This has been a writing-heavy week for me because of my intensely discussed Chinese article on the VC industry. So I will skip a weekly review this time and will write about something more casual. I will just comment on the Netflix rendition of the 3 Body Problem三体
I've read the trilogy and watched both the Tencent and Netflix versions. Enjoyed all 3.
3 Points:
First. We need to be fair in comparing apples to apples. The Netflix version has only finished Season 1. Supposedly two more Seasons to go. So, I'm assuming that the true scale of the cruel philosophical arc behind the Dark Forest and the need for one to hide and not bring trouble upon oneself has not been explored yet. We can only render proper judgement on to this portrayal of human naivety only if and when we get to see how the Netflix series brings this horrific realization to light. To me, this portrayal would truly show whether Netflix is true to the author's writing, which so endemically mirrors this common practice amongst us Chinese.
Second. The Netflix character development of Ye Wenjie is sorely lacking given that attention is brought to only one of the three pathos generating devices from the book (death of father, victim of political gamesmanship and murderer of husband and colleague). Her character comes off as being just cooly evil and singularly revenge-driven rather than being a manifestation of the times and desperate circumstances. Very little sympathy is given to Ye Wenjie and I think that this is the primary reason why the Netflix show feels so hollow and that the viewer is being just taken on for a ride rather than being engrossed in inner human conflict.
Third. The portayal of the Cultural Revolution scene appears both accurate and necessary. Yes, it is horrific and veers towards sensationalism and reinforcement of the common Western "Chinese Commie" narrative. However, this is Hollywood and is to be expected. One shouldn't single out this one scene as being racist against the Chinese people. Where Netflix is completely one-sided and does not culturally redeem itself is that, unlike the book and Tencent, the whole collaboration between Chinese science and authorities with the international community in a modern setting has entirely vanished. The viewer is now left with a contrast between Chinese cruelty, evil and barbarism versus Western (British) exceptionalism and fair governance.
"I have two points to make here. One, many of the people who went through that torment (both on the causing end and the receiving end) are still alive. You will need to think twice about opening an old wound."
An excellent piece, Robert. Regarding the quote above, I'm not so sure. Five decades on, I don't think the rationale of 'opening old wounds' holds water. We live on a planet of 'old wounds' and I don't see any that heal properly by allowing them to fester by suppressing open discourse. Besides, Beijing is more than happy to recall the goriest details of its history where they perceive themselves to have been the victim. Neither do I believe that Netflix were needlessly gratuitous in their depiction, even if it was only partly representative of a decade of chaos. I haven't watched the Tencent version yet, but if they found a more subtle way of showing the cruelty and madness of that time, then Kudos.
As for the poll, none of the options quite fit for me. Not having read the books, I enjoyed the novelty of the first two or three episodes (despite some cringeworthy dialogue). This was enough to see me through all eight episodes, though my overall feeling is now is best described as 'underwhelmed'.
"So I do think the censorship over the more explicit parts of that era is at least understandable, and I disagree with the idea that showing something in its gory details serves the purpose of preventing it. When a mass shooter kills people in the US, the media swoops in for 24/7 coverage. That doesn’t make the gun crime issue any less serious. All the great American TV shows about violence don’t make the world a less violent place." - actually there is burgeoning debate in the us about whether or not media should show photos of the horrible gore that ensues in one of these shootings. to date they do not, but the idea is forcing people to see what these weapons do to the human body may change some minds among those opposed to gun control
If I am in that debate, my position will be that for those people who would not become a mass shooter one way or another, showing photos or not won't make any change. But for the psyco who wants blood, this kind of tactic will only make them more bloodthirsty. Likewise for CR. I seriously fear that this kind of imagery will only serve to embolden some elements of the society, but a more in-depth, contextualized depiction, showing the mundaneness and sheer stupidity might just well discourage it. My central thesis is, violence can be "glorifying" for the people who want it.
