“Should I become an artist? No, this is Japan, not the West. Far from demanding art, Japanese society looks upon it as a nuisance. Those of us with a deep-seated desire to devote ourselves to the Muses or to Venus must leave this fatherland of ours with all its stringent rules before we can begin to embrace our hearts. This would be of the greatest benefit both to the nation and to art itself.”
Nagai Kafū, “Behind the Prison”
“No, nothing in this world is as oppressive and debilitating as blood ties. Any other relationship-be it with friend, lover, wife; be it obligatory or constraining or difficult-is something one has consciously entered into at some point. Only one’s ties with parents and siblings are formed at birth and are unbreakable. And even if one succeeds in severing such relationships, all one is left with is the unbearable agony of conscience. Your Excellency. I am certain you have seen sparrows that have built a nest in the eaves of your home. No sooner do the young fly away from the nest than they escape forever from this fateful shadow. Nor do the parents make any attempt to bind their offspring’s heart with morality.”
Nagai Kafū, “Behind the Prison”.
“There was R., an Englishman who lived six months of the year in Putney with his parents and six months in France. During his time in France he drank four litres of wine a day, and six litres on Saturday; he once had travelled to the Azores, because the wine there is cheaper than anywhere in Europe. He was a gentle domesticated creature, never rowdy or quarrelsome and never sober. He would lie in bed until midday, and from then till midnight he was in his corner at the bistro, quietly and methodically soaking. While he soaked he talked, in a refined womanish voice, about antique furniture.”
George Orwell, “Down and Out in Paris and London”, 1933.
Xinomavro, a Greek red grape, is problematic. It can be highly tannic and grape quality aside, if not sufficiently aged, your mouth is in for a battle. For this reason, I largely avoid Xinomavro.
Yet I have had the pleasure of Xinomavro aged some twenty years and it was remarkable.
I was at the Toronto Wines of Greece Trade and Consumer Tasting on 21April2026 and reluctantly tried several Xinomavros. The older the wine (within a five-year range) the better it was and even better when sustainable and biodynamic.
Let’s try a 2023 Young Wines Xinomavro biodynamic and sustainably produced from Thymiopoulos Vineyards.
Fermented and aged in concrete.
Aroma: Loads of cherry. Secondary notes of raspberry. Tertiary notes of blueberry. Clean and untainted.
Palate: Clean and pure. Moderate tannins with perfectly controlled acidity. Beautiful layered red fruit. I never imagined a 2023 Xinomavro could be described as elegant, but I am saying it here. Moderately long finish with a hint of spice.
Personality: You can scarcely believe I am so light on my feet! I think I am reminiscent of a Niagara Gamay Noir!
Food Match: Stuffed zucchini flowers.
Cellarbility: Consume by 2027-year end.
Price: $20CDN.
RKS Wines of Greece Rating: 90/100. Natalie MacLean 91.
(Thymiopoulos 2023 Young Vines Xinomavro, PGI Macedonia, Apostolos Thymiopoulos, Imathia, Greece, 750 mL, 13%).
Why so many Kung Fu films from China in North America? Surely there are more Chinese films of a non martial arts ilk deserving release in North America? Do I have to fly on Cathay Pacific to see them? But until and if that occurs enjoy “The Butcher’s Blade”.
“The Butcher’s Blade” packs in plenty of impressive if not spectacular Kung Fu action but possesses a modern streak encompassing political and moral corruption in a more complicated fashion than simply good guys and bad guys. The seemingly good guys may be eviller than the bad guys! And the bad guys including those whom you may have thought are the good guys are all very bad.
Put another way there is a heavy dose of bad guys messing in politics and grasping for power. There are issues of personal morality at play. Yes, swords are slashing, blood is spurting and unbelievable acrobatics grace the screen but there is something deeper.
Xue Buyi (Liu Fengchao) is a former member of the elite crack Eagle Hall militia who has for over a decade strayed from the elite into a lower level “constable” held in the lowest regard by fellow constables. His best friend is the noodle lady.
The core principles of Eagle Hall officers are capture, interrogation and execution.
As a result of a devastating flood a relief fund comprised of silver ingots is created which is robbed from the Treasury. Xue Buyi is set up as a fall guy for the robbery by Lord Zhang often referred to as Jailer Zhang but rescued seconds before beheading by Lord Huang Shining (Chunyu Shanshan) his former Eagle Hall master.
