Kung Fu Panda 2

Sometimes there's a little touch of serendipity. For example, right around Christmas, Amazon had Kung Fu Panda 1 and Kung Fu Panda 2 on sale in the digital format. I snagged both of them for like $5.99 each as opposed to the almost $10 they are now.


I saw serendipity because I had no clue that I'd be playing in a Legends of the Five Rings game, which was brought about by seeing the movie 47 Ronin. Sometimes things just hit in cycles. Mind you, while I love Wuxia style games, Legends of the Five Rings is generally more of a samurai game. I'm not saying it's impossible to make a monk style character.


If I'm recalling correctly, the Dragon have their own clan for it, and there are some skills and advantages that allow you to at least be competent in it. I believe the Dragon monks even breath fire if they survive long enough. But it's been a long time since I was a master of the game system and 4th edition is still calling me to read it more and more.


Anyway, I enjoyed the original Kung Fu Panda. I dug the sound track, the visuals, and the story. The folks at DreamWorks tend to make a good movie in my opinion.


I was not disappointed in Kung Fu Panda 2. It helps that it's an animated film. By doing so, the company is able to overcome issues that plague many historical based productions like HBO's Rome. Anyone remember that it was supposed to be the sheer cost of the sets, the huge cast and the awesome costumes that doomed it to being only two season? Going the animated route allowed the creators of Kung Fu Panda to also play around with the imaging.


For example, we discover more about the Dragon Warrior's background. To all viewers, it's obvious that Po is adopted since you know, his father is not a giant panda but to Po it comes as a surprise. By using what I'll call 'traditional' or carton style imagery it clearly cuts the scenes that are memory and those that happen in the here and now. It works well.


The story hits several of the 'standard' bits. We have a little bonding between the members of the original Five and Po. We have some great 'kung fu' moments. We have moments where the opposition seems entirely too powerful and that it will take a miracle to overcome. Oh yeah, and chase scenes. We get several of these and some of them very entertaining visually like where Po and the Five are disguised as a dancing dragon for a festival and 'eat' their enemies and well, they don't come out the front end.


There is also a bit too much of the 'drama' key for me. Mind you, it's not an overwhelming thing. There are some tragic elements added to Po's background, which for the purpose of the movie, work fine, but the added little 'extra' at the end, that hit the drama key for me. Worse then that though, is the supposed sequel isn't supposed to be out until Christmas 2015. Thankfully there is an actual carton series that doesn't do a bad job of capturing some of the fun although the animation in that has nothing on the movies.


I'll be discussing some specifics of the movie below and things that inspired me from the movie so if you don't want any specific spoilers, read no further.


1. The nemesis effect: I'm not quite sure that is the actual specific name but in short, when you hear a destiny you don't like and go about changing it only to have the exact thing you didn't want to happen, happen. In this case, the foe, Shen, a peacock, is a chemist of sorts who sees a new future for the powders used to make fire works but a seer foresees that a panda will stop him. Shen's solution? Kill all the panda. Doesn't work though as Po winds up being sent off to a far away place and due to his location, becomes the dragon warrior, the only one capable of stopping Shen.


Mind you, that's the 'easy' way. It's similar to the original Batman movie with Jack playing the Joker. Joker in that movie at least, kills Bat's parents, Bat's and thug fight, thug gets turned into Joker and final showdown happens!


One of my favorites though is a little more subtle. It's a Viking tale. Powerful warrior goes to see how he'll die. He's told it's his horse. He's like, "My hose?" Kills the horse. Goes out and does all sorts of Viking things. Years later finds the skull of his horse and is like, "Whose killing who!" and kicks the skull aside, disturbing the poisonous snake beneath it who bites and kills the Viking.


2. Its a Wonderful World after all. I can't speak for Jack's acting chops. I'm entertained by his music mind you, but he really hasn't wowed me in any movies. Here though, maybe because it's animated or maybe because it's a character Jack would never have the ability to play in an actual movie, he does a great job. Now when I say great, what I appreciate is that Po is first and foremost, a fan of kung fu. He is a destined warrior and is an important part of the 'hero' food chain but he loves where he's at. He loves and can't believe his luck to work with the Five. When he meets other legendary characters, he's awed and thrilled to be working with them at the same time. It's a refreshing change of pace of heroism from some of the more cynical and standard batons of grim soldier that are so common these days. Po is fun.


3. Big Things: Po and the Five and the other masters are not your standard people. While we're not talking about Dragon Ball Z levels of power or anything, they are capable of dodging multiple arrows while fighting multiple opponents while leaping about and engaging in combat sequences that are visually appealing. This includes say, gang piling ships at the entrance of a river to prevent Shen and his canons from leaving the city and conquering China. This bigger than life effort only works short term mind you, but it does work and it's an impressive bit.


When you have characters that are capable of doing great things, like in L5R perhaps some of the more magical classes, let them shine. Let those points spent in advantages and specializations come to the forefront.