GPCR was an effort at "continuous revolution", i.e. to maintain revolutionary fervor, prevent capitalist restoration, reform CCP, really. It fairly obviously failed.
Yes, I know for a fact some party members are considering what the GPCR did, though they also know it is like you said opening old wounds.
Xi Jinping pretty obviously is personally aware of the ill effects of the GPCR.
In the end, even Jiang Qing basically said she had no idea what was going on, wasn't directing it, merely implementing.
"I was Mao's bitch. I bit whomever he told me to!" Jiang Qing
China doesn't produce good culture. China produces great culture. But it is not European culture or even Western culture so much of it is inaccessible thanks to language, or goes over people's heads, since any given culture often makes references, sometimes very oblique references, to other aspects of its culture.
I know at least a half dozen great contemporary Chinese movies though most of them have the same budget and consequent visual appeal as Blair Witch Project or similar low budget Western films. But a great film can be made with low budget. But when a film gets remade it has to be placed in terms of some other culture and inevitably is transformed a bit thereby.
Controversial opinion but I really never found the first book that interesting, and I am willing to concede that maybe with the first book, things were "lost in translation" for the english reader, but except certain parts of the book like Neumann's giant integrated circuit or the revelation of the sophon, nothing in the book really blew me away, and so I think the show still does a decent job, although horrible cgi and hurried pace. Regards to the cultural revolution, why is that almost always we downplay communist violences even when there is evidence to back it up? It's probably our misguided moral conscious which still believes that the violence committed was still for the greater good in contrast to the horrors of the fascists whereas the evidence is pretty clear on the "greater" intensity of violence.
I actually agree with you, the first book is just okay. Regarding communist violence, i do not deny CR is a dark and violent period. I am just comparing different cinematic treatments, and not just about CR but violence in general. I also don’t have a clear answer here
There is a number of hidden messages in the series. I note Yang Dong's suicide on the night of June 3, the date being emphasised several times (I am an eyewitness of the "events" during the night of June 3, 1989, in Beijing) The professor asking for his civil rights to be respected, to which the police captain responds: "I have not allowed you to close your door." And so on.
There are a number of essays on why movies suck, some are video essays. The authors are either Americans or English speaking consumers of Hollywood. From my experience there is a lot of good world cinema out there, but the need to commercialize the product if it's expensive is part of the Hollywood problem. Only so much time, but so little of it available for watching movies, that helps with the closed economic loop.
The other problem is Hollywood is a deeply caught up in government propaganda, particularly as the financialization of these products is dependent on the ownership of gateways who also have a role in determining agenda. Much worse than the cultural revolution in that it's a bland, well hidden, but completely invasive ecosystem. Seldom do hidden gems make it past the this sort of control into the hands of "trend setters". 天地不仁 以万物为刍狗 is not a message Hollywood's owners want out there, because it cuts very close to the truth today. It's why there is a strong effort in the USA and EU to bring censorship to social media, and what is more social than sitting in a theater with a hundred others having a shared experience, or talking about it afterwards?
Just had a thought that a modern Tale of Two Cities would be both entertaining and help cultural understanding, if the time-line can be worked though. I'm thinking of USA during McCarthyism and China during Cultural Revolution.
1-4 excepting the unfortunate grandma with the suicided grandchild was kinda me but i only watched it in chinese. text is only hsk4 or so but since it didn't so deeply interesting me (no GPCR yet) i didn't rewatch it again and again in Chinese or with the English subtitles figuring its good for listening comp and char. reinforcement learning.
seems ok but maybe the anglo version is better. haven't read the book.
it's basically metaphor of USA PRC and RF so I Must watch the whole damned thing , basically it's China "showing its throat" to the anglos but i predict anglose won't see it like that.
{don't you dare tell the humans what showing throat means,they suck at body language}
I've read the trilogy and watched both the Tencent and Netflix versions. Enjoyed all 3.
