MONSTER HUNTER

She was also Christian Slater's GF in Cuffs when she was very young years before 5th Element. Pretty sure she was shopped around Hollywood by her mother at a very young age.

Boring actress with a boring director husband, but to be fair they've settled on a profitable formula.
 
Part of me would love to shut my brain off over this brain dead film directing from the man&wife that has ruined RE franchise but I know if I sit through it I would start complaining about it being a MH fan but no deny the monsters looks spot on since they are getting help from Toho and its tempting me to watch it for the monsters.
 
kurosagi01 said:
Part of me would love to shut my brain off over this brain dead film directing from the man&wife that has ruined RE franchise but I know if I sit through it I would start complaining about it being a MH fan but no deny the monsters looks spot on since they are getting help from Toho and its tempting me to watch it for the monsters.
Click to expand...
Indeed, given how resident evil got worse with each film, it is amazing the same guy directed event horizon all those years ago.
 
I dont get it..why are they chi knees? Is the character chinese ? Cant quite make it out in the video on my phone, is that Tony Jaa? I mean, ok, he's not chinese but its not exactly what I'd call racist. Whats racist about it, perhaps if one of those people boycotting it could explain what about it constitutes racism then that would help me.

I mean its an awful joke, a real christmas cracker type of joke, a groaner rather than a laugher, but I think its rather a stretch to say its racist. Reminds me of that petition last week against the Mcdonalds Jerk chicken sandwich on the grounds that its cultural appropriation. Some people do rather take the whole race card too far.

I see stuff like this and it astounds me that South Park is on like season 25, god knows how its managed to not get banned so far given the jokes it makes about Jews, Asians, Christians, Muslims, Arabs and everything else under the sun.
 
Last edited:
Tombstone said:
I dont get it..why are they chi knees? Is the character chinese ? Cant quite make it out in the video on my phone, is that Tony Jaa? I mean, ok, he's not chinese but its not exactly what I'd call racist. Whats racist about it, perhaps if one of those people boycotting it could explain what about it constitutes racism then that would help me.

I mean its an awful joke, a real christmas cracker type of joke, a groaner rather than a laugher, but I think its rather a stretch to say its racist. Reminds me of that petition last week against the Mcdonalds Jerk chicken sandwich on the grounds that its cultural appropriation. Some people do rather take the whole race card too far.
Click to expand...

Here's an article about it from Variety it does seem to be blown all out of proportion :(

What Do Chinese Viewers Find So Offensive?

It’s worth breaking down exactly what it is about those ten seconds of “Monster Hunter” that has set off such a firestorm — if only to get a glimpse of how unforeseeably difficult it can be in this political climate to create global content that works in China, now the world’s largest film market, and abroad.

Early in the day on Friday, a short clip of the offending passage seemingly shot in a cinema by cellphone circulated on Chinese social media. It appears to have sparked outrage due to the subtitles and an unspoken, inferred subtext that would likely have been lost to those who know only Chinese or English, but not both.

In the scene, a white male character and an Asian character played by Jin are driving together at high speed. “What?” says the former. “Look at my knees!” shouts Jin. “What kind of knees are these?” asks his companion. “Chi-nese!” jokes Jin, punning on the word’s last syllable.

Though some might view this as camaraderie and banter over a bad pun, Chinese viewers were incensed after the exchange was interpreted as a reference to an old, racist schoolyard rhyme insulting Asians. “Chi-nese, Jap-a-nese, dir-ty knees, look at these,” it apparently sing-songs, accompanied by knee slaps and slant-eyed gestures.

This interpretation was subtly propelled forward by the Chinese subtitles. To localize the joke, translators made the dialogue a reference to a Chinese colloquialism about how men must have dignity and not kneel down easily. “Men have gold under their knees, and only kneel to the heavens and their mother,” the saying goes in rough translation, implying that any time a man kneels, it should be an occasion precious as gold.

The inference of a connection to the racist rhyme from the words “knees” and “Chinese” combined with the subtitles’ phrasing about kneeling down appears to have made many patriotic young viewers believe that the moment in English must be an obvious insult. Worse, many feel that the translation — which swaps in references to “gold” and makes no mention of “Chinese” — was a deliberate cover up of the offense.

