DVD review - Kung Fu Hustle

Kung Fu movies, I love them, I maybe don't watch them so much nowadays and maybe I'm out of the loop but there don't seem to be as many coming out any more. At least not in the west, I am sure they are just as plentiful as they ever were in Asian cinema but I am just not seeing them advertised at the cinema here anymore or in DVD rentals at all. They are kind of like the 80's style action blockbusters, I just don't seem to see quality examples of the genre much around lately.


Now historically I am sure that Bruce Lee was the original martial artist that made it into the movies in Hollywood. He had to work hard to get what he could from the business but had a hard time trying to popularise Kung Fu movies and getting roles. I remember the TV series Kung Fu, I enjoyed it as a kid and I am sure I had a Kung Fu annual at some point. However that was a prime example of Lee being held down by the TV Execs. He came up with the idea for the show and they chose the non-Asian David Carradine to play the role of the half Chinese "Grasshopper" Kwai Chang Caine. 

David has a few more geeky claims to fame, he played Frankenstein in Death Race 2000 and Bill in the, Tarantino written and directed, Kill Bill movies. He actually learned martial arts later in life inspired by his role in Kung Fu. I'm just glad that inspired him and not his driving in Death Race 2000 😏 



  

Lee played the role of Kato in The Green Hornet. I never saw that at all as a kid, I don't know if the UK TV networks ever bought it. I don't recall it from the time but Green Hornet & Kato popped their heads out of the window in one of the Batman TV shows from the 60's. They also appeared as guests in one show solving a crime together. I only know this as an old customer of mine ripped me the whole series onto DVD-Rs for me but I left them at work when I was made redundant. Needless to say as the Batman series is now out on DVD it's on my to-buy list. I may well look into getting the Green Hornet series too, it only ran for one season though with 26 episodes running from September 9, 1966,  through to March 17, 1967. I am not sure if this series is even available now though. All I could find were a couple of movies, The Green Hornet and Fury of The Dragon cobbled together to cash in after Lee died 😢 I did discover that Kevin Smith had written a Batman/Green Hornet comic that followed up from the TV show story!! And there was a 1940's TV series of the Green Hornet where the master from Kung Fu plays Kato!

    

 I have the movie from 2011 and that was pretty cool. Hey another thing, off tangent, but did you know that Britt Reid aka the Green Hornet is a relative of The Lone Ranger?? He shares the same family name as Britt's father was the Lone Ranger's nephew. True story! 


As far as movies go the only one I really recall of Lee's was Enter The Dragon. (It was sadly practically his last, he died during filming of his next movie The Game of Death). It's a classic of the genre, no nonsense, no jokes just serious action. If you want this movie with jokes and silliness check out The Kentucky Fried Movie, it has a parody called A Fistful of Yen which is hilarious.

So Lee was historically first I think but for me I am sure that I was aware of Jackie Chan before I knew of him. I could be mistaken of course, my memory is naff as heck. I recall he was in a movie called Battle Creek Brawl (1980) that was on in the cinemas in the UK and I was too young to go and see it. This was the age of the video rental shops though and I did watch a ton of Chan movies over the years. Some I can recall are of course Drunken Master, Armour of God, Wheels on Meals and Police Story. His films were different from Lee's with the added element of humour, lots of fart jokes and terrible dubbing and sound effects. Also insane stunts, remember the crazy out takes scenes at the end of each film? It's surprising Jackie is still going with all the crazy bumps he's taken over the years. He's still making good films too. Check out my review of The Foreigner, it's got no humour in it at all but it's a cool serious film and Jackie is great in it.

    

Sho Kosugi is a name I remember too, with a number of "Ninja" movies from the early 80's being pretty good viewing at the time.

Of the 80's/90's action heroes Jean-Claude Van Damme was the most martial arts focused, with films like Blood Sport, Kickboxer, A.W.O.L, Double Impact and Street Fighter but his movies branched out from that with gun fights so I don't think of him as a total martial arts hero really. 



Fun fact: I found out he studied ballet for 5 years!! Well I never!!

Played Colonel Guile in Street Fighter and was the inspiration for Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat too!

A more recent series of films I liked were Ong Bak with Tony Jaa.

