I took in a matinee of this battle epic and was not disappointed. Rather, my expectations were quite low and they were matched. About the only thing that really impressed me was the sword choreography which was excellent. It's no Kurosawa and in many places it looks more like an ego-driven project than a good story, but it was entertaining.

Last night I saw my first Canucks game in over two years live at GM Place. The Canucks were playing the Minnesota Wild. The score was 1-1. Trevor Linden scored on a goalmouth scramble in the last five minutes after the Wild scored on their first shot on Johan Hedberg in the first seven minutes.

Until the Canucks started pouring it on in the third it wasn't what I would call entertaining hockey. Yes, the Wild TRAPPED. A typical play would have the Canucks chip it in and then try and dig the puck out of the corners. Or they would be kept to the outside and then they would cycle the puck trying to work it out front. The Canucks ended up outshooting the Wild by a wide margin but most of the shots were attempted deflections or power moves that petered out on the doorstep of Dwayne Roloson. Not very interesting.

The Wild goal came as a result of the Canuck defensemen being one step behind the Wild forwards. I saw this a lot in the Vancouver-Minnesota series last year. The Canuck defense is not as quick as the Wild forwards and seem to chase them a lot. At the same time the Canuck forwards aren't checking for a shooter getting loose in the slot. This is how the Wild scored. A man quite open in the slot had a great opportunity and capitalized on it. After they scored that goal the Wild trapping system took over. Yawn.

Watching a game live for the first time in three years I was astounded by the stoppages in play. There were many. I would say that more than half of the calls were two-line passes. I'm sick of them. Without a two line pass you would see more rushing, more scoring opportunities and more flow in the game. The officiating was also a bit weird. Rick McGeough for some reason will just let the odd call go when he is standing right in front of the play. I'm not sure if he is watching a dive and he has some clue no one else has or if he is just trying to control the flow of the game. To the referees' credit, there weren't a lot of penalties called.

Things got more exciting in the third period when Vancouver tried to break down the Wild defense with some better mid-ice passing. The Wild, however, choke up the shooting lanes very well. Almost all the shots the Canuck defense tried to put on goal went off knees and skates while the Wild were good at tying up the Canuck forwards down low. On the rush, the Canuck forwards tried pretty passing plays that were intercepted. Linden's goal was the result of a behind the net play that got the puck out front. In the ensuing scramble, Linden got loose from the scrum, turned and directed the puck on Roloson. Somehow it dribbled through. Linden is a vet so he knows that when the game is on the line, just put it towards the net.

Overtime raised the excitement level a lot as the space increased and the Wild couldn't trap. The Canucks got a few chances and there was one entertaining mad scramble in the Vancouver zone when Hedberg was caught twenty feet out of his net and was forced to play the puck near his right faceoff circle. He did play the puck but unfortunately gave it to Bertuzzi. Bertuzzi tried to stick handle out of his zone and coughed up the puck. However, Minnesota didn't know what to do with it and it was cleared. I was wondering if Hedberg was just trying some sort of new play that required the goalie to be activated on the rush.

Buddha bless you

King Hu's 1969 masterpiece A TOUCH OF ZEN (Hsia Nu) came to me via a somewhat badly put-together DVD from Tai Seng . Apparently, there was a 400 minute edition - lost to time. During stretches of the 167 minute edit I saw I was glad we weren't seeing the longer version but then, in a scene of pure filmic wonder, I became one with the film, enraptured by thrilling genius. The scene I am talking about is nicely chapterized as "A Touch of Zen" in the DVD but don't be tempted into skipping to it.

A Touch of Zen or "Hsai Nu the Gallant Lady" is the legendary work of wuxia director King Hu to whom Ang Lee owes much to for his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Any strong resemblence between the pictures is mostly marketing talk, however, so let's dispense now with the back of the DVD comparison. A Touch of Zen is really two films. One, a caper comedy in which a lowly portrait artist in a frontier town becomes drawn into a conspiracy against officials of the Emperor. Two, an arrangement of set piece confrontations between the rebel forces and agents of evil eunuchs. Plus, the monks.

Yes, the monks. We'll get to that later.

The first part of the film (it is split into two parts, forgiveably, given its length) is an amusing, if drawn out, portrait of the lowly scholar Ku, a man who just want to lead a simple life in a provincial town despite the nagging of his mother to try for the government exam or get a wife. He remains unmoved, however, until the arrival of a collection of strangers brings mystery into his life. First, a young traveller arrives to have his portrait drawn and immediately begins asking questions about other new arrivals among whom is an herbalist, a blind man, and a young woman who moves next door (raising the hopes of Ku's mother). It becomes obvious even to the complacent Ku that something is afoot. Much unsubtle whispering, passing of notes and spying ensues. It is revealed that the traveller is an agent of the East Chamber hunting for Hsai Nu, the daughter of a disgraced but honest official. Hsai Nu and her small band of loyalists have come out of seclusion to plan a strike against corrupt, evil eunuchs.

