RIFLE RANGE BOY

Dropout (Miniseries; 2022) Netflix Look at the following examples. When the people of the 13 colonies were desperate to be cut off from their colonial masters, they wanted a leader. They saw that in George Washington, a 6 ft 4 in the son of a wealthy Virginian planter who rode on the expensive horse on the land. His marriage to the fairest and richest widow in the land also aided this. (By the way, the State of Virginia was named after the English Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I). Even though Washington was quite a disappointment as a soldier. He failed to get to be an officer with a King’s commission in the regular British Army. In the Independence War, Washington bungled up too. He was party to war crimes, killing his own men. He was implicated in land scams. Even as the first President, he blundered. His own Federalists Party came to nought because of its own doing. The only thing that kept him going was his charisma. Then there is Napolean Bonaparte. At a time after the French Revolution...

King's Man (2021) Story and Direction: Matthew Vaughn I am so happy that the history lessons I was exposed to in childhood were varied. Thanks to the old Malaysian syllabus, the people of my generation are exposed to the likes of Rasputin, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the events leading to World War 1. At least I know the storytellers stretched their artistic licence too far to convince the viewers that a single organisation headed by 'The Shepherd' singlehandedly masterminded the genesis of WW1 and the collapse of the Romanov dynasty in Russia. Interestingly, Rasputin is portrayed as a member of this cult and works in cahoots with 'The Shepherd' and receives orders from him.  Even Gavrilo Princip, Archduke Ferdinand's assassin, is said to be in the above group. In reality, we know he did not act alone but as a member of a secret society called 'Black Hand'. True, the first assassination attempt failed, but the fatal shooting was by sheer coincidence. Ra...

Inventing Anna (Miniseries, 2021) Netflix Believe it or not, this miniseries is based on actual events. Between 2013 and 2017, a young German heiress of Russian descent by the name of Anna Delvey was seen in the social circles of New York. She was moving around the company of who's who in the art scene and the rich and famous. Everybody was excited about her ambitious plan to create an ultra-exclusive club where the exceptionally wealthy clientele could partake. Soon every banker, lawyer, designer and leeches was dying to be in her company. The only perennial problem is that his apparently flamboyant young lady has problems mobilising her money from Germany. Her strict father is insistent that Anna earns her every single penny herself.  People soon realise that Anna was spending way too much than she actually managed to show. Not wanting to be embarrassed, her many famous socialites and supporters of Anna's plan to build a foundation instead stay anonymous and would not like to...

Belfast (2021) Director: Kenneth Branagh. In the mid-70s, as a secondary school student, I saw some of my classmates leave the country. Their parents were affluent and had lost confidence in the Malaysian education system. They thought that the New Education Policy after the May 13 riot with Malay as the medium of instruction was doomed to fail. And the New Economic Policy, which emphasises affirmative action, will only produce a nation of mediocres at best. Affluence could make them picky on their choices in life, whereas the rest of us, the mere mortals, could only make do with what is available to us. We took everything in a stride with the sentimentality of nationalism thrown in and the conviction that the divine forces would help those who help themselves. Still, we were grateful that opportunities unavailable to our parents were there for our taking, so we thought.  Then came the early 80s. Suddenly, we saw another section of our classmates disappear. They had been offered na...

Somebody's here! It is a piece of land right in the middle of the triangular subcontinent, a land so remote that King Dasavaratha thought it was apt for Ram, Sita and Laxman to spend 14 years in exile. A forest lush with various flora, deer, birds with psychedelic-hued feathers, the cursed stone of Ahalya, sages, tribes and demons used as their playground and workstations. It soon came to be non-existent with climate change and invading foreign invaders over the generations. Locally made pistols The  farangs  took a particular interest in this area when they were kings. The abundance of minerals in that area piqued their curiosity. Many mines sprung up, and the visitors thought it was an appropriate venue to host numerous factories specialising in gun manufacturing, ammunition and bombs. There it was, Jabalpur of the central state of Madhya Pradesh with its gun factories, military barracks and related military training posts.  What used to be a playing field for sages the...