A review of the new action movie “Bullet Train”
August 9th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
I once took a bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto but it was nothing like this crazy movie which looks like something that British director Guy Ritchie and American director Quentin Tarantino might have made if ever they teamed up for a joint production. In fact, the director is David Leitch whose last work was “Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw”, which might give you some idea of what to expect, but the over-the-top action and gory violence originate from the Japanese book on which the film is based.Now Leitch is a big fan of Brad Pitt (so I am) and he was Pitt’s stuntman on many movies (I was busy), so it’s not surprising that Pitt is the lead character in this adventure and he is eminently watchable as one of five assassins on a speeding train whose back stories are gradually interlinked as the narrative unfolds. I don’t think that I would be spoiling your viewing if I told you that the end of the line is not the end of the story and not everyone who looks dead is dead. Madness and mayhem.
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How strong is China’s claim to Taiwan? And what about Mongolia?
August 6th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Taiwan has been settled for at least 25,000 years. Ancestors of Taiwanese indigenous peoples settled the island around 6,000 years ago. In the 17th century, large-scale Han Chinese immigration to western Taiwan began under a Dutch colony and continued under the Kingdom of Tungning. The island was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty of China, but ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895.The Republic of China (ROC), which had overthrown the Qing in 1911, took control of Taiwan on behalf of the Allies of World War II following the surrender of Japan in 1945. The resumption of the Chinese Civil War resulted in the ROC’s loss of mainland China to forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and consequent retreat to Taiwan in 1949. Its effective jurisdiction has since been limited to Taiwan and smaller islands.
So China controlled Taiwan for two centuries before surrendering control over a century ago. Communist China has never controlled Taiwan.
What about Mongolia?In the 16th century, Tibetan Buddhism spread to Mongolia, being further led by the Manchu-founded Qing dynasty, which absorbed the country in the 17th century. However, after the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Mongolia declared independence and achieved actual independence from the Republic of China (ROC) in 1921. At a stroke, China lost some 1.5M square kilometres of land or about 14% of its total territory.
Shortly afterwards, the country became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, which had aided its independence from China. In 1924, the Mongolian People’s Republic was founded as a socialist state. After the anti-communist revolutions of 1989, Mongolia conducted its own peaceful democratic revolution in early 1990.
So, after three centuries of controlling Mongolia, China has not been in control of the territory for the last century and it has shown no interest in regaining the territory.
Why does China want to take over Taiwan and not Mongolia?
It cannot be a matter of geographical size. Taiwan is a tiny fraction of the area of Mongolia which is the 18th largest country in the world. It could be a question of population: Mongolia only has 3.4M citizens compared to Taiwan’s 23M. It could be a matter of wealth. Mongolia has nothing to offer China, but Taiwan is a thriving economy of world-wide importance (two-thirds of all the most advanced chips are manufactured in the country).
Above all, it is a matter of ethnicity and politics. There are no Han Chinese in Mongolia but 95% of Taiwanese are Han. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sees control of Taiwan as unfinished business from the civil war. The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China (ROC) and forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), on and off between 1927 and 1949 when the Communists completed control of mainland China and the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan. For the CCP, the war is not over and the country remains to be fully united.
Posted in History, World current affairs | Comments (2)
Word of the day: exeat
August 5th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
This word actually came up in a conversation over coffee that I had this week. It was totally new to me.
Exeat means official permission for a student to be absent from a college or university.
It is the third person singular present subjunctive of the Latin verb expire which means to go out.
So now you know.
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A review of the new film “Thirteen Lives”
August 4th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
In June 2018 in northern Thailand, the young boys of the Wild Boars junior football team aged 11-16 and their coach went missing in the local caves of Tham Luang. We all remember how -18 days later – they were eventually saved, but the story still seems almost literally incredible. In this film version of the rescue, we know the outcome and yet throughout we are totally gripped by the tension of the tale.American director Ron Howard and British writer William Nicholson waste no time in offering a back story with the boys entering the cave in the first few minutes and no more visuals of them for an hour. Instead the focus of the film is entirely on the rescue and it is made clear that this was no white-saviour enterprise but a huge collaborative effort with the involvement of some 5,000 people from 17 countries. Inevitably, however, the core of the narrative is the amazing recovery of all the boys and their coach by a hastily-assembled team of five civilian cave divers.
Although there is no triumphalism in this balanced account of the rescue, as a British guy I can’t help taking some quiet pride that the leading members of this team were John Volanthen from Bristol and Richard Stanton from Coventry. Rather oddly these Brits are played by the Irish Colin Farrell and the American Viggo Mortensen respectively and their accents are a bit weird. The many Thai characters speak the local dialect and are subtitled.
Filmed in Australia and Thailand itself, the film strives for authenticity and accuracy and succeeds so well I left the cinema feeling emotionally exhausted. Most people will view this Amazon Prime production at home but you still need to be prepared for a really tense two and a half hours.