Xue Buyi is given a chance by Lord Huang to track down the thieves, a desperate lot as they murdered a sizeable police guard to carry off the loot. Xue Buyi and his former best Eagle Hall friend Li Zhen (Yuan Fufu) hunt down Nine-patterned Dragon and Seven-faced-Fox as leaders of the theft operation.
Track down these villains they do and the viewer is treated to a spectacular firework factory and illegal bank fight. There is some well-deserved soy sauce and rapist/slasher revenge involved. Speaking of soy sauce Eagle Hall members love noodles prepared by the noodle lady!
Silver ingots flow amongst the Eagle Hall militia involved upon the apprehension of Dragon and Fox. Payola it would seem as the mastermind behind the relief fund theft is not hunted down. That is where the political intrigue thickens and good and bad are terribly blurred but there may be honour and redemption for Xue Buyi.
Motto of the movie. Politicians are snakes and not to be trusted and in Kung Fu tradition it is safe to say good trumps evil!
Watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Rd3vQCGLU4.
“The Butcher’s Blade” debuts on Digital 12May2026 from Well Go USA Entertainment.
Director is Liu Wenpu.
RKS Films of China Rating 88/100.
“There were the Rougiers, for instance, an old ragged, dwarfish couple who plied an extraordinary trade. They used to sell postcards on the Boulevard St. Michel. The curious thing is that the postcards were sold in sealed packets as pornographic ones, but were actually photographs of châteaux on the Loire; the buyers did not discover this until too late, and of course never complained. The Rougiers earned about a hundred francs a week, and by strict economy managed to be half starved and half drunk. The filth of their room was such that one could smell it in the room below. According to Madame F., neither of the Rougiers had taken off their clothes in four years.”
George Orwell, “Down and Out in Paris and London”, 1933.
“I did everything I could to resist the voice. But I could do nothing about the fear that gripped me tighter with each day that passed. By now, every aspect of my life in the West revolted me. I shuddered every time I had to walk past a high-rise building or get in a lift or drive in a car at high speed. The squeak of solid floorboards under my feet, the pounding of the pavements…I was sick of being boxed in by covered up walls in room with no natural wood. And the odours: the make- up, the perfume, the clothes, the food, the particular smell of the white race that seeped its way into everything. The merest whiff of it was enough to make me gag.”.
Tanizaki Jun’Ichiro, “The Story of Tomada and Matsunaga”
“The walls were as thin as matchwood, and to hide the cracks they had been covered with layer after layer of pink paper, which had come loose and housed innumerable bugs. Near the ceiling long lines of bugs marched all day like columns of soldiers, and at night came down ravenously hungry, so that one had to get up every few hours and kill them in hecatombs. Sometimes when the bugs got too bad one used to burn sulphur and drive them into the next room; whereupon the lodger next door would retort by having his room sulphured, and drive the bugs back
George Orwell, “Down and Out in Paris and London”, 1933.
‘I was Japanese no longer! I had been transformed into a Westerner!
To get there (Japan) you’d have to travel down to Marseilles and board a ship for the Orient. Eastward and eastward you’d sail crossing the seas for six weeks or more until you’d finally reached a small island country called Japan, where the people have yellow faces and live in dark, gloomy houses. They speak in tiny, mumbling voices, and in the morning they sip miso soup out of wooden bowls coated in black lacquer. What a dank, colourless existence. And they don’t even have furniture in those shadowy houses. No beds, no chairs, nothing. They spend their lives down on the floor, crouching under low ceilings and sitting on their heels. Just imagining it made me feel claustrophobic.’ Tanizaki Jun’Ichiro, “The Story of Tomada and Matsunaga”
“It was a very narrow street-a ravine of tall leprous houses. Lurching toward one another in queer attitudes, as though they had been frozen in the act of collapse. All the houses were hotels and packed to the tiles with lodgers, mostly Poles, Arabs and Italians. At the foot of the hotels were tiny bistros where you could be drunk for the equivalent of a shilling. On Saturday nights about a third of the male population of the quarter was drunk. There was fighting over women, and the Arab natives that lived in the cheapest hotels used to conduct mysterious feuds and fight them out with chairs and occasionally revolvers.”
George Orwell, “Down and Out in Paris and London”, 1933.
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