Today: oddly religious
Nov. 21st, 2012 03:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI had a very long conversation with my mum on the phone, starting I think around 7pm and then just going on for hours. We wandered around topics a lot and I ended up looking up Bible verses and reading them out in different translations. It's a source of some confusion to me that a lot of people I've met who call themselves Christian and make a bunch of judgements based on their religion don't know their own book as well as I do, when I had a think and decided I'm not Christian because of the whole thing with eternal hell not seeming right. My mum kind of agrees with me about the hell thing because she thinks God is a caring god, but she thinks it'll all work out in the end and she thinks she's Christian. I don't really see how that works but we had a good conversation. Also we talked some about Buddhism, though I only know small bits about that, and a bit of Hinduism that came up in passing, though that was like three sentences that covered everything I know about Hinduism, and some other stuff too. Lots about ethics and morality and what those words actually mean. Long, long, long conversation.
So I was thinking about Buddhism and ethics and compassion and trying to save people, so I watched a martial arts movie. Shaolin. It turned out to be exactly right for this mood. It's about good monks being good people, and a wicked warlord seeing the error of his ways, and lots of noble sacrifice. It's also mostly about men, which is a bit less good. But I like it when there's compassion instead of vengeance. Bad things happen to a guy who did bad things, and instead of setting out to do worse things right back he has that moment of hey, maybe that was actually my fault, maybe violence kind of sucks. But it being a kicking movie he doesn't just go and hide, he finds a way to use martial arts with compassion and self sacrifice instead. And then he stays behind to fight the guy who betrayed him, not because he wants to kill him, but because he realises that guy just learned all the lessons from him in the first place, he's making all the same mistakes, so maybe the ex warlord is the only one in a position to help, since he's been there. It's all very good stuff. It's not every day you want to watch a movie where people stop and preach compassion in between the kicking parts, but I was totally in the mood today.
Also, they are very kick arse monks. The kicking parts are awesome good. There's fights doing things I haven't seen before, and chase sequences with horses and burning coaches and cliffs and all sorts. There's also slightly hilarious generic foreigners being even more evil than the local evil. The guy they've got playing a probably English person speaks English with choppy Chinese-to-my-ear rhythms. And it's never very difficult to tell good guys from bad guys, because of fashion. If they've spent money on shiny bits and done their hair up fancy, they are not good guys. Good guys shave their heads and wear patched robes. All the shades of grey are in individual journeys, where you can just decide to not be a bad guy any more.
There's also good bits with a cook who says he doesn't know kung fu and then uses Extreme Cooking moves to stop bad guys. Also bits with very brave kick arse tiny kid monks. And lots of bits with kids in danger and some dying, so that was bad sad, but it was part of the religion stuff and had people mourning on screen, which sort of feels better.
I liked the disclaimers at the end of the film. There's the usual one about No We Didn't Really Hurt Animals, and the other one about Fiction story is Fiction, but there was also Fictional Buddhism is Fictional, where it said fictional religious rituals are not in fact a good guide to Buddhism. :-)
Still, I like the religion in this one. I'm sure it would seem a bit heavy handed to the wrong mood, but I like the whole story arc the Repentant Warrior lives.
Now I've got to decide if I should get on with something different or watch the many many hours of extras, which probably include a lot of How We Did That Cool Fight bits.
I think maybe I'll save them for later and stick with the fiction story for now. It was a good fiction world and a satisfying ending.
So I was thinking about Buddhism and ethics and compassion and trying to save people, so I watched a martial arts movie. Shaolin. It turned out to be exactly right for this mood. It's about good monks being good people, and a wicked warlord seeing the error of his ways, and lots of noble sacrifice. It's also mostly about men, which is a bit less good. But I like it when there's compassion instead of vengeance. Bad things happen to a guy who did bad things, and instead of setting out to do worse things right back he has that moment of hey, maybe that was actually my fault, maybe violence kind of sucks. But it being a kicking movie he doesn't just go and hide, he finds a way to use martial arts with compassion and self sacrifice instead. And then he stays behind to fight the guy who betrayed him, not because he wants to kill him, but because he realises that guy just learned all the lessons from him in the first place, he's making all the same mistakes, so maybe the ex warlord is the only one in a position to help, since he's been there. It's all very good stuff. It's not every day you want to watch a movie where people stop and preach compassion in between the kicking parts, but I was totally in the mood today.
Also, they are very kick arse monks. The kicking parts are awesome good. There's fights doing things I haven't seen before, and chase sequences with horses and burning coaches and cliffs and all sorts. There's also slightly hilarious generic foreigners being even more evil than the local evil. The guy they've got playing a probably English person speaks English with choppy Chinese-to-my-ear rhythms. And it's never very difficult to tell good guys from bad guys, because of fashion. If they've spent money on shiny bits and done their hair up fancy, they are not good guys. Good guys shave their heads and wear patched robes. All the shades of grey are in individual journeys, where you can just decide to not be a bad guy any more.
There's also good bits with a cook who says he doesn't know kung fu and then uses Extreme Cooking moves to stop bad guys. Also bits with very brave kick arse tiny kid monks. And lots of bits with kids in danger and some dying, so that was bad sad, but it was part of the religion stuff and had people mourning on screen, which sort of feels better.
I liked the disclaimers at the end of the film. There's the usual one about No We Didn't Really Hurt Animals, and the other one about Fiction story is Fiction, but there was also Fictional Buddhism is Fictional, where it said fictional religious rituals are not in fact a good guide to Buddhism. :-)
Still, I like the religion in this one. I'm sure it would seem a bit heavy handed to the wrong mood, but I like the whole story arc the Repentant Warrior lives.
Now I've got to decide if I should get on with something different or watch the many many hours of extras, which probably include a lot of How We Did That Cool Fight bits.
I think maybe I'll save them for later and stick with the fiction story for now. It was a good fiction world and a satisfying ending.