Whoosh! Issue 85 - January 2004
Letters to the Editor


To write to the editor regarding your comments, observations, and questions about Whoosh!, send an e-mail to letters@whoosh.org. All letters received by the editor are subject to publication and may be edited. Due to the volume received, some letters may not be answered individually or receipt acknowledged and may be published at the editor's discretion. Letters received may be reserved for a later issue.



Topics Covered: The Origin Of The Hong Kong Martial Arts Movie Genres And Its Influence On The American Television And Movie Industry; DVD Sets; Lena Kundera Theater and AIM; Next Xena Con



Letters To The Editor



The Origin Of The Hong Kong Martial Arts Movie Genres And Its Influence On The American Television And Movie Industry

From: Bongo Bear
Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2003 5:41 PM
Subject: Letter to the Editor

Crystal Michallet-Romero wrote a well-research essay tracing the plots and characterizations in Xena all the way back to themes in Chinese mythology. She even put together a nifty bonus graphic! I am very impressed with the quality of this article. Hopefully, Whoosh will continue to publish more of these long into the future.






From: Mil
Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 8:33 AM
Wuxia and Xena [Crystal Michallet-Romero]'s ideas are good ones, very good analysis etc. up until FRIEND IN NEED. Because what we actually saw on screen with FRIEND IN NEED doesn't match up at all with the ideas of wuxia or the hero's journey. Aa far as I am concerned, Xena committed suicide and then some out-of-left-field-not-mentioned-before-in-the-story Plot Contrivance said Xena had to stay dead, this after Akemi said everyone was "redeemed", thus freeing the 40,000 souls. On top of that, Xena died over an "accident" (the fire). Hardly noble.

Anyway, maybe others feel the same way or they just don't care anymore.






From: A, href="mailto:yagich.1@osu.edu">Diane Yagich
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 7:20 AM
Subject: L. Crystal Michallet-Romero's Whoosh Article & YOU!

Thank you for posting that interesting article entitled, "The Origin Of The Hong Kong Martial Arts Movie Genres And Its Influence On The American Television And Movie Industry." I love having more things to think about regarding Xena: Warrior Princess episodes and characters. I also enjoyed learning about the Chinese influence on American TV and movies.

I also wrote and thanked the writer, L. Crystal Michallet-Romero, for the article.

Your site ROCKS as usual!! :-D Thanks for all the hard work you do. :-)

Happy Holidays to all!!






Susan Solomon
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2003 10:03 PM
Subject: The Origin of the Hong Kong Martial Arts Movie Genres and It's Influence on the American Television and Movie Industry

I read L.Crystal Michallet-Romero's article about Hong Kong Martial Art movies with interest. Since my experience with these movies is limited to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "The Iron Monkey" I jotted down several titles. A list of any others that would appeal to a hard-core Xena fan would be very welcome.





DVD Sets

From: Nick Nayko
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 10:23 AM
Subject: Whoosh

Hello Kym: Thanks for coming to bat for us with the XWP DVD effort.

If you think the XWP DVDs in the past were bad, you should know what Fireworks Entertainment did with their "Relic Hunter" DVDs. It was a minimal mediocre effort.

In midstream and with no explanation, they changed their scope from first season to "best of" seasons one and two. Every other DVD project for television series in the past decade has been for entire seasons. You wonder why Fireworks Entertainment was not able to do the same.

The 44 episodes are watered down to 22 with 9 from the first season and 13 from the second. The episodes are in no order on the 5 discs.

Fireworks Entertainment must have the remaining episodes because the so-called "bonus material" includes a "making of" program which ironically includes much footage from these omitted episodes. To further insult you, Fireworks Entertainment cites on the description to episode "Etched In Stone" that a character is reoccurring from the premier episode, which isn't included. Perhaps in the clip episode "M.I.A." there may be scenes from episodes not included in the set but I was too lazy to watch it.

Technically the DVDs are OK. My dissatisfaction is the lack of episodes.

On another topic: I never read in Whoosh about this and wondered if it was common knowledge or if I was the only one who noticed and bothered to mention it now. In XWP episode "Ten Little warlords" the name of the fake beast was the barracas. Was this an in-joke about the A-Team character B.A. Baracas played by Mister T. (Lawrence Tero)? Steve A. Sears scripted for that show and, although this episode was written by Paul Coyle, he may have been a nod to Mr. Sears. Do you know anything about that?



I must agree with you that the Relic Hunter DVDs were a big disappointment. You forgot to mention that they included first season TV promos for many episodes not in the collection. What a waste of time. And they did not include the first episode!!! THAT takes the cake. It would have been wonderful had they just released the first season, but what we got was a mishmash with extras that make you excited to see episodes NOT in the set. It truly beats me who made that THAT decision.

And yes, that was homage to the A-Team. Remember, Steve Sears began the series as a line producer and ended as a co-executive producer. His input was even in episodes he did not write personally.







Lena Kundera Theater and AIM

From: Sue
Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2003 7:02 PM
Subject: AIM access request

Your website is wonderful! I appreciate the enormous amount of time and energy that you've spent to create this site. It's really kind of interesting seeing the time dates along with the scenes that happened those days. It's hard to believe how many months that we've been enjoying this story. I pray that we have MANY more months (years) of this storyline and that AMC has guts enough to continue effecively what they started.

Thanks so much and know that all your efforts are being appreciated by MANY!!!!






From: Beth
Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2003 10:43 AM
Subject: THANKS

I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for sharing the AMC clips with me. once I started looking I noticed that I just missed this stuff. I really remember starting to "watch" when Bianca was at the bar the night she told Maggie about the rape. Your clips have really help me and I thank you so much. I only thought this before, because I watched so little with Lena and Bianca "together" , but they REALLY have chemistry and now I like them even more. Like is said before you are the bomb.

I have been on whoosh.org for about a week straight trying to catch up. I've been reading the shows transcripts. I mean my sister is making fun of me. I hate to admit that but it's true. As a matter of fact I have minimize it to check this email.





Next Xena Con

From: Kristeen Millett
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 11:46 AM
Subject: convention 2004

Can you please tell me when and where the next Xena convention will be in Southern California?



BURBANK, CA
Fri., Sat. & Sun. January 30 - February 1, 2004
Hilton Burbank Airport and Convention Center
2500 Hollywood Way
THE OFFICIAL XENA CONVENTION 2004









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