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Sorry to distract from who makes Israeli couscous or the pros and cons of the comic-flick film "Wonder Women" (I liked it precisely because it was a 2 dimensional action film with lots of cartoon violence, or as someone noted on Louis' blog: A) it was a movie. B) it was a movie...). *The Foreigner*, (which opened on Friday) staring stunt & action figure Jackie Chan, was an interesting experiment into anti-IRA politics. WTF? Yeah. Exactly. As the NYT reviewer noted: "The movie is based on the novel* The Chinaman,* by Stephen Leather, whose I.R.A.-heavy plot may have made sense when it was written in 1992." Exactly right. It seemed to come out of PR dept. of the Democratic Unionist Party as a hit, *personally*, on Gerry Adams of the Sinn Féin. This is played by the protagonist, Pierce Brosnan, to the Chan character whose daughter is blown up in a bombing in Central London by a resurgent I.R.A. fraction intent on sinking the Peace Accord. The plot of the film is that no one fron Sinn Féin can ever be trusted since they all have tons of weapons and simtex stashed away to restart the war against the British. The aging Chan character seeks revenge on anyone and everyone associated with the I.R.A and Sinn Féin. He is a former Chinese emigre to Vietnam who trains with the US special forces and then "escapes" Vietnam to settle in London with his only, and now dead, daughter. It's a little surprising this anti-Communist character is the start of this a-historical fantasy. I say this because it was produced by the Beijing production company Huayi Brothers. I would of thought it would of been a no-no for this to happen. As it happens, Chan is a producer of this production. He does *some* stunt work here but it is not his usual though there several, relatively more demur Jackie Chan fight scenes for the fans. I would say skip this unless you *have to see it* because JC is in it. David _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
