It's Begining To Look A Lot Like...

This past weekend I got most of my Christmas shopping done and wrote some Christmas cards. The tree went up on Tuesday evening when I got back from work. Athur Feidler & The Boston Pops' Christmas Party has been on almost infinite repeat. Now if it would only snow a little bit. It's cold enough for it.

Flashback To Summer 1999...

My company did M&A on another company. Today we had to go to that company's warehouse and loot a bunch of junk from them. Good thing I had warehouse experience from my summers of schlepping five gallon buckets of liquid chlorine and diatomaceous earth (or as most people called it Demetrius earth or diplodocus earth.)

There was too much stuff for us to take so most likely we'll have to go back and move more boxes. I suddenly wish I still had my chlorine faded Leslie's Foolmart polo shirt.

Movie Review: Ninja Assassin

I saw Ninja Assassin this weekend. Ninja Assassin stars 비 (or Rain as he is known elsewhere in the world) as some sort of ninja who is also an assasin who targets ninjas for assassinations therefore making the seemingly redundant title less redundant.

The film kicks off with some sort of gangsters getting tattooed in Japan. I guess they were supposed to be yakuza, but they were all speaking English and none of them really looked Japanese, so who knows. Someone sends them an envelope filled with black sand, which scares the shit out of an old man tattoo artist. Why? Because envelopes with black sand in them equals ninja attack...which happens about 2 seconds after he explains it. The ninja(s) cut a dude's head off at the jaw, slice off arms and legs, cut a dude in half. There is more computer rendered blood than the last time you and your friends played Mortal Kombat. Then it yells "NINJA ASSASSIN" on the screen. I'm pretty sure it was either written in blood or that cheesey "Asian Font," or maybe some combination of the two.

With the cold intro out of the way, the movie proper begins. The remainder movie alternates between 비 and some Europol lady running around in Germany for some reason and footage of 비 in his youth training to be a ninja. The Europol lady, whose name I can't for the life of me remember, is obsessed with ninjas. She reminds me of some dude who was in a Japanese history class who proclaimed he was an expert on ninjas because he watched Ninja Turtles. The professor called him an idiot if I'm not mistaken. Europol lady's boss pretty much did the same thing...for about two seconds, and then gives her the go-ahead to chase after he ninja assassin obsession.

Her research pisses off a lot of people. She is awkwardly questioned by Europol's internal affairs about having lunch with her boss for some reason. And then...ninja attack! Europol lady gets attacked in her apartment by a ninja, but luckily 비 was there to make the save. It's never really explained why 비 was in Germany. He was living in some shitty apartment where he had suitcases (a plot detail that his landlord mentions, but is never explained why it was important) and does his laundry at a laundrymat where the owner watches KBS, and he kills some kind of cute girl ninja and puts her in a dryer. Why? Because 비 is an asshole and wants to fuck with the laundrymat owner. He could have just killed the girl and left her on the floor, but he had to put her in the dryer, throughly fucking it up...

Anyway, 비 was in Germany. I'm not sure what he was doing there, but it didn't really matter. What mattered was how many limbs he chopped off. He chopped off a lot.

비 and the woman escape from her apartment and drive somewhere. 비 tells her that the other ninjas are following her, because like dogs they can smell the person they are tracking even if they get in a car and drive far away. Cigarette smoke throughly fucks up their tracking skill however.

The movie at this point (or maybe before this point) began cutting between crap happening in Germany and 비's secret ninja training from some time during his youth. 비 had some quasi-love interest in a girl who later tried to escape from ninja training camp, but was caught and executed by some dude, who at the time I thought was supposed to be 비's character, but really was some other dude 비 would kill later on by making him stab himself in the face, which is a more ninja-fied version of grabbing someone's wrist and making them smack themselves in the head while asking, "Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself?"

These training scenes didn't really caused me to feel any compasion for the character of 비, perhaps because I couldn't tell which of the young ninjas corresponded to which adult ninjas. All I know is that 비 wasn't the white kid ninja. I later found out (thanks wikipedia) that young ninja 비 was played by a dude from the Korean pop group, MBLAQ, a group I am sure will be featured in an upcoming K-Pop Krap feature because they're just that good.

