Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with David Ehrlich

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check A timeless story of strength, secrets, and two warriors who would never podcast!

[00:00:27] That's the tagline? Yeah, that's a weird tagline, right? Who would never what? Kiss? Surrender? They would also never podcast, I think it's fair to say. They would never podcast! They would track! That would be a good podcast though.

[00:00:37] There's one scene where you think they're almost going to break into a podcast when they meet in the little shack with the Great Square window, and then they don't. They're going to join the Sir Tate Podcast Network? Right. And Shal Young-Fat asks... I did it! I'm out!

[00:00:53] I'm not topping that! David is walking out of the studio. Sorry, David. You still have another David. Alright, alright. Blank Check with Griffin and David. There is that scene where Shal Young-Fat realizes it's the princess and not the Jade Fox. Right.

[00:01:07] And he offers to train her and also ask her who her guys are. Who are her guys? We're dying! Lock the sword. Hello everybody, we're going to lock the sword today. My name's Griffin, and they're one. David Sims. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David.

[00:01:24] We're hashtag the two friends that's competitive advanced. We're the only two friends who do a podcast together. True. And what is that podcast? Blank Check with Griffin and David. What's it about? Filmographies. Directors of Massive Success earlier on in their career and are giving a series of Blank

[00:01:38] Checks, make whatever crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy passion projects they want. Like this one. Like this one. It's crazy. Sometimes they crouch. Sometimes they hide, baby. Yeah. This is a main series on the films of Ang Lee and this... The main series is called Broke by Mountcast.

[00:01:56] That's it, right? We keep forgetting. We keep forgetting. Something like that. And this is Crouching Podcast, Hidden Podcast. Sure. The Crouching Drag... Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon episode. Right. Crouching Tiger Hidden... Cast... Is this still his most Ben...? Ben's a sugar spinger. Ben, no, no, no, no.

[00:02:15] No, no, no. No, no, no, no. No. Is this his highest grossing film? No. Like this Life of Pi and Hulk all ended up very similar... I think Life of Pi grossed a fair bit more than this. I'm going to guess that this is his highest grossing adjusted,

[00:02:30] but I'm not sure if it's... Ooh, interesting. Hulk grossed 132. Okay. This grossed 128. Okay. Life of Pi grossed 124. Very similar. But worldwide. No, that's domestic. Yeah. Worldwide. I think it's Life of Pi. Worldwide. It's definitely Life of Pi. Life of Pi was crazy huge worldwide. It made 609. Yeah. Crazy.

[00:02:49] It made 245 worldwide. Yeah. But yeah, so... Those are Justice League numbers. Yes. That was that weird thing though that we discussed. Justice League wish it got those numbers. Justice League in 2003 got those numbers to be happy.

[00:03:02] When we did our Bartman Begins episode and we looked at the overseas and like overseas Batman Begins, I'm sorry, Bartman Begins did 100 million. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like there... It was just like not until 2007 did movies make that much money overseas other than weird examples. Weird like...

[00:03:19] Even later though, yeah. It's like Captain America 1 tanked worldwide. To think of that now like a Marvel movie not appealing to the whole world. And they did that whole first Avenger thing to try to couch it.

[00:03:33] And Thor was viewed as this massive success because of how well it did overseas. Right. And it did fine. It did what a movie opens in China too now. Right. It did then what... I don't know. Tomb Raider is going to do now.

[00:03:47] Yeah, Tomb Raider is huge in China. Yeah. Did you see Tomb Raider? No, I did not. Raids of Tomb. I like it. Did you see it? I liked it a lot. I liked it. This is hot off the presses for an episode that's coming out in June.

[00:03:59] So I was going to go see Tomb Raider last week for... It was going to a press screening and Griffin was like, Ah, fuck. I really want to see Tomb Raider. I thought it looked like a gentleman six.

[00:04:08] I had a feeling it was going to be a gentleman six. I think it's solid. David, I think it's solid. I got a feeling it's solid. I walked out of there. I thought it was close to solid. It was just inspiring to a gentleman six. I agree.

[00:04:18] You texted me. I said, I... It's a gentleman six. Did I? I think I said gentleman five. It's more of a gentleman's five. Let me check the text. People have been waiting months for our Tomb Raider takes. Despite the fact that you published a Tomb Raider.

[00:04:31] I did publish one. It's true. And my review was like, it's fine. Okay. You said in all caps, it's pretty solid. Pretty solid. Yeah. You didn't give it a gentleman's number. Then you asked about the puzzles and I said that there were four puzzles

[00:04:43] and one of them is good. So here's the thing. This is why... This is what, yes. There's like one puzzle that is... 100%. This is why Tomb Raider gets an automatic gentleman six for me. There's a moment where as if it's the most obvious thing in the world,

[00:04:56] Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft is like hitting things on a wall and then goes, Oh my God. It's a color puzzle. Yes. Hand me that tombstone. Yeah. She's like blue and yellow, green. Like literally that's the... But just a minute. We all know what a color puzzle is.

[00:05:12] And it's like rotate that hearth wheel. Yeah. If she had just been like, I saw this shit in Ocarina of Time. I would have seen that movie. I would love to see Ocarina of Time with her. I think she's really great.

[00:05:20] The reason that movie is okay is her. It's like a franchise where I could see the second movie being exponentially better than the first. Yeah, maybe someone else could direct it. Yeah. And maybe like... A good director? Maybe like producer Ben. What? Produer Ben.

[00:05:33] I thought we weren't doing the names. Poet Laureate, the ha. Mr. Hosev, Mr. Positive. We're thinking about dropping the nicknames. We're thinking about dropping the nicknames. What do you think, Earl? I'm going to tell you right now on behalf of the entire community, people listen to you.

[00:05:46] That's a fucking awful idea. Yeah! Also, also... He just blew out the mic. Mad Eat, Drink, Ben woman. Oh yeah, I told you to bring that fire right to the fire. My B team level one was the wedding Ben quit, but too subtle, too subtle.

[00:06:02] I'd go to a wedding Ben quit. I also like... I like Eat, Ben, Drink, Hosley. But no, in all seriousness, it works this place to the fucking ground. If you guys stop the nicknames. Our guest is David Earlic. Of course. Of Indie Wire fame. Your guest and arsonist.

[00:06:19] Of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull fame. Right, but I want to say something, because David's with us for the third time. Three-timers club. Last two times you're on the podcast, you had not listened to this podcast. And then not long after... I was mostly here out of pity.

[00:06:34] Not untrue. And your pity was appreciated. Noticed and appreciated. Here's how I remember it. We went to your wedding, you got married last year. Humblewreck. We were all there. Humblewreck's all around. We went, you got married. Then you went on a honeymoon with your beautiful wife to Japan.

[00:06:55] So you were gone for a bit. And then you were back. I was back. We were at a screening of Spider-Man Homecoming. He was back baby. Back baby. And I saw you in the line for the bathroom. And you said, like, I listened to your ex episode.

[00:07:09] I can't remember which one was funny. And I was like, oh, thank you. And then I walked away and I was like, Erlich's listening to a blank check. We finally got him. Two guest appearances. The hardest listeners to land are the ones

[00:07:21] who have been on the show twice. All the artists. Yeah, no. Trying to get Sonya really badly to listen. She definitely will. Maybe she will. I have fallen deeply and passionately in love with this podcast. Right. Then since then you were calling to me like,

[00:07:34] I can't believe how rude I was to Ben last time. Oh, no. I was like too dismissive to Ben, but Ben is now, you know, like a religious figure in my life. You understand his importance in the canon. In the firmaments. Sure.

[00:07:44] And yeah, no, I am now honored. But to be back, I'm deeply resentful of the hosts who are outside of this context, good friends of mine, who have been here more times than I have. Wow. I have an Aria Stark-like list of who they are.

[00:08:00] And I will topple them one at a time by this. So you're going for that five-timers club. Oh, five? Five? Or 25? You're looking to post Baldwin numbers? I just listened to all the episodes at home and also speak into them at the same time. And it's a little...

[00:08:19] You're the Rupert pumpkin of Linkjack, apparently. You will like, because you got in late, you'll sometimes like very excitedly tweet us about a joke or a take from something we said. He'll hit us with some speed racer shit or whatever. You'll tweet in response to something else

[00:08:38] we're talking about and then go, by the way, your opinion on Blank is criminal. Right. There were some hard times listening to the Cameron Crow cast. But I will say, now that I've listened to, I think every episode that I care to anyway,

[00:08:53] that I'm honored to be here for... And this is some movie trivia for you all and for everyone else who's listening out there. Some fun facts. Up there with Jerry Maguire, broadcast news, Catch Me If You Can, Crouching Tiger is the best film you guys have ever done.

[00:09:10] So that's just the truth. I should do that sometime, like rank the movies we've covered. Oh, and also almost famous, fuck you. Thank you. I've been working on that list on Letterbox, but I haven't made it public yet trying to rank all the Blank checks.

[00:09:27] Well, I just made your work a little bit easier for you. So you're saying, Catch Me If You Can, you mentioned Jerry Maguire, was there another one? Broadcast news. Broadcast news, obviously. I'm trying to think... Well, I mean we've done like, for you, it's like RoboCop. Right.

[00:09:42] I mean RoboCop is my favorite movie we've covered. There's Under Siege 2. Under Siege 2 is my second favorite. Fletch. Fletch, yeah. Fletch, definitely. Oh, Clifford for sure. Yeah, right. I feel like Broadcast News is probably my number two seems plausible. Is Jerry Maguire your number one? Possibly.

[00:09:58] The weight of water. I mean, I like like Star Wars. It's a good movie. Yeah, I mean, well hey, don't... Not well or elixir. I've not listened to the Star Wars guest, but I did listen to the last... Oh, you should listen to the last...

[00:10:09] I listened to the last Jedi. I had his throats in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey Ben. Hi. Hi. Alright, Loria, Piper, Oh no. Tiebreaker, birthday Benny, Soakin' Wet Benny is their finest film critic. He's not Professor Crispy. No. He is the fuck master. Yeah.

[00:10:24] He's a meat lover, he's a fart detective. True. If you see him on the streets, wish him a hello fennel. Graduated certain titles. Such as Prusa, Rinkan, Ovi, Kylo, Ben, Ben A. Tramalan, Ben Sate, Say Ben Anything, Dot, Dot, Dot, Ailey Benz with the dollar sign,

[00:10:36] Warhaw's, Pruduer, Bane, Ben 19, The Fennel Maker, Sure. Robohaw's, Ben Glish, I don't fucking know. And Mr. Ben Credible. Yeah, I guess so. And E-Drink, Ben Hosley. E-Drink, Ben Hosley. So what dark thought would have inspired you guys to consider doing away with the best part of your podcast?

[00:10:53] Here's the answer. I get no enjoyment out of doing it anymore. It's a fucking marathon. I find it very stressful. Yeah. Like there's a thing like, I'm pretty good at memorizing dialogue, but whenever I have speeches that have like specific technical details in them

[00:11:11] or like names of companies or whatever, they're like scenes in the tech where I'm like trying to put together the mystery and I'm like, but the Armenian lab was blown up four days ago and Dr. Blankenblatt, and I just would always fucking fail to get the details right.

[00:11:25] If it's not about like the language and the rhythm of it, but it's about like hitting those specific things. And I have now gotten to the point where having to list off the Ben Nicknames feels like that for me. Well, it'll make you a better actor. I guess.

[00:11:36] It sort of keeps the show in your mind though. Because like when you do his names, you have to remember like all the mini series as we've done. There's that kind of, there's that nice element. There's like some history there. If it's not like paralyzingly stressful,

[00:11:49] it's not worth doing. That's the mantra. I mean my life is paralyzingly stressful. You two are my friends who like anytime I see either of you and I see both of you often, I'm like what's up? And you're like,

[00:12:01] I love when Griffin talks about how tired he is on the podcast. I'm like, yes. Yes, so tired. And yet I'm the one who audibly yawns on this podcast all the time. Okay. You want my impression of us talking? I'm going to play you.

[00:12:12] You're going to do the response that you just did, right? All right. Okay. Hey buddy, what's up? What's wrong with you? Come on. That is a great impression. Right? That's what you always do. Come on. What's wrong? Come on. It's great. It's great. That's David's response to everything.

[00:12:28] It's just, it's great. I listened to show on Monday mornings on my commute into work and I hear how tired Griffin is and I think to myself at least I'm not on the television show. Same bro. Oh yeah, sure. Well no one should make a TV show.

[00:12:40] We all know this. This is a fact. Can't wait to go into season two just mere weeks from now. Hopefully when this comes out you will be done filming. And if you aren't, then there's been an issue. Yeah, let's put that in writing right now.

[00:12:55] Yeah, on the record. On the record. I should be done filming by the time this episode comes out. But that's why we're recording these so far in advance because it's like this is where we're trying to, this is what

[00:13:04] we think the bank up point needs to be to make it through filming. It is December 9th, 2000. We have just come from the opening night of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragons. We've seen some of our miniseries perfectly with the release of a new Ang Lee film.

[00:13:16] Crouching Tiger came out in Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on December 8th, 2000 and I got on a train from Connecticut to New York. Really? Saw it, thought hmm, brought four friends or so, went home, went to sleep, woke up, got on the train, went into New York. Really? Oh yeah.

[00:13:33] Our IP Lincoln Plaza Cinemas. I know. Why were you so pumped to see Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon at the age of, I'm going to guess around 15, 16? 2000, yeah. Yeah, I just turned 16. I don't know, is there a fine gentleman of taste?

[00:13:46] Like, were you an Ang Lee fan or was it like, you just knew this was... The Ice Storm really moved the needle for me when I was 14 years old. You're joking. The Ice Storm did really move the needle for me when I was 14 years old.

[00:13:58] The film's not far from my house. I saw this movie opening weekend in Britain. So I don't know when that was. See, that's weird because, yeah, and also... Sorry, Ben, it's true. I understand that Erlich took a train to see the movie,

[00:14:11] but why would you take a plane all the way from New York to Paris? I didn't take anything except for the northern line. Whoa, I forgot the mic too. But how would you even get to the station? I took the northern line, two whole stops

[00:14:22] to go see it at the Camden Town Odeon with my friend. Okay, but David, I have to slow you down. Once again, you would have to fly to England in order to even get on... Not if I'll live there. Baby.

[00:14:32] Would you have lived there if you had known that Crouching Tiger would have come out later? Wait, what's that with? Would you have lived there had you known that you would have to wait? I would imagine a few months longer to see Crouching Tiger.

