Subject: Re: ASHES OF TIME/EAST EVIL, WEST POISON
Newsgroups: alt.asian-movies
From: greenie@uclink2.berkeley.edu (Greenie the Delighted)
Date: 1 Aug 1995 08:55:15 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley

In article <3usj02$4c6@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Edmund H. Wong  wrote:
>Some questions:
>
>* why do Leslie and Jacky end up killing each other?  Or is this just some
>loose thread cut off from Louis Cha's work?

Actually that was taken straight from the novel The Eagle Shooting Hero.
In the novel, the West (Leslie) and the North (Jacky), who are now
probably in their late forties or early fifties, has several encounters
where they fight vigorously.  The West, being the villain, ultimately gets
the worst of the ordeal, becoming insane near the end of the story.
Thus Leslie is right when he says "seven" is his unlucky number.  Because
even though the North didn't actually kill him, he is the one who comes
up with the plan to destroy the West's mental state.

I thought it was interesting how Ashes of Time humanizes, and in some ways,
sympathizes with the West.  When Jin Jong wrote TESH, he presents the West
as downright replusive.  Such as he committed adultery and fathered a son
with his sister-in-law, and how he always carry snakes wherever he goes...
But in AoT, the affair between the West and his brother's wife (Maggie)
is interpreted as true love, and their intimacy most likely happens
BEFORE and NOT after Maggie's wedding as the novel suggests.

>* What was Charlie's significance?  What was she/her situation supposed to
>symbolize?

Literally speaking, there is one scene in TESH where the curious heroine
asks the North how he lost his finger.  The North, who has a weakness for
delicious cooking, replys that his lust for good food was what caused him
to lose that finger.  In AoT, that event is interpreted as a battle
between the North and the swordsmen, and that his "good food" is actually
a basket of Charlies' eggs.  This interpretation makes the North's reply
in the novel seems almost sarcastic.  Very interesting indeed.

-- Alvin

>Edmund, who now owns both Ashes of Time posters :)

--
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
                HAVE A DAY.  MAKE IT A GOOD ONE.
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Subject: Re: ASHES OF TIME/EAST EVIL, WEST POISON
Newsgroups: alt.asian-movies
From: greenie@uclink2.berkeley.edu (Greenie the Delighted)
Date: 1 Aug 1995 09:37:28 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley

In article <3v398k$bki@jhunix1.hcf.jhu.edu>,
Dzung Pham  wrote:
>Does anyone know if the character played by Brigitte Lin in the film is
>also a character later on in Jin Yong's novel ?  I get the sense that she
>might be, like many of the other characters, but can't figure out which
>one.

Lin's character is Tuc Gu Kau Bye (Defeat-Seeking Loner).  The character
is the greatest swordsman ever, but the Loner is only mentioned briefly in
The Eagle-Shooting Heroes because the character is already dead when the
story begins.  However, the Loner plays a more prominent role in TESH's
sequel The God Eagle Couple (bad translation?) where the main character
finds a manuscript by the Loner and learns to become a great swordsman as
well.  The catch here is that most readers (myself included) thought that
the great swordsman is a man.

-- Alvin

>
>-- Dzung
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Dzung Luu Pham                    The Johns Hopkins University
>  (pham@mail.ece.jhu.edu)           Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept.
>  (http://iacl.ece.jhu.edu/~pham)   Image Analysis and Communications Lab
>=============================================================================
>

--
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
                HAVE A DAY.  MAKE IT A GOOD ONE.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

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