Yesterday afternoon a friend and I decided to go to the movies. We wanted to see Red Cliff, the new epic film that is sweeping the Chinese box office. It is based on the story of a famous battle in Chinese history, so the plot was familiar to every single person in the theater except for this dumb foreigner. It’s a classic story with weak emperors, prime ministers plotting overthrows, warlords allying with warlords to fight other warlords, and the two women–one who just wants wars to end and the other who figures she’s smart enough to be a general as well. She was my favorite and her actions triggered a scene in which was uttered what I hope will become a classic movie line.
At one point in the story her brother (or cousin…I never got that figured out) was trying to arrange a marriage between her and one of the generals. Her response was to walk up to the general and give him a sharp jab on the side of his neck with her knuckle, whereupon he crumpled to the ground paralyzed and unconscious (she had pulled this move on a horse in an earlier scene). As she turns and marches out of the room (I guess we know what she thought of that idea) the general’s aides rush to his side, and one looks up and with a pained expression on his face says, HIS ACUPUNCTURE POINTS ARE BLOCKED. I, the lone foreigner in the theater, nearly fell out of my chair laughing, while everyone else in the audience
“hmmm-ed” in understanding—“oh yes, that makes sense.”
At any rate, I now have a new favorite excuse for any future dumb or wrong-headed thing I do. I’ll just say “sorry about that, my acupuncture points are blocked!” And hey, if I could learn how to do that with my knuckles, even better!
