Final Paper Thought

Birth of the Dragon

• The shortest summary for this excuse of a movie is in the form of an Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode title: “Steve McKee Ruins Everything.”
• The reason for that title is because it’s true. Steve McKee ruins almost everyone’s lives in the span of one month. He:
  • gets everyone involved in his problems
    • pits two martial artists against each other for his own benefit
      • free a girl who is forced to work for this gang in exchange for bringing her to the U.S.
    • if he didn’t exist, they probably wouldn’t have known until later that the other was in the same city and even then probably wouldn’t have had the urge to fight the other as much without the goading of McKee.
  • Has a white savior complex
    • wants to save Asian girl from mafia because he likes her, and only her, not the other girls with her.
    • at the end of the movie, even though everyone else did all the work, McKee is the one to be thanked and congratulated
    • Has yellow fever
      • only friends with Asian people
      • is into Asian culture without actually understanding it
      • immediately falls for cute Asian girl at first sight
• The movie is supposed to be about Bruce Lee, yet the main character is a white guy and how he gets involved with everyone’s business, while also making Bruce Lee seem even more of a prideful antagonist than he actually was in real life and Wong Jack Man into some mystical man from the mountains

Paper Bullets

• At first, the main character seemed like a very perverted character, who constantly thinks about women naked, bullies other Asian kids, and to me is not a pleasant person in general. But as I read on, he seems to mature as he grows older, something I was glad about.
• One thought I had was that the parent’s relationship was strange.
  • Had a horrible first meeting, yet still got together
  • doesn’t seem to be close even when married
    • doesn’t sleep in the same bed, and the one time they did was awkward and strange
    • dad doesn’t like Chinese food and restaurants and will take a separate car to shorten the amount of time there.
    • takes the family to fancy restaurants they don’t want to be at because he wants to be there, which shows his white privilege
• Another thought was that the main character seemed to favor his dad more than his mom, mostly due to the fact that he talks more about him and kind of shows him in a brighter light than his mom, who isn’t mentioned much.