Giri (Short Film)

[Steve]

I actually like pine trees and rain.

I had a great steak in Seattle once, with a roasted garlic infusion and fresh minced crab Oscar style. Even better, I wasn't paying.

I’m just trying to keep people from moving here. It’s already overcrowded.

Seattle is beautiful.

 

[Oily Dragon]

You are absolutely right and there’s a good reason people left for the North American continent from Plymouth. I envy the peaceful nature of the USA, where people of all colours and creeds live in gentle harmony, and and when the very rare bad things happen, they kindly give you alerts directly to your phone.

There’s a new book called ‘The Unruly’ by David Mitchell which recounts the really weird, drug gang-like way Britain became a country due to blood thirsty, insane Kings…the parallels with LA’s drug baron’s dividing of the city it uncanny. It’s hilariously written and I highly recommend it.

I know you're half kidding, but seriously when you think about it, we here in the humble USA have had ONE internal war against each other. Just one. No rival Houses battling over the supremacy of, say, Michigan or Kansas. No roving bands of mercenaries running the deserts.

Maybe we'll have another, but so far the closest we've come are a bunch of yahoos storming our Capitol and all getting jail time. A nation of laws and all that.

We certainly have our share of crime, violence, and aggressive citizenry, but I don't think the average American wants civil war or unrest anywhere. Even where it gets out of hand, it kind of burns itself out. AT least where I live (which is a very diverse and representative place), everyone generally gets along. Smiles at each other in the grocery, uses their turn signal, pays their taxes.

It's a yearly family tradition to tell our drunk old uncle to STFU about how the country's going to hell and breaking up the festivities. We're all already there, lay back and enjoy it I say. Life gives you lemons, make chicken picatta.

 

[Gyakuto]

This is the awful area I live in…I’m ashamed to have to show you…

I often wander down to the marina and have a bag of chips whilst watching the moon rise.

salty autumn
my mouth waters
pungent vinegar-

 

[Steve]

This is the awful area I live in…I’m ashamed to have to show you…

View attachment 30214

I often wander down to the marina and have a bag of chips whilst watching the moon rise.

salty autumn
my mouth waters
pungent vinegar-

Yuck. What a dump.

 

[Oily Dragon]

This is the awful area I live in…I’m ashamed to have to show you…

View attachment 30214

I often wander down to the marina and have a bag of chips whilst watching the moon rise.

salty autumn
my mouth waters
pungent vinegar-

I'll bite.

Where is that? I have no idea where most of you live, not that it changes my opinion of you (or cold, rainy, wet, soggy England).

 

[Gyakuto]

I'll bite.

Where is that? I have no idea where most of you live, not that it changes my opinion of you (or cold, rainy, wet, soggy England).

I’m not saying as we don’t want your lot, with your loud Hawaiian shirts, 3/4 shorts and even louder voices coming here and trying to buy our favours with your ‘nylons’ and Hershey bars And they‘re not ’french fries’, they’re chips and they’re not chips, they’re crisps!

 

[Chris Parker]

Hmm...

I liked it a lot.
I like the history of the Samurai. I have absolutely no problem with the glorification of Samurai Seppuku.

The samurai would.

Seppuku is done to atone for a major transgression, or as a punishment. It had no glory attached at all, and was not something that would be sought out at all. The irony is that the lead character is reading Hagakure, a tome that is responsible for a lot of the romanticisation of the act, but even that goes to pains to point out how much it is to be avoided if it can be. The last thing a samurai wanted was to be asked to act as kaishaku, as there is no glory in doing it well, and a complete loss of reputation if you do it badly.

It was NEVER a way to avoid personal suffering. In fact, that would be considered cowardly, and the samurai who opted to take that option would leave his descendents destitute.

It was another time, another place, another culture and a different set of beliefs.

No, it wasn't. It was a very inaccurate representation of a culture that was completely misunderstood. The only beliefs here are those of the film-makers who have no clue what they're depicting.

Has nothing to do with today.

And even less to do with the samurai, Japan, or anything close to that culture.

The populace are generally in favour of assisted suicide for those suffering with terminal illness. The 23+ unelected bishops in the House of Lords scupper any legislation to do with it and anything of that kind of ilk.

This isn't "assisted suicide". The point of seppuku is to endure the pain as an act of atonement for a major problem caused by you (or that you're taking the blame for, at least). This is... nothing to do with it.

‘Micah‘ has cancer, he will suffer terribly. He asks his student, ‘Ray’ to assist him in sparing him the indignity of this kind of death and instead to chose the time, place and manner of his death, in this case by seppuku. The opening scene with the conversation between ‘Kate’ and Ray on Crosby beach suggests Ray has had an internal struggle with Micah’s request but has decided that his sense of obligation and perhaps love toward his teacher outweighs the Western senses of social/moral/legal righteousness. Ray cuts his teacher’s head off.