Anyway, Europol lady's boss jukes her and captures 비. They put 비 in some sort of bunker that looks like a random level in a FPS video game. Her boss seems to be on her side, but some other Europol guys are not and think 비 is an enemy. Suddenly ninjas invade the random FPS level and fight all sorts of Europol guys dressed like Sudden Attack counter-terrorist. Counter-terrorists suck and get hacked to pieces by ninjas who are never seen. That's one of the shitty things about this movie. Half the fight scenes are way too dark to see anything that's happening. Anyway Europol lady frees 비 who kills a bunch of ninjas. Europol lady escapes in a car that gets riddled with throwing stars.

If you like "Chinese stars" this movie is for you. They were the most fully developed characters in the movie. They were in almost every scene! In all seriousness, they were fucking rediculous. They were faster and more deadly than bullets from automatic weapons.

Anyway 비 escapes from first person shooter level by jumping out of a plate glass window onto a highway. The other ninjas chase him and have a noisy ass fight on the middle of the Autobanh while Mercedes drive by. Aren't ninjas supposed to masters of stealth and be super quiet? These ninjas fight louder than Hulk Hogan or Macho Man Randy Savage, it's terrible.

비 is seriously injured so Europol lady and he check into a motel where she puts a GPS device in 비's mouth or something and lets him get captured by the other ninjas. This allows Europol to follow 비 back to the secret ninja lair which I suppose was supposed to be in Japan, but dudes in Germany were able to get their in what seemed like 30 minutes to an hour in terms of the pacing of the plot.

Europol beats down ninjas and 비 beats down his former master and everyone lives happily ever after, except for the ninjas who died in the assault on their secret lair, and the Europol guys who died, oh and the audience...we were not happy either.

Anyway, Ninja Assassin, was pretty much what I expected: violence porn. It was about 2 hours almost completely devoid of plot during which I felt absolutely no connection to any of the characters. At the end of the movie Europol lady gets shot, but I didn't even care. I once watched a movie about some famous Japanese dog named Hachiko. In the end of that movie, the dog dies. That movie made me feel sad, which makes me feel sad about Ninja Assassin. In that movie I felt no emotion what-so-ever when Europol lady got shot or when 비's kinda ninja girlfriend got executed, but some dog who died of old age died...I almost cried. If you want some stupid non-stop violence I guess it's ok, but even in that department there are tons of way better movies.

As for 비. I'd seen him in Speed Racer a couple month back. He really hasn't improved as a actor. One review I read said he was robotic, which I think is the best way to describe his acting. Just like when Wondergirls hit the road in America, 비 being in these movies makes me sad. There are a ton of really talented actors and singers here, but only the worst, lowest common denominator stuff gets sent abroad. So anyway, fuck Wondergirls. Fuck 비! And fuck Ninja Assassin!

Dragon vs. 龍...Who Deserves The Belt?!

Over the past year or so I have acquired a new guilty pleasure: 무협소설 (武俠小說), or to translate roughly into English "heroic novels." Let me hit you with a little personal history.

I am a geek. I don't know how or when exactly it happened, but for as long as I can remember I've been kind of a nerd. I had tons of Star Wars action figures (Hammerhead mofos). I played Dungeons & Dragons (the kind with d20s as well as those Champions of Krynn Gold Box games). I collected comic books. I know what a BBS is.

Like all good geeks, I read more than my fair share of "fantasy" novels. Of course I read stuff like Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia (aka stuff even non-geeks might have read), but I read a lot of shit too (Iron Tower Trilogy I'm looking in your general direction). Fast forward a few years and I learned Korean.

For a few years, my reading level was that of a third grader, so I read a lot of comic books and books about poop, but eventuall I learned how to actually read, and have been doing so. My poison of choice (for the most part) is the afore mentioned "heroic novels."

