Will post more cultural crit, but probably not much on contemporary Chinese fiction or film if only because it seems to be a big wasteland. It’s embarassing that Zhang Yimou’s “Curse of the Golden Flower” is considered good filmmaking here, and whenever I stumble across a good book the odds are heavily on it being from a Taiwanese writer. Maybe this is changing now and I’m just behind the curve on exposure to new literature.

Eric Abrahamsen and a few others are running this site, although their focus is more on translating than on explaining why the books in question are worth reading:

http://www.paperrepublic.org/

Regarding recreational culture crit, I like keeping that part of my brain engaged (there’s only so much code can do ;). Can you post culture crit in Shanghai? Or is that unwise? You seem more than up to the challenge.

Llewelyn had a private ethical imperative to kill his wounded stag. Perhaps we are meant to compare his behavior to Anton’s, but if so the emphasis would seem to be on their similarity rather than difference. The city doesn’t encroach on the country; they are both impersonal landscapes for tracking, hunting and killing. The positions and species of the hunter/hunted may change, but the camera and story stays focused on the hunt (blood trails, etc.).

You’re right about the zombification principle, although I won’t hold it against a good story. And it may be that the point of the film is simply that “in a dog-eat-dog world, no act of kindness goes unpunished”. Which is fair enough, but I don’t think it’s a particularly insightful statement, or was really the reason the Coen brothers wanted to make that movie.

Enjoyed your post, by the way. Made me think.

NCFOM on the other hand asks better questions. Extremely biased against modernity, the film begins with an idyllic life in unspoiled nature and goes downhill in cities’ artificial temporary homes. The modern Organized Man is not inconsistent Llewelyn, at points quite crafty, at other points mindbogglingly dumb; rather he is the plodding nemesis Anton who uses an automated slaughter tool.

So if modern man is evil; what makes him evil? Do his methods corrupt him? Anton’s task list must be completed and anything that prevents that is eliminated. Society? The only extra-family cooperation we see is between drug gangs and financiers. Or are we all evil despoilers of nature, chasing after bits of paper and poppies, and it’s high satire to call Anton evil….