#born against your will? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

earl-of-221b · 6 months

Text

I can’t explain what blue eye samurai makes me feel…….its a typical revenge story, a man sets out on his hero’s journey to kill the four men who have wronged him. A lone ronin, wide brimmed hat and sword in hand, roaming Edo Japan on his vendetta. But he’s not a man. He’s a woman. And how has he been wronged? What’s she getting revenge on?

On the fact that she exists. She wants revenge on the four white men that could possibly have conceived her. Who got her Japanese mother pregnant with a blue-eyed child. And not just any blue-eyed child, but a girl child. How is she possibly supposed to live in the world like that? For the wrong of being conceived, for the wrong of being born, for the wrong of being birthed into a world that will never love or accept her, she will kill her father.

I don’t know what level of convoluted self hate that is. Is she a child of rape? Or a child of a whore? Halfway through I realise what she told herself at the start couldn’t possibly be true - it’s not really for her mother. Her mother wasn’t the root of her vendetta, she wasn’t really doing it for her. When she leaves that farm and leaves the chance to live a simple, legitimate life as a woman, she goes right back to hunting down the men. Those men personally wronged her.

And then there’s so much to be discussed surrounding the way she grew up, because as a boy child and a man she can afford so much more than life has dealt her. Her swordfather who took her in out of the love and care in his heart had no shame in teaching a mixed man his art. The face of a ‘demon’ is fine. But not the identity of a woman. Shh. Don’t say it. Don’t confess. He knows and doesn’t want to hear it.

And because she’s lived that way her entire life for safety and security, she’s so completely alienated from being a woman, perhaps she really is he. But not really by choice. Or is it? The thing she does best is the art of killing, the art of men. Gender is a prison and gender is a performance and she has to choose which to perform. The times cannot reconcile hatred and violence with a woman. So she lives as a man.

So she can get revenge on her father, for revenge on herself.

#blue eye samurai #everything about mizu is so deeply upsetting #like ok revenge!!#revenge of what - exactly?!#white men?#and/ or your white self?#born against your will?#and who and what shapes this will of yours except the society you were born in?#this is so deeply fucked in every way #but anyways #I love Mizu and I hope he kills his father dead. if only - if only that would satisfy her.#my posts

5K notes · View notes

rainbowsky · 1 year

Text

Review: Born to Fly

I saw DD's new film, so here are my thoughts on it. I'm going to have a spoiler-free section and then a more spoilery section. Please pay attention to that if you haven't seen it yet!

Spoiler Free Section

I have to be honest: I had pretty low expectations going into this film. These kind of militaristic, nationalistic, 'heroes and glory' films aren't really my thing. I like the action and excitement, but that tends to get eclipsed by cliches, macho posturing and manipulative melodrama.

These kinds of films tend to take themselves too seriously, and the audience is supposed to go along with that and take it all equally seriously. A lot of the promo for the film showed officials and military figures crying in the audience, which could have gone a few different ways depending on what was happening onscreen.

Given the political situation in that region right now, with China escalating their military aggression against Taiwan, I was also worried this film might push a narrative that I'd find offensive.

Thankfully this film wasn't quite what I feared it might be. Yeah, it had some eye-roll worthy cliche moments and some unintentional humor, but for the most part it was just an engaging, suspenseful and surprisingly funny film. The political angle wasn't great but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

For the most part the special effects were pretty good. Definitely strong enough to give a sense of immersion, and all the actors gave good performances.

Of course DD was the star of the show, and he really stepped up to the task. His performance was convincing, his character was sympathetic, and of course he looked amazing in every frame. I was so proud of him.

Overall I think it's a film most fans will enjoy immensely, and any family or friends who get dragged along for the ride will not have much to complain about.

If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend you stop reading now and maybe come back once you have.

Spoilery Section

I'm not going to go into too much depth, here, because if I get too ambitious this post will run the risk of languishing in my drafts folder, never to see the light of day.

What I Liked

I loved Lei Yu. DD was well cast - he had a lot of DD-ish traits. I enjoyed his plucky, often conflicted personality. He was smart, talented and very human.

