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Reposted by Dr Ben Sayle (100/100)

Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

One of the many great things about Romance of the Three Kingdoms is kid Cao Cao doing Tom Sawyer shenanigans but the narrative treats it like The Omen.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 3h

Funniest Bill Hader talking about Barry Block moments. -Lying at a Q&A that Sally is the character most like him to spite an audience member who went on about hating her. -Saying Barry wouldn't stand a chance against Walter White.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 4h

Something I notice in histories of 19th Century/pre-Xinhai Revolution China is when the authors pick someone to paint as the Proto-Deng Xiaoping. Stephen Platt & Patrick Shen do it repeatedly with Hong Rengan & Yuan Shikai. Marie-Claire Bergère too with Sun Yat-Sen albeit only once or twice.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 15h

Very cold take but Jonathan Spence really was one of the best historians of China in the Anglosphere. Masterly work is done balancing scholarly rigour with accessible writing. His Hong Xiuquan biography for example is the best introduction to learning about the Taiping.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

One of the many great things about Romance of the Three Kingdoms is kid Cao Cao doing Tom Sawyer shenanigans but the narrative treats it like The Omen.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Here's a fun fact. Despite sharing a title with the book, the movie Fight Club is actually an adaptation of Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man"

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Love that their first meeting is Zhang Fei seeing Liu Bei sigh at a recruitment poster and go "How dare you be upset at the thought of fighting for your country!" I always forget that Guan Yu is the one who's a fugitive and Zhang Fei (a landlord) is the rich kid of the three.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Finished it and unfortunately it didn't do anything for me. Lots of build-up and little to no pay-off. I get the Kurosawa comparisons in theory but there was none of the visceral energy he brings to the table even in his quietest films.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Bi Gan's Resurrection is fine. A more hopeful version of something like The Beast, if you've seen the latter. But while the segments are usually more conventional, the overarching theme left me cold as "da magic of da movies" films usually do. The use of a long take felt obligatory too.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Halfway through Sai: Disaster on Netflix after seeing stuff like "Kiyoshi Kurosawa vibes" & "what if Cure was a mini-series?" On those grounds, they might have oversold it. Although it's certainly not bad & Episode 3 has that feel of everyone in the world suddenly being hostile to each other.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Andrzej Wajda's Promised Land is great because there's no actual corruption arc. The protagonist is as awful at the beginning as he is at the end. The only change is he's made to ditch the pretension of being better than the other industrialists in any way.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The Ashes is the least impressive of the Andrzej Wajda films I've seen thus far but it's astounding how much contempt for Napoleon seeps through the picture. Ridley Scott directed a hagiography compared to Wajda.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Suddenly remembered The Caine Mutiny is quite conservative in its view of authority and rank and the obligations towards them.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Apparently the Polish streaming service "35mm online" is offering nearly all of Andrzej Wajda's films for free until the end of September. Had been meaning to watch more of his stuff since Kanal and Ashes and Diamonds.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Bi Gan's Long Day's Journey Into Night is a fairly straightforward, if non-linear, romantic noir story right up until the last hour when it goes single-take, Kaili-Blues mode. My personal reading on the ending is it's a dream where he's preparing for the worst but still hoping for the best.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I wouldn't say 'the best' (I'm indecisive on these things) but Rio Grande was literally Howard Hawks and John Wayne thinking at High Noon was whiny pinko propaganda and they could do it right.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Something Kayloe does bring up briefly is Sun Yat-Sen identified himself with Jesus as fellow revolutionaries. Compare with Chiang Kai-Shek seeing his & China's ordeals in Job & Hong Xiuquan, whilst known for the "Jesus' brother" part, also envisioned himself as among the Old Testament Patriarchs.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Saw Green Fish. It's good but you can also tell Lee Chang-dong was just starting out. A slightly unique ending for an otherwise standard neo-noirish plot. There's moments though where you see the director he becomes. The family picnic will definitely remind you of Peppermint Candy's opening.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Read Tijo Kayloe's biography of Sun Yat-Sen, "Unfinished Revolution" recently. I enjoyed it & there's more background on Late Qing and Warlord China compared to Marie-Claire Bergere's, but the latter's still great & *far* more available so it remains my recommendation for a Sun Yat-Sen biography.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Watched Penda's Fen. Liked it well enough but calling it "folk horror" seems a stretch. Far more "folk coming-of-age" than horror bar one or two scenes that by the end feel obligatory more than anything.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Read a biography of Lord Beaverbrook last week and Stanley Baldwin was 100% right to have the ick about him from day one. Rarely, if ever, picked a winning man or cause.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Terry Pratchett's "Once and Future" and definitely not Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court".

