In the West (and indeed by me), Ringo Lam is perhaps best known as the director of Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicles like Maximum Risk and the underrated In Hell, but like most of the Hong Kong filmmakers who started doing English language work in the ’90s and ’00s, he had a long history in action movies in his home country. He directed many contemporary action films, notably City on Fire, which Quentin Tarantino took liberal inspiration from for parts of Reservoir Dogs.
Burning Paradise, made in 1994, is Lam’s sole wuxia film. A remake of 1965’s Temple of the Red Lotus, starring the legendary Jimmy Wang Yu, it follows Fong Sai-yuk (Willie Chi Tian-Sheng), a survivor of the sacking of Shaolin Temple by the Manchu army. However, he is captured, along with a young girl, Dau Dau (Carman Lee Yeuk-Tung), who helped him and his master hide from the Manchu.
Burning Paradise, made in 1994, is Lam’s sole wuxia film. A remake of 1965’s Temple of the Red Lotus, starring the legendary Jimmy Wang Yu, it follows Fong Sai-yuk (Willie Chi Tian-Sheng), a survivor of the sacking of Shaolin Temple by the Manchu army. However, he is captured, along with a young girl, Dau Dau (Carman Lee Yeuk-Tung), who helped him and his master hide from the Manchu.
- 5/26/2023
- by Sam Inglis
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Two new studies suggest that the hormonal heat waves of middle age can help predict your risk of breast cancer and heart disease. Pat Wingert on menopause's early warning system.
Like all things menopause, hot flashes are an unwelcome scourge for the middle-aged women who get them, ranging in intensity from merely bothersome to majorly disruptive to daily life. But could these mysterious waves of hormone-driven heat actually turn out to be a key predictor of future health? Two recent studies raise that tantalizing prospect.
Related story on The Daily Beast: Breast Cancer Breakthrough?
The first, published this month and funded by the National Cancer Institute, found that women who experience hot flashes have a 50 percent lower chance of developing the most common types of breast cancer. It came right on the heels of a separate series of studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, which concluded that women...
Like all things menopause, hot flashes are an unwelcome scourge for the middle-aged women who get them, ranging in intensity from merely bothersome to majorly disruptive to daily life. But could these mysterious waves of hormone-driven heat actually turn out to be a key predictor of future health? Two recent studies raise that tantalizing prospect.
Related story on The Daily Beast: Breast Cancer Breakthrough?
The first, published this month and funded by the National Cancer Institute, found that women who experience hot flashes have a 50 percent lower chance of developing the most common types of breast cancer. It came right on the heels of a separate series of studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, which concluded that women...
- 2/12/2011
- by Pat Wingert
- The Daily Beast
PARK CITY -- The term "military-industrial complex" was coined by Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address to the nation at the end of his second term as president in 1961. In ensuing years the phrase has become so commonplace, it has ceased to have any meaning. Now Eugene Jarecki's shattering documentary Why We Fight examines the extent to which the military-industrial complex not only profits from war, but also becomes a force that makes war happen. Winner of the best American documentary prize at Sundance, the thoughtful and extremely well-made film could find a sizable audience of concerned citizens in theaters and later on video.
Before the credits are over, the film jumps to life with the surprising presence of the grandfatherly Eisenhower, the five-star general who led allied forces in Europe during World War II, warning the nation of "the grave consequences" of creating a permanent arms industry. Using that as a starting point, Jarecki argues that the wars of the last 50 years -- Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq -- have been motivated more by profits than policy. Interviews with Eisenhower's son John and granddaughter Susan highlight the president's growing concern that the military build-up following World War II was a dangerous precedent for the country. Weighing in from two sides of the political spectrum are Sen. John McCain, who notes that "the complex is so pervasive, it's become invisible," to William Kristol, head of the neo-con think tank the Project for the New American Century, an architect of American foreign policy. Chalmers Johnson, an ex-CIA operative and critic of current developments, and Richard Perle, former adviser to the Bush administration, square off for and against.
Jarecki, who directed the revealing The Trials of Henry Kissinger, has learned to allow the material to speak for itself, so when Perle simplistically argues that pre-emptive strikes are akin to defending yourself against personal attack, he seems merely foolish. Summing up American foreign policy of the last 50 years, author Gore Vidal says this is "the United States of Amnesia," where everything is forgotten by Monday morning.
But the impact of Why We Fight, a title taken from the name of Frank Capra's WWII propaganda films for the State Department, goes well beyond a collection of talking heads. Jarecki personalizes the effects of war by including individual stories. One of them is Wilton Sekzer, a retired New York City cop who lost a son on Sept. 11 and petitioned the government to put his son's name on a bomb destined to be dropped on Iraq. When President Bush finally admits that Iraq had no hand in the terrorist attacks, Sekzer is disillusioned and feels that the government "exploited my feelings of patriotism for the death of my son."
Jarecki captures the price of the military-industrial complex in human terms, but sometimes the film's focus seems to wander to presenting arguments against the war. It is necessary to accept Jarecki's premise that the Iraq war is the result of America's imperialistic agenda in order to see corporate greed as the underlying cause.
