... of glowsticks & dice

My Wife is a Gangster 3

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:08:00 +0000

Korean title: Jopog Manura 3 (조폭 마누라3)
Released: 2006
Running time: 115 minutes
Directed by: Cho Jin-gyu
Cast you care about: Shu Qi (Aryong)
Lee Beom-soo (Ki-chul)
Ti Lung

They just keep coming. Or do they? Wave goodbye to the moderately attractive Shin Eun-kyung, say hello to Shu Qi, sex incarnate, bitch-queen of Hong Kong soft porn actresses turned movie star, the Chinese version of Angelina Jolie. She ain't nobody's wife, so fuck all that. Just hit me with another.

I hate proverbs. Still, if a picture says more than a thousand words, let's get the first two pages out the way.

This is Shu Qi. Ok, on to the movie.

Aryong, daughter of a Hong Kong triad boss, heads off to Korea to lay low for a while because the other gangs suspect her of having killed one of their leaders. In Korea she is picked up by a few henchmen of one of her father's contacts, with Ki-Chul leading the bunch. He doesn't speak Chinese, she doesn't speak Korean. Also, she's really, really hot. For best results, do a quick google image search with filters turned off. Like so many Hong Kong / Taiwanese / Chinese actresses, Shu Qi took the short route to fame and was well on her way in the soft porn business when something went wrong and she went mainstream instead. It could have been so beautiful, but you know, it still is, except this time with clothes on. No big deal (although I cry inside).

Oh, right, the movie. Err... Ok, look. She's in this Korea place, hanging out with Ki-chul and the gang, and then this horrifying Korean chick comes in and starts work as a translator between the two. She's piss-annoying because she translates everything wrongly and unfortunately, Cho Jin-gyu doesn't realise that if it isn't funny the first time, it won't be the next fifty times around. Try to ignore her for the rest of the film, she doesn't add anything anyway, although perhaps she was put in for purpose of contrast, further enhancing Aryong's status of powerslut with kickass skills to boot.

Let's see, what else happens. Ah, yes, at some point, some people come wanting to kill Aryong, but obviously they fail (nobody touches Shu Qi except for a handful of lower grade B-porn actors in the past), and eh, that's it. Oh, her father gets blown up in Hong Kong, she's all sad about it, flies back to hear his dying words, hands all asses that need be handed, and then marries Ki-chul because at least one out of three needed a happier ending. There, movie done.

Seriously though, Shu Qi does a much better job at portraying the character of gangster queen, because she's cold as ice, and yet hot as a really hot bitch at the same time. My favourite part of the movie? When she's in a car, crashing down a stairwell, gyrating in Ki-chul's lap. It's no coincidence that she does this scene particularly well. She may have seen some practice.

Final rating: Three stars!
Had it been just Shu Qi, me, and 115 minutes, this movie would have gotten five stars without much thought. However, I had to take away two because there's all this other crap in this film that nobody really cares about. I say work with what you have, Cho Jin-gyu. You had the goods, man, now where's your work?

My Wife is a Gangster 2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:57:00 +0000

Korean title: Jopog Manura 2 (조폭 마누라2)
Release date: 2003
Running time: 110 minutes
Directed by: Jeong Heung-soon
Cast you care about: Shin Eun-kyung (Mantis)
Park Joon-gyu (Yoon)
Zhang Ziyi (Cameo)

Mantis is back in part two of part one! If I said there's rape, murder, fighting schoolgirls, self-mutilation, transsexuality, and abduction in this movie - it'd all be true! Sounds like hentai! But it's not.

I’m dreaming… of a white Christmas. Imagine baseball bats. A rooftop battle, whilst the neon-lit Santa on the background merrily waves you into the new year. Cue helicopter, cue scissors, cue Mantis. My Wife is a Gangster 2 begins.

First thing of notice: Shin Eun-kyung is far hotter in this sequel than she was in the original movie. The fight scenes seem more vivid too, more violent. Promising! The rooftop rumble progresses and some modern-day ninjas come jumping in to throw some lethal crackers around. Caught off guard, Mantis leaves the building. Literally.

