Tuesday 9 January 2018

Wuxia Moves





 1.


"She's a fake!"
"Look more closely."
"But she doesn't realize she's a fake!" 

Two old guys from a different, more respectable, experienced and older, insightful yet repressive culture; scrutinizing Holly (Auddrey Hepburn) as 'the symbol for Modernity as Lifestyle' (1960s), in the movie Breakfast At Tiffany's 1961 American romantic comedy film directed by Blake Edwards and written by George Axelrod, based on Truman Capote's novel. 
  



And so we go into post-post-post-modernist 2018 where the intelligensia elite has to involve itself with the practicality of fakes who do not realize they are fakes. The pursuit of Truth as embodiment of Aspiration and spiritual path sets its seldom accoladed acolytes as a caste apart. Capable to see through illusion and yet surrounded by a mainstream who perpetuate illusion, the intelligensia become outcastes. 

"Zombies do not recognize that they are zombies. That's the problem." SnakeAppleTree

"They go aggressive when it is showed to them and they simply cannot and will not integrate it. There's no getting through to them. They mistake their job role within their illusion of social hierarchy, for reality - because they are cognitive dissonance mental health condition. They are technically unsane. Yet as mainstream, they re-affirm delusion as 'normality'. They persecute the non-normative, which is to persecute the truth. For scientists this is a bitch of a situation."

Experiences outside of the structural norm define the out-caste. It is here where we discover that UFO's, fayries and exotic yet real stuff, is not mythical but actual. It is here with these knowledges that we can never go back to existing within the confines of a state of restrictive intelligence and delusional decision making. Lies built upon lies create monstrous towers inevitably to fall when the fundamental wave collapses, as science tells us it will. 


2.

This is the foundation of our exploration of Wuxia. 

Wuxia (武俠, IPA: [ù.ɕjǎ]), which literally means "martial heroes", is a genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China. Although wuxia is traditionally a form of literature, its popularity has caused it to spread to diverse art forms such as Chinese opera, manhua, films, television series and video games. It forms part of popular culture in many Chinese-speaking communities around the world.

The word "wuxia" is a compound composed of the elements wu (literally "martial", "military", or "armed") and xia (literally "honourable", "chivalrous", or "hero"). A martial artist who follows the code of xia is often referred to as a xiake (literally "follower of xia") or youxia (literally "wandering xia"). In some translations, the martial artist is referred to as a "swordsman" or "swordswoman" even though he or she may not necessarily wield a sword.

The heroes in wuxia fiction typically do not serve a lord, wield military power or belong to the aristocratic class. They often originate from the lower social classes of ancient Chinese society. A code of chivalry usually requires wuxia heroes to right and redress wrongs, fight for righteousness, remove oppressors, and bring retribution for past misdeeds. Chinese xia traditions can be compared to martial codes from other cultures such as the Japanese samurai's bushido tradition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxia


Wuxia is primarily a code of honor which instructs lifestyle. 

We have identified already that 'zombies do not recognize they are zombies and perpetuate falseness through their beliefs and thus actions'.

Contemporary Chivalry is, for the outcaste who have retained integrity and honor by standing against delusionary behavior of the zombie apocalypse mainstream horde, are by default Wuxia. Whether the individual aligns with the pursuit of waking up the zombies for the betterment of community, or avoids them, or a mix of both, is the choice of the individual. Even in Minecraft can zombies be rehabilitated. There is hope. 

Most outcaste are in some way broken by the mechanical systematic dehumanization of the state architecture. The hierarchy machine is not your friend.Recognition of this is critical to understanding why most Wuxia are kinked in some way; through constant barrage of abuse.

"When something so extreme happens to us that we cannot go back there in ordinary consciousness, but we need to go back there to heal ourselves, the pursuit of it defines us, the journey becomes expertise. This does not make us bad people."


3.

“Stories of Imagination tend to upset those without one.” Emma Lou

We are living in a fayrie-tale. True to any fayrie-tale it has darkness and beauty, lightness and mirth of the sort black witches determine kill. It's full of Love fragile from the advances of the fake and obsessively controlling world of exploitation which is the System and Society. 

