ADDENDA EST

While working on part 4 of GATE OF THE GODS I decided to get a couple of addenda-items out of the way.

First, in AGON IN SIXTY SECONDS I wrote:

"As far as I can think, the "noncombative" mode doesn't apply to the adventure/romance mythos at all, given the strong emphasis of the mythos upon physical striving."

But on further consideration I did think of a type of adventure-story that could take place in a "noncombative mode:" namely, the so-called "Robinsonade," the subgenre of lost-on-a-desert-island stories that were spawned by the considerable influence of Defoe's ROBINSON CRUSOE. The basic idea of CRUSOE that's become known to all those who've not read it (including me) is that a shipwrecked protagonist stuck on a desert island has to fight for his survival. Because "physical striving" is at the heart of this sort of story, this means that it would fit into the matrix of the adventure-mythos. Now, some "Robinsonades" may indeed include some "man vs. man" conflict as well as "man vs. nature," even as the original Defoe work does, but this would be enough to move them into either a "combative" or "subcombative" mode. Perhaps the purest example of a Robinsonade known to modern audiences would be the 2000 T0m Hanks film CAST AWAY, since the Hanks character's only struggles are to maintain both physical and psychological equilibrium.

There also certain adventure-stories in which the main hero is passive and noncombative, such as Poe's NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM, but the Poe work is at least subcombative, since the titular character depends on his more active ally Dirk Peters to do most of the hard work of fighting mutineers and such.

My second addenda speaks to this excerpt from GATE OF THE GODS PART 2:

'Though I haven't seen the specific films that CRWM defends on the basis of their not needing a "higher purpose" to be interesting, I've certainly sampled many, many works whose only aim was to excite the audience n what I've called a "kinetic" manner. Some of these works fail even at that aim and so are both lame and dull: PUNISHER WAR ZONE comes to mind as one that failed to impress, despite its considerable production budget. While not the worst work of its kind ever produced, it was still less interesting than a lot of drive-in junk that on occasion had nothing more than a daring, exploitative idea to run with.'

Having written this, I wanted to come up with an example of a good trash-film which had no higher aim than PUNISHER: WAR ZONE in being focused wholly on martial conflict, to the exclusion of characterization, theme or interesting symbolism.

My choice is 1997's MEAN GUNS, directed by noted trashmeister Albert Pyun. It's by no means a good film except in the sense of being "good of its type," but it does put forth a wide variety of kinetic battles in its rough hour-and-a-half running time, and so should please the lover of pure action far more than the more expensive-- and more tedious-- WAR ZONE. In fact, it's almost the action-film parallel to the old Vaudeville adage: If you don't like one of MEAN GUNS' many gun-battles, wait a minute and there'll be another one from which to choose.

Also, where WAR ZONE is just another by-the-numbers hero-vs. villain tale, MEAN GUNS at least has a striking if absurd premise for an action-film, in which one hundred assassins are turned loose in an under-construction prison to kill one another, with the last three people left standing will get a fabulous prize, in addition to basic survival.

MEAN GUNS' direction looks like Pyun was trying to channel John Woo, without the latter direction's more admirable stylistics (though Woo too has his shortcomings). But in a purely-kinetic work, being derivative isn't so much a knock as a given.

And thus endeth the addenda.