[00:14:42] I mean, it wasn't my pick. I'll be honest with you. It's true. I would rather just be in the US of A. When your parents told you you were moving to the UK, did you go? But when Ang Lee finally makes his wuxia epic,

[00:14:54] I'm going to have to wait three stinking months. Now I want to know how long I had to wait. Now I'm looking at it. I don't remember anything about how I came to movies. I knew I was into like Kyryka Rosawa around that time.

[00:15:08] This was also a very hype movie. I think I just saw it because it was a hype movie. That was the thing. I don't think I had seen an Ang Lee movie. This was my first Ang Lee movie unquestionably.

[00:15:16] Like I definitely hadn't seen Ice Storm or Ride With The Devil. I was aware of Ride With The Devil though. Oh, my mom had like made me watch Sense and Sensibility when I was sick. That was one of those like if you want to watch a movie,

[00:15:27] you have to watch a classic. You have to watch something that's like high brow. I might have seen Sense and Sensibility. Anyway, it was 5th of January 2001. I took my friend Josh who was always a hard sell. He never wanted to see any movies. Yes, for sure.

[00:15:41] Like he was always like someone I had to really talk into seeing any movie took him and when it was over, he like turned to me and his eyes were shimmering and he said, thank you for bringing me to this.

[00:15:51] And he loved that movie and like bought it on DVD and would watch it every week. So I saw it with my dad. So I'm happy about that. Yes. I saw it with my dad. I believe I saw it at the Regal Ewok I want to say. Okay.

[00:16:04] So after probably like a month after it come out when it was like really building a head of steam heading towards that Oscar season, you know. And we both disliked it. You both disliked it. Yes. I saw this movie. You were probably pretty young. I was 11 I think.

[00:16:23] Sure. And my dad and I were both like what's the fucking deal with that thing? Wow. I was still pretty. You two sound like bad people. We were really bad people. And I watched this now and I was looking for like,

[00:16:34] okay, I can get why I didn't like that at the time. Like I was ready to be able to find a prism through which I could understand what didn't work for me. And I couldn't even really get it. Like why, what my objections were.

[00:16:45] And I even remember like six months after the fact being kinder to the movie than I was right after seeing it. When you were 11 and a half. Yeah. Much more mature. Right. But hadn't seen it since then and in my mind already

[00:16:56] vividly remembering it knew it was a good movie. Wait, so you didn't see it since then? No. But it's crazy in my mind. I was like yeah, Crash and Tiger, very good film. Like it was like my perfect recall of the movie

[00:17:07] started playing better in my mind as time passed. Did you like it more this time? Yeah, it's a really fucking good movie. It's an incredible movie. Some say it's the best movie you guys have ever covered on this podcast. Tied with Broadcast News and Chairman McGuire. Some say.

[00:17:20] Ben, Ben, Jim in. Yes sir. Did you see this movie? Yeah. Like did you see it back when? Yep. I remember seeing the trailer and I was like floating. Yeah, actually. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I honestly think that's where the movie lost me at the time.

[00:17:35] I think I was like as an 11 year old who was starting to get like fucking hoity-toity about film. I was so literal minded where I was like, but they don't explain why they can fly. Like I remember that being like a deal breaker for me

[00:17:47] the first time they flew. You sound like a bad person. Yeah, I'm not arguing against that. Why would you need justification for floating? Right. Now I watch it and I'm like, why isn't every character floating in every movie?

[00:17:58] I remember my dad, I came home and my dad was like, was it good? And I was like, yeah, it was great. And he was like, I hear they just like, they'll be like fighting with swords and then one of them will just walk up a fucking wall.

[00:18:09] And I was like, yeah. Yeah. He's like, that sounds great. I genuinely. Literally he was just like, that sounds great. They just walk up the wall. I genuinely had that thought though. It's like a jameriquae music video. But that's what he said. That's English chief inspiration.

[00:18:20] Every time they just like float a little bit, like they jump a little higher, stay up a little higher, do the wall move. I'd just be like, why don't other movies worry about gravity? You know what? And physics and shit. This is so much cooler.

[00:18:31] There's not even a scene where they're like, it was great when I learned floating. But as a 11 year old, I was like, show me a flashback to flight school. Although, you know, parsing who can fly and who can is sort of important to appreciating

[00:18:42] the characters and the dynamics. That's true. And this brings me back to the very first movie review I ever wrote that set me down this Tarkist of Darkpads for my high school newspaper. It was about Crouch and Tiger in Dragon. It's some bullshit about like the characters believing

[00:18:56] in themselves and flying. I'm probably going to paraphrase a lot of the shit that I said when I was 16. Right, we're still in there. No, the answer is only the characters who have gone clear are able to fly. This is a Scientology, whatever you guys know.

[00:19:07] This is a Scientology broadcast. They copped to that on the audio commentary on the DVD. Clear check. Yeah, clear check. I don't know. Sometimes they're seatants clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. Sure. Don't want them to bounce. All right. So, Constance is a context guys. Yeah.

[00:19:25] Angley made sense sensibility. Big hit. Big hit. What about that? But with flying? Well, no, then that's true. That's true. But before he made that decision, he was like, what if I make like the most depressing movie ever made? Was that going to work for everyone?

[00:19:41] He releases it gets good reviews. Everyone hates it. Move the needle to grip. No Oscar nominations. Right. It's weird that movie got no nominations. I feel like it was in the running for a few and just sort of like yes, the movie.

[00:19:52] It was in the running for Weaver. Yeah. I love that. But even that feels like such a slam dunk screenplay kind of nomination movie. You know, you're right. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I love that film, but we've already talked about it this one. Right.

[00:20:07] Right with the devil is such a colossal flop. Huge. So, but he makes this so quickly after that. I wonder if he was always going to do this. It does feel like a bit of a like, let me get back to my shit. You know what I mean?

[00:20:21] Like, you know, like let me, let me like re-center. Let me hit, hit go back to zero. It doesn't feel like this movie is reactionary, but it also feels like no one had the expectations of this movie being an international play.

[00:20:34] Even though it required literally every country on the planet to come together to finance it. Right. Right. But I think I imagine it was going to come out in America. I don't think he saw it being a hundred million dollar movie.

[00:20:46] No, I just think, I think he was like, this is one for me, you know, not that right for the devil was one for them, but he's like, let me just flex some muscles, get back to some different things, you know?

[00:20:56] As, as you say, Columbia pictures put in a little money. Sony Pictures classics put in a little money. Good machine. They're still around. Shame, shame miss. Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, like everyone's putting money in there. There are stories about the, how fraught it was

[00:21:14] trying to get all the pieces in place while they were doing pre-production. Really? Like this movie almost didn't happen even after it had all been laid out. It sounds like a really intense shoot too. Anglis in interviews is very like, I didn't sleep for a year basically. Yeah.

[00:21:28] Yeah. And, and like we were saying this right before we were recorded, but the four main actors in the film did not speak the same language with the same accent. Right. Yes. They do not. Right. Not on camera anyway. But also not in life.

[00:21:45] One of them is, one of them is essentially speaking lines phonetically. Right. One of them, which is who's Michelle go. Right. Chai Unfat is speaking with a horrible accent. Yeah. I mean not a hard, but like he has a Hong, he's a Hong Kong actor.

[00:21:58] He has a Cantonese accent. Zhang Ji speaks Beijing Mandarin essentially like what these movies sort of usually require. And Cheng Chen is Taiwanese. I think he has like a Taiwanese accent. So yeah. Apparently it sounds absurd. Right. If you have a year for this.

[00:22:15] And Michelle Yeo said that she didn't take any jobs for a year because she knew the level of preparation. This was going to take physically, but also that she wanted to be able to speak Mandarin convincingly. Right. Which she didn't have any fluency with.

[00:22:30] And yeah, she did learn it phonetically. She was saying, I mean they were saying that she doesn't know how to read. She's Malaysian. Right. Mandarin. They had to spell it out phonetically for her. It's interesting that he made that move, but I guess they're all huge stars.

[00:22:45] Michelle Yeo and Cha Yuan-Fat are huge stars. And Cha Yuan-Fat had, I mean to think in hindsight it's hard to remember this being the case or see it being true, but he had never done a martial arts period film like this before.

[00:22:56] He was a huge action star, but not in this thing. Yes. He's of course your John Rue, you know, action star. But he was more of a modern action star. But also I think this movie is like a very interesting one.

[00:23:07] It was not even like him making a safe, it was like him reviving a sort of an old, it's like making a Western or whatever. It was like, oh you're going to make that? Those can be kind of cheesy. It was like if somebody made a Western, but

[00:23:19] it also was implicitly built to and engineered to appeal to a worldwide audience as much as it appealed to an American one. And it was like so much about the, putting this movie together and negotiating with the plot and all the various tropes were

[00:23:33] going to be, it was about satisfying around the world, which is a really difficult balancing act. Well and this movie weirdly did worse relatively in the East than it did everywhere else. Right? It was not hugely popular. It was popular. It wasn't like, it's not, you know, it

[00:23:48] made more money in America than it did overseas. I was doing some Google and I found articles from the year 2000 where they were like why isn't Crashing Tiger doing the equivalent level of business? It is not as beloved in China as it is everywhere else.

[00:24:04] I think the other reason I had a block with this movie when I was so young is like what you were saying that it was kind of like a dead genre at this point to do this sort of like very earnest Wuxia epic.

[00:24:15] But there was so much like parodying of these types of films in pop culture and I was such a parody kid that I couldn't understand how this was more high art than the sort of things that I was seeing parodied. Are we sure about Wuxia?

[00:24:30] It's like my tendency is to like throw a little Mandarin spit on there and be like Wuxia. I think you're right. I don't know. I'm coming at this from a place of profound ignorance. Well, here we go. I'm just going to Google it.

[00:24:46] I mean that's the thing of this. You know what I'm saying? You know how late there was so much just like mocking of like wire work? Well, there's like scary movie this year. Right. There's a lot of Matrix. And obviously this has the same action

[00:24:58] choreographer as that movie. Yeah. Yeah, because it was, this movie is playing in a in a milieu that is inherent to like King Hu movies and Wuxia like the classics. But at the same time, the sensibility that you bring into it is a lot more modern.

[00:25:12] It's the same sort of like Balletic fight choreography you'd find in like Iron Monkey or something like that from with like the Donnie Yen films, the Jet Li films from the 90s. So it was sort of it was sort of a lot of things that

[00:25:23] that audience that seemed before put together in a package that no one had ever really seen before. And Aang Lee is bringing a greater emotional depth to it. Oh yeah. They're each bringing something to sort of like elevate the film, the genre to levels that it

[00:25:37] hadn't really been at before. You want me to play on this? Oh yeah. Wuxia. Wuxia. Wuxia. I'm hearing an axe. I'm hearing an axe. I don't know if I trust that random YouTube video that I found. You would trust me more than some random YouTube video.

[00:25:52] I'll go with the YouTube video. If I can be honest, I'm scanning the studio right now for Jamie Kennedy because I feel like we just got axe in here. Oh there he is. There he is. That old trickster. Oh boy. So... Do you think it's the first time

[00:26:07] Jamie Kennedy has ever been mentioned in context with Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or not? No, definitely not. He saw it. So you think someone else is like, Jamie saw that right? I think like someone at like the low century city 15 in the year 2000 was like, yeah,

[00:26:22] Jamie Kennedy came to see Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Yeah. Mr. X himself. Right. He thought he was xing us. He was buying a ticket for Crouching Tiger was going to sneak into the end of days instead. Is that Malibu's most wanted? Hey, this was a pre-Malibu's

[00:26:35] most wanted era. Oh boy. Malibu's most wanted would never have happened without Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. He was very influenced by that. Yeah, it's a straight line. Doesn't Snoop Dogg play a mouse in that movie? I've seen that movie and I don't remember.

[00:26:51] I think he plays a mouse or a rat. So is that like it starts talking if someone smokes weed? Yeah, probably. And then he sneaks under their hat and pulls their locks over there. Remember how it makes them be offensive? Remember how it, Keanu,

[00:27:07] the cat, talked like Keanu Reeves because it was Keanu Reeves' voice. But like that didn't work. It was literally him. It was him. But it sounded like a bad impression. It felt like the movie being like, check it out. And you were like, that's Keanu, right?

[00:27:21] Like you didn't like you were just sort of annoyed by it. I don't know. Remember after Keanu came out everyone was like, yeah, I guess I don't know. Jordan Peele might not have a career in movies. Did you see Keanu? David, you're silent. Okay, fine. Forget it.

[00:27:37] Keanu's fine. Unafair is unbelievable in that movie. Yeah, I don't agree. You don't agree? I hate that part of the movie. I think that performance is weird. That movie got the most like tepid response out of South by Southwest and all places. And I was like, oh no.

[00:27:50] There is no chance. It also just felt like that movie was going to like work. You were like, oh yes, 100% the Keanu Peele team should do an action movie. And then it's called Keanu. Everyone was like, ha, I love it. I also know a guy named Keanu.

[00:28:06] So Crouching Tiger, he makes it, comes out, does great. David just closed the large leather bound volume. I would say that I don't know if any other movie, I mean, and all the ones I can think of are like, you know, spot on brand favorites

[00:28:25] of mine that announces this quickly that it's a stone called Masterpiece and does so against the black screen with music. So you're sold from the opening credits. The opening title is amazing. We are like, not even the opening credits. I'm talking like fucking the void. Sony Pictures Classic.

[00:28:42] And then he does here. And I was like fully erect. Me too, in fair, you were young. Yes. A lot of things had that effect on me at the time, but especially this music. No, but then just that round. That's what that's like.

[00:28:56] I can go shot for shot. You want to do like a 10 hour 10 hour. Yeah. First shot that dude smoking certain to camera. It's pretty awesome. He does a lot of interesting like, and I feel like I'm going to do this a lot in many of his

[00:29:11] films, but very much so in this one, he gets so close to the coverage being POV shots. Like it's off by like a couple of degrees, but so often you're really kind of staring the characters head on while they're in conversation with other people.

[00:29:26] Some funky eye lines in this movie. Yeah, but it works. Like it's somehow, I always prefer people who shoot from inside the conversation because it makes it feel more dramatically engrossing, I think, than when you're getting like over the shoulder shots. Yeah. But distance is so critical to

[00:29:45] this movie, the distance between the various characters. That's the other thing. Like they, you can tell right from the beginning when Lee Mubai shows up and that woman gets so excited and she runs over to Michelle Yao and she's like, guess who's here?

