I spend a lot of time working with old detective films because I believe them to have contributed to, indeed profoundly changed, how we manage narrative. Some detective films (and those that reference them) are clever or important, fossils that indicate how our imagination evolved. Others are some other agenda wrapped in the detective label. The Chan series started out, I think as a genuinely interesting detective. The idea here was that some "otherness" was in our designated observer on screen. The fellow who unraveled reality for us was something like us, but wiser in an inscrutable way.
But the movies quickly became a lowbrow entertainment, which meant jokes at someone's expense. And because of the era, that means a main thread is jokes about race. Its inevitable, since the main device is racial: a white actor playing a superwise Chinese man. There are two secondary devices you will find in most Chan films:
the son (usually a son) is played by a real Chinese man, and lest we forget that the detective is an icon, this Chinese fellow is a buffoon. He sometimes gets things right, but never by intent.
the black man. Often this is the "driver." Here it is a stablehand. His job in the story is always the same, to indicate another fold in the reality of the characters. His demeaned demeanor is bug-eyed, retarded, subservient. He plays someone as iconic as Chan, but at the bottom of the stack, with the otherwise 100% white folks in the "real" story.
Oh. The story? Adapted from the Sherlock Holmes tale "Silver Blaze." Swapped racehorses with a "gambling ring" thrown in. I'm curious. Where there ever famous gambling rings like this in real life, or are they just movieland confabulations?
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
But the movies quickly became a lowbrow entertainment, which meant jokes at someone's expense. And because of the era, that means a main thread is jokes about race. Its inevitable, since the main device is racial: a white actor playing a superwise Chinese man. There are two secondary devices you will find in most Chan films:
the son (usually a son) is played by a real Chinese man, and lest we forget that the detective is an icon, this Chinese fellow is a buffoon. He sometimes gets things right, but never by intent.
the black man. Often this is the "driver." Here it is a stablehand. His job in the story is always the same, to indicate another fold in the reality of the characters. His demeaned demeanor is bug-eyed, retarded, subservient. He plays someone as iconic as Chan, but at the bottom of the stack, with the otherwise 100% white folks in the "real" story.
Oh. The story? Adapted from the Sherlock Holmes tale "Silver Blaze." Swapped racehorses with a "gambling ring" thrown in. I'm curious. Where there ever famous gambling rings like this in real life, or are they just movieland confabulations?
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.