3 Points:
First. We need to be fair in comparing apples to apples. The Netflix version has only finished Season 1. Supposedly two more Seasons to go. So, I'm assuming that the true scale of the cruel philosophical arc behind the Dark Forest and the need for one to hide and not bring trouble upon oneself has not been explored yet. We can only render proper judgement on to this portrayal of human naivety only if and when we get to see how the Netflix series brings this horrific realization to light. To me, this portrayal would truly show whether Netflix is true to the author's writing, which so endemically mirrors this common practice amongst us Chinese.
Second. The Netflix character development of Ye Wenjie is sorely lacking given that attention is brought to only one of the three pathos generating devices from the book (death of father, victim of political gamesmanship and murderer of husband and colleague). Her character comes off as being just cooly evil and singularly revenge-driven rather than being a manifestation of the times and desperate circumstances. Very little sympathy is given to Ye Wenjie and I think that this is the primary reason why the Netflix show feels so hollow and that the viewer is being just taken on for a ride rather than being engrossed in inner human conflict.
Third. The portayal of the Cultural Revolution scene appears both accurate and necessary. Yes, it is horrific and veers towards sensationalism and reinforcement of the common Western "Chinese Commie" narrative. However, this is Hollywood and is to be expected. One shouldn't single out this one scene as being racist against the Chinese people. Where Netflix is completely one-sided and does not culturally redeem itself is that, unlike the book and Tencent, the whole collaboration between Chinese science and authorities with the international community in a modern setting has entirely vanished. The viewer is now left with a contrast between Chinese cruelty, evil and barbarism versus Western (British) exceptionalism and fair governance.
"I have two points to make here. One, many of the people who went through that torment (both on the causing end and the receiving end) are still alive. You will need to think twice about opening an old wound."
An excellent piece, Robert. Regarding the quote above, I'm not so sure. Five decades on, I don't think the rationale of 'opening old wounds' holds water. We live on a planet of 'old wounds' and I don't see any that heal properly by allowing them to fester by suppressing open discourse. Besides, Beijing is more than happy to recall the goriest details of its history where they perceive themselves to have been the victim. Neither do I believe that Netflix were needlessly gratuitous in their depiction, even if it was only partly representative of a decade of chaos. I haven't watched the Tencent version yet, but if they found a more subtle way of showing the cruelty and madness of that time, then Kudos.
As for the poll, none of the options quite fit for me. Not having read the books, I enjoyed the novelty of the first two or three episodes (despite some cringeworthy dialogue). This was enough to see me through all eight episodes, though my overall feeling is now is best described as 'underwhelmed'.
"So I do think the censorship over the more explicit parts of that era is at least understandable, and I disagree with the idea that showing something in its gory details serves the purpose of preventing it. When a mass shooter kills people in the US, the media swoops in for 24/7 coverage. That doesn’t make the gun crime issue any less serious. All the great American TV shows about violence don’t make the world a less violent place." - actually there is burgeoning debate in the us about whether or not media should show photos of the horrible gore that ensues in one of these shootings. to date they do not, but the idea is forcing people to see what these weapons do to the human body may change some minds among those opposed to gun control
If I am in that debate, my position will be that for those people who would not become a mass shooter one way or another, showing photos or not won't make any change. But for the psyco who wants blood, this kind of tactic will only make them more bloodthirsty. Likewise for CR. I seriously fear that this kind of imagery will only serve to embolden some elements of the society, but a more in-depth, contextualized depiction, showing the mundaneness and sheer stupidity might just well discourage it. My central thesis is, violence can be "glorifying" for the people who want it.
yes, but the debate is about showing the gore to change the political dynamic around gun control, not to dissuade would-be mass shooters
GPCR was an effort at "continuous revolution", i.e. to maintain revolutionary fervor, prevent capitalist restoration, reform CCP, really. It fairly obviously failed.
Yes, I know for a fact some party members are considering what the GPCR did, though they also know it is like you said opening old wounds.
