[Books] The Dragons of Heaven (Missy Masters Book 1)

Welcome to my first book review for the year! I had actually started reading this before the holidays and had expected to get it done before the end of the year, but I underestimated the length of the book and how busy the holidays would be. Plus hitting my annual book reading challenge goal, it meant I needed to make some smart decisions about which to books and comics to read in the time I had left. But as I've promised everyone that I commit to a book review, I made sure to finish it.

The Dragons of Heaven is a somewhat older release from Angry Robot Books that already has a sequel (which is also in my review queue). I got into the title expecting a straight up superhero adventure given how Angry Robot supports a number of authors who enjoy the genre. But instead it was more a fantasy piece tied to Chinese lore and quite a fun adventure at that.

I rather appreciated this spin on the super hero genre, which for the most part I think people are still trying to figure out how to tackle as novels. We're all used to superheroes as comics and that inevitably ties the concept to the visual experience in a way. But then to cover that sort of a story in a book is something else entirely.

[Movies] The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)

You can't exactly call me a major Quentin Tarantino fan, but I do respect his work. And on the whole, I do enjoy his movies, and that's certainly a good thing. So when I see his name attached to a project, I'm generally willing to go out of my way to see it.

This movie was a bit of a bait and switch though - and boo on me for not doing my homework before watching the movie. I just saw Tarantino's name attached to the project with starts like Lucy Liu and Russel Crowe and I was pretty much committed. I was actually rather excited to watch this movie given its martial arts bent and I love Tarantino's homages.

But this movie is only "presented" by Quentin Tarantino. He literally just slapped his name on the movie as a sort of favor to RZA, who is the actual director and co-writer. So ultimately that feels like a major bait-and-switch of some sort.

[Movies] The God of Cookery (1996)

Back in the day, SkyCable had Star Mandarin as one of its standard cable channels - one of those tricks that cable companies do to inflate their channel counts. Surprisingly, my brother and I ended up watching the various movies on the channel during those lull hours when HBO seemed determined to play every single movie 2-3 times in a day while all the other channels seemed to lack anything worth watching. It's a weird world that way.

Recently I was struck by a wave of nostalgia about movies that I wanted to share with my partner. This was one of the movies that really stood out for one reason or another. Maybe it's because of the fact that we had also finished watching the entire Cooking Master Boy anime series at the time. Or maybe it's because Stephen Chow's career was already reaching new heights and this old gem had been dug up to capitalize on his popularity at the time.

It kind of pains me how movies in other countries in the region look so much better than local movies. And I'm not even comparing to movies of the past - it's a very real problem that continues to plague the local film industry.

But I suppose that sort of a rant can wait for another post entirely.

[Comics] Immortal Weapons

Asian mythologies will always hold a special place in my heart, and I don't say this just because I'm Asian as well. There's a certain sense of style and artistry that you tend to associate with this brand of storytelling that can't quite be matched by their Western counterparts.

Pair it with some of the Asian sensibilities in terms of art styles and that makes things even more fun. And the styles changes whether you're talking about art from Japan versus that from China. There's the visual style that we associate with Thai designs and there's the complex art of India. I'd love to try and capture the descriptions of each art style but I fear my meager words won't do them justice. So just run a Google search or something to get a better idea.

Now when these principles get applied in comics, it's a mix of the good and the bad. I've seem some great ventures that try to copy the style as best as they can but in other instances we end up with amazing pieces that capture the spirit of things amazingly well. One doesn't need to copy things exactly - one just needs to understand the aesthetic and run with that.

[Games] Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires (PS3)

I know, I know, most of you out there probably consider Koei to be a one-trick pony when it comes to games. For the past several years they've been pretty much milking the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story for games including their classic hack and slash button-mashers like Dynasty Warriors and their various strategy-style games like, um, Kessen!

Yes, I actually played Kessen - and I liked it, too!

So anyway, that's pretty much how a lot of us remember Koei and as much as you think they'd start seriously putting money into either a new game engine or a new piece of historical fiction to exploit, they still continue to release more and more games covering the Three Kingdoms period. As repetitive as this may seen, it does result in interesting refinements to the gameplay style and different ways for us as players to be pleasantly surprised by how things work. I'd like to think that this edition of Empires was a nice improvement to the genre and still one of the more enjoyable PS3 games around that still offer local multiplayer options.

[Movies] Chi Bi / Red Cliff (2008)

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, like many other ancient epics, has inspired many works beyond it. Books, movies and even video games - you name it and you'll eventually find out that it was somehow related to this epic tale. Covering the highly turbulent Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty, the book is rich with action, adventure, intrigue and all that good stuff.

Ironically my first encounters with the story involved the Dytasty Warriors franchise of games. The various battles and sequences involving noble heroes like Liu Bei and Zhou Yu and the cunning machinations of the traitorous Cao Cao and his massive navy. It's with some irony that I still haven't found the time to actually read the book despite how much of it that I'm already familiar with.

So when I finally heard about this movie from my brother, who is also major Dynasty Warriors fan, I knew I get to get around to seeing it.

[Google] Giving China The Finger

Image via Wikipedia

Google's policy of supporting the Chinese government's ultra-strict internet censorship policy has been a long-standing pain for human rights advocates and free speech defenders around the world. For a company with an informal motto of "Don't be evil", its continued support of Chinese policy has always been seen as an inconsistency in their actions and their supposed support of internet liberty and freedom of information.

So finally they're doing something about it.

In an official blog post, Google announced a sudden shift in Google policy in terms of how it intends to operate its Google.cn domain. Whereas before they fully supported China's censorship rules on Google.cn while keeping Google.com uncensored, they have now decided that they will no longer censor its Google.cn result. They intend to consult with the Chinese government regarding how they can continue to operate within Chinese law without censoring its results at the risk of being forced to shut down Google.cn and perhaps its entire Chinese operations in general.

The reason for this appears to be a series of attacks on the Google network recently targeting the Gmail accounts of several known human rights activists in China. While Google claims that the hacking attempt generally failed in the sense that no sensitive information was acquired in the attack, they still feel it was some sort of an affront on their continued operations in China and a sign of the prevailing political culture that won't allow for freedom of speech in any regard.

It took you long enough, Google. Seriously.

But still, better late than never and the Geeky Guide for one fully supports this long overdue shift in Google policy. Take that Chinese censors! And a double dumb ass on you!

[World Affairs] China Goes Sci-Fi

Everyone seems to be talking about the news that China had fired a test missile last week that destroyed a satellite, a clear demonstration of an "asat" or anit-satellite weapon.

While the target was only an old Chinese weather satellite, the demonstration has everyone thinking pretty much the same thing - this is the kind of weapon that will be capable of destroying suspected spy satellites in order or even GPS satellites assuming China deems them to be hostile to their interests.

It's not as if there's anyone else worth targeting with asat weapons - only the US has such a large and highly developed satellite network that worth being considered as a potential military target, if needed. Thus it comes as no surprise that the US is one of the first nations to file a diplomatic protest against the missile test.

It'll be interesting to observe how the international community will respond to this particular test. It's definitely diplomatic thing ice either way and no country will really want to get caught in the middle of yet another US-China series of tense and terse negotiations.