However cartoonish, as she falls, a truck bearing a trampoline and another carrying chickens drive past and she manages to land right on top of them. Unconscious, she gets driven around for a couple of blocks and is then thrown off in a violent turn. Enter the new hero – Yoon Jae-choi. Staggering home drunkenly after a night out on the town, he manages to avoid urinating on our battered female protagonist by noticing her just in time. Real casual-like, he reaches into her pockets, throws away her cell phone, and carries her off to his own home. Korea, I like your style.

A few years pass. Mantis, now named Tsu Tsu (much like a panda), has lost all memory of her life before the fall and so, in lieu of a better purpose, serves her self-made boss as a delivery girl for his Chinese restaurant. She spends her free time trying to remember who she was through various violent means – all she knows is that she’s good with scissors. He, on the other hand, spends his time trying to get into her pants and, ever the casual, even tries to rape her sometimes. But Tsu Tsu doesn’t remember that either, the morning after. A fair part of the movie passes as we witness Yoon and Tsu Tsu develop as close a relationship as they’re ever going to get, and Lee injects some more storyline by throwing in Ji-hyun, Yoon’s teenage daughter with a knack for violence.

Meanwhile, both her own gang and her rival from part 1, White Shark, have desperately been trying to find her. It doesn’t take long until the Shark runs into her, but, so his henchmen reason, in order to truly get revenge on her, they need to make her realize who she is first. They send in Junman, brother of eunuch Nanman, to do the job. After several attempts, just as he thinks she knows and moves in for the kill, he gets into an ‘accident’ and becomes impotent for life. Thus the mans slowly go extinct. Not long after, however, Sherry (Romeo’s girlfriend in part 1) drops in for some of the ol’ takeaway and recognizes Mantis. She reports back to headquarters, and they face her with her past.

Then, as you do, she falls off a roof again. You know, ‘cause that kind of shit just happens sometimes. Ever so miraculously, she recovers her memory and goes about taking care of White Shark. One step ahead of her, the Shark kidnaps Ji-hyun and will force her into prostitution, unless… Yoon betrays the random delivery girl he found on the street for his own daughter. A hard bargain, but he takes it. Mantis gets roughed up a little, Yoon feels remorse, comes in for the rescue, and dies. He should have watched more movies ‘cause I saw this one coming miles away. Still, you know, had I had a past of being female and all, I might have shed a tear, if only because Park Joon-gyu does perform his role as Yoon exceptionally well.

Mantis manages to rectify the whole situation and goes on to lead her former life as a gangster, no longer the wife of, but for convenience she’s taken his daughter along. Now what? Now it’s time for Zhang Ziyi, a familiar name in Asian cinema, and not quite the ugly duckling. Personally, a much anticipated moment. See, I bought the DVD for this movie in China, and in huge letters on the front it said ‘STARRING: ZHANG ZIYI, oh and also Shin Eun-kyung and some others’. At first I thought it was crap; it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve falsely informed me. I’ve seen the cast of Dawson’s Creek pasted on a National Geographic documentary. But, ‘lo, Zhang Ziyi does star in this movie.

The entire last three minutes.

Final rating: Four stars!
The student becomes the Sabum in My Wife is a Gangster 2. The first wasn't bad, but the second is better. Funnier, sexier, better acting (like you care). Still no particularly graphic violence or sex, so that's one star down, but up there on all other fronts. So if you're particularly fast - and I know a lot of you are - the three minutes of Ziyi at the end will be just enough for you. Watch the rest of the movie too, though.

My Wife is a Gangster

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 14:59:00 +0000

Korean title: Jopog Manura (조폭 마누라)
Release date: 2001
Running time: 105 minutes
Directed by: Cho Jin-gyu
Cast you care about: Shin Eun-kyung (Mantis)
Park Sang-myeon (Soo-il)
Ahn Jae-mo (Romeo)
Kim In-kwon (Boxers)

Mantis is the leader of a local gang, with Romeo and Boxers as two of her underlings. She marries a local retard to chill her dying sister out. Then a lot of stuff happens.