[00:29:59] And Michelle Yao has to be like, OK, OK. Because like everybody knows they're super whorey for each other. But they can't say it to one another. They can say things to each other like, you know. Overtime. But like our two stuff. This is one of his great

[00:30:13] bottled emotion movies, which is like a big running thing for people who don't have to express themselves. Sensibility movie with a magic sword. That's that's how he pitched it to Michelle Yao to get her on board was he said, do you want to do sense and sensibility

[00:30:25] with flying? I mean, yeah. Why not? But then it's also like marrying the sense of sort of cultural traditions that he's getting at in his first couple of movies where it's like these people can't express themselves because it's like unbecoming. There are expectations of how

[00:30:43] they should be living. But really it's more about people who just want to fool them. But also just want to fly. He shows up. My favorite thing. Go on. No, it's because there's a whole scene that they cut of Chao Yuan fat staring into a mirror like

[00:30:58] Paul Rudd and Wanderlust. I feel like. Fuck. Fuck. And that's the one scene that's all in English. Yeah, it's very bizarre. He's just got the sword in his hand, but he's like holding up between his legs. Yeah. James Sheamus and Engley actually didn't talk for two

[00:31:12] years after he cut that. It's very upset. He shows up. So we're in. We're in Beijing. That's the opening movie. Chao Yuan fat comes in. It rolls into town. He rolls in and it's like, hey, what's up? And he's like, you know, I went searching for enlightenment

[00:31:25] and I just felt an endless void. So that's what's up with me. It's up with you. Right? Like that isn't that? That's like the beginning movie. She says that and she's like, what's up with you? And she's like, works all right. I got the studio. Right.

[00:31:38] And then she's like, you're the best. Can you just power through it? And he's like, I don't really care enough anymore. How's the enlightenment thing? I am feel surrounded by endless sorrow. Right. Is that, is that enlightenment? I don't think so.

[00:31:53] It's like he reached the end of the road and realized that his feelings for her were the only thing that mattered in his life. Right. So he's like Clint Eastwood, right? Like he's like the greatest warrior ever. He's been up to all kinds of shit.

[00:32:04] This is based on the fourth book in a five book series. Yeah. So there's been like three books which is like Li Mu Bai kicks some magic bears ass or whatever. Right. Like there's been three books and it's great that by picking a later

[00:32:16] book they like end up prescribing to the like get in, like get out early theory of dramatic storytelling where it's just like you don't need to see all the other shit. This guy just comes with baggage and it's Charlie and Fat and you believe. It's also like,

[00:32:27] They don't explain anything. You can just imagine what that guy's been doing. 2000 page word book and like pretty much what James Shamus and the other writers took out of it was like they're Chinese and they fight. Right. Like that's yeah. Just the basic like dynamics, right?

[00:32:38] Charlie and Fat's an interesting And they have magic flying power. Sure. Yes. Charlie and Fat's an interesting point because it's like, okay, huge Hong Kong action star. He and John Woo were one of those pairs where like their movies were crossover success and they were like,

[00:32:50] let's get those guys to the States and John Woo is making big American movies at this point to varying degrees of success. Broken Arrow, the biggest American movie. Right. The number one biggest American film of all time. Right. Expensive movie ever made. Right now he's about,

[00:33:04] he makes Mission Impossible 2 this year. So he's sort of at the height of his American balance. Right. So he'd gone Broken Arrow, face off. Right. So he was on the right trajectory. Charlie and Fat wasn't totally the States. You forgot Hard Target.

[00:33:14] Oh yes, I did forget Hard Target. Fucking Van Damme and then Broken Arrow then face off. But he's moving on a straight upwards trajectory. Right? He's getting bigger. The movies are doing better. And not only that, but his aesthetic is actually well known to Western audiences. Right.

[00:33:31] People know about the fucking Doves and the two hand guns. Jackie Brown has a whole monologue about the killer. It's really funny. I'm saying it's one of those things like like Rucker Hauer and Paul Verhoeven where they were like, let's get both these guys over here.

[00:33:44] And John Woo was like sailing and Charlie and Fat was doing like the replacement killers. The Corruptor. Right. And I feel like everyone knew his name because he was one of those guys who overnight was like above the title in a bunch of action movies.

[00:33:56] And his name was Fat. So people thought it was funny. Charlie and Fat. No, he'd be at was. So you got the Corruptor, which is the James Foley, Charlie and Fat, Mark Wahlberg 99 joint. Right. There's the Replacement Killers, which is I've seen in that movie.

[00:34:08] It's a lot of fun. Anton Foucault. The Sorvino, right? Yeah. That movie's kind of rules. Juergen Proc now Michael Rucker. Yeah. It's just fun. Rucker. Yeah. Rucker's in it. And then he was in and in the King last year, which is a little more of a prestige play.

[00:34:21] Right. That's a, Oh, directed by Andy Tennant. Director of Hitch. Yeah. A director of Ever After. That was his ever after. Sweet Home Alabama. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. So you know that had been a flop. Tenants are next miniseries. What's the tenon? And after this,

[00:34:37] he doesn't make a movie for three years. And when he does it to bulletproof monk, which is one of the like top five worst movies ever made. But my point is, It's just weird that he was just like, forget it. He was such a big star overseas. Yeah.

[00:34:49] And his movies did crossover here to the States that he just like landed as like Chao Yan Fat is an American leading man. Everyone pay attention. He's going to be your next great Hollywood movie star. And he was like sold that way.

[00:35:01] And then the three movies didn't really connect. But he had that kind of like name recognition. Sure. And then the sight unseen, you watch the first 10 minutes of Crouching Tiger and you get it. You get it. He rolls up and you're like, okay. You fucking get it.

[00:35:14] And this is also him doing something very different than what he's ever done before. As we said, like because he was a pretty modern star, this is him putting himself into a different time period and a different sort of genre. But he's just a fucking badass.

[00:35:30] So he has Wu Tang powers because he's from the Wudang Mountain School, which is in like every Kung Fu movie, right? You go up to the mountain and you learn your crazy Kung Fu powers. So he has Wu Tang powers. He's fought people for a million years.

[00:35:43] He's got the weird haircut. He's also got a shiny MacGuffin. He has a shiny-ass MacGuffin. Green. Green and cool. You know how most words are silver? Not this one, baby. He's decided to retire because he felt an endless sorrow recently. Same reason I'm retiring from film career.

[00:36:01] Same reason I'm retiring from making TV shows. So he's come to Sertai's house. Sertai played by who? Our father knows best. Si Hong Lung from the first three movies Ang Lee made. I love that he just pops back in here. He's going to give him a sword.

[00:36:18] Then I don't know what he's going to do. He's going to like walk around, like what's Sli-Mu Bai's plan? Oh, he wants to move past the void if you know what I'm saying with Michelle Volk. Michelle has her own screw on a date.

[00:36:31] You want to get some noodles sometime? He has spent, in my mind, something like 25 or 30 years reflecting on his inability to be with her because his blood brother in arms was engaged to her when he died and they, to honor his memory, have always had to be platonic.

[00:36:49] Then he has reached a point where he's like, oh, this is the only thing that actually matters because everything else is impermanent. Our love to quote the James Shamest lyrics from the closing song is a cross time. That's the song from the credits here.

[00:37:03] Our love won't let you down. Love will keep us together. He's asking in the most suppressed possible way, like wanna fuck. I think that was his intention and then he shows up and is like, I do not have the courage to go through with this.

[00:37:18] He immediately starts whiffing. He's so sweet. He's a nervous little. He can like, if someone shoots a sword at him, he can cut the sword up and shoot the sword back at that person. He walks on treetops. 15 minutes later when the movie goes full Jane Austen

[00:37:32] and she's like, Michelle Yao's character is really slow on the uptake to figure out what Limu Bai is thinking about because she's been so locked in in this sort of platonic sexless vibe for so long and then he just looks at her and he goes,

[00:37:45] I didn't know the sword was stolen until I got here and it's like, damn. Like, sorry, I'm cutting ahead a little bit. No, you're right though. Don't cut ahead. I love a good repressed love story. Do you know what I think Charlie on Fats, statuses in this movie?

[00:38:00] I think he's in like Daniel Day-Lewis retirement mode where it's like, you were the best in the world at something. You're suddenly telling us that it's not satisfying to you anymore. You want to get out of it and he's like, I don't know, a couple shoes?

[00:38:10] Like what am I going to do? Like it feels like if he stayed alive in three years, he probably would have gone like, you know what? I'm going to go back up to that mountain and start fighting people again. But hopefully with Michelle Yao by his side.

[00:38:21] Like he's just feeling the miss in piece. Michelle Yao is so fucking good in this movie. I always forget how much I like Michelle Yao until I'm watching a Michelle Yao film. And you're not watching the lady. I haven't seen the lady.

[00:38:36] It's really hard to remember how much you like Michelle Yao when you're watching her in the lady. Yeah, well, let's hope Lucbesson didn't win March Madness. He's kind of curb stomped Aronofsky. Why do you keep on missing? I keep doing it. I don't know why.

[00:38:52] I know what his name is. Aronofsky. It's not. I thought you were mad at him for curb stomped, which seemed unnecessarily violent. I dislike everything, David. Just... No, but she's one of those actors who is so good at showing you everything she's thinking

[00:39:08] without like trying to communicate it. Sure. Can I say weird comparison? But I got it just from watching the way that she uses her eyes in these scenes where she's trying to suck that with my face. That's the thing. She's such a fucking good eye actor.

[00:39:21] I thought of Daniel Kaluya in Get Out. Oh, yeah. Is it another great eye performance? Yeah, I think so. It's very subtle eye-based work. I mean, she barely moves a facial muscle. This is her most locked up. This is her peak repress.

[00:39:33] And she kind of had a better... I just remember when the Tomorrow Never Dies came out and it was the first of four consecutive like, finally a Bond girl who's even tougher than Bond. Sure. Right. Yes. She's the one who fights this time. She rides a motorcycle?

[00:39:50] Holy cow. Yeah. It had similarly been someone that Hollywood was trying to like make happen. Tomorrow Never Dies is fascinating though because she's like to him like, you know, China's run by gangsters. I'm trying to deal with this and he's like, you want to deal with my dick?

[00:40:04] She's like, no. Like I'm not interested. I'm not in a James Bond movie. You're in a Michelle Yeoh film. She's literally like the media is being corrupted by foreign influences. We have to fight that. You fucking monsters are buying up everything.

[00:40:19] This is the most prescient thing that any Bond movie could deal with for the next like 25 years. He's like, you know what else is pretty prescient. Mading Don. Like I don't even think they have sex in that movie. They kiss at the end. Yeah. She's really good.

[00:40:32] She's like less sexualized than most Bond girls, but still he keeps on trying to sexualize her. Right. Like the movie sexualizes her less than that character does. Right. And what else had she done in Hollywood? That is, I think the extent of it. Really? Double check.

[00:40:51] She's in nothing else. I just remember that, like her landing big with that movie. Of course, but that was only in 97. Yeah. But no, I mean she had been a 15 year, you know, Hong Kong action star. The Queen of Martial Arts they call it. Yeah. She was amazing.

[00:41:11] There's all the, you can watch clips of her like, she was incredible physical. She was the only actress that Jackie Chan would let do her own stunts in his movie. She came to this movie after having debilitating knee surgery.

[00:41:22] She, I think it happened at the very beginning of filming. Right. And she had to keep on flying back to the States for surgery and then she'd fly back to set, do dialogue scenes while she was recovering, fly back to the States for further surgery.

[00:41:36] Like they pushed off all the action until the very end. You know, she was nominated for a BAFTA. She should have been nominated for an Oscar. 100%. This movie was sort of rudely treated by the Oscars in terms of the performances.

[00:41:47] I feel like they kind of just shrugged their shoulders about it. Yeah. I think all three actors, like starring actors should be nominated. I think there was some category confusion. Ziyu Zhang feels like such a slamed, dunk supporting actress nomination. Right. But she's kind of the lead.

[00:42:01] That's the question. That's the question. Because the first half of the movie, it definitely feels like it's Michelle Yeoh's film and then it becomes really Ziyu Zhang. You know what it is though? It's Lady Bird. I was just watching this movie. Thank you very much Lady Bird.

[00:42:12] You were watching this movie. Did you see his tweets? There is a shameless like these tweets. What? Egg or right like these tweets. What? There is a... I'm sorry, Ben. I'm sorry. I feel like I'm not being louder than usual,

[00:42:24] but somehow it's I'm burning the mic more than usual. It's quite all right. Just move away from it. There is a... You know, I've seen this movie, I think just constantly since it came out on DVD. It's just been on a loop in my apartment in mind. Yeah.

[00:42:38] And so that's more than a few times and... It's like the ambient music in your bathroom. Oh yeah, absolutely. Which is usually Blank Check, but also this. And I listened to it on the pooper when I'm getting fired. Like I'm just really dating this podcast now. Cool.

[00:42:52] But they... I never really looked at it through this lens until I was just, you know, on ambient and trying to apply Lady Bird quotes to everything. Because that's what you do when you take sleep pills. And I realized that there is a lens.

[00:43:04] I mean, obviously there's a love story that you don't get Lady Bird between the adults in the room. But it is a coming of age story, which actually she becomes their surrogate daughter. And the sort of the glue that is bringing them together,

[00:43:15] but also the factor that is keeping them apart. Right. But it's also kind of right. What if sense and sensibility Kate Winslet's character could fly and was a bandit? Sure. It's a big hodgepodge. A lot of things going on. A little stew.

[00:43:29] I love that she's a fucking bandit. She's a bandit. Yeah. She's like, let me learn how to fly. Let me learn how to sort of fight. But also like, I'm gonna be a bandit. Ben's throwing his hands up in the air like a televangelist. I'm so excited.

[00:43:40] I'm like, I'm a bandit. And now do you wish you were a bandit? Yeah. Like with like a well placed like handkerchief. Oh my God. Are you serious? Of course I want to handkerchief over my face. Now here's the thing.

[00:43:52] This is a little non-traditional of a take for me, but I love the fact that she was a dry bandit. Interesting. Because you know, because it's the web bandits of Home Alone. Right. I almost just stepped on your joke. I was going to cue you up for it.

[00:44:05] I'm so glad I didn't to let you get that out. But like there's a lot of good wetness in this movie. Yeah, it's a pretty wet movie. For sure. Because there's sex scene in a spa, essentially, mountain spa. There's a great jump into a lake. Yeah.

[00:44:18] There's just even the way that like, Gengji just like gops at the water in the waterfall at the end when she's poisoned. Oh yeah. She just like stands under the little drip drop and just like... Yeah, the whole end is sort of finale jump. That's true.

[00:44:31] That's gonna be a disgusting sound. It's a wall cave. But she's a dry bandit. She is a dry bandit. She's very dry in general. Like it's a lot of like, you know, in and out. I do want to talk a little bit about sweatiness.