 The knees and elbows thrown in those are insane, it just looks damned painful watching it!! Those fight stuntmen earn every penny of their money and they probably deserve more really I reckon! I've not seen any other films by him though and there doesn't seem to be any martial arts action star that I know of bringing out a succession of great movies.  There are a few one-offs like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the Ip Man series, both of which are pretty entertaining. 

This film Kung Fu Hustle starring Stephen Chow who also did Shaolin Soccer is pretty huge though, looking it up I found out it was the highest-grossing Chinese-language film in the history of Hong Kong until it was surpassed in 2011. It came out in 2004!! Wow, time files huh? 

DVD night - Reviews for Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Leatherface and Alien: Covenant

Another movie date night with my gorgeous Mrs. She fell asleep after 10 minutes as she always does and I watched all these movies as she lightly snored and snuffled beside me on the bed. 

Kingsman: The Golden Circle was her choice and I was more than happy to watch it as we'd both thoroughly enjoyed it's predecessor. The films are based on the Kingsman comic book series by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons released in 2012 though I am sure I read a book that was very similar to this concept before as well which was very, very similar too I thought. I can't recall for the life of me what the book was called or any of the characters names from it but I was SURE it was based on it when I first saw the film. I have tried to have a google up to find it but had no joy there. 

   

Oh well, the 2nd film is another high energy, fight fest full of crazy action and far-fetched gadgets & plot scenes that see the last of the Kingsmen teaming up with members of their US counterparts the Statesmen to take on the drug cartel The Golden Circle who have poisoned their products threatening to kill anyone who has taken them and will only release the antidote if the world agrees to make them all legal! The organisation's leader has also kidnapped Elton John and seems to make a habit of getting her robot dogs to kill her failed underlings and then mincing and making them into hamburgers!! That kind of cannibalistic behaviour would help her fit right in with the protagonists of the next movie from this evening......

...Leatherface. This is not to be confused with Texas Chainsaw Massacre III which had the subtitle Leatherface and a cool Heavy Metal soundtrack, but there are so many chainsaw killing movies based in Texas now that I have totally lost track of them all! (This is #8 it seems!!) It doesn't really matter though does it, you know what you are getting when you buy or hire one of these out don't you? Well, normally I'd say yes you do but this is an origin story for this evil face wearing maniac so it's a bit different. There is still a family of wrong 'uns living on a farm in Texas somewhere and the mother who is raising her kids with very nontraditional family values has one of her boys taken away by the authourities after they kill a sheriff's daughter. There is no proof that it wasn't just an accident so there are no criminal charges instead he is put into what seems to be an asylum or at least a home for VERY maladjusted, twisted teens/young adults. I have to admit I thought that she had 2 children taken from her and Bud another character was Jedidiah's brother, the passage of time in the film and the fact I am sure there were 2 kids in the film's early sequence made me think this but Wikipedia says otherwise so I'll trust it over my own addled memory!

    

He'd been there for 10 years with his mother fighting to get back custody of him. After a bit of chaos caused by his mother a riot and a breakout ensues where he, his friend Bud (who I thought was his brother) and 2 other inmates escape, with a nurse as a hostage in tow. They are pursued by the very sheriff whose daughter they killed all them years ago and he is taking no prisoners. Along the way Leatherface is born making his deranged mother very proud I am sure!!

From a lunatic mother we move on to an alien mother!! Actually there is no alien brood queen mother in this film but there are plenty of eggs, facehuggers and a new alien that infects through mushroom like spores and emerges in splendidly horrific fashion! This, the 6th film in the Alien franchise is about the colony ship Covenant which is carrying settlers to a far off planet to make new lives there. Along the way the crew's stasis sleep is disturbed by an accident. Once awoken they discover signals from a nearby planet, seemingly human in origin they seek the planet out to investigate. Bad idea, terrible idea..... it ends badly. This movie is basically the follow up to the much reviled Prometheus from 2012 and the planet they go to investigate is the one from that movie and the android David played by Michael Fassbender is still living on the planet along with far too many alien killing machines to make it a safe place to visit. Fassbender plays 2 roles, he is David the android on the planet from the Prometheus ship that crashed there and also Walter the later version android from the Covenant. There is plenty of good action and gore and I liked it.