Rainy day. Perfect time for a bunch of men in suits to frolick around in the puddles with axes and baseball bats. Amidst all this fun, and just as one of the guys gets his head axed in, scissors fly and strike home. Enter the bitch-chick, Mantis, leader of the local rabble. She clears the floor and saves her buddies. Thus conclude the first 5 minutes of the movie.

Mantis, not the hottest ho' in town, is looking after the gang while her boss is on a well-earned holiday. Apart from running with scissors, she has been spending her time on tracing the whereabouts of her long lost sister, whom she was separated of as a child. When she finally finds her, it turns out that she's fatally ill and, of course, has a dying wish: Mantis must get married. Now I don't know about you people, but I guess dying kind of sucks so there'd be a lot of things that I would wish for if I had the chance, but this is not one of them. Anyhow, things are different in Korea, apparently. Mantis obliges.

The victim is a local near-retard called Soo-il. He's the slowest guy in town and therefore the perfect match. They meet, they marry, but is little sister happy? No she's not. Her FINAL final wish is for Mantis to get pregnant. Not really in a position to negotiate, I'd say, but our female gang boss goes for it. Basically, Soo-il has been sulking, all moody and emotional for not getting any up until this point, but this time around, Mantis is ready for rape. Now, I've been edumacated too, so I knew what was about to happen. No sweet loving here, 'cause I read on wikepedia that a female mantis is supposed to rip the male's head off after doing the deed. Imagine my disappointment then, when that didn't happen. She just got pregnant instead.

Well, the sister is really excited but dies anyway, so with that out of the way, it's time for more fighting. Some Japanese dude with knifes challenges our Korean heroine with scissors. A flashy fight scene ends with an impotent Jap. Ouch. He's still alive though, and ready to carve someone up.

This is where we add the 'cool' to this somewhat boring plot. See, throughout the entire movie, we've been able to peek inside the daily lives of two of Mantis' most loyal underlings, Boxers and Romeo. Incidentally, Romeo, with bleached hair and pink shirt, plays the best of parts. His girlfriend, Sherry, coaches Mantis on her way through sluttiness, her deepest conversations with Romeo being limited to 'shut up and do what I say, bitch' or 'ooh' and 'aah' and a variance thereof.

One of the recurring encounters Romeo has is with a local gang of pink-, blue-, and yellow-haired punks. The most sorry of this lot gets beaten up in a variety of ways whilst his friends leg it every time. Eventually, in a scene even I found somewhat sad, Romeo waits for his girlfriend to do the single nicest thing he's ever done - hide a ring in her rice - and he invariably runs into the rainbow-hair gang again. He treats them to a song, slaps the pink ranger around for a bit, but walks onto his knife. Romeo dies in Sherry's arms, his last words: 'you're so fucking pretty tonight'. Kind of charming.

Flash back to Mantis and the gang. They're pretty pissed off about their best man dying on them, and they blame the rival gang and Less-than-magic Johnson with the knives. They head over to their base, but get their asses kicked. Mantis arrives to help out, but being pregnant and all, she's not as legendary as she once was, so Mr. No-Boner gets his hands on her and, guess what, kicks her in the stomach for a bit of preemptive abortion.

Soo-il, by now familiar with the fact that his lovely wife is in fact a psycho gangster, is still a little bit pissed off about the whole ordeal, so decides to end this film and blows up the local karaoke parlor, and all the gangsters inside. Well, good for him.

After all, in this entire movie, he's been the only one to get bitch-slapped, raped, fooled, abused, AND married. I'd be less than happy, too.

Final rating: Three stars!
My Wife is a Gangster is a good watch. Although the real plot of the movie doesn't account for much, if porn can get away with it, so can the Koreans. Every other scene is one of Romeo and his entourage, which kept the whole thing flowing smooth like a lesbian jelly wrestling tournament. Reminiscent of the Germans, Soo-il ups the bodycount to 67 in the last few minutes of the game. Worthy.