[00:44:41] Because I mean we could have this conversation organically to go through the plot. But you know, I think about sweatiness in terms of how you guys like to describe movies. And it's interesting because this is... And the way that this movie is plotted is a lot sweatier

[00:44:56] than I had ever realized. But it's all done so elegantly. And so gracefully as well. Right. You don't even really notice or care. You're right. Like there's a version of this movie where you're like, wait, there's a flashback now and then there's another one

[00:45:10] that just sort of continues that flashback like 20 minutes later. It's very weird structure because the flashback happens like an hour in and then lasts for like 15 minutes. And now there's this part where she just goes to a bar for a while. Like what's this bar?

[00:45:22] Like where is the bar? She dressed like a boy. She doesn't look like a boy. Yeah, everyone buys it and calls her sir even after she started talking. There's like a guy whose whole bit is like two bowling balls on sticks like that's his weapon.

[00:45:34] He just one guy brings an abacus to the fight. Zia Zhang, this was like her second or third movie, right? Yeah, I think it might be third. Let me try. I mean she had broken out with the Road Home, right?

[00:45:47] That was where she says she's such a cutie pie in that movie. And she was certainly the person they tried to make happen the most after this apparently now. Yeah, she was in some TV movie. So this is her second movie. Okay. Second movie.

[00:46:00] She works with two legends of Asian cinema. And then she gets to follow up by working with two more legends. Chris Tucker and Brett Ratner. I was so hyped for Rush Hour 2. Me too. I was so in on her and I was so happy she was in it.

[00:46:17] I don't even remember what she does in that movie. She kicks some people. Do you remember that Rush Hour 2 had like the biggest opening weekend of all time at that time? No. It was in 2001 Rush Hour 2 opened to $70 million.

[00:46:30] It's because the guy who allegedly like went on to the Chinese billionaire who paid Zhang Ji for... 67 was. There was like there's some story about how some Chinese billionaire paid Zhang Ji a crazy amount of money for a weekend together.

[00:46:42] I don't know if it's true, but I feel like before he had realized that that was a possibility for him, he may have just splurged on Rush Hour 2 tickets. Rush Hour 2 is still the fourth biggest opening in August ever. Yeah, it's crazy big opening.

[00:46:55] Behind Born Ultimatum, Guardians of the Galaxy and Suicide Squad. I think at the time of its release, it was in the top five opening weekends of all time. But like her being in that was so fucking exciting. It was. Rush Hour 1 is good. Rush Hour 2 is bad.

[00:47:09] I think Rush Hour 1 still holds up. I mean, I like Jackie Chan and I don't even mind Chris Tucker, but Rush Hour is kind of a boring sweaty cop movie. That's the problem. Like I like Jackie Chan when he's like doing his stuff.

[00:47:20] I have a few counterpoints for you. Elizabeth Pena rules in it. She's always good. Tom Wilkinson plays the villain. His name is Griffin. That is true. You want to know something and then you can talk, David. I'm sorry. My mother interviewed Tom Wilkinson many, many, many years ago.

[00:47:35] Okay. I think for In The Bedroom. Did he bring big gets? No, it was pre-bigget Wilkinson. It was for In The Bedroom, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. And I remember him saying, she said like he said to me, Rush Hour like transformed his career. I'm sure.

[00:47:49] And I was like really rush. He's in that. I like to already forgotten. And he said like that was it. That was what Hollywood took me seriously after I was in Rush Hour. I was like, I'm not that big bad in Rush Hour,

[00:47:59] but I had forgotten it was hit. Like I didn't remember him from that when he then broke out after that. And then I saw Rush Hour on CBS in like 2010. I was like, oh Tom Wilkinson was the villain in this? No, no Rush Hour.

[00:48:12] You don't get Michael Clayton. You don't get the sweatiest performance of all time. And the baguette is performance of all time. But wow, does it hurt my heart on a podcast dedicated to one of the great films to be talking about Brett Radner.

[00:48:25] Not to tell you guys that it's your job. I can't whatever I think about the first 20 minutes of this movie and how they're organized and how they build up to like a fight scene that changed me at a genetic level.

[00:48:36] It always makes me feel, and this is not a good feeling, like Harry Knowles reviewing Blade 2. God, don't influence that. If you mention that review two more times, he shows up. Well, this was really the only mention I built into into my notes.

[00:48:51] But I mean, just the way that that's all I need to say about that. I think anyone who knows... I don't know. Do we need to bring more people into the full? Just Google Harry Knowles Blade 2 if you want to feel really uncomfortable. Do you know this Ben?

[00:49:02] No. I'm going to put this as delicately as I can. He compares the film. He says that... Watching the film. The movie is like watching Guillermo del Toro perform Conalenguez. But he doesn't just say that he... It's like four paragraphs to... To describing like the act of Conalenguez.

[00:49:21] I just had a passing thought watching it. I was like, if I were Harry Knowles, that would be the review I wrote for this movie. But fortunately for all of us, I'm not.

[00:49:28] But the first 20 minutes of this movie, now that I've put the worst possible context to introduce them, are organized so unusually but also so expertly. There's no action. It's a lot of convos. Can I just say one last thing about Rush Hour 2?

[00:49:42] Is it going to be in reference to the bit in The Closing Credits where a stuntman falls off a building and Jackie and Chris Tucker goes, oh, he's not going to be in Rush Hour 3 because that's one of the great lines in all of this.

[00:49:52] It is. It's really good. It's 15 million comedy points. He got 20 million dollar points for the third movie. Someday we'll just talk about... We'll do a whole episode about Chris Tucker's salary increases which is insane. 20 million dollar points is funny.

[00:50:06] Zee Zhang, yeah it was really funny. One comedy point. Zee Zhang didn't speak a word of English when she did Rush Hour 2. So Jackie Chan translated everything for her. So Zee Zhang probably had the best experience of anyone who ever worked on a Brat Rat

[00:50:20] because she never had to talk to Brat Rat. Right, it all went through the nicest man in the show business. Jackie Chan! Yeah, exactly. All right. You're right. Talk about the opening. It's all convos. It's like 15... It's beautiful. Tandun is wild and out.

[00:50:39] Tands are just going crazy. Yo-yo Ma's sitting there throwing in Leo. The sense is like... The listener at home dancing like I'm at a club. There should have been a remix. There should have been like a club remix. Yeah, there should be a Tandun song.

[00:50:53] Isn't that what the Shain is? But no, it's real deliberate. I think that if you are 16 year old me hyped for some of the best choreographed actions like in the whole time you're like what the fuck have I stumbled into?

[00:51:05] And they just build it up and suddenly you get... And they cut to the nighttime and you see a little bit of a wisp of cloth go across the top of the screen.

[00:51:14] And suddenly we are in what to my mind is like maybe the most beautifully choreographed fight scene I've ever seen. This is the first night fight sequence? Every fight sequence is so good. It may not even be the best fight scene in the movie.

[00:51:29] All right, so yeah. So we got Limabai, famous warrior, kind of chilling out looking to retire. You got Julianne, somewhat semi-famous warrior. I feel like she's like a B-list famous warrior, right? Yeah. I think in the whole sort of misogynistically organized society they live in... Exactly.

[00:51:45] She never got to climb the ladder all the way. And she's mostly known for being the object of his affection. Right, right. She's like his pal. We've got the introduction of the princess because they see her, they walk in on her coveting that sword.

[00:51:58] You mean Jay? I mean not Jay, Jen. Yes. Right, yes. And then she's there but she's just like, right, like a... It's a little breakfast at Tiffany's moment just staring at that sword being like I want it.

[00:52:09] And she tells Michelle Yeo kind of how much she wishes that she could have Michelle Yeo's life. Right, it's a lot of already went on all these adventures. All those books I read and she's like, just bossing. Julianne's just like, yeah, you know, it's not that exciting.

[00:52:21] I mean, you know, I can fly. Sure, I can fly. And then Jade Fox is there. Who is also the handmaiden, you know, to Jen. Yes. She's there. I remember, I think it took me a movie to put that together. Same here. Yeah. So she's there.

[00:52:43] She's like a hated sworn enemy. She killed... A famous thief and murderer. And she's a poisoner. She's killed everyone who the plot needs to have been disposed of in the past. Like if anyone's ever died in this part of China, it's because she killed them. Right.

[00:52:57] Because then we also have this detective who's rolled into town with his daughter. Very sweaty. Very sweaty. The detective is sweaty. Love all those characters. Very sweaty. The detective and his daughter who are posing as actors. That line has been confusing me for like 18 years.

[00:53:10] Like why they say it. They're posing as street performers because they think that they're trying to steal the sword. They're like, no, we were rehearsing our routine. And it's like, hello my baby. What routine is this? They paint each other silver and pretend to be robots.

[00:53:25] Now this movie is subtitled. Ang Lee wrote the subtitles because he wanted the subtitles to be clear until like convey plot. And I watched this with my girlfriend who speaks Mandarin and she was like laughing all the time. Not like... She didn't think they were risible.

[00:53:40] She was just like, I can't believe that that's what that became. Right. And it's always like, it's some idiom that just makes no sense. Well, the movie is so cognizant about speaking to those audiences we talked to. It is. This was James Sheamus writing with two Chinese writers.

[00:53:55] You know, Ang Lee trying to meld his new audience that he'd gained in the US with, you know, the old... I mean, this is not an explicitly Taiwanese film, but those are the movies he grew up with and trying to bring both audiences to the table.

[00:54:06] And so I think that does boil down all the way to the subtitles. But I'm so curious as to what that writing process was like too with Sheamus. Like was he writing stuff that they were sort of converting?

[00:54:16] Was he sort of speaking and they were typing different languages? Yeah, I'm confused because he wrote all the three earlier Taiwanese films too. So you know James, right? You guys are pals. Jimmy? We're best friends. Jimmy James. Yeah.

[00:54:29] He and I are blood brothers and I peed next to him once. It was pretty fantastic. Wow. How's that do? Erlich. Erlich. Erlich, I must ask. You got a peek of the pain? You got a peek of that Sheamus pain? I did not get a burger report.

[00:54:45] James Sheamus, I'm afraid to say. I was talking about it. I did not. I also, no, good guy interviewed him for Indignation, which is a movie that he made and I loved. Great movie. And I have no more insights offer about what the writing process is like.

[00:54:59] Yeah, I don't know how it works. I met James Sheamus at a cocktail party and I said, when are you going to cut it with the popcorn fairy like Indignation and do something with some real death? He must have laughed. He did. Sheamus is a good friend.

[00:55:12] He gave me a comedy point. He's good on Twitter too. Yeah. He's kind of fun on Twitter. He's the guy who is right about Hulk. I know. We'll talk about that on The Hulk Episode.

[00:55:21] By the way, James Sheamus is going to be the guest on every episode we have for this many years. Fantastic. I'm only going to ask him about turning those balls. Oh. Plus caution. We're like balls caution.

[00:55:31] I wonder if James Sheamus made the cut to be in the room during those close sex scenes. Yeah. It was a very tight list. And I don't know if Sheamus got it. He might have insisted. I don't know. Maybe it was in his writer. Boy.

[00:55:44] I don't know what they mean by inclusion writers. Wait a second. I just got an email. James Sheamus has dropped out of the next six episodes that he was supposed to. I told you it was a mistake to loop him in live to this episode.

[00:55:55] Yeah, but we've been doing it for three years. He did have a problem until now. Weirdo. Yeah. He's been in from the beginning. He was like Star Wars prequels. Look, I just want to say one thing. Yeah. Go ahead.

[00:56:08] We transfer make sure having big files easier than I don't know, storming a castle to get the final key. No sign ins. No avatars. No offer codes. No password to forget. No cost.

[00:56:20] You just upload the file, you send it and you get back to making whatever it is you make such as solid gold podcasts. I thought we were going to do a bit where we went back and forth and I would list a real

[00:56:31] thing and you'd list a ready player one specific. I know, but then I just sort of like got hooked by what we transfer actually does. Here's the thing. We transfer is all about making the creative process easier for everyone.

[00:56:42] They built their site to be the simplest way to share big files around the world for free. You know, I've used other file sharing things in the past and you got to log in and you

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[00:57:06] They devote 30% of their 30% of their ad space to showcase and create a people from around the world. It's like people like, you know, musicians, photographers or podcasters. Yeah, you notice on that spirit we're skipping the rest of this 60 second ad and getting right back into the podcast.

[00:57:22] We transfer dot com. You make we transfer. Can we talk about that fight scene? Yes. What a fight scene. The fight seems incredible. How does the fight scene play out? You've got Jade Fox who's got the Poisoned Arts and stuff. She's not super relevant to this fight.

[00:57:40] No, it's all it's all. They think. Sword fever. They think it's her. What you have are two actresses who have spent a year of their lives preparing to dance with weapons in incredibly close quarters. How do they do this? It's insane.

[00:57:56] But like when you watch an American movie and, you know, especially after watching something like this and are just a job smack. The action is because you just don't have the talent required to pull it off. Or the time. Or the time. Times a big thing.

[00:58:09] Yeah, but you know, Zhang Ji was, I don't know if Hurl for dancing training was, you know, in mind of eventually having this career. But Michelle Yao would certainly because like in that industry, this is as important a skill

[00:58:21] set as anything else that you might bring to the table for a fall. It's like the old Hollywood system where it's like you had to learn how to tap dance. You had to learn how to sing. Right.

[00:58:29] Like if you want to be an actor, you had to know the couple of things. The length. You know, fencing, you know. The length of the takes for these, the action sequence. I mean that's what pushes movie over the edge.

[00:58:39] It's just completely, I just don't understand how it's really possible. And Yu Jing had time too. I mean he, you know, choreographing it had a time that he had never really had before.

[00:58:46] And so he like busted out of the big guns all like the kicks that he had been holding in his back pocket for all those years. He was like, oh, the thing where we do like a top down shot and you're

[00:58:54] jumping and kicking and she's jumping and kicking and your boat jumping and kicking like this is the one. Well as you said, Zhijie Zhang had no martial arts background, only a dance background and she just approached all of this like a dancer team.

[00:59:06] Like that's how she learned it, which works really well because it is so much about like the grace of the movements and everything. What we're talking about with like the time and energy that is not usually given to this sort of choreography, especially more and more as things

[00:59:20] become action and fight based. But the actual quality of those fights is prioritized less and less. I read some interview with the fucking iron fist where they were asking him about like how much time the worst choreographed martial arts thing I've ever seen.

[00:59:36] Right. And they asked him like, so how much like rehearsal did you have to do like a choreography? And he was like, they pretty much like on the morning when I got to set, they'd show me what the fight was and I had 30 minutes to look.

[00:59:46] Yeah. And it's just like, so you hired a guy who doesn't have a martial arts background and then would just come up with something on the day. It's almost like TV is stupid. Yeah. The only guys for losers.

[00:59:57] The only guys who are thinking about this with that level of depth, at least in the Western world are the guys who are doing John Wick, John Wick 2, Atomic Blonde. That their whole company is based around the action.

