Susano

Well, tradition has it Wong Fei Hung would no longer use the Drunken Style because it required drinking, and he'd promised his father he wouldn't drink (He might end up hurting someone if he did).

Oh, I liked him because he was a "goof." I'm fairly sure he says it in the English dub as well. I know Ang Lee talked about aa CTHD prequel. But I thought the age differences would make it pretty much impossible for CYF to play the same character. But these are all nich genres. I mean, even THE MATRIX was monkied with to make it more palatable to the studios, so who knowns if they will do anything with this or not. Very true.

Actually, I should have mentioned that Dragon 9 was a really cool character. And yes, he does make for a great "mythic China" secret agent. And I loved the SFX for his Dispell Versus Poisons! Yes, I liked that as well. Made for a nice touch. And yes, the final fight scene is quite nice, just not as... dramtic as some. And the attack you are thinking of is the Heavenly Holy Fairy Stance. Reminded me of Jackie's Eight Drunken Fairy Stance from DRUNKEN MASTER II. I've heard MONK was pirated already and has been shown overseas. IMDB has people in some forums saying it's not very good. All talk, no action -- basically the trailer is all the action you get. Others are saying this is bunk. So... not sure as of yet. One problem is that Hollywood won't do what guys like Jet Li is known for, which is period martial arts films. or,if they did, people would say "It's just THE MATRIX with sword." Maybe the success of LOTR will allow Hollywood to look into more fantasy films.

THE DUEL -- okay, this was not exactly what I expected. I mean it starts like any number of such films -- swordsman A decides to challenge swordsman B to a duel to prove who is the better swordsman... then it makes a left turn into wackyville. By this, I mean it plays as a comedy for sometime, with a chararater named Dragon No. 9 running around acting like a total goof (a fu-powered goof, but still a goof). But this is okay, as the stunts he pulls are great fun and the patter is entertaning (Such as his OUR MAN FLINT trick umbrella). There are some interesting fight scenes, but nothing all that great. The end duel (What? You expected things to be resolved peacefully?) is petty wild, and on par with THE STORM RIDERS in some ways (But not quite as good as the final fight in A MAN CALLED HERO). What happens after the fight is quite moving, BTW. One of the best "bits" is the visual "shockwaves" coming from the two swordsmen as they duel. Not sure how you'd do this as a power in HERO. Personally, I'd actually would call this a GM's fiat power simply to illustrate how powerful the two swordsmen really are (And how powerful is that? One of the pair seriously considers taking on roughly 50,000 imperial soldiers for a few seconds... Well, not exactly, but he comes close...). My one big beef is that the relationship between Sword Saint and the women he rescued seems to come togther too quickly -- I wish more time had been spent showthing them togehter. That and the emperor seems to have one expression for everything... making him look pretty wooden when compared many other characters. Anyway, if you want some ideas for some really over-the-top martial arts powers, watch this (and the 128-minute version of THE STORM RIDERS).

I agree, MAN CALLED HERO was really slow in parts. I didn't get STORY OF RICKI, although I've heard about it. As for EXECUTIONERS, it has Michelle Yeoh, Anita Mui, and Maggie Chueng. It is a sequel to THE HEROIC TRIO, which is a cool and highly over-the-top wuxia film.

Well, I scored again! CDepot had the following: THE DUEL, EXECUTIONERS, STORY OF RICKI, and A MAN CALLED HERO. I grabbed THE DUEL as I am on a serious budget. I hope to watch it this weekend.

Re: Anime adaptations Because I don't know those anime and have never seen any (aside from CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO). I only do adaptions of stuff I have seen, taken notes on, and like.

That about sums it up. The whole UN anti-nuke program and things like MLK getting elected president. Really unrealistic expectations.

Whew -- that's true. A large portion of it is not at all good. The funny thing, it was written by a Wild Card author -- John J Miller, who created Yeoman, among others. So he knew what he was writing about and was involved in the project originally. I can't say much about hte designs, as I don't know GURPS Supers to know if anything was done all that poorly, although I know the GURPS to HERO translations I did worked out pretty well. IMO, there is a lot of stuff a lot worse than GURPS Wild Cards out there. Like GURPS Super Scum. Or some of the logic behind GURPS IST.

