
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: it starts with Rubai is trying to like he's trying
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: to give his sword away because he's like haunted by
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: how many people he's killed, and he like is trying
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: to get away from the violence of the sort of
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: like underground like kung fu world that he's in, and
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: he kind of can't do it. But I'm also wondering
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: now how much of the sort of like you know,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: because I when when when Jen and Shulen are are
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: talking about like are you free right, Sulin has this
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: thing about like she starts talking about how like, well, no,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: there's still rules in the martial arts world. You have
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: to have these rules so that people can survive. But
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: I wonder how much of that is also just based
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: on her thing that Jed doesn't really understand like the
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: extent to which the world can be a terrible place,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: and that like this world is also just like a
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: blood bath.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: And Sheeln says something to the effect of like, yeah,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, no, I'm not married and I could go
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: anywhere I wanted, But it's not as glamorous as you
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: think this lifestyle. Yeah, the you know, the writers who
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: you know write these legendary stories about warriors, are leaving
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: out the less glorious parts of it, like how we
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: like don't bathe for weeks on end and we sleep
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: in flea ridden beds and yeah.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: She Len's like, we smell like shit. It's actually it's
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: actually not that fun. So I tell people who are
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: like I'm thinking about starting stand up, I'm like, look,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: we don't bathe. It's disgusting.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: Your life is going to be miserable. Yeah, And then
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 3: she also says like, well, yeah, you perceive me to
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: have all this glorious freedom, but like, I haven't lived
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 3: the life I've wanted to have. Parentheses, I'm in love
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: with Mubai and we have never gotten together because we're
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: both too scared to admit it. So like, it's not
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: all fun in games when you're a Warrior and Jen
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: because she's so young and naive and like arrogance is
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: another component of her character which is fun to watch
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: because she's like so cocky with her insults and stuff.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: But she's a young person who like doesn't understand and.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: Understandably doesn't want to get you be forced into an
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: arranged marriage, like for sure, and so it's totally understandable
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: why she sees Shulan and is like, how could you
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: not be happy with that?
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 3: Like, oh, here's here's a fun not the grass is
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 3: always greener, but the sword is always greener because it's
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 3: the green destiny.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: Wow, wish they did it? They did it? Yeah, I
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: mean I and I it's like neither of them are
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: free because neither of them are able to access the
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: life that they want and deserve. That wouldn't be fucking
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: hurting anybody, Like it's that's not freedom for either of them.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: And I feel like that is that theme is explored
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: in a different way with Jade Fox. I I'm like,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know if this is controversial to be a
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: Jade Fox apologist, but I I'm right there with you.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: It's even more generational between Jade Fox and Jen. But
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: Jade Fox is. I mean, it's almost like looking at
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: like different generations of feminists, and Jade Fox is to
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: some extent resentful of Jen for having access both in
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: class and freedom to do things that she can't. Also
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: the issue of the and I want to make sure
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: I'm getting this right, Like Jen is able to read
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: and write and is very educated, and so she's able
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: to withhold information from Jade Fox to advantage herself. And
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: that is like what Joker Fizz Jane Fox at the
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: end of the movie where she's just like, how could
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: you I put my you know, I put ten years
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: of my life into training you. Although you could certainly
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: argue that she was taking advantage of Jen's station in
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: life and in order to I don't know. Jade Fox
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: is fascinating to me because all she wanted was to
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: go to NYU and they said, no, you cannot go.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: Like she couldn't go, she couldn't get educated the way
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: that she wanted to and deserve to be, and then
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: on top of that was like sexualized and treated like
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: shit by Mudbye's mentor. So it's like, how is she
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: supposed to access this education? Like how like and I
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: feel like her whole life story is an attempt to
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: remedy that the fact that she was denied an education.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 3: Right, I'm very much with you as far as like
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 3: I was watching this On one of my watches of
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: this movie, I was watching it through j Fox's perspective.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: Who by the way, just quick side note. Jade Fox
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 3: is played by Chang Pei Pei, who is considered cinema's
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 3: first female action hero. So cool, I think based on
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 3: a movie that she starred in in the mid sixties.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: Oh oh, I didn't know that.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, But Jade Fox is a character who's like been
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 3: abused by the men around her. She wanted access to
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 3: something that she could not have access to because of
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 3: her gender. She is often underestimated by people around her.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: Where Like that guard Bo is like once he finds
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: out that Jade Fox is a woman, because again she's
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: presumed to be a man, because a lot of people