[01:00:09] Also, I mean, Walt Becker, the choreography of his nut shots is really... I thought that was understood. I didn't realize that. Yeah, that's just like saying the sky is blue. Any cast member of a Walt Becker film has to spend a year training

[01:00:22] to get properly hit in the nuts. This is why Shaq retired a few years earlier than he might have otherwise, because he had to prepare for grown-ups too. That's a Walt Becker joint, right? No. You think you're Dan Stugin. How could I ever confuse them?

[01:00:35] Yeah, the Chad Stahelsky, David Leach school, I like that because, again, they want you to see the whole stunt. Like this, they want to see the whole fight. What I like about John Wick and shit where they're like,

[01:00:48] we want you to get that guy just got hit by a car. Chad Stahelsky, Keanu Reeves stunt double on the Matrix where he met you in the pig. The other guy I like a lot who we've talked about in the past is Heim's,

[01:00:59] his son who does the Universal Soldier Directive Video Movies. Right, which I've never seen. You've sang your praises. He choreographs and shoots action in a very similar way, which is even worse down here because he's working on crazy, limited budgets and schedules.

[01:01:13] Because he has action choreography but not a screenplay. Right, but he hires a lot of MMA fighters for primary roles in the movie because he's like, I want to be able to do a long take. But the grace of the fighting in this scene,

[01:01:24] in this film as a whole is especially meaningful because these fight scenes are with one exception not about violence. They are about self-expression. Right, which is where the dance thing like pays off. But also he does such a good job of like building this sort of language

[01:01:40] of the flying where the first couple of times it's just like, they jumped and they stayed in the air a little too long. It still looks a little magical. There are a few shots in this first lighting where they're like paddling their legs over houses

[01:01:54] and they miss, they miss, like Michelle misses. Like every old Griffin was laughing and like 29 year old Griffin was crying. I agree. I know what you mean though. Right, it's not like clean in some ways because there are people pulling fucking strings.

[01:02:10] But they did pointedly like put a lot of time and energy into CGIing out the wires which like this sort of schlockier versions of these movies the joke was that you could always see the wires.

[01:02:19] And in this there's something magical about the fact that even though the movements, the motions clearly look like wire poles, there's nothing sort of propelling it. You got tan done going like... Damn right. It's wild now. And people in the club are like... Oh man, this scene.

[01:02:35] I was over, it was game over. So you're just sold, you got Inspector Sai, everyone's favorite character. He's always fucking up. He's such an idiot. He's such a bum, this guy. He's such a crumb bum. Yeah, he always has to ask one more thing. Yeah right.

[01:02:49] Yeah, he's like a poor police investigator. I don't know who is he? He's the Colombo of Wuxia. But he's like shitty. Yeah, he's bad. Like who's a shitty Colombo? He's like Kojak. Kojak's okay. I've got disrespect to my man Kojak. Rosewood maybe? You talking about Morris Chestnut?

[01:03:07] No, old Rosewood. Okay. Alright. Rosolian Isles. Hey, those are fine. Because they're fine together, but like Isles, it's like Samson without the hair. Where did they detect it? I thought they were lawyers. I don't know. Or was that Franklin and Bash? Franklin and Bash are lawyers.

[01:03:25] There's only an Isle of Detective. They are? Yeah, I think so. We all knew this episode was going to come to a point where we'd have to pause to go to Rosolian Isles. And the Wifi went out. That's the one that Camille was on, right?

[01:03:36] Camille was on Franklin and Bash. Who the fuck? So who was on Rosolian Isles? It's fucking Angie Harmon and the other one, Sasha Alexander. Who was their nerd? Who was their fucking computer jockey? Something or other. The Wifi went down. Geez, Ben. Ben, we're flying blind. Ben.

[01:03:53] Turn it on. Turn it on, Ben. Alright, I'll unplug the router. Oh boy. Alright, so that's the big fight. What happens in this big fight? The sword is stolen. Oh yeah. Green Destiny, baby. You're right about the fights being said.

[01:04:08] You never feel a lot of danger in the fights, which is why it's what happened? I just googled bones. I was trying to look up the show and I realized that's a very ridiculous search. Just bones. You just got a lot of bones.

[01:04:26] I'm just realizing this is a hard movie to describe because so much of what you're trying to describe is like mind boggling physical interaction. She's still a sword and then everyone's plans are put on hold. Like, Leman Baik can no longer retire

[01:04:41] even though he's trying to get rid of the sword. Yeah. Shul Yan has a new shop and Jen is just hanging out there and immediately is the one and only suspect. Yeah, right. And then Jen's choreography gives herself. I mean, the choreography scene is art. This is beautiful.

[01:04:58] But they also have... She spent as much time practicing the choreography as she did the sword fight. Sure. But they also make a wanted sign for the Jade Fox, who they suspect still assigned. And it's funny hearing James Seamus

[01:05:11] sort of slap his forehead about this on the commentary. But it's still supposed to be a mystery who Jade Fox is at that point in the movie. And the wanted sign is just like a perfect illustration. Great picture of her. Is it supposed to be plausible

[01:05:24] that this young-ish bandit with like creamy porcelain skin... It's like a headshot of the older actress. Right. She's just like, yeah, she is. Right, in ink. Aren't they even surprised at the beginning of some characters to hear that Jade Fox is a woman?

[01:05:38] They just assumed it was a man and now suddenly it's a very specific woman who we all know. But yes, Jen is trying to get away from her life. This marriage she doesn't want, this sort of life of aristocracy she has no interest in.

[01:05:52] She wants to be like the characters in the books that she grew up reading. And there are some of them were of the Shul Yan vein, but I think a lot of them were probably men. I mean, she's realizing now that she's being forced

[01:06:02] in this marriage with Governor Yu or whoever the fuck she's married on. No, not Governor Yu. She hates the name. I can't remember the name. Gao? Gao, I think it's that. Who was eventually played by like the first AD, like one long shot,

[01:06:15] is like she's realizing the burden of being a woman in that particular society and all that it pretends. But so like the idea is that the Jade Fox while on the run was like, let me just like hide out, get a very simple, quiet, handmade job.

[01:06:28] And then suddenly was like the one person that Jen had access to who could train her. Which was just like she became a disciple. She became a bandit because that was like the only path she had to become a bandit.

[01:06:42] She wanted to be a Wudan fighter and she went there and they were, you know, the teacher was willing to have sex with her but not willing to teach her. Yeah. And so she was understandably bitter and wanted to pass that along. Lee Thompson Young is the nerd

[01:06:56] in Rosoli and Isles. Oh. Lorraine Bracco and Bruce McGillor also in it though. Lee Thompson Young killed himself. Did he? I'm so sorry. Lee Thompson Young. Well, I'm glad my Harry Knowles reference was not the most depressing detour this podcast has made. Oh, that's sad.

[01:07:12] Because there was a, I remember reading the story about him not showing up to set. That's sad. Yeah. He was the famous Chet Jackson, right? Yes, he was. I saw him on the subway once. He looked really sad. Thanks for that.

[01:07:24] I was like, why should Jackson so sad? Yeah. The famous Chet Jackson. Yeah. It's a bummer. Yeah. So anyway, then we didn't have to go. There are a lot before the second fight scene.

[01:07:32] There are a lot of conversations that I think harken back to the kind of King Who movies that in the classical kung fu things that we're expecting. Give it to me. They're talking a lot about the various elemental rules and the philosophy of everything.

[01:07:44] You're saying like a sword by itself rules nothing. It comes alive only through skillful manipulation and they're talking in very veiled terms about their feelings for one another and sussing each other out. There's a conversation where Jen is like coveting the sword and Michelle

[01:07:57] goes like it's a lot less pretty ones covered in blood. You know, and he and then he like, Lee Mubai talks about like how it only looks good because it's easily washable essentially. Like the blood comes off real smooth. Yeah. But it's like made out of vibranium.

[01:08:10] It's made out of vibranium. They're fucking swords. It's also just right. Jen is obsessed with this sword because she I guess she just thinks it's like her salvation right getting the sword. She doesn't get that she's already. She thinks it's a trump card.

[01:08:24] Like if I have this, they can't they can't eat me right whereas. I mean that scene where he kicks the stick is so good, but I also love that Jen worships Shulian. Yeah. And like the first fight scene is between the two of them

[01:08:37] and Shulian doesn't know who she's fighting with Jen does and she's like holy shit. I'm in one of those stories that I've dreamed of my whole life. Right. Very last action hero. So they fight very Jax later through. So there's that initial fight that's just Jen and Shulian.

[01:08:52] The stealing of the sword. The stealing of the sword. But she also she fucking the detective gets killed right? Well, that's the second one. We do get a quick look at Cheng Chen though who ends the fight with a blow dart and then like just like slinks back

[01:09:07] into the darkness and you're like huh. Guess we'll ignore that. Right because she catches it which is cool. Dark cloud. Dark cloud. But anyway, so then yeah there is a little bit of like oh you guys are actors well actually I'm a cop from the mountain seeking

[01:09:24] of the avenge. So what kind of stuff have you been in? Have I seen you in anything? Rush out. You in tag? So those guys can introduce their cannon fodder right? Yeah. They're blow dart fodder. But two of them fuck. You're right. Totally off screen.

[01:09:43] Yeah, dumbass inspector sigh. Yeah and the daughter may forged in the heat of battle after the death of her father is like standing watch outside her house being nice and she's like just come on in. Yeah, why don't you come inside and it's a little bit warmer?

[01:09:59] Yeah, no one's dead in here. No one's got a thing in their head in here. Yeah, but yeah so it's that second fight which also rules in like the courtyard. I love that the technosai looks like a dollar store child. He does like he styled the same way.

[01:10:13] He's just got like a shittier black robe. But can someone explain to me and this is something that has alluded me for 18 years now why he is tied to the rock when he like runs out into the courtyard. No, it is like pulled back.

[01:10:26] Joanna asked this question too. I don't know. It's like I think he has like a grappling hook and he used it wrong or something like there's some. I think he's got some cool Batman thing. He just doesn't know how to use. It totally flies over my head like.

[01:10:40] It's like missing a shot. Exactly, when that's introduced. So is is Joanna fluent? Yeah. And she was saying like a lot of the sort of line readings, the accent clash. What she said was essentially and of course you know

[01:10:54] she's still a white lady but she does you know she lived in China for many years. She speaks Mandarin. It's like she's like it's not that bad Michelle go on her own. She's just talking but then once she's talking to

[01:11:04] someone else it does stick out like a sore. It's the fact that everyone's doing a different thing. Right? I mean that's the real thing. And she said which I am fat. She's not as good at like detecting accents. Sure. Yes, like he's like he sounds different.

[01:11:16] Because he himself says that his accent is terrible in this movie. Right. And he also said like he'd never had to do so many takes over the language before. Right. Like probably because he mostly had to do a lot of takes over stunt work or whatever.

[01:11:28] I'm just fascinated by the fact that like weirdly somehow I think the the seeming authenticity of this movie became its greatest asset that it didn't feel like a westernized version of a Wuxia epic that it was like a heightened sort of more intellectual version, more emotional version

[01:11:44] of it. But like that eastern audiences saw it and they were like oh the accents all clash. But the fact that like we dumb Americans don't know what they're saying makes it feel like it has more integrity and weight to it. You know? Yeah. I mean yeah.

[01:12:00] I'm not backhanding the movie. No, I mean this is always how it goes. Right. There are movies that have done phenomenally well overseas that we would dismiss. Yeah. And I think like the artist was kind of viewed that way when it started doing so well here in France.

[01:12:13] The French people are like we made this as a joke. This is the guy who made our Austin Powers analog. Um, yeah. It's just like well obviously there are so many historical films that take place in different countries where everyone just speaks English

[01:12:29] and I imagine that in China that's how this movie played. You know? Like it was like why are all these German people in World War II speaking English with British accents? It's funny that Jiang Xi was then in memoirs of a Geisha which has an even worse problem.

[01:12:42] I know. Right. I mean obviously way worse. Yeah. Do you know that most of the movie was shot in San Francisco? Uh, no. I can tell because that movie was getting hyphy. Uh, yeah. That's usually how I bring that up at parties. Negative five comedy points.

[01:12:56] Ben give me a thumbs up. That's all I need. Uh, completely over my head. Um, some day. Someday. I'm going to listen back to this episode and see if I can… Yeah, I will not take up real estate explaining this. Yeah please don't. So, Sword of Stolen.

[01:13:11] Sword of Stolen, Cop gets a spinny… Thing in the face. …spinny blade to the face. I just love how everyone in this movie has just gone all in on X-weapon. Yeah. Except for the main characters. And Chaoyun Fat does this thing with

[01:13:25] The Green Destiny where it like shakes it like a snake. I love it when he shows up. Oh my god. 35 minutes into the movie and you haven't seen him fighting. The entire first 35 minutes of the movie are people talking about how good he is at fighting. Yeah.

[01:13:35] And then he shows up and it takes like three moves and you're like, oh shit that guy is good at fighting. You know what my… The ballest move he has in this movie is when, uh, who is it?

[01:13:45] The Jade Fox does the like five point thing to paralyze him and Chaoyun Fat's like, don't worry I know they were first code. Like he hits him like he's a fucking keypad and he's like unparalleled. I mean the movie is really unashamed at playing into these cliches

[01:13:59] and sort of like, you know, giving them new life. Yes. Because there's no one like James Sheamus, Engley they all are celebrating how much of an unrealistic cliché this is, how it's built into a lot of the movies to which they're paying homage and they just own it.

[01:14:12] They're like we can throw it into this, this like, you know, prestige picture that's cost, however much it costs. 20 million. Uh, yeah I mean, yeah it's actually not that expensive. But I guess relative to the other movies there's a lot of money for this kind of movie.

[01:14:22] And they're like, but we're just going to own it with a straight face. What? He's all stillness. What's your favorite weapon in the movie? I throw it at the table because I have a clear cut answer. There's a lot of weapons in this movie.

[01:14:34] Can I tell you what mine is? Yes. Michelle Yeo's weird candy cane claws or things. Those are so cool. The fucking coolest! That whole fight, I also like it when she just gets a curtain rod and starts wailing on her with like a golden curtain rod.

[01:14:48] We'll get to that. But no, I feel like there's another obvious one. I mean I like bowling ball guy. He's got dumbbells like broken in half. Yeah. Just because like, yeah, he's like carrying them everywhere. Michelle Yeo's staff that like bends in that same plate scene

[01:15:03] with the red feather on the top is pretty badass. Also, as Sim's mentioned, Chelyon Fett's stick. Yeah, the stick scene's great. Chelyon Fett's dick? I didn't see him take it out. He's just swatting her with it. I know. He's teaching her a great lesson.

