RIFLE RANGE BOY

S2B: Seoul to Busan It is not a race. Ep #1 Meet the P-stars. Ep #2 Fighting the demons! Ep #3 Episode 4: Bare necessities that we need! It has become a weekend routine to go grinding and spinning around the treacherous hills of Peres, off Hulu Langat, on our vehicles to build up stamina and to prepare ourselves to what may lay ahead in unexplored Land of the Kimchi. The sight of us, five or sometimes six, saddled with our panniers sticking out erect from our rears (of the bicycles) must have stirred the curiosities of many fellow cyclists.   During one of these outings, a few curious bicyclists inquired about our set-up, accessories and all.   When we told them of our intentions of touring South Korea on bikes and what they saw were what we were carrying all along our week-long trip, they were understandably astonished. With the usual travellers who try to bargain through the airline staff with their excess baggage, here we were squeezing one week’s require...

Fly by Night (Malaysian, 2019) Once a while you get a good Malaysian movie without the usual ridiculing of races or filled with simpleton slap slick comedy. This is it. There are no attempts by the moviemakers to ensure that the characters are overtly different. They are who they are, Malaysians, and they act their roles. They switch between Malay, English and Cantonese seamlessly, with no demarcation of us and them. Every scene springs familiarity as the background has been seen in real life many times before. The settings are authentic, like the back lanes and the interior of a typical working-class Chinese family. The film centres around a band of brothers in a small family business of extortion and trickery. They use their city taxis and the airport terminal as their fronts for their nefarious activities. Their quiet business becomes a mess as their firebrand youngest brash family member spring wings and wants to explore greener pastures. A scorned mistress who is hel...

Sensitive topic - Readers' discretion advised A Mosque in Munich (2010) Author: Ian Johnson When 9-11 attacks came about, investigations traced the perpetrators of sleeper cells spending a time of their lifetimes in Germany. These terrorist group did not spring up just before attacks on the American soil. They, in fact, have a very long past, going as far back as the Bolshevik revolution. When Communist Soviet took over the predominantly Muslim lands in the Caucasus, collectively known as Western Turkestan, the area was filled with adrenaline-filled Muslim fighters who wanted to liberate their lands from their godless rulers. They were collectively known as the Prometheans, the mythical Greek hero who defied Zeus to save humanity. This golden opportunity was grasped by Wehrmacht, the unified WW2 German Army to aid in their attack of Russia. As is common knowledge, many Muslim scholars, including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, soar at the thought of the collapse of the O...

Sacred Games (Season 2; 2019) Miniseries Netflix Just like the convoluted world that we live in and the twisted problems that we get intertwined, the storyline of this miniseries is complex. In life, there is no one truth. Things are not so black-or-white as we grew up thinking it is. Good things happen to bad people, and conversely, bad things happen to good people. An action seemingly done in good faith may actually be pure evil in another's eyes.  There is so much hatred amongst and between all the people of the world. On one side, one group is hellbent on destroying the other. It seems destruction of the other is the way to avenge or ensure justice on Earth. On another end, another group feels that injustices have tipped the point of no return. The only way to correct it is to re-boot everything. Evil has taken over where goodness used to prevail. Annihilation and jump-starting from zero is the only option.  Like the  first season , the most exciting part o...

S2B: Seoul to Busan It is not a race. Ep #1 Meet the P-stars. Ep #2 Episode #3: Fighting the demons! It seems that humans start off life being fascinated with Nature - toddlers like to get their hands dirty with grime, dirt and soil, and as they grow older, they find union with Nature too. Is this a reminder that we are one with Nature or a hint of the adage 'ashes to ashes, dirt to dirt'! What started as a weekend outing to Penang to partake a cycling race evolved to something that brought out the memories of the bygone care-free days of our youth. And we were itching for more. The agony of the heat, the sweat, the discomfort, the aches of sore muscles, the tan and the potential fall of the perch were no match for the post-race euphoria of accomplishment and the immersion in the high of endorphins. Our resident techie, during one of his moment of bore, googled of a secluded highway in South Korea dedicated just for cyclists. It boasts of a 633 km picturesque tra...

Game Over (2019) It is always easier to follow the weather-beaten road. After the imperfections, the potholes, the unevenness may have been corrected, or the path may carry a warning sign. Unfortunately, in this era where individualism and self-expression takes a paramount role in human development, the onus in handling curveballs in life is placed squarely on the individual's shoulders. Previously, one can look back, follow the path of least resistance, have faith and move forward with confidence with the Divine Forces as the guardian angels. Failure is accepted gracefully as if it was meant to be anyway. Modern men (and women) do not subscribe to such determinism. Intellect has given free will to fight whatever eventualities. It also gave them the ability to think of the possible adverse outcome and the fear of the unknown. Not all minds are equipped to handle such stresses. Some crumble. Memory is sometimes a curse, especially of a traumatic one.  Life is not...

Article 15 (2019) Of course, the law is quite precise in all of it; that no citizen should be discriminated based on their religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. The trouble is that people like to flock together based on common practices, interests and vocations. Even though every man accepts that all Man are equal, they also admit that if everyone is equal, no one would be King. Plato's idea of an ideal society is also based on hierarchal order. Every member of the community is tasked with a specific duty so that society can function. Everyone got their place in the sun, and over time, people started putting value and importance of one profession over the other and called it a caste system. Articles of late are suggesting that the notorious caste system in India is actually a foreign import. The word 'caste' has its origin in Portuguese and was brought by the farangs during their conquest of the Eas t. The division of memb ers of the ancient Hindu society appar...

Parasite (Korean; 2019) Direction and Story: Bong Joon-ho Yet another genre-bending offering from the land of kimchi. It is a thriller, a comedy, a dark one and a gory one too, for there is a blood bath at the end of the movie. But above all, it is a social satire. The sensation of smell is often described as one of Man's most primitive senses. Olfactory perception is quite impressive. Its nerve endings are in such close proximity with the brain and are one of a few neurons in our brain, which is capable of regeneration. Even though it is assumed that our olfactory bulb, where sensory input converges, is underdeveloped, as our primitive survival skills dwindled when we became gatherers and farmers, we are still said to be able to identify up to a trillion different odours. The olfactory bulb is also one of the areas of the brain where neuroplasticity has been shown. At least in rodents, it has been illustrated to regenerate over the lifespan. Our olfactory sensation is under-...