It had plenty of world data. It covered the history, had scads of major character, discussed he virus, the aliens, and all that. The only problem was the engine -- GURPS Supers. Now, I've seen the NPCs from GURPS Wild Cards Aces Abroad. Those were some pretty crappy characters let me tell you... Virtually every single one was some sort of mytholgical persona brought to life. Pretty "enh" on the originality scale.

Two words: JUDGE'S GUILD GURPS Wild Cards isn't bad at all. It does cover the series up until Vol... 6(?) and was written by on the the WC authors. And it had more useful character ideas than European Enemies. Thank you. IMO, European Enemies takes the prize. Sure Scourge of the Deep had lame-as-heck character, but at least it had the useful underwater rules and notes in the front. EE had nothing. None of the characters had anything going for them, and many were painful stereotypes to boot. Want to see and know more? Go here: http://www.devermore.net/surbrook/revisedhero/herorev.html Enemies: The International File actually had some nice ideas, and some ideas that would be workable once you revised them a bit. I liked Villany Unbound as well, for the same reasons. High-Tech Enemies wa, IMO, terrible, with not much to offer in the way of new of inventive applications of powers. And the power levels were absurd. Oh, and lets not mention The Weasel, who would kill virtually every PC I ever made with ease (and most of the NPCS, too).

Re: I want your characters Try my website if you can (see url below). There are some 500+ characters there and only a small number are superheroes.

i will admit, the real world, and real world projects have over-whelmed my ability to edit and update the webpage. Hopefully, later this spring and summer, I'll be able to get more new adaptions up, as well as more 4th to 5th conversions done of what is already there.

*shrug* Tell that to GOO. I would have liked to have done it, but I'll keep plugging away at stuff for HERO. I'm fairly sure Steve and Darren won't mind.

They wanted a more experienced author.

Yeah. I even applied in reponse to a free-lance call for anime-knowledgeable authors, but was turned down. *sigh*

Speaking of the Digital Hero article, I was debating sending Steve a proposal for a 60k word e-book idea. basically expanding the look at different genres and elements thereof, more information on archetypes and stereotypes, a look at how anime handles things like magic and mental (i.e. esper) powers, and more sample characters. Of course, this would have to wait until current projects are compelted.

Real Life 20 COM? Sophia Loren.

For what it's worth, here are the COM scores for females from NINJA HERO: Torii Rinzo/Asano Nishi: 12 Tsukikage: 22 Alice Ono: 14 Midnite Maid: 18 Kayli the Destroyer: 14 Of these, Tsukikage did get a DF for "unearthly beauty." She's also an anime ninja, so you know that anything less than an 18 is unimaginable! Midnite Maid is a video fighting game female, so that means she's gotta look good as well. Kayli is an anime catgirl, so normally she should have COM out the wazo, but she's also scarred and has a nasty temper, so I dropped it down.

And I hope to be able to produce a 5th Edition version of the book one day (after the offical CYBER HERO is released).

KAZEI 5 reduced all the cybernetics limitations from CYBER HERO down to one simple limitation "Cyberware" for -1/4. That was it. It sort of lumped all sorts of minor effects into one set value. Worked pretty well (and still does, IMO).

Re: Cyber Hero I put a lot of cybernetics stuff into the KAZEI 5 sourcebook, which HERO sells as a e-book in the website store. Feedback has been very positive on it.

I now make a habit of hitting this place around once a week, if possible.

I found a HK import DVD in the used DVD bin of a CD/DVD store I requent. This same store has given up SPIRITED AWAY (A Japanese release not yet avalable here!), the 128 minute cut of THE STORM RIDERS, ZU: WARRIORS OF THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, and RAN (all for under 14.00 each!).

I just watched SHAOLIN SOCCER. Now I know what style the woman on page 76 uses. If you can -- see this film. You might hurt yourself laughing, but it is worth every second.