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 3: are making assumptions about gender as well throughout this movie.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 3: But when Bo is like, oh, Jade Fox is a woman, well,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 3: no problem, let me handle her. And then the police
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: inspector is like, actually, you can't. She is so good
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: at fighting, and she killed my wife, who was also
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 3: really good at fighting and.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: My kung fu wife kung.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: Fu wife, right, So, but like Jade Fox is someone
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 3: who even though is framed as the villain of this story,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: and I think there's also something I mean, we touched
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 3: on this already, but the way that like people of
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 3: a lower class are framed in this movie, particularly Jade
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 3: Fox and Low are made out to seem either uncivilized
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 3: or villainous or both.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: And it also feels like, I mean, with Jade Fox,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: like her weapon of choice is poison, which feels like
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: a very one to one of like she's very bitter
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: and she tries to poison gen she tries to poison
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: everyone because she's so full of this like it's it's
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I think it can be read a
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: lot of ways, and I appreciated that it felt like
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: you could read it a lot of ways where you
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: are given the exact because I feel like often when
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: we're shown older women and they're framed as bitter and angry,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: you're given no context as to why that might be.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: And it's just like inherent to being an older woman
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: or an older fem specifically, it's like you're bitter and
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: mean and horrible and it's like, you know, crone logic basically,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: but with Jade Fox, it's like you know exactly why
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: she's angry, and you can sort of, you know, decide
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: how you feel about how she weaponizes that anger against
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: other people. But I appreciate. I just feel like it's
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: more than you usually get right to know exactly why
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: she's so angry. But I was, I don't know, like,
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: I just wasn't very invested in Mubai as a character,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: so when she got them at the end, I was
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: like sad for Shulin, but I was more interested in
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: how Jen felt about her death. But instead Jen was
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: immediately like, oh, Shuelin and Muba my new mom and dad.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: She switches parents so many times in this movie. She's like,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: I have to go help my new my new dad,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: instead of I just I wish that I knew how
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: she felt more about that relationship, because the way that
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: Jade Fox goes out is oh my god, like.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: She impaled by sword shards.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah no, I mean her dying words Oh sure, Yeah,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: that too are really really intense, where she's like, you know,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: the real poison is the deceit of an eight year
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: old girl, and you're like Oh, there's so much. There's
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: so much going on there, and so it's so dramatic.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: I think there's like an interesting kind of if you
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: look at like the three women main characters, right, there's
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: this kind of gradient of like, Okay, there are three
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: things that you like want to have, right, You want
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: to be you want to have like like a high
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: class position, you want to have the ability to do
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: kung fu, and you want to be free, right, And
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: no one has all three of them really, But Jade
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: Fox is the person who has none of them, like
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: she is she is low class. The high class kid
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: that she's like I'm gonna try to like learn kung
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 2: fu with this person and go be free with them,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 2: is like does this really? You know? The way it's
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: framed in the movie is that jen is like a
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: superior martial artist and thus knows that like there's no
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: way that that Jade Fox could possibly learn like the
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: secrets of this thing. But like how does she know that?
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: Like it really just seems like it she's Jesus right,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: She's just being like a terrible aristocrat and it's just
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: writing off yeah Jade Fox.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so frustrating to see and to see that
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: that sort of bear out in the internal logic of
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: the movie where it's like, well, I guess she thought
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: that because it was it was true, and there's no that.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: Well, and it also applies there's only one way to
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: become a good martial artist, and it's by going to
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: this one school. Like there's it's not suggested that there's
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: any possible alternative. Yeah, I'm always a little leery. Yeah,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: when it's like, oh the I don't know. It's almost
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: like the latest Star Wars trilogy logic where it's like,
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: you can't just be a person. You have to somehow
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: be connected to aristocracy and power and legacy in order
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: to justify being good at something or being like the
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: best at something you like. And I feel like between
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: Jen and Jade Fox, we see the same thing where
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: Jen has access to more which isn't really called attention
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: to too much, but the fact that Jade Fox doesn't
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: have them is her downfall.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: Well, and also like the way that Jade Fox is
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: like her governess when they're hiding together.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that power dynamic too is like Jade
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: Fox deserve better, and it's like deserve better from Jen. Also,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, it's like difficult because she's a kid,
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: and you.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: Know, I don't know, it's complicated.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: I love her. She did she she did nothing wrong.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she is a true hero.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: Why isn't she on the poster consulting she kills the
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: great hero?
