Here's a letter my brother sent me about "The Protector" Thai martial artist Tony Jaa's second movie.

Hi Little Bro,
 
I just had to tell you, I watched the protector yesterday.  Let's just say it was a backup I had made of the original... hum hum...   And I must have miscopied part of it because I copied the english soundtrack apparently..  But when I watched the movie part of it was in Taiwanese and then some part were spoken in english only.  I figured I put on the subtitles to help out with the taiwanese, but it seems only the Spanish ones were working.
 
So I ended up watching a speaking taiwanese/english and subtitled in Spanish..  I must say it made for an interesting watch that way.
 
The movie wasn't that great to be honest. I figured there might be more of a story but I guess not.. the action was good thou.  The scene were he's cracking away bones seemed a bit let's say special, because of the way he would crack 3 to 4 times an arm.. but anyways it was ok.

 - Marquinho

Oh boy, let me bore you with some juicy details about that film...

First off, its in Thai. Taiwanese is not a language. In Taiwan, they speak Mandarin Chinese, although probably with a tinge of a local dialect.

The martial art in the film is Muay Thai, a close-combat technique specializing in using your elbows and knees. The signature move is the flying knee kick that's delivered to the chin, which can mortally injure an opponent. Needless to say that technique is banned in the professional fighting circuit.
The version you watched was probably the infamous Harvey Weinstein cut. You probably remember the studio "Miramax" which released all of Tarantino's movies. Well, the Weinstein brothers (there's two of 'em!) used to be the head of that studio and are now running their own. They are DESPISED for their treatment of asian films; they'll buy the rights to US distribution of many great asian films and either never release them or edit them into confusing pieces of shit. That's why they call him the amusing Harvey "Scissorhands" Weinstein, for regularly re-editing films to his liking. He infamously took Gangs of New York away from Martin FUCKING Scorcese and edited it himself. So he thinks he knows more than the greatest American filmmaker of our time.

Anyway, long story short, he took "The Protector" (original title Tom Yum Goong) and edited away entire parts of it - including some bits that made it look like some people either lived or died rather than how it is in the original.

I love all that behind the scenes drama. Hong Kong funnyman and all-around good filmmaker Stephen Chow, who wrote, starred and directed Shaolin Soccer, had his movie bought by the Weinsteins for US release and received horrible treatment. Thats why with Kung Fu Hustle he sold it to Sony Pictures, and even included a jab in the movie where a gangster stomps on the football and says "No More Soccer!". Its a jab at the Weinsteins for screwing him over. Bless 'im!

 All that and I haven't even seen the movie yet. I'm such a geek.

Here we have a Greek restaurant that's been closed even before I ever came to Wuxi. The lettering stays up and decays into falling pieces. Shame about that, I would have loved to eat some gyros. I doubt Greek food ever suited the tastes of the Wuxi residents.

Though the walkway is decorated with plastic flowers, it is still a nice effect.

A visitor eats a fried scorpion at the Longhua temple fair during the May Day holiday in Shanghai.

That's one mean grill she's got there.

BONUSESESES:

Check out this horrendous video for a "pitch" to beautificate downtown Toronto by making it look like some tacky crap mug you'd buy at a posh coffee shop in the gay district of whichever city in North America. Toronto is piss-ugly; you can't make a bulldog look like a Chihuahua just because you wrapped it in green neon overalls and stuffed product placement up its ass. Montreal sucks too, btw.

 Raymond Hum from Canada writes: Frankie: 'The chinese along with the Japanese will eat anything that hops crawls slithers and farts.'

Is that a bad thing? Their fishing methods are unfortunately destructive, but their eating habits seem wise from an ecological point of view. Do you think it'd be better if they ate only Atlantic salmon, lobster and halibut? They would have depleted all their stocks, and imported all of ours, years ago.

What's with all the racist and xenophobic slurs I keep reading in the comments section of the Globe and Mail? Where are these people coming from? What era do they come from? Now, in the above message, the person is quoting what somebody else said, but what is wrong with that original poster? What spurred him to leave such a hateful jab? The discussion concerns this article on trawl fishing.

Pat Blake from Hong Kong writes: Contrary to what was stated, you can't see the Great Wall of China from space. Much to the chagriin of the Chinese who very much played down that fact once their first astronauts came back and reported that no, they couldn't see it.

And as per the article, well, the reality is there are probably about 3 billion too many people on the planet given our consumption. Since no one is hopping off anytime soon, we need to manage ourselves appropriately. Energy efficiency is vital. One child policies as well so that maybe 100 years out we have half as many people kicking around. Otherwise, we are going to be living in a toilet - trust me, I am in Hong Kong and if we continue what we are doing you really won't want to be living in any city.

Thankfully, not all the letters are hateful and racist, sometimes a moderated and rational view manages to get expressed, like the above! Some of you may remember the article and comments I linked back to a month or so ago about the "decline of Hip-Hop". Some of the comments were just shameful ("rap music is just tribal noise"). This is Canada we're talking about. I expect better from a country that relies on immigration for any kind of population growth. I'm not even a "visible" minority in Canada, but I had a few words slung my way back in the day.