![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Apr. 19th, 2014 10:55 pmThe best part of In the Mood for Love for those of us who weren't was when the two sat down to write a martial arts serial together.
Of things doable together that is pretty much the best. But how would one best end?
We all assume in martial arts serials the destined artist starts poor and obscure, shows raw ability by chance in an impromptu conflict, is taken under the wing of a sly unorthodox instructor, learns that advancement in his or her art is the same as overcoming what limits her or him as an emotional being, enjoys a formal public victory at a low level, witnesses the humiliation or murder of the mentor, leaves the comforts of home to execute an elaborate and prolonged vengeance, falls in love with a love-fallible connection of the gang of the enemy, works up that gang's ranks clandestinely defeating its members, comes close to transgressing a moral principle of the mentor's, flees the comforts of the lover, attains secret wisdom in a spiritual neighborhood, regains purity in a sublime natural retreat, develops the technique that will secure victory, returns and offers peace, is refused and beats up thirty or forty people during a feast, takes down the gang leader using that leader's most ironic weakness, frees the orphans, resolves with the lover, becomes reconciled with new personal authority, pays tribute to the mentor, goes home and hugs some family members, sets out on the road to future sagas. But everyone knows that on the way out of town the hero is assessed by a wry uninvolved burdened peasant whose simultaneously profound, humiliating and complimentary remark in passing will set the tone for the sequel. What should this remark be?
Of things doable together that is pretty much the best. But how would one best end?
We all assume in martial arts serials the destined artist starts poor and obscure, shows raw ability by chance in an impromptu conflict, is taken under the wing of a sly unorthodox instructor, learns that advancement in his or her art is the same as overcoming what limits her or him as an emotional being, enjoys a formal public victory at a low level, witnesses the humiliation or murder of the mentor, leaves the comforts of home to execute an elaborate and prolonged vengeance, falls in love with a love-fallible connection of the gang of the enemy, works up that gang's ranks clandestinely defeating its members, comes close to transgressing a moral principle of the mentor's, flees the comforts of the lover, attains secret wisdom in a spiritual neighborhood, regains purity in a sublime natural retreat, develops the technique that will secure victory, returns and offers peace, is refused and beats up thirty or forty people during a feast, takes down the gang leader using that leader's most ironic weakness, frees the orphans, resolves with the lover, becomes reconciled with new personal authority, pays tribute to the mentor, goes home and hugs some family members, sets out on the road to future sagas. But everyone knows that on the way out of town the hero is assessed by a wry uninvolved burdened peasant whose simultaneously profound, humiliating and complimentary remark in passing will set the tone for the sequel. What should this remark be?