[01:15:19] Which is that all you need to stick, you guys. All you need to stick. I'm in the scene where he stings. Jade Fox shows up in this battle and she sees her stooge, her apprentice doing wild shit. You see it on Jade's face.

[01:15:36] By the way, this actress is wonderful. Chang Pei Bei. Yeah, had never played a villain before and she's like pure evil here. But also like, you're so on her side. She got so fucked over. He's blowing up my spot here. I told you to lay low.

[01:15:49] Right, but then immediately, Lee Mu Bai is hitting her with a like you whore. You slept with my master or whatever. He's like, you infiltrated. He puts it a little more delicately. He's like, you infiltrated the Wu Dang school or whatever.

[01:16:03] She's like, yeah, I was sleeping with your guy until he kicked me to the curb. He wouldn't teach me the secrets. Yeah, he puts it delicately. He calls her a trollop instead of a whore. I love when later in the movie,

[01:16:12] Jen refers to the Wu Dang school as a whorehouse and it's like, you've been listening to that woman for way too long. It's true. It's true. She does. She is a little, yeah, parody. But I just, I feel for Jade Fox. I did too.

[01:16:25] I feel like she got fucked over by the rules. Victim circumstance. That scene a little later where Lee Mu Bai is doing his classic thing where he just stands in the middle of a room not moving. One arm behind his back.

[01:16:34] While he has a conversation and he's like, yeah, maybe we should have her join the Wu Dang school. And she lands just like, but the women can't join and he's like, yeah, in this case we should make an exception. I think Earl should be a poison dragon.

[01:16:46] And she's just like, yeah, no chill. Chill. Yeah. You're right. You're right. Yeah. She'd be a poison dragon. That'd be bad. Yeah. Not like just a repressed person who just like doesn't do anything with her life. Would it be nice if you made one exception earlier?

[01:16:58] Oh yeah. No, no. Now is the time for the exception. You're right. You're right. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. Bit of a yaddle. Michelle, yeah. Bit of a yaddle. He's just like staring off into the distance, contemplating and Lissaro. And he's like, I'll just touch your face again.

[01:17:12] Touch my face again. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Oh, that scene. That scene. We'll get there. It's so brutal. But yeah, so they have this fight. This guy who is invincible one second suddenly cannot catch a spinning blade to the face. The next. He sees it coming.

[01:17:29] He does. No, to give him some credit. He does catch it in between his eyes. He catches it perfectly. In the middle of his face. Quite bloodless. There's two moments of blood. And then when the guy has like blood coming out of his mouth which is great.

[01:17:42] Jen hits him in the face. But that one shot of him going like, Yeah, I really like it. And then there's the great bit where Michelle Yow confirms that Jen is the thief by knocking the thing off the table. Whereas,

[01:17:59] Louie Beyes move is like he kind of like blows some magic wind at her and it like flaps her thing up for a second. But he would never. I mean, that's in like a mini fight scene later. He would never

[01:18:11] embarrass her by or like lower her to removing her mask because this whole movie is about people coming to grips with who they are and what's important to them and unmasking someone else in that way and like forcing them would be a rape of some kind.

[01:18:23] I mean, it would be in the parlance of this movie. The other thing I love about the teacup scene is that like much like most martial arts films, this is like a very sound effects kind of fully heavy film here in the swishes and the clings

[01:18:36] and the whoops and everything. That teacup thing is like silent because the whole point is how effortlessly automatically she's able to just catch it and stop any sort of clang from happening. Very, very Peter Parker. Yeah. And then the shots of the knowing looks.

[01:18:52] I love the knowing looks. This movie is 50% like super action and 50% knowing. Because of how good Ang Lee is at getting like emotional restraint out of his actors. His close ups are so fucking effective because you just watch people thinking, you know, silent acknowledgement.

[01:19:13] We talked about his body language, his mastery body language. He loves body language. He gets it exactly right. You know, he commands his actors to do very specific things. David, Erlich. Hi. Hey, so are we at the flashback now? Yeah. I think we're about at that point. Yeah.

[01:19:29] Because we got to figure out who Jen is. Yeah. So low a.k.a. dark cloud comes into her bedroom when he says sounds like a bad playstation 2 game. Wasn't it a bad playstation 2? They turned this into no, but like not crouching tiger, but dark clowns dark souls.

[01:19:45] I mean dark souls is phenomenal playstation 3 game, right? But you're right. It's a bad playstation. It's an RPG. It looks like Zelda, but shit. Did you have the crouching tiger game? No, I played it though because my friend Josh, who was so like he went all in on.

[01:20:04] He bought the soundtrack and that like second soundtrack that's like more like yo-yo mob rarities. I don't know. Like I don't know what was on it. Because merchandise spotlight. Do you know there was a line of toys for this movie? Of course.

[01:20:18] Which is insane because it was like two years after a Sony Pictures classics film had come out. It had made such a cultural impact that there were like crouching tiger toys at RIP Toys R Us.

[01:20:30] It's like if they were like Call Me By Your Name toys in like 2019. Call Me By Your Name became like a major blockbuster. Like an acrylic peach. But so often with movies it's either like you have the merchandise out before the movie comes out or like

[01:20:44] 20 years later when it's become like a cult then. Did you get your action figure yet? This is the sore subject? Is this the sore of the subjects? Do you think? It's a real point of frustration. By Arcus, you will have gotten an action figure though. On the record.

[01:20:58] Okay. When's this episode coming out? August or July? Mid August. August 13th I think. I had been told that there is something that should be releasing by holiday season of 2018. So I would hope that it would be revealed by the time this episode's coming out. But who knows?

[01:21:17] I keep on waiting for them to pull the rug out from under me. But I've heard they plan to have something for sale December 2018. Okay. I'm going to show or like a picture while you guys keep talking. So just to add to the merch spotlight there's a porn

[01:21:33] parody of this movie. Crashing penis. Well it's Crashing Tiger hidden penis. Usually in porn the penis is not so hidden. Well but in good porn. Do they shoot the porn do you know with the same sort of emotional restraint that they shoot the films?

[01:21:50] Angly directed porn as well. It's got a lot of knowing looks. But it's like just between a penis and a vagina staring at each other from across. Oh wow. Right? That is off putting but also like very realistic. It's very weird.

[01:22:04] Once I, it's the neck is what's throwing me. The neck is weird. But I think without the neck. I showed you this already. I'm showing the data. The next thing is really weird. Just on my head sculpted. It looks like a penis a little bit but like once

[01:22:15] on a body. Yeah. On like a plastic body look good. Yeah I keep on. Photo real. It's photo real. They got the pores right. I just keep on waiting for them to be like never mind. Never mind. Cancel due to complete lack of interest. I'm interested.

[01:22:31] I'm interested too. I'm not buying action figure of you. Oh yeah you went. Yeah and I don't buy action figures. You guys should have a blank check. What if they're a blank check action figures before they're the tick action figures?

[01:22:41] Look I think Griffin would be fine with that. I think Griffin's just like yo let me be an action figure. He's got like a pull string costly. He's just like. Yeah. You can just do an ad when you pull it. That is totally what would happen.

[01:22:57] We get contacted by some toy company about wanting to merge that blank check. They only want to make bendalls. And they make like a thousand bends. They make a different one for each nickname. They make one with him like with a magnifying glass holding a piece of ham.

[01:23:11] Make like an audio boom teradome and then then you. Yeah I combine the meat lover in the first pack that flashback. Yes flashback flashback we get in the middle of this movie drops the hammer a 20 ish minute flashback which rules to like the most remote

[01:23:28] shooting location on the face of the earth and Gobi does it all nowhere. And it totally rules it starts with totally rules. It has like my favorite shot of all time which one's that well going up the ridge seeing the whole like what a character is

[01:23:45] seriously you got the comb. You got that comb you love that you're tweeting about that calm fucking love that comb man looks like it's like second second second. I mean this is a whole movie here. It's a Jade comb too isn't it also green

[01:24:00] yeah sure you get one of the great meat cutes of all time when he steals it on horseback and she's rating her caravan and she's immediately sorry we're going I tried that a bunch of times it doesn't work you've rated

[01:24:13] me yeah well no I for a good to be in a caravan not that gross please okay growing your hair out like that yes I had a bad phase in high school you don't want to see the picture I'm not even joking we know I would

[01:24:25] never rate a caravan right you just steal a comb I go to barn steal some and then hopefully like pretty women chase you yo girl let me get that comb she follows low who doesn't then hang out with his bandits he just goes across the desert to

[01:24:41] one of his hidey hole caves yeah well you know he goes to he is hanging out with the bandits there like she shows up and kicks a bunch of ass right because she's already like four years into training at this point she has

[01:24:53] all this is like the invitation that she's been waiting for her entire life and he goes after her and it's only because like she pursues him because otherwise it could seem a little rapey in the way that like they come together in this little cave but it's

[01:25:06] really the way that like she pursues him and then he has to get his property back and take care of her and knocks her out and then you know things go from there but he's very nice he's like you know he sings that very catchy song

[01:25:18] which they build into the score in when they when you first cut to the caravan you hear like na na na na it's really subtle but it's great chan chan who was like a child star he's in a brighter summer day yeah well and when's that Edward Yang

[01:25:33] cast let's fucking do it brighter summer podcast yang then flickman a podcast and a podcast I don't know I do think podcast in confusion you make a good point though because like he shows up and you're like okay here's like the Wuxia version of like a biker

[01:25:51] gang right sure and then very quickly it's like those are kind of like my work friends I don't really like you might get drinks and sit by a fire but once someone to chill in my cave right I'm not really that I separate like you

[01:26:04] know my personal life from my my career I'm not the only one who thinks that cave life seems really relaxing why don't they just stay in the cave into it and then love a good dark place like also having all of your worldly possessions just this one cave

[01:26:19] and it's like no one's gonna come bother you if you take a lady back there give her a bath you know yes we're looking at it bring a lot of water though we don't see that part the spoiler alert for the Tomb Raider

[01:26:28] movie that came out six months ago that we keep talking about yeah there's a point where they find the character has been hiding in a cave for like five years I'm like just stay there it feels like you got to figure it

[01:26:37] out he's going a little crazy though he doesn't have Chang Chen to like give him a bath and rub his shoulders I mean I mean the dark cloud hears that Trump was elected and then decides to go off the grid I'd love to live in a cave

[01:26:49] and be like no Wi-Fi access you cannot check to it there was a New York Times article about him callback to an article that we have all forgotten about about the August thank God caves have good ambiance yeah course house doesn't really make like great

[01:27:04] noises we're going noises dripping caves are kind of chilly too like a nice sort of natural coolness yeah and they're often big and what big and what this is there's some wet scenes here yeah a lot of a lot of focus on her

[01:27:18] mouth yep it's like you know prior to lost caution far and away the most sensual thing that Anglia had ever filmed yeah yes not since he filmed a duck having water poured down its throat and he drank man woman he's he's been so

[01:27:34] fucking hot radically shot but it's also wise is pretty fucking hot and since it's a go ahead so I say it's also mythic because in the way the tone that the movies established by this point like they feel each other out there there

[01:27:47] it's very romantic comedy yeah it's all very like adversarial romantic comedy like then they commit to loving each other and it's like each other's but they see each other's butts and then that's all they need like to be riding on horseback together like in a romantic

[01:28:01] fable there are two great butts here for great cheeks also a good also great virginity lossers I had you lose your virginity prom night and I was a little awkward how'd you lose your I got kidnapped and went to a cave I was seeing Pirates the Caribbean 3 am

[01:28:15] sexy bandit called dark cloud yeah classic standard teen they're like oh did you did you do the walk of shame home next day no he took me to the most beautiful on earth and in soft focus told me a myth about a kid jumping off a mountain

[01:28:29] also I proceeded to live in that cave for several more weeks how long she got like shoo man's really polite by the way yeah cuz like when when j-jen is like you're really cool with all your adventures like is she should be like yeah what about when

[01:28:43] you got kidnapped by a bandit yeah and you were in the desert what happened there love and instead she's just like no it's no big deal well it's so underplayed that it's it's so ingrained in the choices they have to make that she is living off

[01:28:57] the grid in a cave but they can't be happy yeah and like be themselves when her father's men are always on the prowl looking for and they're both just like you know after presumably just boning for a while they're just like well I gotta go back like hopefully

[01:29:11] we can make this work one day and dark clouds like I'm gonna be rich and I'm gonna prove your parents that I know where he's just like what if I became the greatest bandit of all time would they like me then and she's kind of

[01:29:23] like let's see like I don't know she's like have you considered law school or is that like the best plan it was like you know how I'm like a famous bandit but like a list famous they that's marriageable right I'm imagining the spin-off greatest bandit musical now

[01:29:37] is he he's in the sea I've seen this equal I saw no one's you're lying you've not seen it I don't remember it at all doesn't exist obviously like Chaya and Fed is not in it right spoiler alert Michelle yo isn't it she is but I remember

[01:29:55] it being a small roll so she wouldn't do it unless it was anyway Donnie and is the star and then Harry Shum jr. from Glee yeah is like the second one of my favorite martial artists I remember it being weird but yeah we have this beautiful flashback

[01:30:09] and she goes back and we are back to where we were and Jen's like cool story you gotta go away right and who's hiding the crowds now dark cloud dark cloud in the crowd right so he's back he's like let's get married yeah and she's like

[01:30:27] that's another bit with the dark in the parade and you like fire the darndr carriage and it's like she looks at the dart like there's I'm not sure what she's thinking I know well that's it yeah it's like after all that time his move is okay I'm gonna

[01:30:41] wait by my tie by and then when she's getting married and the procession is happening I'll just kind of like jump down and be like please marry me sort of like not tactically sound and then he like goes to Michelle you on shy on fads like so

[01:30:55] has she said anything about how that work is that making waves chill I love I love how Lee Mubai is like alright bro like let's talk about this and then Shulian drops in she's like I know which I just love it right where he's like

[01:31:11] still listening to my teenage daughter will give it to you come up oh so you have a crush on her this is what you should do stand stoically and never express your love and she's like okay hold my beer tell her that you love her as you're dying

[01:31:23] and then carry that feeling with you definitely wait until the toxin is flooded 90% of your blood stream your blood has reversed its course you want to only give yourself time for one kiss leave them wanting more yeah but that's sort of what this movie is about passion

[01:31:39] and excitement and Lee Mubai is like you're like a space ale but you know without necessarily endorsing repression this movie does sort of recognize that the idea of a feeling is in some ways more pure than actually living with it well sure yeah I mean

[01:31:55] it's very remain to the day right right their love becomes so strong because it's like never been expressed doesn't seem like nothing is real nothing be tainted but like I think Jen's having more fun I mean she has crazy desert adventure she has tons of hot cave sex

