of all the comics i would lay siege to dark horse to see your predator v jackie chan idea is up there, just the thought of him seeing a giant monster and thinking “oh yeah imma take him down with kung fu” and then. doing it. is the best
Thanks! Jackie Chan v Predator still holds a strong place in my heart and I keep futzing w/ some things even when I’m not actually working on it
Also Jackie’s first reaction to seeing a giant monster is this:
This week has been a hard reset week for me, bc I haven’t been taking care of myself and it got to be too much. So most of it was sorting out my brain, trying to put aside work. The only thing I’ve really done is fuck around in my sketchbook, which is the only place I slow myself to not be concerned about the quality of
Anyway tried to zen with some watercolors. The best thing about this sketchbook is that it isn’t the best at taking watercolor, so it’s inevitably going to warp and not be perfect. So I don’t feel stressed about making it so.
Anyway just coloring some bullshit + Jackie Chan predator thoughts.
China’s netizens are all in a twitter over the account of a carpenter who was commissioned to make a cinnabar red high-backed chair with the finials at the top to be “in the shape of dragons’ heads” (chéng lóngtóu 成龍頭). Unfortunately, he misinterpreted the directions to mean “[in the shape of] Jackie Chan’s head” (“Chénglóng tóu 成龍頭”).
LMAO ok so to elaborate on this absolute gem, notice how the characters provided for “in the shape of dragons’ heads” and “[in the shape of] Jackie Chan’s head” are identical? That wasn’t a typo.
The thing you need to understand about Chinese names is that they all have meaning. And I don’t mean that in the sense of “if you trace the etymology back through two languages it has its roots in a Hebrew phrase that means “God is my ____” that many Western names have. I mean that in the sense of “almost all of these words are still in regular use today and my parents very literally named me “pretty [and] wise” in Chinese.
(Sidenote: This is why we get annoyed at made-up ‘Chinese’ names that just pull two random vaguely Chinese-sounding syllables together. It is blindingly obvious when it’s not a real name).
成 (chéng) means “to become”, “to turn into”. 龍 (lóng) is “dragon”. Thus, Jackie Chan’s Chinese stage name, 成龍 (Chénglóng), literally means “become dragon”. (頭 (tóu), of course, means “head”)
(Further sidenote: This is actually a bit of a pun/reference. Specifically, it is a reference to Bruce Lee, whose stage name was 小龍 (Xiǎolóng), or, “Little dragon”. So Jackie’s chosen stage name means both “become dragon”, and “become [like] Bruce Lee”)
The other thing you need to know about Chinese is that we don’t put spaces between terms in written text.
What all this means is that the way you’d write “[carve] into dragon heads” can be identical to the way you’d write “[carve] Jackie Chan’s head”, and literally the only difference would be where you pause when you vocalise it: before lóngtóu, or after chénglóng. XD
If you could pick 3 talisman which would you choose? My 3 would be invisibility, Astral projection and immortality but shape shifting is def on the list
In regard to my previous post about Jackie Chan Adventures and The Medallion starring Jackie Chan. I made a remark about both of them having “circular dragon imagery” referring to Shendu in statue form and the titular medallion in The Medallion. Thing is, I hadn’t looked very closely at the medallion and just assumed that the two snakey things on it were Chinese dragons simply because dragons have long been the only Asian mythological creature you ever see in American pop culture. But after closer inspection I see it’s actually a snake and a fish. A very weird snakey fish.
It’s such an odd combination of animals that I have to wonder if there’s any deeper cultural significance to them. Not that I totally expect there to be anything. I wouldn’t usually expect cultural deep cuts from a 2003 movie. Heck, even a lot of the cultural references in Jackie Chan Adventures are bad. Like the Chinese vampire that glides instead of hops for example. I like to think that jiangshi have become popular enough in games and such that that’s fairly obviously wrong.
However, while I don’t know much about the production of Jackie Chan Adventures I do know that two of the three writers on The Medallion were Chinese so it seems possible that they might have injected some Chinese culture into the movie that wouldn’t have occurred to a typical American writer… like anything other than a dragon.
There might be some clues in the movie but it isn’t streaming anywhere and I just KNOW as soon as I pay money to watch it it’s going to become available to me for free (legally. Which is the only way I’ll watch it). And I’ve just recently spent a lot of coin on MP3s after deleting my Spotify so I don’t know if I want to spend more coin on a possibly not very good movie.
Ah- While we’re on the topic of coin, might as well bring up my Ko-fi. I’ll do a doodle on a post-it for you for just $3. And of course I’d be happy to watch the movie if someone specifically paid me to do it. But I’ll need at least $4 to cover renting it. Maybe a little more if you specifically want me to write about it or something. Hell! I’ll even review cultural references in Jackie Chan Adventures if you pay me for it. Though I can’t guarantee it’ll be that thorough or entirely accurate. Oh! And I also sell vinyl stickers that apparently no one wants.
I’m kinda pissed that I didn’t know Julian Sands played the villian in The Medallion. I remember seeing a Jackie Chan Adventures fan site mistake it for a JCA movie adaptation and at the time all I thought was “Well that’s a dumb assumption. Just because it has Jackie Chan and circular golden dragon imagery doesn’t make it an adaptation. It doesn’t even make it that similar to the show!” But if I knew it was because Valmont played the villian I would’ve seen it in an instant!
Jackie Chan’s Mitsubishi Colt custom from “Armor of God” (1986, the movie that was the single strongest inspiration for his animated series). Hong Kong Cinema of the 1980s had product placement so overt that there were literal logos just before the credits of some films for rolexes and polo brand clothes at the end of many films, like on game shows.
By the way, this was arguably the best car chase of Jackie Chan’s career, except for the one at the start of “My Lucky Stars” or the insane “water skiing on bare feet” one on the giant hovercraft in “Rumble in the Bronx.”