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because kong Fu was not strong enough to block
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: all of the dark. She defeated him. Right, Yeah, she
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: doesn't get any credit for this either, right.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: Right, the fact that she ugh and I don't know,
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: Like I get that it's supposed to be like poetic
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: that in the end they kill each other, but Jade
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: Fox is totally like it. We're led to believe that
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: one of Mubai's driving forces in his life is to
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: kill her. But it's it's very.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: Like he says early on, like I have yet to
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 3: avenge my master, and I have to do that by
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 3: killing Jade Fox, who again is only the villain. She
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: doesn't deserve to be framed as the villain of the movie.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 3: If anyone's the villain, it seems to be the mentor
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 3: guy who we never see on screen because he died
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 3: before the movie starts.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: But thank you, thank you for that, Jade Box.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: Right, But I was reading that because I haven't seen
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: that many WUSHA movies or I'm not really familiar with
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 3: that form of fiction, but I was reading that poison
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: as a weapon is framed in those narratives as always
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 3: being like very cowardly. So anyone who uses poison is like, oh,
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: that person's not a real warrior. They're a coward. And
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: of course Jade Fox's weapon of choice is poison. That's
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 3: how she bests her enemies.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 2: And it also like it gets used by women a lot,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: which sucks.
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 3: Just across yeah, like across fiction in general, from all regions.
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 3: So that is a bummer. Yeah, I don't appreciate the
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 3: way that the movie frames her with all of these
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: villainous qualities, even though she was, you know, just oppressed
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 3: by by this system that Otherwise, the movie seems to
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: be challenging, like these patriarchal standards of women being expected
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: to be married off and their worth as a human
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 3: hinges on them being a wife, and you have this
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 3: young woman Jen who's pushing against that and pushing against
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 3: all these oppressive expectations that are foisted upon women. And
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: because of that, this movie could easily be interpreted as
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 3: a feminist text. But then the movie turns around and
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 3: frames this like scorned woman of Jade Fox as a villain,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 3: even though she's doing the same thing as Jen, like
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 3: she's also speaking out against these oppressive gender based expectations,
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: but for some reason, when Jade Fox does it, it's
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: bad and she's a villain.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: I will say, I think it's interesting that her existence
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: winds up getting like institutional change starts happening, because everyone
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: kind of looks like, you know, like one of the
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: one of the important things without this movie is that
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: Jen has this conversation with Mubai about going toodan and
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: Jen is like, well, they don't train women, and Mubai
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: is like, well, I'll go talk to it.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 3: Well they might make an exception.