4. Character moments: One of the things that's easy to overlook in the movie, is that Po continues to bond with the others in the setting. This doesn't only include the Five, but also his master and his father. These moments of character allow the character to be more than just a set of awesome abilities.


When I was regularly running, I tried to make the characters lives interesting with numerous NPCs, interactions with lots of people, and enough things going on in the character's lives, that going to a dungeon and fighting might not be the most important thing, but countered that by having things in the dungeon that they'd need. Mind you my 'dungeons' used to be much smaller than the common monstrosities out now and might have even resembled some of those in 4e where things might be 'grouped' into mini-dungeons for specific things for the characters to do or get.


5. Visual Style: This one can be hard to pull off. I mentioned that my friends started the L5R game because they were inspired by 47 Ronin. Part of that was just how cool it looked. Kung Fu Panda has a lot of moments of visual 'stunts' and great action sequences. These things make it appealing. Doing so while just describing it can be a touch more difficult, so don't be afraid to steal visuals and even sounds when you can. There are some songs, like the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack where if I play the Anvil of Crom, from the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack, of which there is apparently a three disk version now, most of the players know that the big fight is getting ready to come down, or if I play The Siege of Camylarde, which is actually a different song in its original classic name, from the soundtrack of Excalibur, which is no longer available apparently but the blu ray is like $10 bones. Go figure.


Anyway, it doesn't necessarily have to be a 'visual' style, but if your words can enforce the themes and conflicts without any need for print outs or sounds, all the better, but don't be afraid to use those other resources when they're out there.


Kung Fu Panda 2 is a fun movie and while it gives some maturation to the main character, at the end of the film he's still jumping into the air in awe that he gets to fight alongside the legends of kung fu.

The Guillotines (2012)

So at Best Buy the other day looking over computers. My desktop has always been a piece of crap. Second Dell I've had that has been plagued by issues and well, it'll be the last Dell I have outside of those provided by corporate.

After deciding I'm too old and stupid to know what any of the new computers actually mean in terms of horsepower and monitor resolution, I wander over to the movie section. Man, it's been a while. The movie selection is terrible and takes up a small footprint in the store. Probably for the best though as people have Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, and Amazon Prime among other bits.

I saw this cover for the Guillotines and was like, "Man, that looks bad ass."

I then went home and watched it on Netflix.

Overall it has some nice scenery, a few good fight scenes, some fantastic costumes but what starts off with a tremendous high energy ass kicking winds up a morality tale about the Emperor of China. In that aspect it reminded me of Hero. Yes, I'm the Emperor and I've done all these terrible things but hell, it'll be worse without me so let me kill you now. Ugh.

If you enjoy movies for the fighting and other bits I've mentioned, enjoy the first say, thirty minutes and then take a nap or something. After seeing this, I want to see Rise of the Guillotines or something where we get two hours of awesome flying guillotine action!

Below I'll be discussing some of the things I enjoyed about the movie.

1. Style. When the Guillotines are first introduced, it's like a super hero team. They have unique weapons that launch flying weapons that resemble something between Krull's flying weapon and Xena's chakram. Their uniforms are also very stylishly designed. This gives them a unique and powerful look.

2. Obsolescence: Time marches on. The ability of the Guillotines to kill someone at ten paces is nothing compared to the new firearms that China has started using. In a role playing game, I would expect that the players would be some of the top notch users and that the average rifle user would be a mook. Here though, because it's about China and the Empire and it's rise to modernity, well, the Guillotines who were so viciously bad ass at the start of the movie are completely punk'd.

In a role playing game, playing against type, playing against the rise of technology, is a part and parcel of the game. For example, one Osprey book I'm reading, English Longbowman 1330-1515 put the decline, but still in use and still dangerous longbowman, in an era where guns are, if not common, at least on use alongside cannons. It's the skill set that the characters bring to the game that make it interesting. One of the more popular shows on television right now is Arrow and that's a guy with a fancy longbow in the modern era of automatic weapons showing he can make a difference.

There is also the role of the individual. Military is great for well, military action but not necessarily as useful in going into tombs and fighting against weird monsters. Specialists are useful for those types of things.

4. Specialized Group: The Guillotines are the fist of the emperor and his private assassins. The movie wavers a little in why they have to die. In most places you'd figure, "Hey, we've got these new weapons so we're going to upgrade you." or at the very least retire you. Giving the government the going to kill you to cover up your existence while sending out even better trained killers is a bit silly but sending them out because the players know something and are somehow dangerous to the government? Now that's something that can easily be done.

This can happen in a few ways. The players could be prophesied to kill the emperor. They could be local heroes and the emperor is jealous. They could have failed some subtle test that another power group that wants the character's spot put into place.

