RIFLE RANGE BOY

May 4th Movement Tiananmen Gathering 1919; a turning point in Chinese history . It seems biological warfare does not just mean sending anthrax spores or releasing serine gas at a railway station. It had evolved to something quite specific to the intended victim. Like in the latest James Bond offering, like how Spectre had perfected the art of individualising weapons against its enemies, some conspiracy theorists believe that the emergence of the Wuhan virus is one step closer towards this end. The constant mutation of this RNA virus at such neck-breaking speed all through alpha to zeta variants in a matter of years further cements their arguments. When the western world decided that facial recognition software does not work well, in came the Chinese with a technologically functional system so advanced that it puts shame on the Western stereotype that 'all Chinese faces look alike'! The condescending look of the world (read West) probably reached its zenith after the 1919 Versai...

Shang-Chi and The Legend of Ten Rings (2021) Gone are the times when Hollywood made movies that overtly mocked cultures other than Western ones. Typically Indians and Chinese were portrayed as bumbling fools. Their cultures were made to look ridiculous, and their followers were mere bufoons. Perhaps they still  do that but, alas, in a more subtle way.  Just try to remember Amrish Puri as a Kaali worshipper enjoying human eyeballs as a delicacy and the faithful and spineless follower of Fu-Manchu plunging to their deaths in Hollywood's Fu-Manchu series. For that matter, even the Russians and German were made to look like headless chickens running aimlessly in espionage sagas and combat movies. Shang-Chi was a character introduced by Marvel in 1973 to spice up the series and satiate the appetite of comic fans the world over. Shang-Chi was presented as a long lost son of Fu-Manchu, who had been training in Tibet. In the earlier films, his daughter Lin Tang was characterised as hi...

The Face of Fu Manchu (1965) Director: Don Sharp A film like this, made in the 21st century, would be wrong by all accounts. Words like cultural appropriation and stereotyping would be hurled to shoot this film into oblivion. Many of its dialogue can be construed as offensive or downright racist. But then, in the 60s, when this film was released, it was pretty okay. In fact, it was such a hit that it earned four subsequent sequels. The character Fu-Manchu is the brainchild of an English novelist, Sax Rohmer (Arthur Henry "Sarfield' Ward 1883-1959). His first short story in 1912 with the character took such a liking on either side of the Atlantic that it spurred follow-up novels, plays and even a movie in 1923 titled The Mystery of Fu-Manchu. The average Englishman in the early 20th century UK had probably no contact with an Oriental person. They had probably read about the industrious Japanese and their effort towards modernisation via the Meiji Dynasty. This was perhaps not ...