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you can see things like very slowly starting
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: to change. But like, I think part of what's going
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: on in this movie is that the sort of like okay,
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: like I guess you call it like the Heavenly Kingdom,
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: which the air which is you know, the sort of
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: aristocracy is you know, incredibly corrupt, right in that like
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: the aristocracy is based on the system of political marriages
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: that like forces women to essentially be servants and like
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 2: do sex work for the powerful male members of the family.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: So like that's obviously sort of like a corrupt system
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: and everyone's trying to get out of it. But then
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: also the sort of like the martial arts Underworld is also,
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: you know, just a corrupt system because it's also based
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: on the same sort of logic of patriarch exclusion, logic
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: of like using women for sex and then it's just
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: getting rid of them and never like teaching them, et cetera,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: et cetera. And I think part of what the movie
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 2: is about is the characters slowly coming to realize that,
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 2: like all of this stuff is messed up and why
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: have we been Like, Like one of the things over
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 2: the course of the series is that Sulin realizes, like,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: why have I been wasting my entire life like not yeah,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: not being the right person I love because she.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 3: And Mubai have the same kind of journey where and
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 3: I thought that was especially interesting for Mubai because you know,
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 3: he lives his life as this you know, legendary warrior.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 3: He gives that up because he wants to be with Hulett.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 3: He's so horny that he quits grad school and he
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 3: finally like works out the courage. It almost happened to me. Now,
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 3: he finally like works up the courage to hell shulen
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 3: his feelings. But before anything can really happen between them,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: Jade Fox kills him, and in his dying breath, he's like,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 3: I've always loved you. I've wasted my whole life, meaning
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 3: like I've wasted my life not being with you. Aka,
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 3: I've wasted my life denying my feelings and being afraid
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 3: to express my feelings, which is like not a typical
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 3: arc or journey for a male character period, and particularly
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 3: not in like an action movie or for like an
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 3: action combat warrior type of character. So I thought that
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 3: was very interesting.
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: I appreciated the high drama of it. Yes, as far
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: as relationships between women, I feel like we yeah, like
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: you're saying, we get like a pretty strong gradient of
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: women of different ages, class backgrounds, life experiences, and just
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: like desires of what they want out of life. I
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: feel like, And as I was watching this, I was like, oh, yeah,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: I think we're very often and even in ways that
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: scan progressive. Sometimes we're told like all women want the
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: same thing now, and it's to work eighty hours a week,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: and it's like well that's not you know, that's simply
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: not what everybody wants. And I like that there is
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: just like at a base level, the three main women
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: who are driving this story all want something different, and
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: they're like their definition of personal fulfillment is different, and
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: I always appreciate seeing a flexible definition of what that is.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 3: Definitely, can we talk a little bit about the relationship
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 3: between Gen and Low.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean it's like Mubai and Shulann, You're, like,
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: you know what, they love each other so much. I'm
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: not gonna say no, good for them.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 3: I'm not opposed to their relationship. I'm sad it didn't
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 3: get to happen.
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: But and it seems like Mubai like had no issue,
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: Like part of why he loves so much was because
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: she was hyper competent and great at what she did,
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: and like, it didn't seem like that relationship happen he
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: would have interfered with that. It was just all the feelings.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: But yeah, the genuine Low relationship, well that's that's different.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I'll just kind of break down some of the
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 3: key beats, okay, which is Low and his bandits Raid.
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 3: The group of travelers among them is Jen and her mother.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 3: He says, leave the women alone, so feminist icon Low, Yeah.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: Although I interpreted that as keep them alive. So I
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 2: don't know which way it's supposed to be.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 3: I interpreted, I guess is like, yeah, we're bandits, but
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 3: we have a code of ethics and we don't We
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 3: might pillage, but we will not rape. Like I don't.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: Well, although based on what you just said and based
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: on how afraid Jen is, I don't think it's inconceivable
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: that she thought that that might happen, and that's why
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: she was kept all right, because when she she afraid
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: of him and he's like, don't worry, I'm not and
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: then you're like, wow, what a hero.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 3: Right, And then when she returns to the group of
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 3: like bandits, they seem like they're about to descend on her.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 3: And then Low shows back up also and he's like,
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 3: leave her for me, like she's mine, Yeah, to kind
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 3: of save her. But I mean, again, there we're about
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 3: to talk about how messed up their relationship is.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: But yeah, there's something else you need to talk about
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 2: with this briefly, which is that, Okay, so there is
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 2: a whole thing about gender race relations between like Weiger
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: men and like Han women, Like this is the thing
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 2: that starts the race riot that like when things go
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 2: start to go really really bad in Change On, it's
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: because a bunch of Chinese factory workers like beat a
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: bunch of weaker workers to death, and they do it
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 2: because the rumors starts spreading that like a weaker worker
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: has like raped a hon woman. And so that is
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: a thing that is the sort of sexual politics interesting,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: like the sort of racial sexual politics. The thing that's
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: like hanging over the edge of this in a way
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: that like for me, was really weird. I don't know
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: what Ong Lee was trying to do with this, if
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: he understood really what he was doing getting into here, right, I.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: Mean, because that's like and we see that in Hollywood
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: movies all the time with different I feel like in
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: old Hollywood in particular, anytime you see a black man
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: with a white woman, it seems like, are you talking
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: about a similar dynamic of like here coded as predatory
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: and then Jen's character would be more like virginal and
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: this is a life worth protecting sort of coding.