Then he's an idiot, a fool, and a mindless cretin. If Micah wants to avoid the torment of the cancer, he has options. This is just ego, romantic fantasy, and a degradation of the actual act. It is the opposite of giri... actual giri in this case would be to smack Micah upside the head, scream at him to grow the hell up, get over his martyr fantasy (which is not achieved at all), get out of the idea that he's some ancient samurai he obviously has no clue about, and, if he insists on going ahead, walking away and washing his (Ray's) hands of the lunatic of a "teacher".

Oh, and showing Kaishaku at the end (odd version, but still)???? No, incredibly inappropriate.

Fools showing that they have no idea or respect for the culture they're aping without understanding. Not good.

 

[HighKick]

I know you're half kidding, but seriously when you think about it, we here in the humble USA have had ONE internal war against each other. Just one. No rival Houses battling over the supremacy of, say, Michigan or Kansas. No roving bands of mercenaries running the deserts.

Maybe we'll have another, but so far the closest we've come are a bunch of yahoos storming our Capitol and all getting jail time. A nation of laws and all that.

We certainly have our share of crime, violence, and aggressive citizenry, but I don't think the average American wants civil war or unrest anywhere. Even where it gets out of hand, it kind of burns itself out. AT least where I live (which is a very diverse and representative place), everyone generally gets along. Smiles at each other in the grocery, uses their turn signal, pays their taxes.

It's a yearly family tradition to tell our drunk old uncle to STFU about how the country's going to hell and breaking up the festivities. We're all already there, lay back and enjoy it I say. Life gives you lemons, make chicken picatta.

A national civil war is coming but I don't think it will be in my lifetime. Our government pundits have worked and pushed our laws and the legal system into something very different from what the founding fathers intended. The middle class has been all but completely eliminated and we are rapidly supporting a large sect of the country that is putting nothing back into the system (illegal aliens).
It is going to take something big, really big like a major conflict where conscription is enacted to get people focus and attention.

 

[Gyakuto]

Imagine an vast army of middle class, martial artists….lawyers, opticians, dentists and accountants… with black belts/ashes/braces (suspenders). They loosen their ties and throw away their spectacles (the opticians placing them in a solid case first, of course) and advance to those naughty rednecks and brown skinned people and ‘korrody chop’ them back into their log cabins in the woods and back around ‘the wall’! What a magnificent sight as they brush themselves off and return to their jobs so they can pay more taxes in a couple of hours than a redneck family will in two generations. I have tears in my eyes

 

[Buka]

Hmm...



The samurai would.

Seppuku is done to atone for a major transgression, or as a punishment. It had no glory attached at all, and was not something that would be sought out at all. The irony is that the lead character is reading Hagakure, a tome that is responsible for a lot of the romanticisation of the act, but even that goes to pains to point out how much it is to be avoided if it can be. The last thing a samurai wanted was to be asked to act as kaishaku, as there is no glory in doing it well, and a complete loss of reputation if you do it badly.

It was NEVER a way to avoid personal suffering. In fact, that would be considered cowardly, and the samurai who opted to take that option would leave his descendents destitute.



No, it wasn't. It was a very inaccurate representation of a culture that was completely misunderstood. The only beliefs here are those of the film-makers who have no clue what they're depicting.



And even less to do with the samurai, Japan, or anything close to that culture.



This isn't "assisted suicide". The point of seppuku is to endure the pain as an act of atonement for a major problem caused by you (or that you're taking the blame for, at least). This is... nothing to do with it.



Then he's an idiot, a fool, and a mindless cretin. If Micah wants to avoid the torment of the cancer, he has options. This is just ego, romantic fantasy, and a degradation of the actual act. It is the opposite of giri... actual giri in this case would be to smack Micah upside the head, scream at him to grow the hell up, get over his martyr fantasy (which is not achieved at all), get out of the idea that he's some ancient samurai he obviously has no clue about, and, if he insists on going ahead, walking away and washing his (Ray's) hands of the lunatic of a "teacher".

Oh, and showing Kaishaku at the end (odd version, but still)???? No, incredibly inappropriate.

Fools showing that they have no idea or respect for the culture they're aping without understanding. Not good.

Always nice to hear from the Martial Arts police again, it’s been a while.

 

[Oily Dragon]

Always nice to hear from the Martial Arts police again, it’s been a while.

Still better than the Wing Chun Mafia, IMHO.