welcome to camp telophase

I'm currently watching this Indian film titled Asoka, an historical epic of an Indian king in the third century BC who was sort of Alexander the Great and Constantine combined: he conquered a lot of India and introduced Buddhism to a lot of the area once he got bored with conquering. I put it on the Netflix list because I found out that Ashoka, the title character, uses an urumi, which is a cross between a sword and a whip - a hilt with 2 or more long, flexible metal blades on it, and The Next Project that rachelmanija and I working on has an urumi in it.

I've managed to use VirtualDub Mod to snag a couple of the urumi scenes. Right-click and save, or, hell, stream 'em: I've got a TERABYTE OF BANDWIDTH on that account. XD

Asoka brandishes it:
http://www.magatsu.net/download/urumi-from-extras-compress.avi (1 MB)

Asoka kicks ass, against opponents who admittedly aren't doing very much:
http://www.magatsu.net/download/01-urumi.avi (7 MB)

Both .avi format, using the DivX codec, and compressed to hell and back so don't expect great things. If you cna't play them and want to, it's probably the DivX codec missing from your machine. If you go here: http://www.divxmovies.com/codec/ and download the "DivX codec v5.2.1 for Windows ME/98 (7.3MB)" file (or the Mac file, if you're on a Mac) and install it, it will probably work. If not, and you want to try again, download the file right above that, which downloads the DivX player itself, and *that* should work. I've got many, many different video players and codecs installed due to downloading a lot of anime, and the DivX player works good for almost all. :D If you care.

Other than that, the movie itself is gorgeous, beautifully photographed and carefully art-directed. But the plot and script are .... well, let's say I'd probably enjoy the movie a lot more if I turned the subtitles off. It also remins true to its Bollywood roots. They try to find ways to sneak musical numbers in. And despite lots of snorgling and lots of getting veeeeery close, and lots of teasing .... the hero and heroine never actually kiss.

I've been screencapping like mad ...


( ...follow the cut! )

Anyway, I'm a bit farther on in the movie from this, and it's only halfway through. I really do recommend the visuals in this movie, although I can't recommend the story and script.