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know to what extent only understands
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 2: this because like I mean so clearly he's done some
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 2: research about what's going on, sort of like the ching
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 2: Kana sees like borders, right, but that is a political
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: thing that I don't think even most people in China
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: didn't really get because until like the late two thousands,
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: Like the average Chinese person, I mean, it is racist,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 2: like yeah, the other Chinese person's conception of like what
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: Changchani is like, oh, it's those people who would like dance, right,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: which is racist in its own way, but they just
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: don't think about it very often. But it reads the fact.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 2: For example, like that Lowe is the only character and
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: I think the only character in the movie he talks
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: about rape like at all. I think I could be
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: wrong about that, but it scans weird.
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 3: If you read Jade Fox's like, oh, sure he would
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 3: sleep with me, but he wouldn't teach me. It's not
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 3: clear in what capacity she was there, Like was she
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 3: there as a sex worker who was like knowingly providing
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 3: a service for these warriors or was it a more sinister.
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: Or is it even like yeah, or I think you
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: could argue like I mean, I don't know, but like
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: almost casting couchy behavior of like dangling the charactive like oh,
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: maybe I'll teach you if you have sex with me, right, Yeah, yeah,
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: that could go a lot of ways, right.
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But I still think it's very it rings alarm
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 2: bells to me that he has, like I mean, I
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 2: guess it's partially just the way that like the characters written,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 2: just the incredibly weird kidnappy situation that's going on, but
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 2: the fact that he's the one, like not Han character
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: who well, not the only but like the one plot
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: relevant non Han character is the one. Yeah, well okay,
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: not Han or not Manchu because at this point they're
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 2: both the ruling classes sort of like unified.
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 3: Right yeah, for him to be framed as again like
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 3: presented as quote unquote barbaric and uncivilized and being the thief.
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then and then he does he does do
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: the weird thing where they're like wrestling and then they
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: start kissing, and it's.
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 3: Like, okay, this is where the worst thing the consent
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 3: nightmare scene, yes, where like basically she's trying to get
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 3: her comb back. They've had a weird rapport up until
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 3: this point where like.
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: So weird she keeps it like I feel like it's
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: implied by the movie that she's escaping his clutches flirtatiously.
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's yeah, like I can't exactly pinpoint what is
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 3: happening to make me think that, but I think like
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 3: that that's how I'm reading it. Right. So there's like
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 3: this weird flirtation going on, almost like a nagging situation
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 3: that they're both doing, and they're like fighting, and then
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 3: at one point they're wrestling and then all of a sudden,
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 3: you know, trigger warning for assault, but he has his
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 3: hand down her pants and then they're kissing and it's
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 3: not clear if she's consenting to this or not. There
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 3: was no like him checking in and being like, is
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 3: this the vibe? And then all of a sudden and.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: Then people said all the time back then, right, is.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 3: It was of the time and the and the consent
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 3: is so murky, and consent is something that should never
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 3: be murky gray area thing obviously.
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: Which it's like, but tell that to a movie in
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: two thousand and see how they do.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 3: Right, and then post that they are in love with
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 3: each other.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: So then she's riding on his horse, right, You're like, yeah,
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: that was pretty bleak, right, hated it, And again it's
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: like but it's also like not the first time we
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: have seen that where it's like this captivity is this
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: is this big draw to a relationship, just a different
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: kind of captivity. And then the way that their relationship
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: ends is she has no say like it's it sucks
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: at the end where she's like, I really please don't
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: send me back to my family. I want to be
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: here with you, and he's like, no, if we oh
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: he's doing he's doing like some d chest in this
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: moment where he's like, well, if we had a kid,
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't want her to stay here. So I'm telling
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: you that you have to go back. And I was
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: like what, and she's like, I guess. So I was like, no,
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: you could kill him. They're like, why are you agreeing
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: to this?