A full account of the incident click here
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A review of the novel “Beautiful World, Where Are You” by Sally Rooney
August 3rd, 2022 by Roger Darlington
I really enjoyed Rooney’s first two novels “Conversations With Friends” and “Normal People”, both of which have now been turned into a 12-episode television series, so I was keen to read this third work and it does not disappoint.
As with her earlier works, the focus is on friendships and relationships between young people in contemporary Ireland. This time, we have successful writer Alice and warehouse worker Felix who meet via Tinder on the west coast, while editorial assistant Eileen and political activist Simon – who have known each other since childhood – hook up in Dublin, before all the characters stay together for a time in Alice’s rented house.
What is different in this novel is the structure with chapters alternating between straight narrative and long and thoughtful emails between best friends Alice and Eileen. These emails do not just comment on their enduring friendship and latest relationship but on the wider world with erudite thoughts on subjects as wide-ranging as the Late Bronze Age collapse and the modern Western novel.
Through Alice’s ruminations especially, Rooney explores the justification for novels like her own which deal with quotidian lives rather than grand issues such as world poverty or the climate crisis. So she writes: “The problem with the contemporary Euro-American novel is that it relies for its structural integrity on suppressing the lived realities of most human beings on earth” and “we can care once again, as we do in real life, whether people break up or stay together – if, and only if, we have successfully forgotten about all the things more important than that, i.e. everything”.
Rooney identifies herself as a Marxist but even political idealists like her – and me – can and should care about our partners and friends. If reading Rooney is a guilty pleasure, then I admit to it.
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Another match is lit in the tinder-dry Balkans
August 2nd, 2022 by Roger Darlington
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It is something of a joke among my family and friends that, when I visit a country, shortly afterwards there is some sort of catastrophe or crisis. You can see what I mean from this blog posting.Now, it’s only a couple of months ago that I visited three countries in the Balkans including Kosovo. You can read an account of my trip. Today I read that there are renewed tensions between Kosovo and Serbia and we have to hope that local politicians will tread carefully.
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A review of the new movie “Thor: Love And Thunder”
July 31st, 2022 by Roger Darlington
As a fan of superhero movies, I’ve religiously seen every contribution to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as it was released which is how I found myself at the 27th MCU offering – the fourth devoted to the Norse god and the second directed by New Zealander Taika Waititi.It has an impressive cast: Chris Hemsworth is of course Thor once again but it is a delight to see Natalie Portman back in a more substantive role as The Mighty Thor; we have Christian Bale and Russell Crowe in barely recognisable form as Gorr The God Butcher and the god Zeus respectively; and there are some old favourites like Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie and the Guardians of the Galaxy gang.
On the weaponry side, we have the return of Thor’s Stormbreaker, his earlier weapon Mjolnir (now in the hands of Mighty Thor), the Thunderbolt thrown by Zeus and the Necrosword wielded by The God Butcher. And there are many other characters and features – including flying goats. A lot of the visual are impressive too, notably Omnipotence City, home to lots of the gods.
So there’s potential here for a traditional superhero movie. The thing is that Taika Waititi does not do traditional (think “Jojo Rabbit”) and he has taken the welcome humour of the previous Thor movie “Ragnarok” and run wild with it, so that the first half of the film is not so much comedy as parody, making it all rather silly. The mood switches for the second half with more drama and some romance but, by then it’s too late.
The fault is clearly that of Waititi who not only directs but also co-writes as well as playing the rock character Korg and effectively acting as narrator. I don’t mind my superhero movies having some humour but I want them to have drama and edge and even awe. This one is too much like farce.
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A review of the new film “Where The Crawdads Sing”
July 30th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
The word crawdad is a regional term for crayfish. Of course, they cannot sing, but the strange title of this film is an expression meaning an isolated or safe place. The central character of the story, Kya Clark, needs such a space, initially because of child abuse and then because of community hostility (locals call her “the Marsh Girl”). The film is an adaptation of a hugely successful novel by the zoologist Delia Owens and, at the time of the film’s release, the book had sold an amazing 15 million copies.Many critics have not been kind to this film version of the story but I really enjoyed it. I found the abandoned character of Kya and the remote location of the marshlands original elements in a moving story informed by a knowledge of and affinity for wildlife and fauna. Although the tale is set in North Carolina, the film was shot in Louisiana and the cinematography is gorgeous.
The role of Kya is one that I’m sure many young American actresses would have loved to take on board, but the casting went to a British newcomer Daisy Edgar-Jones (best known previously for the television series “Normal People”) who gives a fine performance and is set for a distinguished career. David Strathairn is well cast as Kya’s defence lawyer but other roles are less well delineated. You need to look and listen carefully at the end to appreciate the full relevance of the comparison between nature and humanity but I found the conclusion quietly satisfying.