While we didn't get much depth from him or the other characters (typical of the genre), the relationships he had with his crew mates were at least convincing enough to drive the story forward and make me feel invested in what was happening to them all.

I loved the action. The aerial scenes were so exciting, and mostly well produced. I had been a bit worried that we'd spend most of the film watching the guys work out and do all these endurance tests (which might make good eye candy but isn't a story), so when those things just ended up being quick montages I was relieved.

I mean, that's what's most exciting about a film like this, right? The planes, the action, the suspense, the crashes.

I also really loved the humor in this film. There were some genuinely funny moments, and it helped relax me into the story more and become more invested in the characters. We all know a film like this is going to play with our emotions a bit, but too many writers forget that just like pain, laughter can be a gateway into people's hearts.

The story was pretty good. I wasn't expecting much, but I think they did a good job of making the mission seem important, of making the struggles seem real, and taking the viewer on a journey.

The film was over 2 hours long, but never at any point did I look at my phone or wonder how much time was left. I was engaged and excited throughout the story. That alone is a pretty big accomplishment. My attention span isn't stellar.

I was grateful that there wasn't much of a romantic storyline. I guess we can thank the censors for that, because they recently put stronger limitations on romantic storylines in nationalistic media. 😐

It was fine for there to be a spark of interest between characters - it makes the stakes higher when things get tense - but I showed up for an action flick, not a romance.

I can't really comment on the technology or anything to do with the planes, training, etc. I have no clue about any of that. It all seemed plausible enough to me that I wasn't being pulled out of the story every time that stuff was being discussed.

I especially enjoyed the parachute packing scene. I had never before put much thought into how parachutes are put together, but the way the guy was talking about it lent gravity to the story while also just being really interesting both topically and visually.

While I felt that the 'background-building' scene with his parents was a bit too rushed to give us a strong sense of their relationship, I wasn't too upset about it because I was more interested in the action.

The relationship between Lei Yu and Zhang Ting (his commander) was very satisfying, and I loved the chief engineer guy who he packed parachutes with. What a great character. Both Hu Jun and Tian Zhuang Zhuang gave strong performances.

I loved that Lei Yu was something of an engineer himself. I don't know much about military aviation, but I know astronauts are serious engineers and scientists, so why can't top tier pilots be too?

This whole aspect of participating in the design of the aircraft was so interesting, and gave us another angle on Lei Yu. Brains, beauty and brawn rather than just a hot macho soldier.

The commander's child was also a smart choice for the story. He was cute and relatable, and gave us another angle through which to view all of this. The enthusiasm for planes. The connection with his dad. It added some fun and human interest to the story (and some pathos).

Little Bai Ze Ze was so cute and he gave a good performance!

I like that I can look back on a movie that was over two hours long and feel that some things were rushed. They packed a lot into those two hours, and the pacing was such that I never got bored or lost interest, and always felt like something interesting was happening.

That might sound like a small thing, but to me it's huge. It's so rare for me to watch a film where I feel engaged all the way through. Especially not a movie in this genre. They did a good job with the story and pacing.

There were some good emotional moments. Going to the tomb to pay respects to the fallen comrades, of course was so emotional, and it helped give a sense of the stakes of what they were doing and the magnitude of the mission.

The death of the commander was also so powerful and heartbreaking. I liked that they weren't afraid to show all these guys bawling their eyes out. It made it all more believable.

Like the success of the mission, the redemption of the relationship between Lei Yu and his rival Deng Fang was totally predictable. The salute at the end "I owe you" could have come off as cheesy but was played well and felt sincere and meaningful. Overall I liked Yu Shi in this film, he did well.

What I Didn't Like

There were some things that I found weak, cringey or even offensive.

The number one thing that bothered me was the glorification of tragedy, and the characterization of terrible accidents as a noble and heroic self-sacrifice, as though it was a price worth paying for the competitive mission of building a frickin' plane to outdo the other guys' technology.

