Lord Guan vs. Ultraman
Posted on Jan 20, 2009 by Kaiser Kuo | Filed under: Humor, Politics
I don’t get Ultraman at all. My son Johnny, who turns three in March, is absolutely obsessed with him and involves Ultraman’s signature poses in the interpretive modern dance he does to Daddy’s Heavy Metal music. Playtime for him always begins with, “你是怪兽、我是奥特曼!” (”You be a monster, I’ll be Ultraman!”). How this crappy, personality-free ’60s Japanese sci-fi robot guy who beats up guys in rubber monster suits reached across the decades and became so cool with Chinese toddlers is utterly baffling to me.
So it is with great sadness that I post this video, wherein the Chinese hero of legend, Guan Yu (style Yunchang), canonized posthumously as China’s God of War, is humiliated by an outsize Ultraman. Guan Yu was of course one of the three sworn brothers of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (《三国演义》), the others being the lachrymose Liu Bei and the bristly-bearded brute Zhang Fei. The three take an oath in a peach orchard during the waning days of the Eastern Han dynasty, found the kingdom of Shu Han in modern Sichuan, and eventually get their asses kicked by Cao Cao. (Actually Guan Yu meets his end at the hands of Sun Quan, the ruler of the Kingdom of Wu). Ultraman doesn’t actually figure anywhere in Luo Guanzhong’s epic novel of strategy, valor, battle and betrayal, though he may well make a cameo in John Woo’s Red Cliffs Part 2, which I’ve yet to see…
The comments are full of the predictable assumptions that the poster of this video must be either a) Japanese, b) a secret Nipponophilic traitor to the Han ethnicity, or c) just an asshole.
January 20th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Don’t get Ultraman? !!!?Don’t get Ultraman?!!! I’m with Johnny, who is clearly fully tuned into what is ultrahip as opposed to his obviously squared-off dad. Ultraman is *the* man. He has bug eyes. He makes “ShooWAH” noises when he takes off. He shoots a megalaser from his wrists. He fights monsters in a red, neoprene farmer John wetsuit. And not just one monster, but all of them! He once even fought Godzilla, although they put a weird fin-necklace on Godzilla so you weren’t supposed to think it was Godzilla. It was Godzilla in mufti. Or what posts for in mufti for a 400 foot radioactive lizard.
Furthermore, there is simply no piece of music so stirring, so martial, so stand-up ramrod straight and salute as the Science Patrol Theme. Wait…I’m going to hum it. Dum de dummmm, dum de dummmm. Da da DAH da dum dum dum… well, this doesn’t really capture it, but trust me, if you were going to fight monsters in a wetsuit, this is the music you’d want.
Man, did I watch a lot of Ultraman. Does it show? Bless Channel 2’s Captain Cosmic (aka the late Bob Wilkins — pause for heavenly chorus) for bringing it to me at an appropriately impressionable age.
Oh, as for the video, yeah, that’s a double slapping on Guan Yu. Gotta hurt.
January 20th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
OMG. Will, I’m now Orz’ing for you!
January 20th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
I hope he doesn’t send Guan Yu’s head to cao Cao in a box.
January 21st, 2009 at 10:08 am
@Steven: Well, don’t tell my wife. She’ll fly into a jealous rage!