She asked me my favorite movies and for the first time I thought about trends running through the first three which came to mind. This, from an overview of what the movies are about. 


"It's about music. And a good hearted thief vs society and its corruption." (on Subway)

"That ones about music too, and good hearted thieves. It explores how society accepts or not, and how hypocritical its rules are." (on Diva)

"That one's a love story about thieves and honor. Being Chinese it story-tells in an epic and beautiful way. And has great music." (on Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon)

Recognition that we are in a story. That the genre defines the dialogue. That the direction is within a context for it to flow. That the tenets of storytelling apply also to the unfolding of our lives. 

After which, justification: "I'm not a thief!" I'm not. 

Except perhaps for the dog-hearts of daughters; infinite loving, attempting always understanding as default mode to return to asap, and can become bitches when this trust is scarred, as happens to far too many. It is why the tenderness of loving is critical to positive development of relationships. 

"These are all love stories too."

I like these movies because the underdog, forced to survive repression, has to make a stand. I like the characters who make a stand against oppression. They are heroes. But there is wisdom here too, they must be the fox to outsmart superior odds. Cunning which develops from experience and insight.





Subway - 1985 French comedy drama film directed by Luc Besson and starring Isabelle Adjani and Christopher Lambert. The film is classified as part of the cinema du look movement.

Diva - 1981 French thriller film directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix, adapted from the novel Diva by Daniel Odier (under the pseudonym Delacorta).

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (simplified Chinese: 卧虎藏龙; traditional Chinese: 臥虎藏龍) is a 2000 martial arts film. The film is a Chinese, Taiwanese, Hong Kong and American venture produced by Asian Union Film & Entertainment, China Film Co-Productions Corporation, Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia, Edko Films, Good Machine International, and Zoom Hunt Productions. Directed by Ang Lee.




Why I like these films

These films all happen to have thieves in them. I am not a thief I do not respect theft. I do value that all property is theft from community but I also value that I am looking after the tools I need to be an artist better than some disempowered twat who would break it from social frustration or spite and envy and throw it in a river.  

I did not make these movies and decide to put thieves in them. Why did the film maker make that decision? Because they are adventurous and stand against not the normality of human community but primarily about survival in a culture where outcasts exist because capitalism, not property ownership, is inequality based and by default will always create a poor underclass which once accepting the pointlessness of aspiration toward an impossible dream accepts instead degeneracy as a survival necessity. 

In short, the excitement of those who stand against the enforced rules of a society which exploits instead of providing for all. This is the second factor, that it is not the community who the thieves target but the totalitarianism of a system which has let them down. In this they are not only vindicated but become also heroes standing for the moral cause of human equality for all. 

Stealing an apple (or indeed a hole) from the barrel is less offensive than stealing a fifth of a hard earned income through taxes or the ground beneath your feet by land ownership, the many in debt as slaves to the few, and most enslaved to a corrupt system which relies on persecution and exploitation as well as the brainwashing of the masses, to self-perpetuate. Within Wuxia culture the many facets of this are explored. Such exploration is of contrasts and by example. Often, by analogy.

Such examples are not always from Chinese literature and movies thus, in Western traditions the equivalents are to be found in movies about criminals which range from the good, stylish French movies such as Subway, Diva and Nikita (1990 Luc Besson), through film noir, the ugly of gangster movies such as Untouchables (1987 Brian De Palma), to the bad of mega violence movies such as Ronin (1998 John Frankenheimer) and John Wick (2014 Chad Stahelski, David Leitch)

All of these explore morality crisis through various situations varying from heroic revenge to simple robbery for personal gain and empirical expansion. To this we bring Lawrence of Arabia (1962 David Lean) and Zulu (1964 Cy Endfield) into the fold, and the inevitability of StarWars (1977 George Lucas) space opera dramatically inspired by wuxia precepts indeed to such extent the cliches listed as bullet point define the Wuxia genre.









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