In fact all 3 films tonight were a hit for me :)

      

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Fun fact - Leatherface was filmed in Bulgaria not Texas!!

A Cool Display of Cosplay!!!

As I have doubtlessly mentioned it before I have never done cosplay as such. Fancy dress yes but cosplay no? I think there is a difference, probably dependent on how old you are haha I mean I have dressed as The Joker and a zombie and they are kind of geeky, so maybe I was cosplaying even though we just called it fancy dress back then!! What's in a name anyway? I had fun and whatever you call it having fun is what it's about! Anyway this post is another in my 'recommending something awesome from the internet that I have seen' sort of posts. So any cool blogs, or art or anything cool & geeky that catches my eye I'll make a post about it now and again.

So without further ado I heartily recommend that you check out the amazing page of  ‎Désirée Cosplay. She does a great Fallout cosplay as a lady version of Grognak the Barabarian, something that I think is referred to as a crossplay when someone plays a character of the opposite sex to themselves. Although I am not sure if this counts as that as in game you can wear Grognak's costume as it has a male and female version. Anyway enough of my rambling, check out this great photo and check out her page to see all the different and greatly varied characters she brings to life.

Photo by Michael P Hoover Photography

I particularly like this as in my PS4 playthrough of Fallout Grognak's Axe is my weapon of choice. Check out this video I made using it. 

Panasonic HC-V380

I have just bought myself a new video camera!! My old one has been having a bit of trouble of late as the shutter doesn't seem to open up properly anymore and sometimes you can see it when I am filming something and that simply won't do eh?! It will likely cost more to repair than to replace and I have had it going on 10 years at least. So I was thinking about getting a new one but I'm not that good with technology really. 

I went into a Jessops when I was up in Leicester and enquired about cameras but it seems that the video camera is not so much in demand now as every still-shot type camera now tends to have very good video capturing modes and so they have almost made the video style of camera redundant. For what I want to use it for, mainly recording at gigs and making geeky blogs I much prefer the shape and size of the vidcam. The branch of Jessops I was in was not a large one and they had no video cameras in store whatsoever. 

Later in the week for my lady's birthday we were out shopping and I picked up a new camera in Curry's PC World. They only had a choice of 3 in stock so I went with the most expensive one hoping it'd have all the bells and whistles I need to do a good job :) That's a good scientific way of doing it I reckon!!

So I made a little video about it, check it out if you didn't already and check out my newest gig videos to see what you think of the picture and sound quality. I am quite happy with it actually. Now I might need to get myself a new camera bag and perhaps a new tripod too.

      

London Lovecraft Festival - The Shadow Over Innsmouth

I have been getting a lot of adverts on my Facebook feed about a London Lovecraft Festival and being a big H.P. geek I had to have a look at it. It's a theatrical celebration of the great man's works and is running from the 6th to the 11th of February. Events include renditions of The Thing on the Doorstep, Pickman's Model, a gender switched Mountains of Madness, a Weird Tales inspired Improv and even a Lovecraftian crooner!!

I happen to have that whole week off of work but I have other plans already in place. I visited my brother and family at the start of the week. Then it's my girlfriend's birthday so I am taking her shopping one day, little pub gathering one evening and a romantic night in with a takeaway has to be done!! Then I have a gig to attend!! Then Sunday I will be recording my regular podcast show. I would've felt really bad if I missed it entirely so I have booked in for the very last show of the event on the Sunday night. 

The Shadow Over Insmouth is a bona fide Lovecraft classic, one of his most seminal works and I am very much looking forward to seeing it. This is how the event is described on the event page, it certainly sounds good for sure -

On a frankly tedious architectural tour of the coastline, Robert Olmstead happens across the ancient seaport of Innsmouth... 

What he discovers there will threaten his life, test his will and shatter his sanity. 

Featuring original music, puppetry and physical theatre, this darkly comic fast paced two hander brings a HP Lovecraft classic to the stage as you've never seen it before, and explores the complex and sometimes deadly relationship between man and fish.

I'll post up a review here in due course :)




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Review - Cops and Monsters Web Series

So this is cool I saw someone involved with this series post up the 1st episode onto The Geek Asylum Facebook group and thought I'd check it out. The 1st episode is free, for the other 7 parts of it you have to go to Amazon Prime and I guess you have to pay if you don't have that. 