Here is where the edit presented by Tai Seng falls down. In between Ku's introduction to the rebel group and their plans to attack a visiting Eunuch (the co- architect for the downfall of the girl's father), there are obviously many missing scenes establishing how Ku (and local government

There are villains

officials) become convinced to join them. While the usual romantic attraction is the one factor, it seems that Ku, in a blink of an eye, not only has turned his suspicions into sympathies, but becomes the chief strategist for the group of hardened rebels as well. Still other gaps include characters dropping in and out and characters referred to and never seen.

The length of the first two acts gives you time to really appreciate King Hu's marvellous direction. If there is one facet of directing you will take from this film, it's in the glorious establishing shots of the tree-carpeted mountains of northern China, the overgrown ruins of a fort, a multitude of suns burning through bamboo forests. Hu's composition is fluid, combining graceful tracking with jump cuts and, shall I say it, zen-like inserts of nature, brilliant reflections and lighting changes. But one of the greatest shot constructions you will see in film comes in the second part.

The first part of A Touch of Zen climaxes with the ambush of a Eunuch representative in the ruins of an abandoned fort. It would be unforgiveable for anyone to stop at this point, even though much of the shots are in darkness and the crappiness of the film transfer most apparent, because the first part caps off a marvellous subsequent battle with East Chamber guards in a bamboo forest. By this time, the lack of certain scenes unravels the storytelling enough that the viewer is just going along with the flow, enjoying the composition and the fights. The fighting is nothing spectacular, lots of leaping, jumping and bouncing, but the editing is liquid, never allowing the faults to really show. If you've already seen Come Drink With Me you will get more of the same here.

And there are Monks!

The discursive nature of the story further comes loose in the second part of A Touch of Zen. The battle against the first Eunuch won, the band of rebels breaks up. Hsai Nu and her trusted general retreat to a Buddhist enclave. After only one night with the princess, Ku is told not to look her up but of course he does, wandering through a great many landscape shots. Ku finds the Buddhist enclave, never gets to see her, and is promptly handed their baby and seen off. Again, you might think that the story has ended, but Hsai Nu is told by the monks that 'he is in danger', which sets off a final final confrontation with even more evil agents of that other Eunuch we don't really see. It's hard to believe, but the second part of A Touch of Zen is only marginally shorter than the first, despite having 90 per cent less plot. This is because of "the monks."

Yes, the monks. We'll get to that now. The monks the princess has been staying with have taught her all her fighting skills and, in an earlier flashback, show that they can defeat regular swordsmen without breaking a sweat and furthermore have a mental attack that defeats their enemies on a moral level. Don't scoff at invisible kungfu until you've seen this. When a really evil henchman Hsu and his three sons (among whom is a young Sammo Hung) attempts to arrest scholar Ku and his baby, he is thwarted by the appearance of the Hsai Nu and her general. Hsai Nu and her general fight to their limits but Hsu is too powerful (and too evil) for them. Only the convenient appearance of the legendary Head Monk Hui Yuan and the other Monks stops Hsu.

Can you say that a single scene catapults a film from amusing to masterpiece status? How about, one-third masterpiece? This is a statement I can live with. There is one scene that so encapsulates the sublime genius of composition, editing and music in a way that very few scenes can match. Hsu's pursuit of the defeated princess is brought to a halt by the sight of a group of monks on a nearby hillock. The sun is shining behind them. Rays of Buddha's power backlight them. Then, they float over the trees - the shot interspersed with cascading inserts of nature - the very epitome of grace - until they land softly in front of the assassin. Hsu is stunned and so are you.

It is obvious that for this scene alone A Touch of Zen won a technical grand prize at Cannes in 1975. Not much in the rest of the film can measure up to the brilliance of that shot. A subsequent battle with the monks, another battle with the monks, and even a long psychedelic sequence using film positives can't do much to trump the shot. It is just a "wow" moment.

I'm now fully into the schedule of getting up, having a coffee, going to work, working, getting lunch, going back to work, and then coming back home. I'm now a rat, once again.

Kelvin brought this home a few days ago and it's taken that long to watch the extended edition. Just kidding, I haven't even seen all the DVDs! However, over the course of two nights we took in both discs of the extended edit and selected chapters. I can only comment on the extended edit. I like the theatrical release better overall. The extended edit has some long expositional sequences, some extra 'comic relief' scenes, all of which slowed the already somewhat ponderous nature of the middle chapter of the Lord of the Rings. To me the notable exclusion that could have made it into the theatrical cut without harm was Faramir's flashback establishing his relationship with his dead brother Boromir and their father Denethor. In the theatrical cut also the importance of the city of Oskilliam isn't established as well as in the extended edit.

It has been hectic getting back up to speed at work. Some things have changed; many have not. So I am adjusting my life schedule once again and trying to be motivated for other things is difficult. I did get my two submissions off to the contest and as I delivered them I realized I had already made a mistake. Even though scripts are three-hole punched, they are required only to have two brads (connecting pins), not three. So I have already shown myself to be ignorant. Oh well.