Now there are some parallels between western style fantasy novels and "heroic novels," here. First off, they all take place in some quasi-medievel time period. Everyone has swords or spears or bows. These are not stories about modern gun toting champions. Second off, the heroes are more often than not on some quest to save the world from almost certain destruction, but that's pretty much where the similarities end.

In spite of their seemingly endless similarities, there are tons of differences between the two types of novels. For starters, there are no elves in the "heroic novels." Apparently Asian cultures in the middle ages did not have any interaction with elves. They do, however, feature Taoist immortals and other lesser Taoist dieties, which have some of the same powers as elves, but lack bows, green clothes, and pointed ears. Come to think of it, besides the gods, I don't think I've ever seen any sort of fantasy creature in one of these books. No dwarves. No halflings. And while there were 놈s there were no gnomes. Everyone was human...or a ghost of a human...or sometimes an immortal. I guess in some regards they might be closer in spirit to Conan and his ilk than "high fantasy."

Another key difference is the lack of dragons. Every shitty fantasy novel has a dragon on a rampage, "burninating" something or other, and then the next 243 pages revolve around some sort of goddamn dragon warrior and his elf trying to kill said dragon and save the princess/universe/gold treasure. "Heroic novels," don't have dragons but they might have 용 (龍) in them. I've studied enough Chinese characters to know that in translation that would be "dragon" in English, but really they are completely different. Wikipedia, the keepers of all our lore and knowledge, agree with me and have seperate entries for "Oriental" Dragons and European Dragons. Why? Because they look different and act different and have different powers. European dragons are total pricks. They exist solely to kidnap sexy babes and get killed by heroes. "Oriental" dragons on the otherhand tend to be seen in a more positive light. They might be arrogant as fuck, but they're more likely to help heroes out then breath fire on them (which they can't even do anyway).

The character names are also very different. While fantasy novel characters will have fantastic names like "Arthwin," "Merlin," or "Sam," the heroic novel dudes will all have really insane names that are easy to translate and have actual meaning to the people reading them. They all have names like "Black Tiger," "Steel Heart," "Rock Fist," and "Iron Eagle." Again, 90% of the characters have names about how tough they are and how easily they will kick your ass. "Glydilas," doesn't scare me, but a dude named "Bear Ripper," does...

All of those are merely stylistic differences, but there are key thematic differences in fantasy novels and the "heroic novels." While there are a fair percentage of "heroic novels" that follow that, "Let's go save the world guys!" formula, perhaps an even greater percentage of the plot lines seem to be cribbed from Charles Bronson flicks (Death Wish...I'm looking at you). Some hero's family/teacher/love interest gets wasted by some sort of local strong men. The local strong man is probably a warlord, or maybe even a governor, but he's basically a gangster. The hero embarks on some sort of quest that involves training montages and getting some sort of devine weapon and then ultimately kills the local strong men and his gang winning his vengence.

Anyway, this has been a long, pointless, rambling piece of writing, so I'm going to wrap it up here with this. Going back to something I wrote about in the begining (that's good writing, right?), I said that I initially read the classics of the fantasy genre, before reading all the Bloody Sword of the Elf Moon bullshit you could buy at fucking B. Dalton Bookseller. With these "heroic novels," I'm pretty sure I started with the crap. The first series I read (because they are always series) was called 黑龍 (Black Dragon) about some dude named, "Black Dragon," on a quest for revenge...or some shit like that. So I guess I am wondering what would be the Lord of the Rings of 무협소설 genre? You can't say 三國志 or 西遊記 because both of those were from antiquity and would be more comparable to something like Beowulf or Arthurian legend. Is there a semi-modern heroic novel that's better than the crap getting printed now?

P.S. Bloody Sword of the Elf Moon is not a real work of literature...though I'm kind of tempted to write it myself now. Such an awesome name for a shitty fantasy book.

M-net Asian Music Awards

Last weekend I furthered my descent into my transformation into a Korean middle school girl and totally spent Saturday night watching the M-net Asian Music Awards. For those of you who have lives/aren't Korean middle school girls/don't live in Korea, M-net is Korea's version of MTV...well, that's kind of dishonest, because there is MTV Korea which is probably closer to MTV. Anyway, M-net's a music channel. They used to play music videos, but these days they just seem to play some shows where a random singer goes to college or some American Idol-esque singing contest show...which is why I said they were like MTV.