Xi Jinping pretty obviously is personally aware of the ill effects of the GPCR.
In the end, even Jiang Qing basically said she had no idea what was going on, wasn't directing it, merely implementing.
"I was Mao's bitch. I bit whomever he told me to!" Jiang Qing
China doesn't produce good culture. China produces great culture. But it is not European culture or even Western culture so much of it is inaccessible thanks to language, or goes over people's heads, since any given culture often makes references, sometimes very oblique references, to other aspects of its culture.
I know at least a half dozen great contemporary Chinese movies though most of them have the same budget and consequent visual appeal as Blair Witch Project or similar low budget Western films. But a great film can be made with low budget. But when a film gets remade it has to be placed in terms of some other culture and inevitably is transformed a bit thereby.
Controversial opinion but I really never found the first book that interesting, and I am willing to concede that maybe with the first book, things were "lost in translation" for the english reader, but except certain parts of the book like Neumann's giant integrated circuit or the revelation of the sophon, nothing in the book really blew me away, and so I think the show still does a decent job, although horrible cgi and hurried pace. Regards to the cultural revolution, why is that almost always we downplay communist violences even when there is evidence to back it up? It's probably our misguided moral conscious which still believes that the violence committed was still for the greater good in contrast to the horrors of the fascists whereas the evidence is pretty clear on the "greater" intensity of violence.
I actually agree with you, the first book is just okay. Regarding communist violence, i do not deny CR is a dark and violent period. I am just comparing different cinematic treatments, and not just about CR but violence in general. I also don’t have a clear answer here
My bad, I believe I was just ranting about the CR thing, kindly ignore.
The irony of the Western commentator's citing of the Cultural Revolution when the CR was arguably the definition of a grassroots democratic movement
There is a number of hidden messages in the series. I note Yang Dong's suicide on the night of June 3, the date being emphasised several times (I am an eyewitness of the "events" during the night of June 3, 1989, in Beijing) The professor asking for his civil rights to be respected, to which the police captain responds: "I have not allowed you to close your door." And so on.
Haven't watched either TV version yet, but I loved the books.
There are a number of essays on why movies suck, some are video essays. The authors are either Americans or English speaking consumers of Hollywood. From my experience there is a lot of good world cinema out there, but the need to commercialize the product if it's expensive is part of the Hollywood problem. Only so much time, but so little of it available for watching movies, that helps with the closed economic loop.
The other problem is Hollywood is a deeply caught up in government propaganda, particularly as the financialization of these products is dependent on the ownership of gateways who also have a role in determining agenda. Much worse than the cultural revolution in that it's a bland, well hidden, but completely invasive ecosystem. Seldom do hidden gems make it past the this sort of control into the hands of "trend setters". 天地不仁 以万物为刍狗 is not a message Hollywood's owners want out there, because it cuts very close to the truth today. It's why there is a strong effort in the USA and EU to bring censorship to social media, and what is more social than sitting in a theater with a hundred others having a shared experience, or talking about it afterwards?
Just had a thought that a modern Tale of Two Cities would be both entertaining and help cultural understanding, if the time-line can be worked though. I'm thinking of USA during McCarthyism and China during Cultural Revolution.
ep05 of Chinese version pace finally picks up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEei8CucYg4
in that it is addressing the issue of new media.
1-4 excepting the unfortunate grandma with the suicided grandchild was kinda me but i only watched it in chinese. text is only hsk4 or so but since it didn't so deeply interesting me (no GPCR yet) i didn't rewatch it again and again in Chinese or with the English subtitles figuring its good for listening comp and char. reinforcement learning.
seems ok but maybe the anglo version is better. haven't read the book.
it's basically metaphor of USA PRC and RF so I Must watch the whole damned thing , basically it's China "showing its throat" to the anglos but i predict anglose won't see it like that.
{don't you dare tell the humans what showing throat means,they suck at body language}
{rough rough}