Susano

Originally posted by NuSoardGraphite

That 8 Drunken Fairies "stance" is a subset taught in a few Kung Fu styles. The character of Wong Fei Hong was famous for it (I believe). This is who Jackie Chan portrayed in Drunken Master I and II.

Its funny, because the Once Upon a Time in China Wong Fei Hong never uses 8 Drunken Fairies in any of the OUATIC movies (that I remember) yet, Jet Li played Wong Fei Hong in a non-OUATIC movie called Last Hero in China and he was doing Drunken Style all over the place.

 

Wierd.

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).

Originally posted by urbwar

Ahh, I thought you didn't like him, cause you referred to him as a "goof"

Oh, I liked him because he was a "goof."

That's the stance! It just seemed...odd to me. Then again, I haven't viewed my copy of DMII in chinese (I've seen the US version), so I didn't know he had a move called Eight Drunken Fairy Stance

I'm fairly sure he says it in the English dub as well.

I have my fears about the movie, and this just adds to it. I will still go see it, to support CYF. At least he will hopefully do the CTHD prequel, so I know he will be doing at least one more good movie that Hollywood has some hand in (not much, which is why I think CTHD did so 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.

I dunno. My nephew watches alot of HK films with me (especially Jet Li and Jackie Chan films), and his friends have seen a few themselves. And these are kids 12-14.

 

I think that CTHD opened alot of eyes to the coolness of asian action films. Then Iron Monkey was released, and HERO will be coming out.

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.

If some producer had any sense, they'd do a film showcasing the strength of a Jet Li and a Donnie Yen, wrapped around a decent story. Jet Li can do modern films; what he needs is a decent script. His US films haven been shoddy scripts. It's kind of sad in a way

Very true.

Originally posted by urbwar

Personally, I thought Dragon 9 was cool. He was like a chinese James Bond in olden times. A bit more comedic than the Roger Moore era bond, but I thought he was an interesting character.

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!

I liked how Ekin Chang's character was a baker. Added an interesting twist to the sterotypical swordsmen. And yeah, the final fight scene was not as good as A Man called Hero. It was adequate though. I still think the other character's main technique had a cheesy name though (my friend has my dvd, so I can't check on it, but I know the word fairy was in it)

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 watched Fist of Legend again yesterday. Damn, I love that movie! Why is it that Hollywood can't give these HK actors movies that play to their strengths? I mean, Jackie's US work is hit or miss, Jet Li's done some real crap work, and Chow Yun Fat got lucky with Anna and the King (which was a great casting move, considering his lengthy resume of dramatic roles), and I am keeping my fingers crossed for Bulletproof Monk.

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).

Originally posted by urbwar

The Duel is a cool flick. I loved Dragon 9 (A james bond type) who provided some funny moments. Man called Hero is good too, but can drag at times. Let me know how Story of Ricki is; I haven't seen it yet. Don't know Executioners though; who is in it?

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

Originally posted by PhantomGM6101

While you're at it why don't you add characters like LUPIN III

and Gatchaman to the site? or add even Gigantor and 8-Man to the mix?

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.

Originally posted by TheEmerged

Ditto on the "curious" statement. My own known to be flawed and biased memory is saying something about "whole lot of wishful thinking"...

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

Originally posted by BlackCobra

Um, the unbelievably bad art?

Whew -- that's true. A large portion of it is not at all good.

Hang on, let me grab it off the shelf and remember more.

 

The layout wasn't great. The character write-ups (in GURPS Supers terms) are at best debatable. (I don't remember why, exactly, but I read the books 15 years ago and the details are a mite hazy.)

 

And for a Steve Jackson / GURPS book, the content was not up to standard. Heck, I still buy GURPS books -- they're fantastic resources. But this one just didn't pack any where near the usual punch.

 

That's why.

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.

Originally posted by Redmenace

Just out of curiosity, what does anyone think was so awful about Gurps Wildcards? Lack of world data?

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.

Originally posted by AlHazred

Before I get anyone's dander up, I feel compelled to remind people of the Bad Old Days of gaming, when product quality standards were nonexistent, and anybody who had a photocopier, a pen, and some paper thought he had all that it took to put out a gaming supplement.

Two words: JUDGE'S GUILD

Hero's come away easy. You think Bad Medicine for Dr. Drugs is bad? Ask a Glorantha fan about Eldarad or Daughters of Darkness. Ask a GURPS player about GURPS Wild Cards or Billy the Axe. Ask an old-time D&D player about the old Dimension Six products.

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.

All that being said, I really didn't care for Cyber Hero. But some of the art's okay. And it just inspired Mike Surbrook to do a better job with Kazei Five.

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

Originally posted by Ndreare

I would like to show some sample fantasy characetrs to some new players. (They still think "Champions only works for Superheroes" but I say "HERO" works for everything)

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.

Originally posted by Enforcer84

I still think they're nuts. I site you're character adaptions as a factor in my getting into Anime in the first place.

*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.

Originally posted by Enforcer84

WHAT?!?! Are they nuts?!!?

They wanted a more experienced author.

Originally posted by steriaca

Which reminds me...do you know that there is going to be a d20 version of BESM? Scairy thought.

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.

Originally posted by ShadowRaptor

That sounds interesting. I don't plan on getting the old Cyber HERO book, planning on getting the official one when it gets released. 2006, that is a long time to wait, so Kazei 5 sounds like a good book to get right now.

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

Originally posted by RDU Neil

I'm a KISS kind of guy (Keep It Simple Stupid) and Cyber Hero complicates things to a degree I found unneccesary.

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

Originally posted by ShadowRaptor

I was wondering if there are any plans on a release for an upcoming Cyber Hero sourcebook, or if anybody knows if any of the older versions can be found, where at?

 

Or, has anybody designed their own custom cybernetics and is there a good website where some can be found?

 

Any help would be great and I thank you in advance.

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.

Originally posted by Tclynch

DOH! Lucky Dog!

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

Originally posted by Tclynch

Hey!

Did you see that in a theater or do you know someone who has a DVD/VHS copy? I'm curious as I was waiting for it to come out at theaters.

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.