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A review of the new Netflix movie “The Gray Man”
July 23rd, 2022 by Roger Darlington
This is a film adaptation of a best-selling novel of the same name by Mark Greaney and, since the book is the opening salvo of a (so far) 11-work series, we could well be seeing the start of a new spy film franchise to rival James Bond or Ethan Hunt or Jason Bourne.The CIA assassin in question is gray – or grey as we write in British English – not because he is dull but because he operates in a grey zone. His actual name is Court Gentry (really) but he is better known as Sierra Six (as he explains, 007 was already taken). I’m a massive Ryan Gosling fan and we haven’t seen him in a movie for four years (“First Man”), so I’m pleased to find him in the eponymous role and to learn that he’s up for sequels. His good looks and laconic manner are perfect for the character.
It’s pleasing to see Billy Bob Thornton as Six’s vaguely honourable mentor and Ana de Armas as Six’s resourceful fellow spook, but the acting honours here go to Chris Evans who clearly had fun switching from being good guy Captain America to becoming Six’s intended nemesis the sociopathic Lloyd Hansen. Smaller roles include Regé-Jean Page (“Bridgerton”) and Afre Woodard (“Clemency”). The locations are varied and exotic, the camerawork is swooping and swirling, and the cutting is frenetic in this fast-paced and stylish thriller.
You’ll perhaps know what to expect from “The Gray Man” when you know that it’s directed by the Russo brothers (Anthony and Joe) who helmed no less than four Marvel movies. In fact, even with this knowledge, be prepared for a mind-blowing level of action. The narrative is exceptionally thin – another case of a chase for sensitive data on a tiny device – with no twists or surprises or even a romance and there are only very short interludes between one explosive action sequence after another after another. Indeed there are nine-set pieces shoot-ups in a variety of foreign settings, most notably in Prague (my favourite foreign city).
“The Gray Man” is Netflix’s most expensive film so far at a reputed cost of some $200M, but I was determined to see it on the big screen before no doubt I view it again on television. For sheer entertainment, this is hard to beat. Just don’t expect any subtlety or sophistication.
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A review of “The Age Of The Strongman” by Gideon Rachman (2022)
July 20th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Rachman is the chief foreign affairs columnist for the British newspaper the “Financial Times”. He has written a well-researched, immensely informative, very readable and – at least for my liberal sensibilities – insightful and balanced review of the rise over the past two decades of a series of political figures whom he calls the strongmen but who – at least in countries with elections – could be called populist or nationalist politicians.Who are they? The main individuals profiled are Vladimir Putin of Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Xi Jinping of China, Narendra Modi of India, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Jaroslaw Kaczynski of Poland, Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom, Donald Trump of the United States, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico, and Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia.
It is a genuinely worldwide spread, but Rachman acknowledges immediately that these strongman leaders are “part of a continuum”. At one end are unchallenged autocrats like Xi and MBS; then there are those who are subject some some kind of constraint such as Putin and Erdogan: and there are those who operate in democracies but subvert them as exemplified by Trump and Modi.
What they have in common are the following behaviours: “the creation of a cult of personality, contempt for the rule of law, the claim to represent the real people against the elites, and a politics driven by fear and nationalism”. They have little or no regard for the truth, they are contemptuous of all opposition, and they have psychotic belief in their own righteousness. As a result of their global power and influence, Rachman asserts: “We are now in the midst of the most sustained global assault on liberal democratic values since the 1930s”.
Why have strongmen come to power in so many countries? Rachman sees economics as a major factor: “the dislocating effects of a period of rapid globalisation – including mass migration of people and industries – have increased the nostalgic appeal of a more stable, homogeneous and nation-centred past”. In many countries – especially in the developing world – there is a sense that “corruption has ensured that the gains of globalisation have gone overwhelmingly to a connected elite”.
But it is not just about economics: “It is when economic grievances are linked to broader fears – such as immigration, crime or national decline – that strongman leaders really come into their own”. So how and when will the age of the strongman come to an end? Rachman looks at the efforts of liberal politicians – notably Angela Merkel in Germany, Emmanuel Macron in France and Joe Biden in the USA – and global leaders – especially George Soros – to provide an alternative agenda.
Although he admits that “All efforts at historical periodisation are slightly artificial”, he opines that post-war politics have tended to follow three distinct eras, each lasting around three decades: the stability and growth of 1945-1975, the stagflation and neoliberalism of the next 30 years, and the age of populism and autocracy in which we now find ourselves. If this model has validity, then the age of the strongman – which he sees beginning with Putin in 2000 – should come to end around 2030.
Rachman is ultimately optimistic: “strongman rule is an inherently flawed and unstable form of government. It will ultimately collapse in China and most other places where it is tried. But there may be a lot of turmoil and suffering before the Age of the Strongman is finally consigned to history”. Broadly speaking, I share this analysis, but I suspect that China will the last to embrace liberalism and it will not be in this decade.
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