There is never a time when that kind of thing is not offensive to me. The 'noble, self-sacrificing heroism' of soldiers is not an accidental sociocultural perception. It's something people are taught to believe so that the state has enough people who are willing to come forward as cannon fodder, and so the loved ones left behind don't mutiny against those who put them in harm's way.

Yes, there are some dangerous jobs out there and people put themselves on the line to do some important things, but the way this film framed loss of life as an acceptable - even valiant - price for getting a jet built (that is itself just a killing machine)... ugh.

If the value of their lives was put above the value of the technology being built - and above the value of the mission - their goals would still be achievable, but with less loss of life. This isn't about getting the planes built, it's about expediency.

As I was watching a lot of the action scenes I couldn't help but think of DD and everything he went through to make it all happen. I don't like how much danger and injury he ended up with during this film shoot. Seeing the car crash where I knew it was REALLY HIM in the driver's seat was stressful.

And that goes alongside the overall message of 'necessary, noble sacrifice'. The film promo glorified DD's accident and the danger he was put in, his willingness to keep filming even when he was injured or in pain (such as the way the shoulder straps tore up his shoulders when he was in the spinning machine), as heroic and noble rather than irresponsible and unnecessary. It's just so offensive to me. Actors shouldn't be expected to risk life and limb for the sake of creating entertainment. Such things shouldn't be glorified.

So there's that whole tone to the film of people's lives and welfare being an accepted - even natural - price of doing business, which really bothered me.

Another thing I didn't like - and which I knew going into the film would be a problem for me - was the way the whole thing was framed politically. The whole "East vs West" thing was cringey and at times unintentionally hilarious. The American pilots were totally slapstick funny in their characterization, to a degree that came across as childish and embarrassingly propagandistic.

"We can come and go whenever we want and you can't stop us! Hahaha!"

Said the evil stick men with curly moustaches.

This is where nationalistic films often cross the line into creepy or ultra cringey. I think the goal of creating a powerful stealth fighter jet is exciting enough on its own. The audience would have been there for it without the villainizing and the 'us vs them' narrative.

Painting China as an underdog was also so laughable and totally offensive. They are one of the top military powers on the planet. They are leading in technology on many fronts. This had no believability whatsoever, and came across as blatant propagandizing. Which of course I knew to expect, but that didn't make it any more palatable.

And of course, the scenes where they were patrolling the seas were exciting, but when you think about what's actually happening in the region right now it all takes on a totally different tone.

So while the propagandizing wasn't as overbearing as I thought it would be, it still had a pretty strong presence in the film, and that detracted from my enjoyment. I knew that going in, though. It's inevitable with a film like this.

There were a few other moments in the film where I rolled my eyes at the heavy-handed melodrama - the totally predictable and cheesy tombstone fly-by after the big save toward the end of the film, for example - but none of it was unexpected. It's all par for the course with these kinds of films.

Some of the crisis points in the film were a bit much, too. Like that bird strike, which felt sudden and unintentionally comical. The people sobbing in the control room when you know damn well the pilots are fine. That kind of thing. But again - typical fare for this type of film.

Final Thoughts

This film is admittedly a bit shallow, but that's something one can expect from this genre. Films like this tend to put a few hooks into viewers - pull a few emotional strings - and then deliver a bunch of high impact moments to give a sense of payoff. It's all very predictable and formulaic, but that can be part of the appeal. Sometimes I just want to see a cheesy action film.

As far as these types of films go, Born to Fly really wasn't too bad. It was watchable and enjoyable, and the things that bothered me didn't bother me enough to pull me out of the story. My fear was that DD would be associated with a really trashy, awful film and I am hugely relieved to say that didn't end up happening.

This film was a totally respectable effort for what it was, and I enjoyed it, although it doesn't hold up as well internationally as it probably would in China.

That might sound like a tepid summation, but all things considered it's practically a glowing review. 😅

Most importantly, DD gave a really solid performance, and I think that's going to bode well for his career moving forward. There really wasn't a moment in the entire film where I felt he fell short. I am so proud of him. He's doing so well!

#wang yibo #born to fly #reviews #brotherhood and stuff #your political disengagement is a weapon against you

91 notes · View notes