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Wondering if I'll vibe with Bi Gan's Long Day's Journey Into Night. Been getting into slower cinema and I liked Kaili Blues well enough. Long Day's Journey Into Night is supposedly even better but want to know before jumping in.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Enjoyed The Guns of Navarone recently. Far more flint-eyed than you'd assume a movie from that period would be. Convinced Spielberg sought a similar hard-nosed idealist ("it's hell but we *need* to do it but without becoming it") vibe for Saving Private Ryan but failed to pull it off.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

If someone wanting to get into 'classic literature' for the first time asked me where to start, it'd be Don Quixote every time.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

"Reject modernity, embrace tradition" but for Yu Gi Oh games letting you have any card you have the password for instead of buying packs. "What about online play?" Okay, don't do it there, but let me hack Story Mode the way God intended.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Won't spoil too much, but a great plotline is Song Kang-ho's character treating it all like an oddly dark rom-com.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Secret Sunshine is on Netflix right now. So many works of art fret over God being absent or cruel or even apathetic while Lee Chang-dong bluntly asks what if the problem with God is that he really is a big ball of cosmic love and forgiveness?

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

One of the neat things you notice in Andrzej Wajda's War trilogy is how each film takes a relatively lighter view of the Home Army as the Khruschev Thaw takes hold. Ashes and Diamonds feels miles away from A Generation, for instance.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Binging through Forest of Love Deep Cut. Did not expect episode 3 to shift hard from its merrily chaotic vibe to being as grim as it got.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

The only interpretation Scorsese & Schrader ruled out is "Travis got it all out of his system", so both are valid, but I'm admittedly the opposite. The final scene where Betsy's desperate to escape the taxi to me is too real. She'd either be warmer or crueller if it was Travis' fantasy, IMO.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Respect how Too Old To Die Young's last two episodes has the plot collapse in on itself without the tentpole of the protagonist. All that's left are characters and themes. Feels more like flashbacks and openings to another show than an ending.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

A lot of 'anti-lore' perspectives from artists tend to be contemptuous of it, while Tolkien admits he finds "that...thing only too fatally attractive" like its his own One Ring.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Finished Too Old To Die Young. There was one man who is not Evil and he's dying. Did not expect the last quarter to be Refn speaking into the camera about how we are all Doomed either.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Finished episode 8 of Too Old To Die Young. I'm sure Refn would agree that it wouldn't have gone down like that if it'd been Ryan Gosling.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Overall I like what Chainsaw Man Part 2 set out to do (the Fight Club inspiration stands out so much more in hindsight). That said, I wish it did a lot more with Denji and Asa craving celebrity and all the hollow yet intense adoration it offered.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Watched the first two episodes of Too Old To Die Young. So far the message seems to be that, yes, women can be devious and tricksy, but men are just evil like that.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Very funny that one of Journey To The West's adventures ends on Sun Wukong lecturing the townspeople on the importance of respecting religious pluralism.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

A scene from Colonel Blimp that stands out is when Candy explains to his wife's family about how he found her & gets dispirited when he realises how creeped out they all are...until she steps in to say she loved the whole gesture.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Saints Row 3 is the most boring game in the franchise (4 at least lets you run up buildings and fly) but it is fascinating in how much it's intended to disown Saints Row 2. You read the dev interviews and the whole thing is "we wanted to move away from SR2 as much as possible."

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Read Andrew Seth Meyer's "To Rule All Under Heaven" a month ago and I'd honestly recommend it to anyone with the slightest curiosity about Ancient China. One of the most accessible yet informative academic books out on the market right now.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Saw Odyssey. I liked it but felt like Odysseus could've been a little more actively evil during the actual sack of Troy. He was never going to chuck the baby but still. Would've fit the "we ruined the World" vibe better if they had Melantho killed off too but Nolan's soft spots likely kicked in.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Rome and England both having "we are the sons of the Trojans you couldn't burn" myths.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Need to get on this. Always had a fantastically dour time with Masaki Kobayashi's other films.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Wolfram Siemann starts his Metternich book saying it's no hagiography and then after 400 pages there's a chapter about the many women he pulled whilst being the greatest diplomat in all Europe and also a fantastic family man.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

The lion does not concern himself with employment.

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Dr Ben Sayle (100/100) @bensayle.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

I knew Psycho's big plot twists before watching and it struck me how the first half sets up a seemingly completely different movie. From thriller to slasher.

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Reposted by Dr Ben Sayle (100/100)

Maytera Marble @mayteramarble.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

new Evangelion content means new Evangelion memes

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