Monday, December 24, 2012

Cinematic Reruns: The Princess Bride


I'm taking a break from blogging this week to enjoy the holidays with my family. Rather than go dark altogether, however, this seems like a good opportunity to rerun some of my favorite video clips from my regular Sunday 'feature,' "Cinematic."

I admit, I'm kinda proud of "Cinematic." 'Cinematic action' gets tossed out by a number of gamers to justify over-the-top stunts in tabletop roleplaying games, but as the range of clips hopefully shows, 'cinematic' doesn't need to mean either 'all wuxia, all the time' or 'boring as shite.'

5 comments:

  1. You're taking a break from blogging? Inconceivable!

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    1. I do not thing that word means what you think it means.

      :^D

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  2. 'Cinematic action' gets tossed out by a number of gamers to justify over-the-top stunts in tabletop roleplaying games, but as the range of clips hopefully shows, 'cinematic' doesn't need to mean either 'all wuxia, all the time' or 'boring as shite.'

    I completely agree with this sentiment. But I would point out that the Chinese wuxia genre, like the swashbuckling genre (its closest Western equivalent) has both literary and cinematic traditions. As in the West, the cinematic tradition is often more over-the-top, with all kinds of wire-assisted action and CGI. The literary tradition, beginning with The Outlaws of the Marsh, and continuing right up through Jin Yong, Gu Long, Liang Yusheng et al, tends to have less fantastic, more down-to-earth action (fantasy is occasionally there, but it is definitely downplayed).

    N.B. Jin Yong has cited Alexandre Dumas as his biggest influence.

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    1. That's a great point, and one I plan on getting into more next year (!) when "Cinematic" gets replaced with a new feature, tentatively titled "Literaria," with action scenes from cape-and-sword books and short stories.

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    2. a new feature, tentatively titled "Literaria," with action scenes from cape-and-sword books and short stories

      +1,000,000. Really looking forward to that!

      Roleplaying is primarily a verbal activity, so I would argue that our hobby is rooted in literature, not movies or TV. Reading widely in the source literature is probably the single best way to improve one's GM (and player) skill.

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