Kung Fu Felt Markers

For the longest time, special effects on Chinese shows sucked.

The particular genre that comes to mind is kung fu shows, especially the ones with a fantasy theme. In fact, until the end of the 20th century, the special effects have not changed since the 70's. For example, in the case of a kung fu master conjuring up his "inner qi" for a devastating special attack, the energy is depicted by some low-paid guy drawing over the film with a marker, and emits a noise not unlike the bloops, bleeps, and squeeps heard in the old Atari game systems. As time went on, the only marked improvement that these "special" effects underwent was that the 8-piece marker set has now been upgraded to a 12-piece marker set, so "energy" now comes in a wider assortment of colors.

To me, the first real breakthrough in Chinese special effects was the movie The Stormriders, based on a popular Chinese manga. Not only did the sound effects got better than 8-bit video game systems, but it seemed that HK filmmakers had a better mastery of computer graphics. The costumes, story, and music were a plus as well.

Unfortunately, without the big budgets, and potentially big profits of movies, HK TV shows lagged fairly in adopting the technology for improved special effects. It wasn't until I saw the TV version of the legendary story Journy to the West, that they really started to use CG, albeit it was fairly crude. As in fresh-from-adult-continuing-education-graphics-school crude.

So now I'm watching this new kung fu fantasy show that has just been on, and has really come to par with movie sfx, called Twin of Brothers (those of you in Hong Kong might think this show is old). As in all Hong Kong TV shows, even though the show and the subtitles are entirely in Chinese, for some reason the producers insist on having an English title, or Engrish in this case. The actresses are better looking, which doesn't hurt in maintaining 45 minutes of my attention, even though my parents are somehow compelled to indiscriminately point out how ugly they all are. Nevertheless, when I watch kung fu warriors fight, I'm more sure that they will engage in a battle to test their spectacular fighting arts.

Or they could all still break out into a game of Pong.