NOTE: Sexy sister twins

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 21:15:00 +0000

Bit of redesigning going on. Meanwhile, check out the new sexy sister to this site. Twins!

Azumi

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:10:00 +0000

Ingredients:
One female samurai
Many male samurai
One homosexual samurai
Ninjas

Add female samurai to male samurai. Divide by 2. Add ninjas. Subtract ninjas. Add homosexual samurai. Subtract all male samurai. Subtract homosexual samurai. What is left?

Azumi, that's what is left. Here's a warning that goes for all past, present, and future posts: spoilers left, right, and center! If you have any intent of watching this movie anytime soon, don't read this. Or read it, and then drink yourself into a coma straight after. Your choice.

Azumi starts with Azumi (surprise), still a child at this point in the movie, being found by a bunch of homeless samurai whilst mourning next to her mother's dead body. They take her in and soon she has become a fully respected member of the hobo clan. They then train for about ten years, and as quoted from wikipedia:

Azumi is raised in the martial skills of samurai and shinobi sword fighting,
sashimi cooking, wasabi tolerating, ohayo saying, kamikaze flying, and the art
of assassination.

Upon reaching the end of their training, the ten warriors are lined up by their sensei and made to choose their bestest friend as a partner. Each are then made to fight each other - to the death! In a scene reminiscent of Battle Royale, the hobo clan is struck with confusion, but since sensei is such a friendly chap, they do him this favour. Way to get rid of half your cast.
The remaining five return to the great wise sensei, who is not to be questioned, and are assigned their mission. Azumi and her gang are to kill three evil warlords because of some promise somebody made, some time ago. Before they can do that, however, they need to watch as a village chock-full of women and children are mercilessly slaughtered by some completely unrelated people. A ninja appears out of nowhere, makes an inside joke with sensei, then disappears again.

The first warlord is easily dispatched during a fishing trip, but the second warlord is under the protection of a troupe of ninjas, led by a half-monkey, half-man ninja lord. The movie does not proceed to make clear in any way the reason why this man has a monkey face, but in a movie full of historical facts, who am I to question? I have seen monkeys perform tricks before.
Azumi and the gang proceed to kill who they think is the warlord, but turns out to be his double, and in revenge the man opens up a case of ninja and throws them all over the movie. When Azumi is done killing them all, only one man can turn the tide: a homosexual samurai. Immune to her charm, and also quite good with a sword, he kills one or two of the gang and retreats to a town full of pirates, leaving a trail of rose petals behind. Female samurai, ninjas, pirates; can this movie get any better?

Yes it can! Sensei and the remaining men go on ahead and invade the pirate town. They manage to kill a lot of ninjas and even more pirates, but eventually sensei is captured and his men killed by the gay samurai. Good for him that Azumi was trailing behind, picking flowers and dancing with the butterflies. She moves in and confronts the girly swordsman whilst behind her, one of her buddies rises from the dead and further explains the kamikaze concept as he tightens his bomb girdle and blows up the ninja monkey. Azumi commits hate crime and slays her gay assailant, rescues her sensei, kills the warlord, but sensei dies anyway. Movie ends!

Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura (who later did Godzilla part 28) in 2003, this is 142 minutes of people dying. Kill Bill doesn't even come close to the sheer volume of people killed in this movie, nor can I think of many other movies that do. For this reason alone, it's worth watching. Add the fact that Azumi is not an unattractive samurai and there's a ninja monkey teaming up with pirates, and it becomes much more than that. Arigato!

Final rating:
Four stars!
Azumi, you silly movie, who wants to watch a hot chick killing hundreds of people with swords? Wait, everyone does! They've even made a sequel!

Music: Kenny G

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:04:00 +0000

Ingredients:
1 Saxophone

A meeting of great minds, how nice
Like Einstein and Sporty Spice
Digitally fused in an abortion
Oh, Kenny fans will doubtless rave
While Satchmo turns inside his grave
Soprano man's bit off more than his portion

What is it that has made Kenny G so successful, or rather, what is it that has made him so successful in Asia? Clearly, there is nothing like reading your local engrish newspaper in a dimly lit hotel lobby of choice to the smoothening tunes of Kenny's third leg, the saxophone. That cheese and mushroom pizza really goes with the sound - no matter if it's 30 minutes late. Elevators worldwide slowly ascend as the man with the plan pitches it up a notch. Celebrate the G! Hurray for Kenny!