This is far from being the most slickly put together show but it's still pretty decent actually, with locations, acting and story all reasonable enough for what I would guess is made on a very limited budget. Episode 1 shows Maya Hedges getting her dream job of joining the Paranormal Investigation Team, who are a branch of the police who deal with the supernatural. She worked in normal detective work before but claims she wants the challenge of dealing with the vampires, zombies and werewolves of the world. Her new boss knows that her parents were killed by Werewolves and so may have an ulterior motive but gives her the job anyway. I thought it might be kind of a bit like a Scottish version of Grimm

It seems that vampires and werewolves have been living in relative harmony together but things could be about to change. There seems to be a serial killer on the loose and a strange Svengali-like figure behind the scenes manipulating events. I'm not sure exactly what his intentions are but he seems to be called, or represent the Cult of Many Faces. He kidnaps Maya's partner/ex-lover Martin and taunts her over it causing her to go maverick in her efforts to find him. There are some behind the scenes political wrangling & double dealing as well threatening the future of P.I.T.

The episode run time varies somewhat, the pacing is a bit hit and miss, the plot, dialogue and some of the situations are a bit unbelievable too but not in a suspend your disbelief kind of way more in a that's a bit daft kind of way? There are quite a few little niggles that are detrimental to the show, I think possibly it was too ambitious and maybe it could have changed elements of the story to allow for what they were able to do with their budget. For example why make werewolves when you haven't got any special effects to make werewolves with? Why not make it something else instead. And maybe don't go with a police force idea when you don't have enough actors to give the feel of it being a force rather than just a few people sat in a room. I did like it on the whole though, it's great and adventurous to see a group of people making something new. I don't know if this team has done a lot of stuff before but this has the feel of a fledgling effort, if that's the case then it's a great start.* 

 I can only imagine that with experience they will grow and possibly end up with something really good. I certainly hope so anyway. The series proper is made up of six episodes it seems and the other 2 videos are both self-contained stories set inside the same universe and I think they actually worked better. The 1st Trapped was let down by a bad fight scene, werewolf effects and dialogue that was a bit clunky in my view but the story was pretty solid. The Christmas special was the best of the lot to my mind and was actually pretty poignant. 

I kind of wonder if this would work better as a comedy!! It's almost as if the fact that it's trying to be serious is to it's detriment. This could be really great as a Garth Marenghi style spoof comedy, drama, cop, whatever else they wanted to add to it kind of show! Whatever they do, another series of this or another show altogether I hope they keep on going and learn and grow and refine themselves until somewhere down the line they end up making something really cool. They ain't there yet but the seeds are being sewn.

This also had a couple of faces I recognised in it, Sophie Aldred who played Ace the companion of the 7th Doctor (who I was not keen on at all at the time but I quite fancied her, not that that is at all relevant... I have no idea why I mentioned it... she's still pretty hot btw) and Simon Weir who's been in a fair few things here and there looked familiar too. 

*I researched a bit more after writing this and found they (Silly Wee Films) also did a movie called Night Is Day which is a Supernatural Scottish Superhero movie which is my kind of thing, so I may well check it out and review that too someday. Ooh it was £1.82 to hire but I see it is up on YouTube in full for free, result!!

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Edit - they are looking at funding for Series two now, check out the Kickstarter campaign here

Justice League of America - Vol.1 The Extremists

Written by rising star Steve Orlando (BATMAN, MIDNIGHTER) and illustrated by a league of superstar artists including Ivan Reis (GREEN LANTERN) and Andy MacDonald (DETECTIVE COMICS), this JUSTICE LEAGUE VS. SUICIDE SQUAD spin-off is a JLA for a whole new era--exploding from the pages of the blockbuster DC Rebirth event!