By afternoon, the hashtag “Monster Hunter Insults China” had taken off on Weibo. Viewer rating apps quickly filled up with angry rhetoric.

“Who’s under your knees? Chinese people? Sorry, garbage movie. Let’s boycott it!” wrote one of the most liked comments on the Maoyan ticketing and review platform. Another chimed: “If you’re a Chinese person, you understand that you shouldn’t go see this, right?” The film currently has a lowish 7.8 out of 10 rating on Maoyan and a dismal 4.9 out of 10 on review site Douban.

Even the ruling party’s Communist Youth League took the unusual step of slamming the film on its official Weibo account Friday evening, pouring gas on the already burning flames of patriotic outrage with a post calling out American racism and hypocrisy.

“What kind of knees are these?” it wrote above a hashtag of the movie’s title, accompanied by a photo of a giant policeman’s knees crashing down on the tiny heads of upward-looking passerby, overlaid with the words “Floyds, can you breathe?”

The missive was soon reposted by “Ziguang Ge,” an important, high-level Communist Party magazine focused on Party-building that targets government officials, alongside the English caption “I can’t breathe” and a smiley face.

Both posts were later deleted, but the fact remains that two high-level government entities speaking to an internal Communist Party audience with highly controlled messaging chose to use a passing moment in a video game adaptation to prod the U.S.

By Friday evening, Capcom Asia had issued a Weibo statement in Chinese to distance itself from the growing controversy, reminding readers that it had no role in the production of the film.

“After learning your opinions about the movie ‘Monster Hunter,’ we’ve collected everyone’s ideas and reported the situation to the relevant companies,” it said, saying it “hopes to continue to live up to your expectations in the future” and keep on creating appealing video games.
Click to expand...
https://variety.com/2020/film/news/monster-hunter-china-censorship-1234847031/
 
Does seem like rather a stretch to deem it racist because there is a racist rhyme which also has words chinese and knees in it. Crikey if we go back throughout history at racist things and then ban everything which contains some of those words in it too, we'll end up not being able to say anything. Do we ban Jacobs Crackers because cracker is racist word? It just gets all a bit silly and OTT.

Now if the scene in question had been paraphrasing the rhyme or in anyway tied in context with the rhyme (and it might be, I've no idea as I only have that clip to go on so I dont know what was said immediately beforehand) that would be different of course, but all I see is a (I'm assuming) chinese character making a bad dad-joke play on words of his knees being chinese. No different really to a Belgian character pointing to their hair, which is bunched up on their head and saying whats this? Its a Belgian Bun. Its not funny but its not racist either.
 
How in the **** can that be considered 'racist'? It's a harmless pun.

Factories where they butcher dead babies to make tablets in order to boost their libido are fine. Torturing and burning animals alive is fine. Letting a deadly virus loose on the world is fine. But a simple word pun gets them frothing at the mouth? How pathetic.
 
Malevolence said:
How in the **** can that be considered 'racist'? It's a harmless pun.
Click to expand...
Probably because if you read two posts above - in China that pun is only ever used when referencing an old racist rhyme.

Just goes to show how much sway China has in film now. Biggest market in the world, Hollywood studios must bow down to their wishes.
 
Scam said:
Probably because if you read two posts above - in China that pun is only ever used when referencing an old racist rhyme.
Click to expand...

This, basically. And the pun only reads as a pun to the uninformed. It's nothing like the Belgian Bun that @Tombstone is providing as an example, because historically there was never any derogatory intent and nature to its use or connected to such use before. That example is truly a bad dad joke. The "joke" in question here, has been connected to such use before (insult to Asian and Chinese and Japanese peoples in particular). And that's why there's a furor over it.

Not seen it either (stuck indoors), but from descriptions of the scene, the joke came out of the blue and had no connection to anything before or after it. As in, it was put in deliberately for this one scene and hence it stands out even more than it probably should have done.
 
Its nonsense imo, pathetic over the top, ridiculous, generation of wimpy loser glass-chinned, fragile soft twonks who not only find offense in everything they possibly can but actually actively seek to find offense in everything they possibly can. Just my opinion on it and an opinion that I am not going to budge on, regardless of how its not deemed the "right" way to view things.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom