cal42 wrote:I believe in the HKMDB, which is why I found the Wiki page a bit "off". It seems to subtly imply that we all sit in massive armchairs in an old library smoking cigars and talking about the war.
Well, if that
was the case, I'm not sure I'd complain as long as I could have a big white walrus moustache, a chest full of war medals, and a snifter of brandy in one hand. Oh yeah, and say "harummph" a lot. Then the elitist tag would at least be
earned . . .
I don't think I'd be alone in saying that without this site, I'd be well and truly f*cked when it came to decent resouces on HK films.
In that old ADG thread, a couple contributors mentioned that they would henceforth use other databases like HKCinemagic or HKFA (not bad choices, but we're still better, and increasingly more accurate and complete) and the HKMDB would thus start some kind of sad, inevitable slide into obscurity!
Looks like we'll be waiting a while for that to happen, but to think how easily they could have sourced the truth! (mind you, I
do wish Bob was more forthcoming with updates, overhauls, redesigns, etc.
)
And speaking of war . . .
Mike Thomason wrote:(the old, old alt.asian-movies forum was one of THE most horrendous forum experiences I'd ever wish on anyone -- the whole mindset there seemed to be who could blow their bags bigger than anyone else or how big they could blow up a flame war ad nauseum...revolting, juvenile and appalling stuff. Thank yourselves lucky you missed the "fun"...).
This was the primary forum I was thinking of in my previous post, though there were others back in the day I'm sure. Somewhere here there's a thread where one of you folks directed me to it, but I can't find it at the moment. I remember perusing it very occasionally in the (mid?) 90's but very quickly soured on it as a source of info because of all the fighting and hatred that tended to cloud some fairly essential information being shared. Not that I could have joined in anyways as I had no home computer until 2004!
But even if I did, I doubt I'd have had the stamina of Mike and others to duke it out there, let alone the time.
Looking back all those years later thanks to that link hereabouts, I was somewhat dismayed at how little had changed through the years I'd sorta forgotten about the place. Still plenty of good info, but so much of it cheapened by flame wars and the like, as Mike says. There are times when you wanna just throw your hands up and laugh at the wild, increasingly chaotic direction of some of those old discussion threads, but such moments are tempered by the sad realization that a forum like that could have, with proper moderation, become a real hot spot for civilized discussion of HK and Asian cinema that might still be with us today, flourishing.
Then again, that was then, as they say, and alt.asian-movies was hardly the
only internet forum prone to such behaviour. In fact, it was probably
de rigeur for the time: here you had this new technology that suddenly allowed fans of just about
everything under the sun to suddenly
unleash years of pent-up knowledge upon one another with only superficial moderation in place. It was bound to get ugly. But worse is seeing it still happen at certain forums more than 10 years later!
I can't remember the blog thing, but maybe it had something to do with old reviews versus re-evaluations? If that was the case, then no...no bad side; it's sometimes a little humbling to look back at my older stuff and realise how hideous some of it was by comparison to the tact I prefer to take these days.
That was the incident! But if I recall correctly, I also caught you on a bad
day, so after a few emails, peace was made. I still find "re-evaluations" by writers of strong, even forceful opinion such as Mike to be fascinating, expecially a near-"one-eighty" turnaround as was the case with the film in question, but I realize drawing attention to it can easily be miscontrued as a cheap attack. I suppose it was the very
availability of a before-and-after pair of reviews by someone I knew that intrigued me (I've stumbled across other such examples by other writers on subjects both related and unrelated, and will sometimes bring it up while trying to avoid seeming bratty). The internet makes it much easier for all of our pasts to stay with us, whether we like it or not, and I guess I just find that kinda cool.
Anyway, interesting discussion I've stirred up here!
You have Lindsay Lohan to thank for that.
wrote a little on it in the http://hkmdb.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=46841&start=120 thread).
. But I managed to keep my HKMDB smoking jacket and slippers and if you want them back you'll have to pry them from my cold dead fingers!
