Notice, how in my last column, on several occasions I said “largest post-Soviet budget…”? This is because the amount of money the Soviets put into the arts, especially motion pictures. The 1968 Soviet adaptation of War and Peace cost one hundred million 1968 dollars; around seven hundred million 2009 dollars. The sheer amount of manpower they could muster for a film is utterly staggering, making some of the battle scenes, still to this day, the most majestic caught on film.
This resulted in a lot of highly experimental films and to a greater extent, animation, most of which are something to behold. Naturally, film makes fantastic
propaganda. Naturally, that rings just as true today as ever, and the Soviets are no great exception there. The sheer scope of it, however, puts them in a league of their own!
Among some gems:
What Hitler Wants
Pioneers Violin
White Army, Black Baron
Silver Hoof
Ahh Taiwanese politics…
For those who feel “Jerry Springer” may be too boorish for their tastes; Taiwanese politics contain even more hair pulling, scratching and name-calling; Minus the Nazi-Midgets who are cheating on their wife with their sister.
See what I mean, here.
I normally don’t post political stuff here, but I just had to link to this piece by Ezra Klein on the hilariously vacuous Republican budget proposal.
The best bit?
It reads like what would happen if The Onion put together a budget.
-snip-
The Republican proposal, as you might expect, doesn’t actually have a health care plan. But it does have this: “Republicans will be on the side of quality versus mediocrity, affordability versus unsustainable debt, and freedom of care versus bureaucrats in control. And we will be on the side of patients, doctors, and the American people.” They are also in favor of good things rather than bad things, moving forward rather than going backwards, the hobbits rather than the orcs, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom. That said, the GOP does understand that some voters might be looking for specificity on their health plan. So they included this graphic:
It’s like someone showed them a flowchart. Once. And only for a few seconds. And refused to explain it. My editor Ann Friedman just walked into the room. “It looks like they’re building a budget molecule,” she said.
A budget molecule. Maybe that’s what they were doing.
Alex
For those of you who don’t live in Asia, I can tell you that the very concept of an AU (Asian Union) sounds just as outrageous now as an EU might in, say, 1938.
Now, if we could choose one country across Asia that the most people have a beef with, it’d be Japan, without question. The whole rape, annexation, scientific experiments, torture and then subsequent denial thing, can do that to you. The subsequent denials and douchebaggery demonstrated by people such as Toshio Tamogami, sure doesn’t let old wounds heal either.
How ironic (the Vatican in the heart of Rome kind of irony perhaps?) that the one thing that seems to unite Asia is the delightful Hokuto No Ken (Fist of the North Star).
Well, it was such a merchandising juggernaut in the 80’s, it’s not suprising many people wanted to emulate it’s success. Coupled with the fact that due to the aforementioned bad blood between Japan and it’s neighbours, these places didn’t neccesarily feel obliged to pay any royalities for rights of the characters.
Enter Taiwan’s Hokuto No Ken; "Funky No Ken"
And perhaps the more well known Korean version; With regret, I was unable to obtain any information on it’s budget. However, calculating the budget would be far from an arduous task. One Samsung keyboard + green hair spray + old clothes (most likely donated) + scissors.
To wrap it up, the Kenshiro VS Raoh clip from the Korean TV series. Kenshiro sounds like an old lady undergoing a hysterectomy without anasesia.