OK that's the blurb above on this new book giving you the who dunnit and all that, but how was it? Well I got this as a present from my dad and having not read any comics for a fair while now I wasn't up to date with events at all and I kind of judged the book by the cover a bit and guessed it wrong. I was thinking that this was a new alternate Justice League team called The Extremists. I saw Lobo and Killer Frost and figured it was a down and dirty team designed to do the jobs that the main JLA didn't want to sully themselves with. I seem to recall there was a team like this back in the 90's I think but I can't remember what they were called. I think Captain Atom led them and Amazing Man and maybe Booster Gold were in the team but the memory is hazy. I'll have to go through my long boxes and have a re-read sometime soon I reckon. Also I was given another book that I thought was another JLA team but was actually a prequel somehow to this. I read them in the wrong order too :( 

As a 1st book in the new series, similar to some of the others I have reviewed recently (See Saga, Super Sons, Trinity), this is very much an introduction to the team. You get the whole formation story and get some interplay between the new team members. Batman as ever is the driving force, he wants the team to be down to earth and seen by humanity rather than floating above it on the satellite. (This seem familiar too from somewhere) Black Canary is there to keep him in check and to keep him honest. Vixen has experience with the league, Lobo owes Batman for something and supplies the muscle and the attitude. Killer Frost is being offered redemption after seeming to have overcome her need to fatally feed off of others heat. The Atom (Ray Palmer's protegee Ryan Choi) and The Ray are young heroes looking to learn from their experienced colleagues. So this new team forms and pretty much straight off the bat (no pun intended), The Extremists turn up. I remember these guys when they 1st showed up they were very formidable and they have popped back every now and again. They are a cool looking bunch of evil world conquerors and could prove to be more than a match for this fledgling Justice League. Can the new team find their feet and gel quickly enough to overcome this potentially world threatening force?

This is a cool start up for this newest iteration of the League, interesting relationships are forming, some questions are being raised and one or two secrets are starting to emerge. Time will tell if I ever get to learn what happens in later books, I'll have to wait and see when my next level up day comes around again.

  

Late geeky Christmas presents :)

My mate Dawn bought me a few little geeky treats for Christmas :) Yay!!

Look now I can wear Iron Man socks whilst drinking tea from an Iron Man mug!! Hey I could even listen to the band Iron Man whilst I drink my tea!! And doing the ironing.... erm perhaps not that!!

This cute little Spidey-fellow has sucker pads that go onto the hands so you can suction him onto surfaces!! Hay that's one of his powers in the comics too.... almost!! Awesome!!

And look at this Batman flask/mug type thing!! I could totally take a cup of tea to work with me!! Not a bad idea at all actually!! Nice artwork too, this is a cool 70's style Batman I think, I like that style of Batman a lot!

And finally some kick arse Batarangs!! The top one folds and has magnets on it so it can go on the fridge and the 2nd one is a bottle opener!! They look pretty sweet sat on my shelf 😊

Victorian Jurassic Park

I've been wanting to go along to Crystal Palace Park for ages. I've known about it for yonks but I have never gotten around to going there. I heard a lot about it on I Know Dino Podcast which is a great listen for Dino-geeks. I mentioned it on my dinosaur themed episode of my heavy metal podcast High Speed Hangover too. 

In fact I used a photo from the park as my show picture too. Check that out if you love a bit of heavy music folks.

So I finally went along to the park on my recent week off work. For those not in the know Crystal Palace Park has a few claims to fame. There is a massive radio mast there which is a local landmark in the area. Plus historically the Crystal Palace was there. The Crystal Palace was originally in Hyde Park, the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Afterwards it was moved to the area which was named for it and with some modifications and enlargements it formed the centrepiece of the Victorian pleasure ground before sadly burning down in a fire in 1936.

It also has the dinosaurs. Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned to sculpt the 33 dinosaurs, and they were completed in 1854. They were sculpted to resemble what the scientists of the day imagined the then newly discovered dinosaurs to look like. 

In this work, which took some three years, he collaborated with Sir Richard Owen and other leading scientific figures of the time: Owen estimated the size and overall shape of the animals, leaving Hawkins to sculpt the models according to Owen's directions.

A dinner was held inside the mold used to make the Iguanodon. The dinner party, hosted by Owen on 31 December 1853, garnered attention in the press. Most of the sculptures are still on display in Crystal Palace Park.

The models were classed as Grade II listed buildings from 1973, extensively restored in 2002, and upgraded to Grade I listed in 2007.