5. The Enemy of my enemy... When the movie starts, the Guillotines are hunting down a cult. They capture the leader by the name of 'Wolf'' but in a daring escape sequence that involves explosions and an excellent display of throwing knives, he escapes. The Guillotines are sent to recapture him, but during that same time frame, are written off as obsolete so as the Guillotines are punk'd by farmers and riflemen, the two that escape wind up working with Wolf. Roles can change rapidly when the tide moves against the characters.

6. Role Reversal: While I did not like the way the Guillotines were beaten down, I have no problem with the idea of it. Adventurers that have a guild or an actual social standing losing that standing is a long held part of story telling. Characters change roles and positions often. For example, Spider Man has gone from a solo hero who was essentially too broke to own a car to a top rated scientists and well, to other elements that might not be well appreciated but show the character and individual struggle against the elements arranged against him.

For example, when there is a reward put on the Guillotines and the common farming folk turn on them, well, I can't imagine a group of player characters getting butchered like sheep as the movie cast does. However, if there was say a Paladin or other good aligned character in the party, I can't imagine them just chopping and hacking their way free from the crowd either. The challenge of how characters deal with the change is what can propel the game forward.

A useful thing to keep in mind though, is what is the final result? In a role playing game, say in Baldur's Gate during 1st edition, if the players were members of the Flaming Fist and that group was outlawed, would the final goal be to restore the Flaming Fist to legitimacy in Baldur's Gate? To accept that their time there was ended? To fund a new organization somewhere far away and start anew? To tear down the city in a final blaze of glory?

The few action scenes we have, the awesome unique style of the weapons, the costumes and scenery along with the sets provide some great visual inspiration but the movie is not where I would have liked it to wind up in terms of type of movie. Check it out on Netflix and let me know what you think.

Tales of the Far West A Wuxia Western Anthology

Tales of the Far West is an anthology of wuxia western basis for the Far West setting. I didn't back the Kickstarter but it's a topic I'm interested in. One of the things I like about antholgoies is that it's a little easier to sneak them in then a five hundred page monster novel. In between some of the games I ran at Gen Con, this was good 'buffer' material to prevent me from rereading sections of the One Ring over and over again.

In terms of why I bought it, first thing up movies. While The Man With the Iron Fists isn't going to win any awards, there were some great fight scenes. Another favorite of mine, Sukiyaki Western Django combines a lot of those elements and then there's the Warrior's Way where a man from the east winds up in the west. Of course this ignores Kung Fu from back in the day.

Anyway, you can see why I might be interested in the theme.

The book is hit or miss. For example, Riding the Thunderbird by Chuck Wendig just doesn't go anywhere for me. I found that odd as I enjoy a lot of Chuck's work. I check his website on a regular basis and have bought several of his books on writing. He has a good 'voice' if you will. Maybe it was just too short for me.

And that's exactly the problem with Purity of Purpose by Gareth-Michael Skarka. I would swear that if the RPG comes out, this is going to be the chapter opener for how advancement or combat works. It's well told but so short I was left wondering why it was included. It's basically a well told fight scene. Yeah, it's well told. Love the description of the guns for example.

Mind you as science and technology go, I wonder how longer term that will work. In most fantasy genres, the strength of the ancient swords and armor are reliant on the old magic and forge abilities that have been long lost. That doesn't necessarily work that way with technology. Hard to look at a gun from one hundred years ago and think, "Yeah, that's going to out class some of the newer stuff."

The good news is that I didn't feel lost when reading the stories. There are a few things that poke odd as odd but I assume they'll be getting more details in the future. For example, how 'magical' is the setting. Demons are mentioned as a rumor, but there are 'thunderbirds'. There's a lot of 'steamtech' but seems fairly out of the way for the most part.

The setting also seems capable of handling more than just straight up wuxia action. For example, Ari Marmell does a tale that fits soundly in the horror-suspense field. While its a little jarring compared to some of the high action we see in other tales, its told well enough and fits with one of the other themes of the setting, steam punk weird science.

That genre blending comes into focus in the tale Crippled Avengers by Dave Gross where the main characters all have some type of crippling injury inflicted on them by the villain only to have Science! restore them.

The even better news though, is that there are some solid stories in here. The strengths of Riding the Thunderbird and Purity of Purpose may have seemed weaker and out of place because they followed He Built the Wall to Knock it Down by Scott Lynch and In Stillness, Music by Aaron Rosenberg, both of which were longer and fuller and really brought the action.

He Built the Wall to Knock it Down hits a lot of the standards of 'fantasy' writing/showcasing that I've mentioned before. It includes the unknown stranger with a dark past, the building up of the stranger in terms of his strength by showcasing what a powerful fighter he is against more and more outrageous odds and then the final show down. Even better though, some of the characters introduced can make future appearances or even show up in flash backs to previous tales. It's that strong in my opinion.

All told there are twelve tales including authors like Matt Forbeck among the others I've mentioned. The electronic version is under $5 so if you're looking to dip your toe in something a little more off the beaten path, this should have you covered.