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 3: Plus, like her whole thing has been I don't want
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 3: to be trapped, not that every relationship is a prison.
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 3: Caitlin try to remember that I'm talking to myself, But
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 3: like it seems like not only does she want to
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 3: be out of the confines of this arranged marriage, but
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 3: she doesn't seem particularly interested in kind of long term companionship.
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 3: Maybe I'm just kind of filling in the blanks, but
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 3: I don't quite understand.
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: I think it's like kind of open to interpretation. I
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: I do have to go soon.
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 3: Okay, I think that was everything I had.
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: So yeah, me, is there anything else that we haven't
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: touched on?
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we're good.
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: All right, cool, then, uh, we've we've already discussed one
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: pretty incredible pass of the Bechdel test. I want to
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: shout it out one more time. Let me avenge my
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: mother's death response, You'll soon be like her, you little whore.
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: And that's going into the pantheon of my favorite my
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: favorite passes that you can't say it's not plot relevant,
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: and they certainly both have names. Uh yeah that I laughed.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: I l O l' when that one came out. I
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: was like, wooo. I mean but the movie, the movie
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: passes constantly because you have so many scenes between our
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: two main characters. You also have a ton of scenes
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: between Shen and Jade Fox, and yeah, there's there's plenty
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: of discussion about all sorts of shit.
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. And uh that brings us to our nipple scale,
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 3: our scale where we rate the movie famous perfect Scott
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 3: zero two five nipples based on examining the movie through
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 3: an intersectional feminist lens, I would still give this like
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 3: maybe like a three and a half or four nipples.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 3: I think there's a lot to like and appreciate about
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 3: this movie. I love that it's driven by women, that
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 3: it is exploring like gender politics and gender expectations. You know,
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 3: could have maybe gone further with that. I would have
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 3: liked to have seen more, like more backstory for Schulin.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 3: I wanted to just kind of know more about her
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 3: character in general, because she is sort of The movie
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 3: doesn't reduce her to Mubai's love interest the way the
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 3: trailer does, but a big component of her character is like,
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 3: you know, revolving around her.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: The only counterparint I have to that is that I
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: don't know anytime a kind of a relationship, even when
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: it's with a man more boring than you, is connected
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: to what your definition of personal fulfillment and freedom is.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: I'm like a little more lenient about it because we
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: see so we see that it's like it's not like
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: she wants to ditch everything else in her life. It's
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: just she wants a relationship and the life she has
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: that is yeah, fair, I'm getting defensive.
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 3: No, I agree, and I and I Yeah, Like we've
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 3: talked about this before, but it's hard for like modern
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 3: feminists to particularly like women who are attracted to men
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 3: and might want to be in relationships with them. It's
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 3: a difficult thing to reconcile that sometimes, at least for me.
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 3: I don't want to speak for everyone, but like, I've
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 3: found that to be just a difficult thing to balance,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 3: but it is.
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like that's but that's like part
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: of Schulen's.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 3: Journey, which is maybe more interesting than I'm giving it
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 3: credit for. So just forget I said anything about it.
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I think there are a lot of interesting
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 3: female characters and interesting relationship dynamics between women. I always
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 3: love to see that in movies. Also, I read a
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 3: lot of pieces from Asian American writers who were saying
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 3: how much they appreciated that they were able to see
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 3: characters who look like them in this big action movie
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 3: at a time where Asian representation was super low. I
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 3: mean it's historically and still quite low in mainstream Hollywood,
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 3: so you know, they appreciated the representation of strong, powerful
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 3: Asian women. And then the fight scenes, like just every
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 3: fight scene in this movie. And this is like me
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 3: speaking extremely like surface level movie analysis here, but they
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 3: I think all involve Jen and they're all so fucking incredible,
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 3: Like it's just awesome. I'd love to just see women
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 3: fighting on screen in an action movie. I like to
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 3: see women participating in the action. It's you know, simple
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 3: brain thing, but I like it. I don't appreciate how
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 3: Jade Fox is framed as a villainous character. Her like
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 3: contempt and resentment is super valid, like she has been
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 3: deceived and undervalued and underestimated by different people like throughout
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 3: her life, and she's potentially been abused by that mentor guy.
