Word: warlord
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Only at the climax does Frankenheimer build something durable out of the mayhem: a metaphorical bridge between old and new Japan, between the integrity of the samurai and the ingenuity of the technocrat. The warlord's fortress is an executive suite; the watchtowers are electronic eyes; hero and villain cross swords over a photocopier, wrestle on sleek chairs and desks, almost electrocute each other with a computer's exposed wires. The final blow, be warned, is a vertical slice through the bad guy's cranium. One wonders how many members of the audience will stay around...
...political life of the small villages, like the living conditions, is almost feudal. Most of the communities live under the rule of a political warlord who demands that they pay tribute by giving him votes and taxes. The guerrillas often come from the same towns. Some 200 teachers, frequent objects of suspicion because of their close contact with the peasantry, have been assassinated from these and other seemingly placid villages...
...daybreak the convoy reached the border town of Ban Hin Taek, the fortified mountain stronghold of Khun Sa, the most powerful opium warlord in Asia. Their objective: capture the town and crush the 2,000 mercenaries of Khun Sa's Shan United Army, who ran the opium refineries and ruthlessly held sway over the entire region. The Thai soldiers promptly took up battle lines on one side of the town's main street. Ten yards away stood the surprised drug traffickers, many of them routed from bed and still in their underwear-but heavily armed with automatic weapons...
...that Ban Hin Taek in no way resembled a jungle village. It was a modern town with tennis courts, a soccer field and shops stocked with electric guitars and leather furniture. Officers and chemists in Khun Sa's narcotics army lived in spacious villas with manicured lawns. The warlord himself kept a hilltop aerie outfitted with a television in every room, an elaborate stereo system and a swimming pool. There were even photograph albums of family vacations in Hong Kong. The soldiers also discovered huge caches of weapons, ammunition and communications equipment...
...Thai government informant was buried alive, another drawn and quartered on the main street of Ban Hin Taek. In 1980 the American wife of DEA Agent Michael Powers was gunned down on a street in the northern city of Chiang Mai. Bangkok offered a $25,000 reward for the warlord's head. When a group of Thai paramilitary troops set off to capture Khun Sa and cop the reward, they were ambushed by Shan mercenaries. The open clash on Thai soil enraged Bangkok, already under mounting pressure from both the U.S. and Australia to crack down on the heroin...