In reality, there is only one Ken whose existence I will endorse. This particular one has rightfully earned his fame through struggle and hardship, and never backs down in the face of challenge. Unlike Kenny G, this man's works are his own even though Ryu can also do a dragon punch but I think he stole it from Ken, and if you press backwards, down, and A he does an awesome flying kick.

The reason Kenny G has become successful in Asia to the point that he is actually doing tours there, is because other musicians have become successful there. The Carpenters, the Eagles, George Michael, Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand; due to an unmistakable hunger for cheese, Kenny has taught himself to play exactly the kind of music the Asian public has familiarised themselves with, as far as western music is concerned. If this was intentional, Kenny, then you are one evil genius. More likely, it's not.

But it does make sense. See, how often have you found yourself in a karaoke bar and, microphone shoved in your face, being forced to sing a duet with Celine Dion about sinking boats which, to be frank, is an impossibility even with the volume turned down? I know I have. Hence, Kenny G is the ultimate karaoke rendition of all your favourite songs (Carpenters reference - I am tainted)! By eliminating the vocals and spreading his music to every elevator and coffee bar, Kenny has provided in a need for the Asian people. The need to be able to anywhere, at any point, burst into a spectacular rendition of 'Yesterday Once More', undisturbed in their attempt to phonetically approximate the lyrics by the original singers.

For this, Kenny, I applaud you. You have succesfully penetrated the Asian market with predatory strategy. Your great vision anticipated what would happen, and removing the vocals on beforehand has made your product readily available and thanks to that, Kenny G, we will now be forced to listen to your fucking saxophone no matter where we go or how long we stay. Thanks a lot, Kenny. Fuck you.

Final rating:
Two stars!
Kenny G gets two stars. One for his, most likely unintentional evil genius, and another because if it weren't for him, we'd be listening to someone play the fucking erhu. Not a favourable prospect.

Places: Rongshui county, China

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 23:00:00 +0000

Ingredients:
1 Sturdy Wuling van
Several dozen of Miao minority people
A handful of drunk party officials
2 Combatant ponies
As much rice wine as is available

Plough the van through 3 hours worth of mountain dirt roads. Unleash party officials on Miao minority girls and rice wine. Watch ponies fight. Ponder meaning of life.

Rongshui is a small city, or at a broader level, a county in northern Guangxi, China. Many people of the Miao-minority reside in this region, and as a result, visiting the area is much like going to the zoo for the Chinese. Several designated 'model villages' exist where every day, troups of (mostly Chinese) tourists are loaded and unloaded and entertained for the day. So, too, were we.

Rongshui: Venice of the east

On arrival, visitors are greeted with an obligatory bowl of rice wine instead of empty buckets. Then, the cheerful Miao, obviously ecstatic and overcome with joy by our surprise visit to their wonderful village, burst into singing a special minority rendering of 'The East is Red'. A nearby party official assured me that we were the only outsiders to ever have witnessed this. The Chinese show their great appreciation with a half-arsed round of applause and move inside for a session of their national sports; eating. A most orgasmic pleasure for the company I am so fortunate to share my table with, and while they all point out one delicious, unique minority dish after the other I cannot help but think, it's still just rice and vegetables to me.

Quickly does my mood change however, when the first girls appear, and in their hands the anticipated bottles of rice wine. Aforementioned party official now shows an even bigger grin and assures me that "we will never drink as much as we will drink tonight". But first, the ritual! The Miao girls approach their unsuspecting customers, yank them by their ears, and pour a bowl of drink down their throats. To this I can relate! Further enhanced is my joy when it becomes clear that it is customary to retaliate and grab said girl, pin her to the ground, and make her drink three times as much. At least, the party officials seem to be under this assumption, but the girls themselves seem to have temporarily forgotten about this tradition and flee into the back rooms. Understandable my disappointment, then, when I am left without rice wine.