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 3: But the movie still treats her as this like bitter
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 3: old woman, villainous woman.
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 3: And also because she is an older woman who is
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 3: resentful of a younger woman, which is something you see
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 3: a lot in media. It is often uncontextualized. It's just like, well,
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 3: this is just how older women feel, duh. At least
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 3: it's contextualized in this case.
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: But but then it still does the thing anyways, still
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: does a thing anyway.
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 3: So I don't know a lot of the host, the
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 3: historical and cultural context I was not super familiar with.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 3: So thank you again, Mia for all of your insight.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 3: I'll give the movie for nipples. I'll give one to Schulin,
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 3: two to Jade Fox Justice for Jade, and I'll give
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 3: the fourth nipple to the daughter of the police inspector
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 3: Ye who's in that few scenes and who I think
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 3: is also like dating Bo, but I'm not really sure anyway. Yeah,
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 3: that's that's it.
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna give mine, and then I have to
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: jump off. I'm really sorry. Okay, no worries. I will
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: meet you at four. Yeah. I think the historical context
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: of this movie and then how that sort of contrasts
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: with the way it was marketed in the West and
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: how it was discussed in the West is like a
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: very particular moment in history, and I just I'm gonna
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: be thinking about for days how this movie can be
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: identified to a pretty specific time period. But most Western
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: viewers just didn't have the knowledge or on the part
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: of the reviewers, the interest in figuring out what you
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: figured out very easily.
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 2: The academics didn't do it either. I'm so baffled.
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: Okayard to this day, the Wikipedia page says it could
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: have happened anywhere in these four hundred years. We don't
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: really tell like, okay, so the historical context, and I
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: think also the like you're just talking about the framing
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: of both older women and and the character of Low
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: and the way that he's framed and called a barbarian.
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: And then it does act without consent. It just it
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: feels like it's reinforcing a lot of negative stereotypes on
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: top of making assault seem romantic. So just really some
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: of the some of the the worst things you can do.
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: And then I'm like that said four nipples. Unfortunately, this
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: movie just fucking rocks, Like it's really really good. And
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: the movie is absolutely driven by women, which in a
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: movie that's successful in the West in two thousand is
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: pretty unheard of, especially women that are not constantly sexualized.
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: Because this is also the same year Charlie's Angels comes out,
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: which is an action movie driven by women, but at
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: what cost? And so I think this movie is doing
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of really unique things, and it also has
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: plenty of issues. And I'm glad we got to talk
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: about It's that I've I would feel so lucky I
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: get to see this in a theater. It was so
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: fun fun. I'm going to give all my nipples to
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: the legend Jade Fox because I really think that she
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: she did zero crimes. When you think about it, you
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: should honor that.
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 3: We should respect her for sure. Yes, uh miyah, how
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 3: about you?
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: Okay. So I'm holding a grudge against this movie for
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 2: the fact that the most easy interpretation of the ending
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 2: is so Jen gets told by Chulian be true to yourself, right,
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 2: go like live the life you want to do, and
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 2: then she immediately jumps off a cliff, right, I I'm
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: mad about that. That pisses and like, yeah, I was like, oh,
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: there's in feminist interpretations, but like the most obvious interpretation
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 2: is that she was like, oh my god, I can't
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 2: live with being free, and then she jumped off a cliff,
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: which is like an INCREDI an unbelievably reactionary like like
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 2: and that being the most easy surface level reading to
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 2: have pisces me off a.
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 5: Lot, right, Like I was very angry when that movie
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 5: ended because that's just like really.
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 2: Like I know, it jokes off a cliff.
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 3: Like really, yeah, It's like that could have ended so
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 3: many like why doesn't Shoolin start training Jen, Like if
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 3: the whole thing was like she needs more training or
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 3: like there's so many way, you know she if Jen
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 3: was like yeah, I thought about it, and like I
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 3: said before, this relationship is over low so see you later.
