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I have a friend (let’s call him Bort) who is a big fan of video games. Bort has played hundreds, if not thousands of titles over the years. I’m fascinated by the opinions of connisours, with little regard to what they specialize in. In this spirit, I’ve quizzed Bort over the years about what he likes in a video game. His answers often surprised me. In fighting games, many of the great technological leaps of recent years, in Bort’s opinion, have made the games worse. He prefers two-dimensional graphics, with very little environmental interaction. Bort’s ideal fighting game is a pure contest of button twiddling, with no stage-induced deaths, no random advantages falling from heaven, no cornering, no dodging completely off the line of attack, and no plot. In Bort’s opinion, the back story for a fighting game should not take more than five words: “You’re this guy; you fight.”

If Bort produced an action movie, I imagine it would be something like Ong Bak.

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Some of my friends are having a little problem. They don’t make much, money-wise. They’ve found an apartment they can sort of afford, but it comes with really third-degree asshole neighbors. One of the neighbors is causing them trouble, based on his belief that they can’t hurt him. They’re left feeling powerless, like they’re stuck in this rat-hole apartment, and they have no choice but to put up with this asshole. So, tonight, I’m watching a movie about a man who feels helpless, and then sorts things out with cold steel.

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About the time that production crews started to experiment with knock-offs to ride the success of Snake in Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master, Ng See Yuen rounded up every available member of the Yuen clan to choreograph another tale of a twentieth century hero.

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The Hong Kong film industry gets star power in value-packs. When someone figures out that there are a bunch of talented kickers over in Korea, every director heads to Korea to look for Tae Kwon Do practicioners. When Sammo Hung emerged from the Chinese opera, Jacky Chan, Yuen Biao, Cory Yuen, and several others came along. The Beijing Wushu Academy has also been a fountain of talented martial arts actors. Jet Li and Donnie Yen were both students. Following their lead, Jason Wu Jing has emerged as one of the most charismatic action stars of his generation.
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Things to note about Ghost Rider:

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