To my deep dissatisfaction, I missed seeing Ashes of Time Redux on the big screen when it was shown at one of the arthouse theatres here in Santa Cruz. In fact, the damn thing lasted all of ONE WEEK, a turn of events which proved hugely disappointing to me when I looked up showtimes online only to find that the film had been replaced with some piece of crap indie flick. Thankfully, Ashes of Time Redux eventually made its way to DVD on March 3, 2009, and I was pretty stoked on seeing it from the comfort of my own home.

Ashes of Time (left), Ashes of Time Redux (right)

However, in the midst of a sea of essays to grade, term papers to write, and various assorted responsibilities to attend to, I postponed a viewing of Wong Kar-Wai’s re-edit until my Spring Break vacation. I had the full intention of reviewing the movie for LoveHKFilm.com, but as fate would have it, Kozo beat me to the punch. In some ways, this actually turned out to be a good thing. For one, I agree with pretty much everything Kozo said in his very well-written and insightful review, so it’s not like I had something better to contribute. And two, as I tried to compose my thoughts on the film, I realized that reviewing a restored and/or re-edited film – rather than a wholly original work – is, in some ways, a thankless task. Basically, even if you try to review the film on its own merits, one’s critique eventually breaks down into an exercise in “contrast and compare.” And really, isn’t that what fans of the original movie actually want – What’s different about the new movie? What’s cut out? Did he put anything in? Did Wong Kar-Wai ruin his own movie?

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Hello, my name is Calvin McMillin, a.k.a. Sanjuro. You might remember me from such film reviews as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Swordsman 2, or perhaps the strangely infamous Flowers of Shanghai. I’m here today to give you the skinny on my new blog, Ronin on Empty. Now, you might be aware that I once had an irregularly updated column on the site called A Man Called Sanjuro or that I most recently maintained a blogger account also called Ronin on Empty. Those previous writing venues have been folded into this brand-spankin’ new LoveHKFilm.com blog. I wasn’t sure how or where to begin, so I did a few test posts to start out, which you can read underneath this one. With that initial tomfoolery out of the way, I thought I might use this first substantive posting as an opportunity to reflect on the past, consider the present, and speculate on the future.

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When Kozo launched his blog back in 2007, some of his initial posts involved fun with wax dummies. Ever the derivative one, I will also use this blog to unload all my Hong Kong-related wax figure fun. Enjoy!

Hong Kong Cinema Legends — Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui

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The name of this blog has origins that predate it, and I’m not just talking about my previous blogger account. When I was in college, I wrote a novel called RONIN ON EMPTY. It ran about 100,000 words long. It was epic, to say the least. And way too long for a first-time novelist in terms of actually convincing someone that it should be published.

When I was working on my Master’s degree, I refined it into what I thought was the final version — about 89,00 words. I eventually printed the whole thing out and bound it (like a course reader) so I’d have a copy for myself. Since December, I’ve seriously gone back and tried to edit it, less a revision than a trimming of the fat. There was a lot of dated stuff, and some errors, which I attempted to fix. I even composited two major characters into one to streamline the story.

Anyway, I’ve trimmed the fat to 79,000 words and realigned the plot’s spinal column so that it makes more sense, narratively-speaking. Whether I’ll have time to build up the novel’s muscles, I’m not sure. But at least I have a “cleaner” version to work with the next time I pick it up.

In the mean time, I think I’m going to use the name for this blog, and on the creative side of things, work on some more short stories, and see how that goes.