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna go do other stuff like it could have.
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 3: But then and again, I know there's a lot of
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 3: like metaphorical and spiritual ways to interpret how the ending goes,
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 3: but just kind of taking it at face value is
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 3: like what but yeah, I agree, Yeah, So what do
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 3: you what's your nipple rating.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: I'm giving I don't know. I'm gonna grudgingly give it
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 2: three fair because I think there's a lot going on
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 2: here that's good. There's a lot going on here that's weird. Sure,
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: try to figure out how to no. I feel like
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 2: Jade Fox is the most wronged character in this whole series.
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 2: I'm for sure, I'm gonna I'm gonna follow giving them
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 2: all to her because like she she deserved so much
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 2: better than every single person from like every single person
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: she encounters screws her over from a different subject position,
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 2: which is like a really sort of yeah, incredible way
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 2: to get screwed.
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 3: Like yeah, like why at no point is Mubai like
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 3: you started the training, I'll help you finish it. Jade Fox,
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 3: like he doesn't bother. He's only concerned about training. Like
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 3: a younger woman. It's everyone wrongs her.
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean's she's just he's just utterly And this
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 2: is the other thing, Like the only time he really
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 2: shows emotion in the entire thing is when he's killing
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 2: Jade Fox, and he is like pissed, and it's like
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 2: like yeah, okay, like I get, I get it's the
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: kung fu, like you killed my master, but this this
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: is one of those like this is one of those
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: things where you look at that and you go, there's
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 2: extenuating circumstances. I don't know it.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 3: It's frustrating for sure.
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it sucked. Glad she killed him in the end.
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: That was great.
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so three nipples all to Jade Fox. So thank
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 3: you so much for joining us for this discussion. It
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 3: was such a treat. Come back anytime. And what would
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 3: you like to plug? Where can people follow you online? Etc?
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So my day job is I'm one of the
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 2: hosts of the podcast that could happen here. Okay, my
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 2: specific episode plug is if you don't know what this
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 2: is and you want to listen to something. We did
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 2: a series called The War on trans People last year
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 2: and I think it's still really important because all of
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 2: that stuff is still going on and it sucks. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 2: You can find me on Twitter at BCHR three. Yeah.
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 2: I guess the closing thing I want to plug is
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 2: that kung fu movie I briefly mentioned earlier, Packing Opera Blues,
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 2: because Picking Up a Blues is a movie about three
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 2: lesbians overthrowing a bill dictatorship and then house having sleepovers
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 2: and it rips. Movie is so good. I love it.
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 2: It's also released like fourteen years before this one, No.
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 3: Kidding, because this movie, like, despite its flaws, like feels
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 3: ahead of its time for the year two thousand, so
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 3: that one feels even more.
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's a it's a trip. It's also
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 2: about a period of Chinese history that nobody other than
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 2: me has spent significate. Well that's not true. Me, a
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 2: bunch of weird war gramiers and four academics has spent
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 2: a bunch of time studying, which is like like the
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 2: war lord people. Well, I guess the pre warlord periods
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 2: of there's a period right after the Chinese Revolution but
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 2: before this guy dies, where China is ruled by this
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 2: guy named Yunxikai, who's just like this. She's the guy
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 2: who gets put in charge of China because he has
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 2: the largest army at the end of the revolution, and
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 2: he sucks and everyone hates him, and this is a
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 2: movie about people trying to overthrow him, and it rips
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 2: into the time period that gets no attention ever. So yeah,
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 2: it's cool.
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 3: Hell yeah, well yeah, thanks again for coming on the show.
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 3: Check out that movie, check out it could happen here.
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 3: You can follow the Bechdel Cast on Twitter and Instagram
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 3: at Bechdel Cast. You can also subscribe to our Patreon
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 3: aka Matreon. You get two bonus episodes a month, plus
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 3: access to the back catalog that can all be found
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 3: at patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast, as well as
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 3: our merch at teapublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 3: for all of your merchandising needs. And with that, let's
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 3: go not jump off a mountain.
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: Bye.