The Return of the Condor Heroes

Looks familiar?

This is Andy Lau and Idy Chan in the drama series by TVB, "The Return of the Condor Heroes", which is a TV adaptation of the book by Louis Cha (aka Jin Yong). It is my favourite Chinese novel, and my favourite TV drama. Other adaptations of the book for TV never really left as deep an impression on me as this one by Andy Lau.

The plot and all can be found in the Wikipedia entry, so I shan't touch too much on it. For me, the first time I encountered this story was through the TVB drama, which was shown in Singapore back in the late 1980s. I was so struck by the story, that I went on to read the novel itself, and got myself even more attracted to the story. So when the comic came out, I went out to get that too. And when the animation appeared in the stores, I got it too. The only problem was, I got the Japanese version of Season 1 of the animation... and guess what? They didn't make Season 2 in Japanese... guess I have to get the Mandarin/Cantonese versions...

What struck me about the story is the character Yang Guo, and his disregard of social norms (he attacked his first teacher, and was going to marry another teacher of his, something unthinkable during the era that the story was set in). The love between him and his teacher Xiaolongnyu was very touching, and was so well described in the book that reading it brings tears to my eyes. Yang Guo has a personality that swings between extremes. He is very nice to those he likes, and totally scorn those whom he hates. To him, it is either black or white, there is no gray.

The love story was touching because of the sacrifices the couple were willing to do for each other. They loved each other so deeply that they were willing to sacrifice their own happiness and even their own lives so that the other may live. While the first edition saw the eventual death of Xiaolongnyu, by the demand of the readers, in the second edition, Xiaolongnyu managed to survive her ordeal. That added yet another touching scene to the story, so for me, it was tears reading the whole novel.

The TVB drama is available as a VCD set, and the novel itself is still in print, so what are you waiting for?

This fansite lists the changes made in the third edition of the book.
This is the fansite from which the picture was taken from.

Warlords

Another old game from way past, this game was released by SSG in 1990. 8 races via for control of the land, and they can either be human players or controlled by the computer. And each race has its own advantages in terms of the type of units it can create. The basic concept is to build up an army, and for that, you need cities. Each city can create a few types of units, generate certain income, which is then used to build new units and maintain your army.

Every once in a while, a hero will offer to join your army. Heroes give bonuses in combat, and can be used to explore the ruins scattered across the land. Inside ruins are rewards, as well as traps. Exploring a ruin may result in the lost of your hero, but your hero may also find powerful allies to join your cause.

The basic concept of Warlords was further built on to give Warlords 2 and Warlords 3 (and the expansions for Warlords 3). There was also a Warlords 4. And right now, on the open source community, they are developing Freelords, which is a free Warlords clone.

So, join the elves, or the dwarves, in their struggle to control the land. The Horse Lords are great riders, and beware the demons of Lord Bane. The Sirian knights appear to fight for a noble cause, while no one argues with the powerful giants. And there are the Selentines and the orcs...

Warlords in Wikipedia.

Sword of Aragon

This is an old game from SSI, dating back to the late 1980s. It belongs to the genre of strategy games, one in which you start with a central character, and a starting city. Building up the city, and drafting some troops, you then proceed to venture out and conquer other cities. From there, you expand your army, eventually conquering the whole map.

This game combines city management with conquering cities. Besides choosing what type of units to build for your army, you have to move them around so as to concentrate enough force on your enemies and overcome their defences. City management is important in that you need to generate income to sustain your troops. So this is something not like the usual wargame that you create using the Wargame Construction Set, also by SSI. It probably formed the basic concept for future games like Warlords.

A page with hints for Sword of Aragon

Spoilers and body kits

I am sure you have seen cars fitted with spoilers and body kits. Even if they are not sports cars. After all, even your normal family sedan can be fitted with them to try and give it a sporty look. Well, while some people like cars to look sporty, my own take is that not all cars can be made to look sporty.

A family sedan, the smaller ones that is, can be made to look sporty with these accessories. They are usually small and sleek enough already, so adding a spoiler and body kit can give that additional sleek, lean look to it. So all those Toyota Vios and Mitsubishi Lancers can look much more sporty with the addition of accessories.

A huge MPV such as the Toyota Alphard, when fitted with a spoiler and body kit, becomes a fierce-looking road machine. The huge MPV is already a huge monster by itself, and adding accessories only add to make it look fiercer.