Fighting horses, where art thou?

Visitors are not given much time to weep, however, as the clattering of hooves can be heard from the courtyard, where ponies are made to fight to the death! Surely nothing will withhold these ferocious minority creatures from whinnying each other to bits? I am wrong again, as the ponies briefly engage in some sort of clapping game and then retreat to the stables for a smoke and a game of cards, having brought in the revenue for the day.

But it doesn't stop here, as the campfire is lit and out come the girls again, cautiously and without booze. They throw a few things into the crowd and proclaim that the lucky gentlemen having catched one of these can step forward and proceed to be married to the girls. It must have been somewhere during this sentence that my boasting friend the party official placed one in my lap. Fast forward through half an hour of emptying cups of rice wine and giving each of the girls a piggy-back ride, we are now married and have to pay our brides a small wedding fee. Gah, tricked! I give her 5 mao ($0,05) and the crowd boos me off the stage.

Disappointment again. I spend the rest of my evening a confused, emotional wreck. I am a living set of blue balls. The special minority food turned out to be the exact same as everything else you can eat in this country. The drunken orgy of females and rice wine was quickly dismantled by my over-eager companions. The horses were ponies and their fight was reminiscent of a nursery throw down. I got myself a minority wife, but had to pay for it and wasn't allowed to take her back to the hotel. I was scammed, robbed of my honour, my money, and my pleasure. Rongshui, you could have been it all, but you weren't.

Final rating:
Three stars!
So close, but never quite there. It's a good idea, this Rongshui place, but let this be a lesson for them. I'll be back to see if they do any better in the future... What I marry, stays mine!

Oldboy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:23:00 +0000

Ingredients:
1 Park Chan-wook
1 Choi Min-sik
A claw hammer, scissors, a broken CD
1 Octopus (live)

Put Park on a chair, lock Choi up for 15 years, release, add crude weaponry and octopus. Watch the ensuing spectacle on a couch for 120 minutes. Add beer when needed.

It's hard to go wrong with Choi Min-sik (Shiri, Taegukgi) in your movie. He looks like a bit of a boat person in most of his movies, carefully balanced on the edge of hysteria and psychopathic murder. One of either usually happens. In this particular case, it's both. What happens when one Korean locks up another Korean for 15 years without giving him a reason or any form of contact with anyone else, and then sets him free with the message "if you find me in five days, I will kill myself. If not, I will kill that girl you really care for because you just met her at the restaurant you went to after I set you free just now"? This movie, that's what happens!

Basically, Korean 2 (Choi) complies like a good boy (but old, hence the movie title), but first he needs to relearn his social skills. He practices on a suicidal man on top of a roof by forcing him to listen to his story, and then leaving without listening to the suicidal man's story. Cut to a scene of the man crashing into the pavement below. With that out of the way, Choi starts looking for a restaurant that serves the exact same dumplings as he was fed every day for fifteen years, because I guess they were so delicious. Having found the place, he shows off his newly trained social skills by eating a live octopus to impress a nearby girl. The girl, named Mi-do, instantly falls in love with the primate.

The next half hour or so this movie turns 18+ as Korean 2 finds out that Korean 1 used to go to school with him and goes by the name of Woo-jin. He does this by making love to Mi-do, pulling teeth with a claw hammer, and beating up a corridor full of gangsters. It turns out the reason for Woo-jin to imprison Choi was that back in high school, he'd seen Woo-jin have sex with his sister and spread the news, leading to the girl's suicide. Choi tracks Woo down, confronts him with this information, and now probably expecting Woo to kill himself, he learns something different instead. Woo-jin has played the ultimate prank on him, because Mi-do turns out to be Choi's daughter, and thus the circle of incest is complete!