The models represent fifteen genera of extinct animals, not all dinosaurs. They are from a wide range of geological ages, and include true dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and plesiosaurs mainly from the Mesozoic era, and some mammals from the more recent Cenozoic era.

Iguanodon....

....and on......

..and on...

...and on!!!

Getting on a bit but not dinosaurs yet!

Here a blog, there a blog, everywhere a blog blog - 1

So I was considering doing a review of the cool Will Smith Netflix movie Bright. I watched it the other night and had seen loads of people posting up, "is this film as crap as the critics say" kind of posts. I checked it out and thought it was pretty damn good actually. BUT I am not going to review it.... nope instead I thought I'd point you all to a cool review by a fellow novice blog buddy. I think it's cool to share a fellow bloggers site with you and in future I will share a cool blog here whenever I see one. 

So without further ado here is the blog of Hartley O'Driscoll called Hartley reviews. He did a post about the movie Bright that pretty much hits the nail on the head as far as I am concerned. 

Check it out and bookmark his page

Nextflix Reviews - The Foreigner

Want to know what to 'watch next' on Netflix? Check out my Nextflix Reviews

Jackie Chan has been entertaining me for decades and he's never failed to deliver the action that's for sure. I was 9 when Drunken Master came out in 1978 and I remember watching that and play kung-fuing around the house with my mates afterwards. I gotta say he is looking old now but he ain't lost it. This feels a hell of a lot grittier and real than his normally over the top outings for sure. His age adds real pathos to his acting too, you can feel his sadness at the loss of his last remaining family member and he feels believable as a devastated, quiet man seeking vengeance and the truth about the killers. He's a man with a tragic past but also a violent one with training that he hasn't forgotten. 

The Chan half of the action is just the tip of the iceberg really with the real story being multi-layered political intrigue. There is all kinds of secret phone calls and wranglings and machinations within the IRA and British government that keep the story deep and interesting. The man he has targeted to get the truth from Politician Liam Hennessey (Pierce Brosnan) seemingly doesn't actually know who did it and is himself trying to find out. Brosnan is great, his character is an ex-IRA man, now a politician dedicated to maintaining the peace accord and he wants to find the rogue cell who are breaking the peace and 'deal' with them. So Chan in his desperation seems to be attacking the wrong guy and in all honesty hindering Brosnan's chances to find the truth. There are levels within levels though and things are not simply black and white by any stretch of the imagination and there are lies and tricks and schemes interweaving with each other. 

This is a great movie, it has action it has a great story and superb acting and it's free to watch on Netflix, so get on it. And check out all Jackie's other movies too cos they are bloody great :)
Ooooooh and I just found out the director was Martin Campbell who did the 'flop' (that should never have been a flop cos it's a great movie), Green Lantern. Awesome!!

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Movie review - The Ghoul

I watched this film straight after A Ghost Story and I think that movie had drained my brain through sheer boredom and that didn't really help me with getting into it.

It started with some detectives investigating a case and talking about a ghoul, some one who was obsessed with hanging around police trying to find out grisly details about police procedures and having an overactive curiosity about gory crimes. So I am thinking they are looking for this individual. The next thing we see a guy who is clinically depressed and seeing psychiatrists to talk about his delusions about being a detective. He seems to mope around a lot, he spends some time trying to connect with an old flame and follows and befriends a fellow patient who he goes to a party with. At the party they talk positing the thought that "imagine instead of being a depressed person who dreams of being a undercover detective he is actually a detective pretending to be a depressed person pretending to be a detective"................ does that sentence even make sense? That was when I twigged that this was the detective from the beginning of the movie actually being undercover. I seem to have totally missed the point somewhere along the line I think, although I feel that the point wasn't really made in any way that was in the slightest bit engaging or able to pique my interest.

It's all a bit psychedelic maybe, it's definitely obscure and I suppose it's supposed to make you think but it just made me think that I'd picked some bloody naff movies this evening. There were hints of magic mentioned and a warning given but I felt no hint of menace or inkling of there being any kind of threat or trepidation and then there was some kind of ouroboros shenanigans and was he investigating crimes he himself committed in some weird cyclical twist? To be honest I didn't care enough about the film to try and fathom it out. Immortality something or other, existential blah blah..... pretty boring stuff.

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