DR. LAO AND THE GIANT CUCUMBER
Finished the 40-episode TV version of Wing Chun with the ultra-attractive Nicholas Tse, an extended telling of the famous Prodigal Son movie, to which I have referred previously, mostly because of the enchanting kung fu calligraphy scene with Sammo Hung.  I don't have a lot to say about the series except that Sammo's son Sammy is fabulous, like an evil Donnie Yen, in a role like Al Pacino's in Scarface.  Nicholas Tse is very pretty to look at and probably added a lot of sex appeal for younger audiences (well, me too), but the original Prodigal Son actors, Lao Sammo and Yuen Biao, brought to the series some continuity from the past, and great elegance and credibility.

Sammo Hung, Nicholas Tse, Yuen Biao

 Of the genre, I probably would recommend Vincent Zhao's Master of Tai Chi series, but this was not a waste of time.  And it had a happy ending.

But what's with that big cucumber?  Pigua fist?  Pickle fist?

Deadly Cucumber Fist

Next on my viewing schedule was The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, something that turned up in my Netflix DVD queue. I don't remember selecting it. But... Tony Randall as a 7,000-year-old Chinese sage!  (Best role since the beatnik in Bell, Book, and Candle. Except that wasn't Tony Randall, it was Jack Lemmon.  IMDB is such a great resource.  But really, Jack Lemmon, Tony Randall, and even Peter Sellers...they're all the same.  Great!)

An MGM film from 1964 (the Wizard remembers it but I don't--ta shi lao, buguo, wo shi bu lao) this film, a strange combination of The Music Man, Seven Samurai, Godzilla and maybe Wall Street, is the best Tao-themed movie I think I've ever seen.  It would have been cool to have Bruce Lee playing Dr. Lao (or Lo, as the character calls himself, Canto-style), or even David Carradine...no, I take that back, Tony Randall was exquisite.  (Although apparently there was an idea that Peter Sellers should have done it...but really, Tony Randall is an American Peter Sellers. And Peter Sellers is an English Jack Lemmon.) The Grasshopper here was a cute little haole boy named Mike who received the sage's lesson.

Based on a novel, the film, a classic period American Western, is about evil landlords/developers/speculators and peasants; honest but lonely journalists and librarians; vain and stupid ordinary people; the idea that what's old is new; that ancient Chinese wisdom (and magic) prevails, and that the world has some sort of mythical continuity.  Oh, and redemption, although that apparently wasn't part of the novel.  Tony Randall plays not only the clever Chinese "fakir" (clearly Lao Tzu), but also Appolonius of Tyana, Merlin, the Medusa, the abominable snowman from the Himalayas, Pan, and a big talking snake. Dr. Lao/Lo keeps a pet fish in a bowl which, if exposed to air, turns into the Loch Ness Monster--a dragon really, but one that has to be appeased, or at least calmed and shrunk by a rainmaking machine, a device constructed of bamboo with fuses that need to be ignited with his long Chinese pipe.

In one scene, on the site of Dr. Lao's circus, the sage is fishing (anachronistically with a rod and spinning reel) in a totally dried-up creek bed.  The sceptical journalist there to interview him points out there's no water in the creek.  Dr. Lao (or perhaps Chuang Tzu) points out he's not using any bait.  Then he catches a really big fish.  "A tlout, a tlout!" he exclaims with delight.

Got Netflix?  Get this film. It's a delight.

TURTLE MEAT

Not to make light of a serious event -- well maybe a little -- but, where is Gamera when we need him? Or her?

In 1989, on a flight back from Tokyo on JAL, I was privileged to have a window seat in business class on the 747. My aisle-seat companion was a very tall attractive young Japanese man who was on his way to a conference on rocket propulsion in Waikiki. Really. During the flight he was studying a Japanese-English dictionary of rocket science terms. Sometimes it IS rocket science. We got to talking after comparing notes about some curious tropical and Asian fruits on offer in the in-flight magazine/catalog. (Who would send their friends a durian?)

The gentleman offered his business card to me. I still have it somewhere, and until this moment I could remember his name, very lyrical. He was with Mitsubishi Aerospace. Like a stupid person, I said, "How interesting, I just bought a new Mitsubishi car." (It turned out to be a piece of junk.)

He turned in his seat, hands clasped, and bowed to me. "Thank you for buying our product," he said. I can't imagine a Chrysler space systems employee ever doing that to a Japanese person proud of his new Dodge RAM. (If there was such a person.) In the course of 89,000 miles, I always thought of Mr. Matsuzaki (or maybe that was his first name) when I drove past Pearl Harbor in that car.

He went on to talk about Star "Tlek." Who was my favorite character? He liked Dr. McCoy. I would have thought Scotty would have been his idol. (I was personally in a Kirk place at the time, not an Ohura.) "Do you like Godzirra movies?" he asked. Sure, I liked Godzilla, and Gamera. All those Japanese monster movies parodied on MST3K.

Then, very serious, he said, "I wonder about Godzirra. Was he a boy or a girl? He had a child. But I wonder. How could he have a baby?" This was one of the strangest encounters I have ever had on an airplane. At first I thought maybe he was hitting on me, but not. He was seriously interested in sci-fi and the reproductive nature of Godzilla.

Today, I wonder how he's doing. Did Mr. Matsuzaki get a family? Is he a salaryman with Mitsubishi? A scientist working on programs and products? Have any friendly creepy monsters come to rescue him and his friends during tidal wave/earthquake/nuclear failures? The images of the first surge over Honshu sure looked like "toy boats" being hurled around in a Godzilla vs. Gamera movie.

Where are the saving monsters to clean up the mess, pick up these toy boats?

UPDATE (3/20): After a futile search looking for the business card of Mr. Matsuzaki, the name magically comes to my mind: Nobuaki. Nobuaki Matsuzaki. What a lovely, poetic name to remember over more than 20 years.