But he makes his case convincingly, pointing out that we spend more on defense than all other parts of our budget combined. When war becomes that profitable, we have seen and will continue to see more of it. Jarecki uses graphic war footage, a visit to a weapons trade show and interviews with retired military officers -- stitched together seamlessly by editor Nancy Kennedy -- to dispel the notion advanced by presidents Johnson, Reagan and Bush, that America has been a force for peace in the world. Instead, what we see is a militaristic nation in which capitalism is at war with democracy -- and capitalism is winning.
WHY WE FIGHT
A BBC Storyville presentation of a Charlotte Street film in association with BBC and Arte
Credits:
Director: Eugene Jarecki
Writer: Jarecki
Producer: Susannah Shipman, Jarecki
Executive producers: Roy Ackerman, Nick Fraser, Hans Robert Eisenhauer
Directors of photography: Etienne Sauret, May-Ying Welch, Brett Wiley, Foster Wiley, Chris Li, Sam Cullman
Music: Robert Miller
Editor: Nancy Kennedy
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 90 minutes...
Before the credits are over, the film jumps to life with the surprising presence of the grandfatherly Eisenhower, the five-star general who led allied forces in Europe during World War II, warning the nation of "the grave consequences" of creating a permanent arms industry. Using that as a starting point, Jarecki argues that the wars of the last 50 years -- Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq -- have been motivated more by profits than policy. Interviews with Eisenhower's son John and granddaughter Susan highlight the president's growing concern that the military build-up following World War II was a dangerous precedent for the country. Weighing in from two sides of the political spectrum are Sen. John McCain, who notes that "the complex is so pervasive, it's become invisible," to William Kristol, head of the neo-con think tank the Project for the New American Century, an architect of American foreign policy. Chalmers Johnson, an ex-CIA operative and critic of current developments, and Richard Perle, former adviser to the Bush administration, square off for and against.
Jarecki, who directed the revealing The Trials of Henry Kissinger, has learned to allow the material to speak for itself, so when Perle simplistically argues that pre-emptive strikes are akin to defending yourself against personal attack, he seems merely foolish. Summing up American foreign policy of the last 50 years, author Gore Vidal says this is "the United States of Amnesia," where everything is forgotten by Monday morning.
But the impact of Why We Fight, a title taken from the name of Frank Capra's WWII propaganda films for the State Department, goes well beyond a collection of talking heads. Jarecki personalizes the effects of war by including individual stories. One of them is Wilton Sekzer, a retired New York City cop who lost a son on Sept. 11 and petitioned the government to put his son's name on a bomb destined to be dropped on Iraq. When President Bush finally admits that Iraq had no hand in the terrorist attacks, Sekzer is disillusioned and feels that the government "exploited my feelings of patriotism for the death of my son."
Jarecki captures the price of the military-industrial complex in human terms, but sometimes the film's focus seems to wander to presenting arguments against the war. It is necessary to accept Jarecki's premise that the Iraq war is the result of America's imperialistic agenda in order to see corporate greed as the underlying cause.
But he makes his case convincingly, pointing out that we spend more on defense than all other parts of our budget combined. When war becomes that profitable, we have seen and will continue to see more of it. Jarecki uses graphic war footage, a visit to a weapons trade show and interviews with retired military officers -- stitched together seamlessly by editor Nancy Kennedy -- to dispel the notion advanced by presidents Johnson, Reagan and Bush, that America has been a force for peace in the world. Instead, what we see is a militaristic nation in which capitalism is at war with democracy -- and capitalism is winning.
WHY WE FIGHT
A BBC Storyville presentation of a Charlotte Street film in association with BBC and Arte
Credits:
Director: Eugene Jarecki
Writer: Jarecki
Producer: Susannah Shipman, Jarecki
Executive producers: Roy Ackerman, Nick Fraser, Hans Robert Eisenhauer
Directors of photography: Etienne Sauret, May-Ying Welch, Brett Wiley, Foster Wiley, Chris Li, Sam Cullman
Music: Robert Miller
Editor: Nancy Kennedy
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 90 minutes...
Veteran Los Angeles TV reporter Chuck Henry wept on air Tuesday moments after his dramatic rescue from flames that engulfed his news van as he covered the California wildfires. During a report charged with emotion, KNBC's Henry credited a single firefighter for saving him from thick smoke and flames that raged around him and his cameraman, Christopher Li, in the Lake Arrowhead area northeast of L.A. Both Henry and Li escaped injury, though the station's mobile broadcast unit was destroyed. The rescue, which served to dramatically illustrate the very real dangers faced by reporters covering the fires, happened around 3 p.m. in the Skyforest area of Lake Arrowhead. Henry's boss, KNBC vp-news director Bob Long, said Henry had been attempting to move the van from encroaching flames when the incident happened. "The engine would not start, and the smoke made it difficult to move in any direction." At that point, flames roared down on the van.
- 10/29/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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