Word: martialled
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...shortly. In the hour before Saddam appeared on the screen, the TV broadcast Arabs singing patriotic songs, images of Saddam and pictures of Iraqi national landmarks, including the military parade ground in Baghdad that features two sets of huge crossed swords. The broadcast was introduced and ended with martial music as the screen displayed the eagle that is the Iraqi national symbol. Saddam sat in what appeared to be a makeshift studio, with a backdrop consisting of what seemed to be an ordinary, wrinkled white bed sheet, with an Iraqi flag on Saddam's right and the Iraqi eagle symbol...
...comic Chris Tucker for 1998's Rush Hour. That amiable caper took in $141 million at the North American box office, and its 2001 sequel did even better: $226 million. Hollywood needed no further goading. It paired Jackie's pal Sammo Hung with Arsenio Hall for the TV drama Martial Law, which had a healthy two-year run. And it has put Jet Li, the little dynamo from Beijing, in the company of rappers: Aaliyah in the 2000 hit Romeo Must Die and now DMX in Cradle 2 the Grave...
...particularly progressive in the current casting formula. Minority groups have been in Hollywood B movies since the black infant Allen (Farina) Hoskins joined the silent-screen Our Gang troupe in 1922. And though Asians can be glad they've gained leading-man status after years in the standard martial-arts Yellow Peril role?a kind of Kung Fu Manchu?the studios aren't exhibiting any social enlightenment in pairing them with blacks. Producers are just trying to make films with relatively inexpensive stars that will appeal to disparate markets: half-price actors for, potentially, twice the audience...
...other words, Hollywood thinks Jet Li is the new Bruce Lee. In the Jetster's major-studio debut, Lethal Weapon 4, Mel Gibson glanced at Li's designer tunic and cracked, "Nice pajamas, Bruce." In Cradle, Li still has to fend off references to Hong Kong's seminal martial artist, who died 30 years ago. An angry dwarf threatens to have his henchmen "kick your ass, Bruce." Li's response may be directed as much to his bosses as to the dwarf: "I'm not Bruce," he says wearily...
...opponent with the fancy footwork he's displayed since his days as a People's Republic teen idol; it's the look-Mao-no-hands routine, in which he does a soft-shoe number on a bad guy's belly. Finally, Li has a face-off against another champion martial artist as he and Dacascos briefly battle it out inside a ring of fire...