For reasons that must make sense in Korea, Choi starts barking like a dog and then cuts his own tongue off. Woo-jin gets into an elevator and blows his own brains out, and the entire thing cuts to a frame in a snowy landscape in the middle of nowhere. There's a strange encounter with a hypnotist and the movie ends in an attempt to leave viewers somewhat puzzled. The real clue to this scene however, is that they took the entire set and moved it to New Zealand for five minutes of snowy footage where you really don't get to see anything apart from Choi and his therapist frollicking in the snow. They could obviously not have done this in Korea.

Well, aside from the wickedly cruel plot and excessive violence with a variety of household items, this movie is further awesomified because the live octopus Choi bit into at the restaurant, was an actual live octopus! About three or four of them died just to make this movie. That, my friends, is a shining beacon of hope in the world of PC movies and animal rights protestors today.

Final rating:
Five stars!
Oldboy is both exceedingly violent and cruel and the hysteric characters go completely bonkers during the final scenes, which got me bouncing on the couch like a 5-year old with ADD!

Blast from the past - panda reviewed

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 23:26:00 +0000

We're back you silly bunch of asiaphiles! And what better way to kick it all off by doing a most scandalous rewrite of the most scandalous post of last version, good for numerous comments of outrage! You've guessed it right, men and women of the internet; today we review the panda. Come to think of it, I'm just too disgusted to write about this. Here is the original post, with a few slight modifications.

What the fuck is wrong with these pandas?

I went to the panda zoo in Chengdu once, which is perhaps one of the more boring things I have done in my life. Until recently, I mostly hated badgers. Now, I hate pandas. (09/04 - I now suspect them to be family!)

I'm really glad they are endangered, I mean, it's about time. There's not a whole lot pandas are doing to preserve themselves, anyway. They just sort of sit there, nibbling away on a sheet of bamboo (which some time long ago, a hungry monk saw, and since then the Chinese, too, eat bamboo) and kind of ponder the problem. I don't really understand why they haven't gone extinct a long time ago. They will only eat bamboo and need weird bamboo-corridors to move because they won't pack lunch when moving around. If they cannot at any point during the day sit down and reach for a pole of bamboo, there's a lot of trouble. Why is the only thing pandas will eat bamboo, which isn't even food, but wood? Have you ever seen anyone build houses out of, say, slabs of steak? Have you ever seen anyone eat bricks for breakfast? I've
not, so why do pandas not understand the purpose of natural resources, like anyone else does?

So, when I was in this 'panda zoo' - a very accurate description; imagine a zoo but take out the animals in every cage and replace them all by some pandas instead. I was kind of sheepishly wandering around trying to find the pandas, which was much like finding Waldo. Out of around 30 cages or 'areas' (cages with trees) I've seen only, maybe five pandas, although there would be hundreds of signs posted around saying stuff like "this is chi-chi" and "here lives poo-poo". Pandas always have double names, because this is considered cute and obviously these pathetic creations are to be considered that, much like how a retarded child or your demented grandmother going for a wee in the closet would be considered 'cute'.

The most interesting species I came across in the panda zoo was the red panda, which is not a panda but much more like a squirrel or a raccoon. I guess they figured out long ago there was never any future in looking like a massive black and white furby. There were also several drunken panda in a particularly large cage, subsidized by the Sichuan 'panda'-cigarette factory. They were hanging around in trees and pushing some old tires around, and this one time I think they started fighting but halfway during the first lunge by the bigger panda, they both felt tired and decided to call it quits, after which another panda fell out of the tree with a loud groan. Then all the pandas started eating some bamboo, and it was clear they had done enough for the day.

I really hate pandas, and it is most fortunate that female pandas can only get it on one day a year. All pandas are invariably lazy and thick and so I don't think they will actually even realize when it's 'that time of the year' and if they do they will probably prefer eating some more bamboo anyway.

I also punched a panda in the nose once, when he came too close to the cage, but that is another story.

And so, we arrive at the conclusion! How well do the pandas perform in the great scale of things? Is there even a proper way to measure such impotence? There is!

Final rating:
One star!
Pandas are the saddest thing to happen to China since they invented gunpowder and thought there was nothing left to invent so stopped progressing as a civilization since then. Not even the dodo would steep so low!