[01:32:13] she's got a so awesome fight scenes yeah she's such an interesting character I mean she doesn't really fall into a particular type a fascinating character never happened in Hollywood she reminds me a lot of Christine Lady Bird whatever the fuck her last name is McPherson

[01:32:27] yes yeah it just goes like she is dimensional in a way that you don't often get characters of any gender and she's a pain in the ass women are not usually on screen she's the villain of the movie who causes all the trouble

[01:32:39] but she's also the protagonist in the hero she has an adversarial relationship with the mom character who she also loves and is indebted to and she kills and she is responsible for her father's death and she eats Doritos with Tracy Letts let's get a big bag of Doritos

[01:32:55] Doritos but it's amazing how much of the iconic scenes from this movie what percentage of them are crammed to the last like 35 minutes or so I in my mind's eye not having seen this movie since 2000 remembered there being like 30 to 40 minutes of Chao Yong fat

[01:33:13] has been poisoned he's slowly dying in the cave and it's like two scenes it happens like within the last 15 minutes of the movie I remember there was fight trick going on they came back to the cave and she was like how you doing

[01:33:23] and he's like quiet let me just breathe a little bit because there's that whole notion of like let me try to lower my energy as much as possible I'll try and hold onto this I remember that being like

[01:33:33] the act of the movie but it is like the last 30 minutes are jam fuck and packed well right because there's all right so there's the flashback there's the wedding which you know doesn't do great after that she's like let me dress up as a boy

[01:33:45] and just go to a bar right yeah starship goes to a bar she does like a fucking phantom thread order right she practically says like go slay a school of fish and then she like road houses everyone right and then people come up now they're being weird

[01:34:01] because they're like hey what's up what's your name well it's like she name man it's like she rolls into a poker club and she's like I just won the world series of like I'm the best poker player in the world

[01:34:11] she has the sword like everyone she has the sword and she keeps on like fucking like when everyone's always like golden iron monkey god and she's too long shut the fuck she's like how about this I mean that scene rules in ways

[01:34:25] that I don't think humans have found the language to totally remember that scene was her BAFTA clip and I was and I was just like imagine that being an Oscar love that just taking down a whole bar something I discovered in the process of

[01:34:37] this episode how the guy who does that immortal fall off the bear off the banister is the same guy who has the abacus and the reason he has an abacus in the next shot is when he's playing a different character ostensibly is because he had broken his arm

[01:34:51] during the fall and they still want to bear and there's like what can I hold one arm alright I'll just do math at her and I mean you could beat someone pretty badly with a big abacus but uh that's so funny she's a magic and some dressing

[01:35:03] in men's clothes can finally sort of like live freely be who she wants to be show that she is the badass warrior that she is and that fight scene just just come on cinema I am the invincible sword goddess armed with a green destiny talks the whole time

[01:35:17] spit and rap game the other thing with this movie is like obviously the choreography is amazing obviously he shoots and edits it beautifully he also all of these fight scenes have story beats in them like it's not just one option ship of like here's some crazy shit

[01:35:31] like even that the big Michelle yo G. Jean fight is like the story beats of Michelle yo running out of weapons and having to figure out different ways to fight her which is like I love that thing I love in action movies where like

[01:35:45] there are actual like character moments that accelerate and heighten and deepen the bits of actual fighting it's good everything like there's no fight scenes movie that isn't where every beat isn't sort of expressing the characters it still has the approach of like a crappy Marvel movie or whatever

[01:36:07] it's like oh well now we should have a fight with weapons I guess like where it but it falls so smoothly and it's so perfectly right and it's like you know what super fluid say like a lot of Marvel movies is like okay we've just

[01:36:19] funny if these guys fight now right but it's like we've justified why they now need to fight but then the fight is totally devoid of story or character the fight is like a point oh it's like they're gonna have sex

[01:36:31] and then they have sex right it's a porno scene in this the fight is as expressive as a screenplay I mean it's just the story is continuing yeah it's not just being put on pause so we can sell some tickets right which I think is one

[01:36:43] of the reasons why it became such across over success because like obviously the visuals of the fights are crazy yeah and post matrix landscape people were like oh let's go deeper into the sort of thing that matrix is referencing yes but I also

[01:36:57] think people get invested in the fights in this movie because you care about what's going on of course like it's not just fucking Romeo must die which jet Lee took instead of this film do you know that he was first choice that was a mistake

[01:37:09] yes Romeo must die has that gimmick where when he kicks someone it cuts to like an x-ray and you see their bones breaking I remember that Romeo must die also has a line where someone looks at him and goes sorry Romeo you gotta die

[01:37:23] wait is Romeo must die good but like how does he not say Romeo Romeo and Juliet you must it's in the title yeah no he says sorry Romeo but you gotta die that was a mistake why did he do that I don't know sometimes to work with DMX

[01:37:39] I think he thought like look I'm trying to make a big Hollywood career here I can't go back and do some Chinese film I'm trying to like cross the pond and then this movie like outgrossed every jet Lee film and also like jet Lee's most successful American release

[01:37:55] was fearless which was sort of advertised as like if you like crashing tiger here's another Chinese movie for ya not Danny the dog that's his most successful release I would bet that is his most successful us gross are you mean not including like lethal weapon or expendables

[01:38:15] I'm saying for jet Lee vehicle that's certainly outgrossed the one that grossed unleashed box office mode just being weird but if you know later that movie did weirdly well okay in jet Lee's defense speaking to the he's an hero too he is a hero

[01:38:29] which is probably his second highest grossing domestic those are the two I think it's hero and then fearless but speaking to you gotta have huge regrets in your life for it to be meaningful at the end right so he on his death bed will be able to look

[01:38:43] angley in the eye and kiss him on the lips and say I've always loved you oh that's an interesting point that maybe jet Lee wasn't ready to do crouching tiger because he hadn't yet turned down crouching tiger that is correct having

[01:38:53] not done crouching tiger he would have been prepared for the role mm-hmm so there's the fight that you just described which is Jenna shulian that's my fair which is we can't we can't brush over I mean it's like possibly great possibly the

[01:39:05] greatest fight scene ever and it is also ladybird fighting with her mother like that's the arc of that is the arc of that scene right like that's where at a certain point it changes from them being mad at each other to Jen being

[01:39:17] like no no yeah go ahead pick a weapon pick a weapon it's also yeah watching the men scatter out when they get down there and start the fight I mean like this is a movie that really I mean not that it did

[01:39:27] poorly I mean it's hard to imagine doing this well if it came out now but really sort of speaks to where we are in the culture now in terms of you know female representation and strength I mean this movie was tapping into things that Wonder Woman would

[01:39:41] have to like run around to 18 years later yeah I mean right it's a very even within the confines of what was allowed for of women in the culture that is scribe it's a very feminist like you know it is interesting that like outside of fearless

[01:39:59] and hero getting like pretty wide releases and doing strong numbers this movie kind of didn't influence anything else you know well you know without this movie don't have hero coming out in the United States I mean the only thing it influenced was domestic releases of other

[01:40:17] but you can't though it's like I mean that was a little more limited but like no that was a big hit in America yeah I mean like well Zhang Yimou got to release like a trio of films here so like Golden Flower? but like hero was

[01:40:29] like number one in the box office two weeks in a row but Hollywood doesn't have the ability to rip the box office the thing it's like they don't have the talent honestly they've been trying to for like the ten years before not with the costume

[01:40:41] movies but with like they were trying to make like the replacement killers and all that stuff can we make the killer like for American audiences it's hard to find the context because in a world where martial arts was so central to the culture and when you're looking at

[01:40:55] like 18th century China whenever this movie takes place that's one thing but in American context it's hard to like justify the fact that people are fighting each other so skillfully 1778 it would be really hard for the grip to rip off but greatest fight scene possibly ever staged

[01:41:09] just chill just super chill it's fucking insane it just gets better and better and better and they get angry and it's also it has that sense of vitriol that almost all the other fight scenes are deliberately missing in this movie

[01:41:23] yes this is the one where it's getting pumped up and then yeah obviously when then the final fight where jade shows the backup I mean jade's the one who's got all the vitriol it's like barely a fight I mean like the violence they don't want to

[01:41:37] I mean it's a neat little beep but like they don't want to make the violence into something beautiful necessarily it's you know what if they didn't want to make it beautiful then they shouldn't have started flying on top of trees well there's the tree scene in between

[01:41:49] oh the tree scene that's why I was trying to direct it and that's right where it's like her fight with her mother is very passionate and flamed and her fight with her father Tracy let's roll this up and he's just like here's the reed don't tell your mom

[01:42:03] but I'm gonna give you the money for school exactly right you can go to the wedding mountain I did realize what the greatest not greatest in terms of in a pejorative way greatest in terms of largest influence that this movie was on the Hollywood

[01:42:19] which was just fucking 15 years of any time an asian character does anything in a comedy being referred to as a crouching blank hidden blank the result was that it just played up our most racist tendencies in the same way that like Slumdog Millionaire for 15 years

[01:42:33] after his first look oh look it's Slumdog Blank over here I hate everybody Chah Griffin it's gonna be okay it's great okay so they dance on top of trees oh and it's like at this point the fighting is so abstract

[01:42:49] that they're not even making physical contact with one another no he just like taps on the bamboo tree and then he kind of looks at her I like that you know where she's going by him oh my god it's the best

[01:42:59] he's like oh but I'm still and she's moving what does this mean it's like a pure abstraction at this point I'll definitely figure it out once I'm dying which is like five minutes later this movie does put a lot of stock

[01:43:11] in the things that we realize on our deathbeds like I'm like Ang Lee's really putting all his chips in that pot yeah which is you know I mean if you're gonna compare it to a western and I think the Wuxia movie kind of has that cache

[01:43:23] you know everyone figures everything out right at the end of a western when it's too late to do anything about it right exactly I maybe I am a son of a bitch but I guess I'm gonna die now like whatever I don't know he dies he gets

[01:43:39] yeah I mean that scene is they put him up on the trees they had the wire work I still know how they got the camera up there I have no idea but they did it yeah that flips me out

[01:43:47] and also how they got all the wires up there yeah like you think about how high the sort of whatever rig they were using had to be above them which is already above the trees the camera it's insane it's totally insane and then he dies

[01:44:05] yeah they go to a cave jade fox makes her move she shoots one billion arrows at him he chops them all away which is super cool and then he all but one and he cuts up her sword

[01:44:17] and then he likes how to just directs it back at her that's how she dies right he like hits all the little needles and they all fly back at her I guess one there's something with a sword her own poison cause yeah I mean there's that question

[01:44:31] of like well if jade's not even that good like if she's already been beaten by Jen how's she killing people but it's like you know poison that's sort of like the tricksters art like you know it's like oh yeah poison is a recurring theme in this movie

[01:44:43] about you know how it's you know for the bitter pills but then then in a very James Sheamus and like flourish at the end there he gets to have this wonderful dying monologue where he looks at her and he says I would rather be a ghost

[01:45:01] he's Clint Eastwood in the movie by the way I would rather be a ghost drifting by your side these are the crashing tiger action figures carry on as a condemned soul or like here the crashing tiger action figure the lemur by one's pretty good

[01:45:15] then enter heaven without you because I will never be a lonely spirit and you know what it works damn it it does work but it is kind of funny when he's dying he's like I love you I'm sorry that we're never

[01:45:25] gonna be together but I will be a ghost that walks alongside you I can make out and then I'm gonna be an eternal spirit that walks alongside you Ben's gonna show me something here's the costume for the fuck master oh okay there's the costume for the fuck master

[01:45:41] pretty good but no it's like a Roman holiday sort of and it's like we know in our hearts that we were in love with one another and that is better here's a picture of the tickle me bend all does it come with some audio

[01:45:59] let me pull the string stop fucking tickling me what's wrong with you lemur by you just play sorry that's the tickle me merit lemme scan over who are you guys here's the tickle me bend what big fuck yeah I didn't really study at the Wudon school

[01:46:25] but like I heard about it yeah right Wudon guys they're cool I know those guys I used to work the door over the Beijing in the Forbidden City I don't know this is good David's throwing his self-love against the wall this is good guys

[01:46:47] like most things I am not jinx for you guys lying at the same time secondly I should mention that before this episode recorded when we were talking I was talking about something that made me very angry and I picked up my chair

[01:46:59] and acted like I was gonna throw it across the room and there's a big window in our studio that faces out to the offices four different people who work at AudioBoom thought I was losing my mind you are losing your mind

[01:47:11] the window looks exactly like the square window that they have the face touching scene that we sort of brush past when he's like declare his love for her and she's like I get it now like finally 90 minutes into this movie I get that you want me

[01:47:27] and that's what the window looks like so imagine watching Griffin throw a chair through that window I wish they could have called the cops this is my favorite kind of movie it's better that way let me ask you this though

[01:47:43] what if they fucked and flew at the same time well that's what Jen gets she goes back to fuck mountain where Chen-chen's hanging out this is the first of Ang Lee's fuck mountain tip-tick sex mountain movies both were transgressive in their own ways

[01:48:01] she gets to have one last one last romp and then in a very bittersweet and ambiguous ending flies away jump south and fuck them down go south this I'm doing a good career this was one of those years where the Oscar seemed wide open

[01:48:23] yeah I wanted to talk about the Oscar race where it kind of felt like I think it felt like four of I mean how many Oscar races have two movies by the same director nominated versus a sword in sandals epic and a Chinese martial arts movie

[01:48:39] and then the fourth nominee was Shokola fifth nominee is Shokola let's guess something but I feel like people thought it was a pretty even race between gladiator traffic and crouching tiger that it could go any one of the three ways and people started to sense the crouching tiger

[01:48:53] might be the Jackie Robinson that breaks the foreign language barrier for best picture everyone thought he was going to win best director because they thought Soderbergh would cancel himself out but he didn't luckily Angley got to win best director you know what I still resent Soderbergh

[01:49:07] for just not pulling a full wing Reims and being like you know what it'd be great if he was like everyone come on stage all the other nominees Steven Daldry, Ang Lee, Ridley Scott Steven Soderbergh come on stage then he came on stage for his own bit

[01:49:23] yeah what if he reimsed himself Aaron Brockovich I did a great job on traffic but Aaron Brockovich that was the real movie my favorite living filmmaker to the guy who's engraving it and he's just like no I won for Aaron Brockovich just write that in no I mean

[01:49:39] I actually really like gladiator I think it's a great movie I can't believe it one best picture I feel gladiator kind of boring I find you kind of boring but that's not true because we're very good friends we do a podcast

[01:49:53] I thought Russell Crowe was a very convincing Spanish man yes he was the Spaniard watch out for Maximus yeah it's weird that that film won a dietator yeah because I feel like the narrative well traffic won four of its five Oscars only missed out on picture