A small MPV, like the Toyota Wish, is a totally different story. It is not sleek like the small sedans. It is not huge like the bigger MPVs. It is really neither here nor there. Unlike a small sedan, which looks even more sporty with accessories, or a huge MPV, which looks even more fierce with accessories, a small MPV can neither achieve a sporty look, nor a fierce look, with the addition of a spoiler and body kit. The end result is a car that tries to be what it cannot be.

So before adding accessories to your car, think again. What is the look you are trying to achieve, and is your car able to achieve that in the first place?

The Last Samurai

The movie The Last Samurai (see Wikipedia entry too), is fiction made from real historical events. There was actually a fight by samurai against the central, newly formed government, the Satsuma Rebellion, led by Saigo Takamori, whom in the story was renamed Katsumoto. However, there were no records of Westerners fighting alongside Satsuma, so the character of Nathan Algren, played by Tom Cruise, is actually fiction. However, history has records of Westerners fighting alongside samurai, notably Jules Brunet, and even more famous, William Adams, also known as Anjin-sama (Mr Pilot, for he was a navigator). Adams was portrayed as Blackthorne in James Clavell's famous novel Shogun. Till today, Adams is still remembered in Japan, with Anjin-zuka (a town near Yokohama) named after him.

Let's not lose focus. The movie focuses a lot on the samurai concept of duty. It was duty to die for his lord. It was duty to do what he was told. It was duty to die rather than face dishonour. It was an honour to die for duty. It was an honour to die for one's lord. It was duty to assist one in dying for his lord (ie. acting as his second when another chooses to commit seppuku).

One of the things that struck me was when Tom Cruise was practising swordplay. The comment on that, in the show, was "he still looks ugly". The Japanese sense of beauty extends to all things, including one's movement. It was so in Love and Honour (Kimura Takuya's movements while carrying out his duty as food taster, Dan Rei's movements when serving dinner to Kimura). It is so in Japanese tea ceremony. And in other Japanese arts. In Japan, actions do speak louder than words. Through a person's actions (how sharp his movements are), his upbringing can be judged.

Anyone interested in learning more about the samurai and Bushido, the Way of the Samurai?

Star Wars and Dune

Okay, so I finally got to Episode 6, The Return of the Jedi.

And this is going to be quite short, since there aren't many similarities not already covered in my previous post (and related links).

The planet of Tatooine is a desert planet, like Arrakis in Dune. And similarly, they have a creature of the desert. And the Jedi have the special ability to control people by talking to them, similar to the Bene Gesserit's Voice in Dune. And the Force is strong in the Skywalker's family, which at the present generation referred to Luke and his sister, Leia. Just as Paul Atreides and his sister Alia were both gifted with visions and the training of the Bene Gesserit.

Of course, the Harkonnen baron never repented, unlike Darth Vader. But just like the Bene Gesserit planted stories (which became legends, myths and prophecies) amongst people all over the universe, one of which was about the coming of Paul Atreides to Dune, the Ewoks on Endor treated C3PO as a god.

Okay, that's it for Star Wars. Until next time, when I watch the other episodes again.

Love and Honour 武士の一分

Today, my wife and I went to watch the movie "Love and Honour" (武士の一分) starring Kimura Takuya and Dan Rei. The story is about a samurai Mimura Shinnojo (played by Kimura Takuya) who lose his sight while carrying out his duty. The story was about how he went on to pick up the pieces of his life after losing his sight.

The similarity between kenjutsu and taijiquan can be found in my article on my taiji blog. Here I will talk about bushido. When Mimura was poisoned (he was a food taster for his samurai lord), one of the first reactions was not to save him, but to warn the lord that there is something wrong with the food. A food taster's duty is to protect his lord from poisoned food; his death would have been in vain if his lord had taken the poisoned food. If in dying he had discharged his duty to protect his lord, he would be honoured. And in fact he was, for his lord decided to continue to keep him in service even though he can no longer see.

One of the beliefs in bushido is that no matter what a man does, he can atone for his mistakes by ending his own life. If he cannot right the dishonour on his name, he can do it by killing himself. Which shows when Mimura was resolved to die should he be unable to kill the samurai who dishonoured his wife.

And when he won the duel, he did not deal the finishing blow (he managed to cut off his opponent's arm). This was out of respect for his opponent, who was also samurai. He left it up to his opponent to finish his own life, if he still had any honour left in him. And his opponent knew that Mimura has given both of them an honourable way out (if Mimura had just killed him, there would be investigations, and subsequently the dishonour done to Mimura's wife would be revealed), so he took it and ended his own life without having to disclose the reason for doing so.