Anyhow, once a year or so they, like MTV in America, pretend they are still a music television network and host a music awards show. Nothing particularly Earth-shattering happened. I predicted the winners in each category with 100% accuracy, which wasn't surprisingly difficult. 2NE1 and G-Dragon won a bunch of awards. That group that told me about being supervisors always won some awards. There was no Korean version of Kanye West interrupting people which is a shame, but 3/5 of the recently disassembled 동방신기 showed up and awkwardly recieved some award. But that's not what's awesome. This is what was awesome!



"What the Christ is going on there?"

Well outraged reader screaming at me, what you have there is way too cute girl group, Kara, busting out a rock version of their hit, "Honey," with Dr. Core 911, a (insert something here)core band with double singers that I've seen perform with the likes of Rux and Johnny Royal in tiny ass clubs and "rock festivals." I'm really curious how this pairing came about. Kara is, well, pop music for tweens and middle aged perverts like myself. They are pretty famous. They appear on stupid game shows and are in commercials for tween related products. Dr. Core 911 is not super famous. Even among rock groups in Korea, they are not particualy famous. Last year(?) Big Bang released some jam with No Brain. This kind of made sense to me. No Brain had gone from being 서태지 reviling punks who covered Sex Pistols to being in popular movies about aging rock stars, writing songs for shows about kids playing soccer, and appearing in sneaker ads with pretty boys. No Brain was is pop music, so it's fitting for them to team up with another pop group. Dr. Core 911? Not so much, and that makes it all the more awesome!

Korea loves dubbing stuff (particularly people) Korea's X. For example, 비 is Korean's Michael Jackson and someone else whose name I can't remember is Korea's Madonna, and 휘성 is Korea's Michael Jackson...well, you get the picture. So I'm going to dub Kara Korea's Debbie Gibson. Why? Because of this...



That's right dudes, "Electric Youth" Debbie Gibson, rocked out with the Circle Jerks. So Kara, you rock on with popularly unknown rock outfits and continue down the path of Deborah Gibson. I and the other middle aged perverts in my office can't wait for the nude photo phase. Until that time I will continue to act like a middle school girl. Excuse me I need to go purchase a gray skirt and matching jacket.

K-Pop Krap: All Apologies Edition

Dear 4 Minute,

I may have been a little harsh in my criticism of your jam over the summer. Your song is simplistic enough that even I can bust it out at karaoke with my limited Korean skills. I won some loot at an office singing contest last week thanks to your jam (and my outstanding mid-90's hardcore band vocalist posturing), so for that I should thank you. But that is beside the point. I believe I called you the single most bogus, crappy group in Korea (or something like that...do you think I ever re-read any of the crap I type here?) Well whatever I said to that extent I would like to take back. 4 Minute, you are not the worst singing group, maybe you were over the summer, but some fucking shit called "Rainbow," has usurped your title...



FUCK! Where can I even begin? There is nothing about that that doesn't make me angry. There's tons of horrific Engrish pronunciation. There's Paris Hilton calibre shallowness. Shitty "rapping" that does not fit the song at all. FUCK!!!

So Rainbow, you are now the worst girl group in Korea...worse even than Tiara, who I never actually wrote about because they appeared and vanished during one of my month long, "I hate writing on the internet," periods. Tiara was really fucking bad though. There were two shitty rappers and some girl that looked like a munchkin. Fuck...just check them out too.



Shit, I don't know who's worse. Tiara...oh sorry T-ARA, is really terrible also. I'll leave it up to you, the general public. Who's worse: T'ARA or Rainbow...or do you still think 4 Minute is the worst singing group of all. Let me know with some hot comments in the hot comments section of this bossanova blog.

Saw This In My Newspaper This Morning...

If there is a god, he's a fucking asshole for making us live in a world where shit like this gets created...