[01:50:12] Crouching Tiger won four out of eight yeah Crouching Tiger won ten yeah because I think Crouching Tiger well gladiator probably got a lot too yeah gladiator got twelve Crouching Tiger won best score yeah because gladiator got two acting knobs that's the difference

[01:50:28] Best score, Best art direction, Best cinematography and foreign language film those were its four wins Traffic won editing director, supporting actor and adapted screenplay you know where gladiator didn't win in the court of public opinion my friends was the highest-grossing movie

[01:50:46] yeah I don't mean it we're gonna do it what? what's the box up we're gonna start with Oscar well now we're gonna spend 15 minutes talking about the lyrics of the closing credit song yeah of course we have two hours left in this episode I love before time

[01:51:00] I love before time sorry and it's not after time very different love and I also might sing the song from the credits of Return of the King just because I really like it it is a let's just talk about Best Original Song for just 30 seconds

[01:51:12] because the nominees are the Bob Dylan song from Wonder Boys Times of Chance and he Skypes in right? I remember he was not he was like in concert they do a live performance but it's a live televised performance they're all watching and then they cut back them

[01:51:32] and he's like what is this I know that's Oscar then Fool in Love from Meet the Parents a song I do not remember Randy Newman I swear to God that's how the song goes no constraints it's a good thing that song is a banger

[01:51:50] he wrote it in real time the Crouching Tiger song the one song from Emperor's New Groove that Sting wrote that survived David what was the fifth nominee I love before time what was the fifth nominee in the year 2000 it was probably in the year 2000 from Conan

[01:52:12] it was LaBamba nominated for the first ever song I've seen it all from Dancer in the Dark by Bjork and your wife once helped you psych yourself up to wear a swan dress this is true this is the moment I realized I was in love with my wife

[01:52:32] you probably would have been doomed to a Michelle Young Fat Michelle Yeo relationship of never expressing it until that moment when she gave you the courage to wear the dress and then you got the guest of the swan dress so now Mr. Funpants lets let Ben

[01:52:48] guest the box office this time if he's so eager to do it no he can see it Ben looks terrified right now no I can try what's the whitest this movie ever went the whitest? I think it's right now what's the whitest release it got

[01:53:06] the whitest it gets is 2227 screens what's getting that bad? in March so this movie came out in December it's a slow expansion it's fascinating because Sony Pictures classics are the slow and steady guys they never try to get a fox search crossover hit their second highest grossing movie

[01:53:28] is a film that made 25 million dollars Capote is in their top five of all time sure they had no experience releasing a film this wide I guess it's their second biggest but they I saw Michael Barker co-president of Sony Pictures Classic talk once

[01:53:46] and he said the moment I realized we were going to cross 100 million dollars was I was at a mall and I heard two kids talking hyping each other up to go see Crouching Tiger or they just seen it

[01:53:56] and they were like man the fucking subtitles were so cool and he was like somehow the subtitles of the movie became a cool thing yeah cool, yeah this movie did eventually get a lot of attention from all the way to a totally

[01:54:08] wide release which is it took four months yeah the box office what's the highest it ever did in one weekend ten million dollars on February 16th yes crazy okay well it was Valentine's Day weekend everyone wanted to go you know have to forbidden luck pretty much its highest

[01:54:26] position was number five which is not number four sorry okay which is the weekend before yeah okay it opens at number 15 it makes a very solid $1,450 per screen okay on 16 screens yes that's right David bought a ticket RIP the first movie number one movie at the box office

[01:54:46] December give me the weekend again December 8th 2000 is the number one movie of 2000 it's the number one movie of 2000 and it is called Dr. Seuss's how the Grinch stole Christmas that's right everyone forgets how much fucking money that movie that is grim 260 million domestic so much goddamn

[01:55:02] money there's another Grinch movie coming this year I know and it's like all in on how he likes to twerk or whatever literally it literally looks you know the way they used to like skin video games for like a new movie coming out where it's like

[01:55:14] we just took Street Fighter but we put the characters from lethal weapon three on top of them it looks like that with despicable me it looks like they skin the $1 billion it looks so bad and also Bennett Karmatch is playing the Grinch oh cool he sounds

[01:55:28] kind of like the Grinch I see the trailer he's playing an American accent he loves to do that accent Bennett Karmatch speaking like Bennett Karmatch sounds like the Grinch instead he's like hey look I'm a Grinch I guess the Grinch is like canonically American

[01:55:42] which is weird but in the fucking cartoon he was what he was Boris Karloff Boris Karloff was the narrator I guess you didn't hear him he doesn't talk I can already picture myself having he's always had that gruff deep voice

[01:55:54] you're gonna have to review this movie we're gonna have to write some review about how like the Grinch is an expression of capitalism and like you're gonna have to go see this movie I gotta like I gotta see these fucking movies

[01:56:02] and I have to find a way to make them interesting for myself like I'm use myself when I'm writing the review and inevitably it's gonna be like how the Grinch exposes the Donald Trump era for what it is there he is

[01:56:14] the guy I'm forgetting his name but the dude who directed all of the gorillas stuff had been hired to direct the movie and it was like oh that's kind of interesting you're talking about the illumination movie the illumination Grinch and everyone's like oh that's kind of cool

[01:56:28] and then like four years of silence and then the trailer comes out and they're like oh yeah we fired that guy three years ago we didn't tell anybody still Ron Howard's biggest movie is the Grinch still I think Jim Carrey's biggest

[01:56:38] movie are you sure it's not the heart of the sea in the heart of the sea oh you're right that made four billion dollars right all right number two common mistake number two was number one like six weeks in a row this is its fourth week okay

[01:56:50] number two is a new release it's an action film it's cold it's a cold it's a chill movie not chill factor no it's a way it's a winter picture does it take place in a sort of Arctic zone correct it's a movie that I saw

[01:57:08] I don't remember it is a vertical limit that's right thank you vertical limit you want to something Chris or doll really embarrassing go ahead much like I still only know my multiplication tables through schoolhouse rock and playing those songs in my head

[01:57:24] the way I remember the difference between horizontal and vertical is vertical limit great I go oh verticals that way because that's the point of that movie hold your breath my favorite thing about vertical limit is that Robin Tony is billed above the title hell yeah

[01:57:40] and Tony O'Donnell Paxton Tony Scotland great for for both the title that movie that movie is really only worth watching until the opening title comes it's a good first scene it's a great example of Martin Campbell only being good at making master piece James Bond movies

[01:57:56] and everything else and the Mass and Mass is our perfect did you see that tweet someone was like posting from old premier magazines an article about Chris O'Donnell being like the next big leading man and how like he was Leonardo Caprio was having to pick up his rejected

[01:58:10] roles and they were like this guy's guys the limit with him he's like a little Tom Cruz it's like what do you mean little little how little also how tall is on the wrong course I apparently he's negative five foot two all right number

[01:58:22] three is another action picture okay starring a big star of two thousand only two thousand trying to figure he was hot this was his year when he was starting to get big and he was already like really big this year and there was

[01:58:36] a lot of controversy around this movie around this one around something that happened on set something sexy something sexy happened on set this was his second movie that year but this year was kind of his breakthrough year sexy criminal or sexy exciting what was it an affair yes

[01:59:00] it's not proof of life is it it's my friend Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan bone and down they bone down Dennis Quaid all sad I saw that movie in theaters so reluctantly I just remember sitting there being like it's Hackford yeah boy number four name ever been more

[01:59:18] rude number fourth the box office is your favorite movie man you love this fucking movie number you're like number one of two thousand number four it's like a I guess it's sort of a thriller my favorite movie of 2000 obviously not an Oscar play no

[01:59:36] is it a family film yeah it's like a like a horror thriller oh I'm breakable I'm breakable fingered twisted thank you it was the kids I grew up in England I just got to see producer Ben Hosley hit the twisted button

[02:00:04] in real time he does it with a sort of it was very it was like he was filing like a TPS report yeah but I you know I can't hear it it's not playing live in the studio but I there was like a

[02:00:18] little bit of fairy dust yeah we're hearing nothing but Ben just kind of size drops his head put it together in my mind and it was beautiful so yeah then there's all a bunch together Grinch is 18 vertical limits 15 proof of life is 10 unbreakable

[02:00:32] is seven and a half like it's all like okay and the number five is a new release based on a popular game that one of those movies where you're like a vidger game a board game kind of Zethora Dungeons and Dragons Dungeons and Dragons that's right

[02:00:52] Thorough Birch Marlon Waynes Justin Whelan is that his name? Whelan? the guy from Lois and Clark? Jeremy Irons no it's not he was not even tickling the ivories at that point you told me the director of Dungeons and Dragons did they direct anything else ever again?

[02:01:10] I think this was his debut he did make at least a couple movies afterwards he made an American Haunting and Get Away Get Away the Ethan Hawke Selena Gomez movie? Correct fuck oh wait I interviewed him what? yeah because there's a shot

[02:01:31] in Get Away that is like intensely illegal and I and like could have murdered a lot of people and they were like it's like a POV like 90 mile an hour dashboard cam stuff that movie is unwatchable and then for one shot at the very end of the movie

[02:01:49] it's just like it's insane I mean it should never be only in wherever in Russia they were shooting this where they would be able to do this can you recall his name? I have no idea what is it

[02:02:03] I just remember speaking to him and he thought that he was I think I might have read that interview his name is Courtney Solomon yes anyway so that's the top five we've also got a hundred and two Dalmatians yeah Rugrats in Paris the movie

[02:02:17] a hundred and two Dalmatians probably one of my favorite Johan Griffith vehicles well done I saw that in theaters you said okay a hundred and two Dalmatians what was the one after? Rugrats in Paris the movie one of the few sequels is better than the original

[02:02:31] both compare both pale in comparison to the Haunted episode Haunted episode is fucking amazing Rugrats doesn't get enough credit for how jewey it was I know Stu Pickles is a hot guy yeah and it's like you got the Eastern European grandparents like yeah I know

[02:02:43] I mean hey Arnold was playing but that comes later yeah but Rugrats is so fucking jewey meet the parents yeah well it's also Jewish because the villain of Rugrats is a wasp girl right it's like a super wasp wait meet the parents meet the parents when you're

[02:02:57] foolin love there's no surprise I just remember in the movie I think he just sings it but at the Oscars it was him and uh Ben is just sick of every tangent Susanna Hoff from the Bengals because she was married to J. Roche

[02:03:13] she did like the Oscars with him that is like the craziest fucking thing how do you know that even I'm like horrified that you know that J. Roche director of the campaign is married to J. Roche they're divorced now oh boy I got Bengals could you milk me

[02:03:29] when you're a Bengal in love uh bounce baby Don Roos movie wait it's just keep going it's about the movie that kills us let's never end this episode when it's outro plane crash movie so weird movie yeah that was his blind check um man of honor

[02:03:49] yeah you know man of honor that's a movie that doesn't exist I mean that's the Keebo Gooding Jr. from like 96 to 2005 I remember seeing the trailer for that in like August and being like Oscars always J. Roche Gooding Jr. Theron Theron? The drop in him into the ocean

[02:04:09] it's gonna be huge the first black scuba diver ever right and the guy who was real racist do you guys want to see the new poster for Sherlock Gnomes yeah I can't wait it's a dead pool spoof you want to see it yeah

[02:04:25] I'm gonna be like a perfect storm of things that maybe want to retire and live in a cave a gnomble kicking grass is his new face um what do you think is this is this is this accurately describe how you feel right now Ben it's not sad enough

[02:04:41] does does Sherlock Gnomes have the most aggressive outdoor marketing campaign of any movie in history because they started putting like subway and bus ads up for that movie six months before it came out it's still not out those ads have been up since October

[02:04:57] um it's coming out though will it ever I don't know how about this for a character Sherlock Fomes he's got shaving cream all over his face can he also have the foam fingers oh absolutely and he has a foam pipe

[02:05:13] this guy is coming in with a sack of money Ben thank you so much Ben why would you waste that when I'm clearly running out of dollar shave club ask mascot characters for the ad don't worry we'll bring him in

[02:05:27] yeah you probably heard him six months ago guys get ready for Sherlock Fomes two min series my secret hope for this episode other than that Ben would or someone would say twisted and Ben would hit the button and I would see it happen and become a man

[02:05:41] is that we were doing an ad read wait wait wait like it's so far in the future what do you mean are like we did an ad read we did a great ad read cut that out Ben cut it out and double it

[02:05:53] because we definitely get specifically paid to do the ad read I'm gonna actually stop you money is more important to me than integrity David loves money I do hashtag David loves money Erlich are you happy yeah you know this is a hard movie to make funny

[02:06:09] you know we like I mean you know it's a gift but also this show is very intellectual it's also about the I feel like I just kept being like no but let's talk about emotions I know well everything you said about the movie was very smart

[02:06:25] I just feel it so deeply in the cockles of my heart that's the promise the blank check guarantee a chin stroke for every good fall you go hmmm ha ha ha and I'm done don't walk out we got it alright we're done

[02:06:41] yeah we're done we talked for two hours and ten minutes this is a nice normal length for an episode of blank check yeah yeah I don't know what's the problem I feel like the show is getting too long oh really you want to get it shorter

[02:06:57] before we wrap let me just do some damage control here on behalf of your audience again just to book end this episode the show is not getting too long I'm sorry everybody this episode maybe but not in general and we're gonna need some more nicknames more nicknames okay

[02:07:11] I mean I don't care as a listener I just need like a plaque on the wall or like a cue card to read them off I just I need it I need it just to recognize and reorient myself in this world find a center

[02:07:25] to not just get lost in the deep void of sadness that I feel after 30 years of studying on Woodon Mountain Ben can you ask Audie about if they can buy us a plaque yeah yeah I'll get right on that

[02:07:39] thank you for listening please remember to rate your views subscribe go to blankiesatrate.com for some real nerdy shit thanks too and for good old for our social media laymon coming for our theme song Joe Bowen and Pat Rounds for artwork Ben is rubbing his temples vigorously

[02:07:55] anything else is the burger port this episode no I don't think so I can check you want me to check maybe there is maybe there isn't stay through the credits to find out I don't know looks like there isn't so enjoy not listening to a burger report sure

[02:08:13] Ben it is here he is another episode in the books great job guys burger report at the end of the Terms of Dearmament episode the Terrence Malick one hell of a twist that was hot stuff yeah we didn't get info on

[02:08:31] whether or not he was wearing the hat though I want to know about that hat I know about that hat I actually figure for sure I know about that hat give me that hat see Ben likes this that makes me laugh

[02:08:47] stop laughing though I'm trying to end the podcast I thought we were done no because end as always when you're falling down