Bushido on Wikipedia
Hagakure, a book about bushido

The Elder Scrolls Two: Daggerfall

I wonder how many of you actually remember Daggerfall. After all, it was released in 1996, which is more than 10 years ago. At that time, the graphics (see below) were actually good for a computer game. We still didn't have the high resolutions available today, and 256 colours with 320x200 screens was the norm for computer games. Unless you wanted higher resolution of 640x480, which meant suffering 16 colours...


What was special about Daggerfall is that it was probably the first computer role-playing game that had an open plot. Of course, like games of the time, in which AI is still rudimentary, there was a Main Quest that you can solve. But the good thing about Daggerfall is that you don't have to solve the Main Quest. You can actually do what you like, without working on the Main Quest itself.

So you can actually join the Fighters' Guild, take up quests there (clear up vermins, hunt for people, go dungeon crawling), or you can visit the many graveyards and dungeons scattered all over the land to fight creatures and find treasure. You can even buy yourself a house, or even a ship, which allows you to store your items in them, so that you are not bogged down by extra equipment that you don't need at the moment.

Character creation allowed you to customise your character, much more than other games. While there are classes to choose from, you can also create your own class, choosing from a list of skills to make up the primary and secondary skills of your class. A background generator also gave you options to create a simple background for your character, and may give your character bonuses in certain skills and attributes too.

Items are varied, and you can mix and match armour to fit on various parts of the body. There are even layers, so you can actually wear something on top of another item already taking up that body slot. There are many types of weapons available too, so you can choose from what to use (they have different effect on different monsters) and improve your skills in them accordingly.
Daggerfall is an extensive game way ahead of its time. The freedom it gave could never be replicated in subsequent games from "The Elder Scrolls" series. Where else can you choose to live the life of an honourable knight? Or a mercenary fighter? Or wander the lands as a vagabond mage? Or steal from stores in the middle of the night?

The skills advancement system is also different. While you can train your skills, the system allows you to train your skills only to a certain level. After which you will have to use your skills to actually improve them. And depending on what are the primary skills of your class, you improve in level when those skills get better.

Daggerfall is a DOS game, which worked in Windows 95, but you will have challenges getting it to work in Windows XP and Vista. DOSBox, however, solves the problem, and you can read more about getting Daggerfall to work under DOSBox here, or check the official forums.

The official Daggerfall site
The official forums for The Elder Scrolls
The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP)
Daggerfall in the UESP
Daggerfall files area in UESP
The Daggerfall Embassy
Beginner's Guide to Daggerfall

Star Wars, Dune and Taiji

I was watching Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back today when the similarities with Dune and taijiquan struck me. I have written about Dune before in a previous post on the computer game Dune 2. And of course, I have my own blog about taijiquan.

What led me to think about Dune while watching Star Wars was the scene why Luke had a vision about Leia and Han needing his help. Just like Paul Atreides, Luke Skywalker was able to see the future. The huge worm coming out of its hole in an asteroid chasing the Millenium Falcon reminded me about the huge sandworms found on the planet Dune, also known as Arrakis. The gas mining operation headed by Lando Calrissian draws parallels with the spice harvesting (and smuggling) activities on Dune. Just as Dune's Emperor Padishah was aided by the Harkonnen baron, Star Wars' emperor had Darth Vader. While Paul Atreides turned out to be the Harkonnen baron's grandson, Luke Skywalker found himself to be Darth Vader's son.

And how about the link with taijiquan? Well, most of it was during the scene when Luke Skywalker was undergoing Jedi training under Yoda. Yoda described the Force as something to be always used for knowledge and defence, not for attack. This is similar to taijiquan, which teaches one to counter the force directed at oneself. Just as Yoda taught Luke to flow with the Force, taijiquan teaches one to follow your opponent's force and not resist it. Just as anger and fear will bring one to the dark side of the Force, anger and fear causes one to resist your opponent's force, to use brute strength, ultimately branching away from the principles of taijiquan.

This site contains more about parallels between Star Wars and Dune.
An article on the influence of Oriental culture on Star Wars.

So it seems I am not alone in thinking that Star Wars drew some ideas from Dune and taijiquan. Just like Frank Herbert got many of his ideas for Dune from real life culture.