MovieChat Forums > Shin sangoku musô 4 (2005) Discussion > Liu Bei- cannibal.

Liu Bei- cannibal.

posted 17 years ago by forcedtoregister
16 replies | jump to latest

From the History of the Three Kindoms:
Around the time of the battle of Xia Pi, Liu Bei (Xuande) was seeking lodging. He rested with a man called Liu An. Having no meat, Liu An butchered his wife and served her up to Liu Bei, telling him that the meat was wolf.
Xuande ate his fill and went to bed. Next morning, he sees a woman's corpse in the kitchen with her arms butchered. What do you suppose Liu Bei did?

He wept tears of gratitude. I mean, I'm grateful when my hosts put themselves out for my comfort but I wouldn't have them butcher family for my plate.

Can you believe that? This is the virtuous leader of Shu- a cannibal.
I'm sure that in 200AD in China is culturally another planet to a westerner on 2007, but still. And I know it's only a game, but still...

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Moonchild666 17 years ago

I doubt this is true but even if it is....who cares. Liu Bei didn't kill her and if the meat is cooked you can't tell the difference between a wolf or a human. Shame on Liu An.

Lu Bu, O fool! Death is but death, and why are you scared of it?

[–] forcedtoregister 17 years ago

Moonchild666, how narrow your view! I only thought I had raised a point of some minor interest for anyone browsing that might interested in the books behind the game. I find your reply "who cares" churlish and disrespectful and will not leave it go unanswered.

Perhaps the events related are not true, but in view of the fact that this is not contradicted by SGZ or the works of Mao Zonggang (q.v) and considering you make no mention of source I see no reason for your doubt other than the doubt that anyone may cast on anything they feel like doubting. Even Luo Guangzhong, the Shu writer and Xuande apologist, makes mention of it.

Your supposition that one cannot tell the difference between wolf and human meat is, I suspect, groundless. All I can go on is the reported similarity between human meat and pig meat (the straight dope et.al) and the confirmation of a Zimbabwean colleague who used to routinely eat jackal and wild dog- which are at least similar to wolf- that these canine meats bear no similarity to pig. I have eaten neither.

And your judgement, shame on Liu An, does not make allowance for cultural difference, temporal difference or show due deference to the source material: indeed, there was no shame for Liu An insofar as he was rewarded/compensated with a thousand taels of silver by Xuande.

Now, bring your flames and continue your dismissals, I have argued you off the field.

[–] Moonchild666 17 years ago

Maybe my comment was stupid but, if one can tell the difference between wolf and human meat then why didn't Liu Bei notice. My supposition on the meat thing is in fact groundless and probally should not have been mentioned. I don't put too much stock in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel by Luo Guangzhong because let's face after 1000 years the facts change. To be honest I have not read the SGZ bios and i myself admit that my 3 Kingdoms knowledge is not complete.

If I disrespected you than I apologize but even if this legend is true I stick with my comment of "who cares" because what's done is done. Liu bei didn't intentionally kill her and he ate her under false information.

But in terms of truth I think this little story is 100% BS

Lu Bu, O fool! Death is but death, and why are you scared of it?

[–] forcedtoregister 17 years ago

A good response, and a disarming one.

SGZ is very dry indeed, little more than a book of exhaustive lists but still essential reading to anyone seeking knowledge of the Three Kingdoms.

Regarding the Luo Guangzhong, I have read a commentary (I have been trying to find the author for reference but have been forced to desist) wherein it is explained that in those days it was perfectly acceptable to dramatise history and colour the accounts with imagined conversations as long as the officially recorded facts were left intact: this would an acceptable form of reportage. To us, with our modern ways and our insistence on evidence this seems bizarre.
So the battles and some of the interpersonal events are quite correct and in keeping with the official recordings of the day: some of the private conversations are necessarily fiction.
I dislike the books because Guangzhong was of Shu (latterly Wei) and his writing has a definite slant to it. Pro-Shu and Pro-Wei; or at least pro Cao. Wu, the most enduring of the Kingdoms, gets rather short shrift.

Like you, my Three Kingdoms knowledge is essentially lacking. Although I have the important books I cannot commit anything except the main players and the dates of the important battles to memory. It would take immense devotion to commit every detail to memory, every minor character and reference.

It is, after all, only a game to most of us.

[–] Moonchild666 17 years ago

I was also under the impression that the battles and events written in the books were true fact while the conversations are fiction, this is why the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is regarded as a novel.

Few questions for you:
1. Where can I find a copy of SGZ? Amazon maybe?

2.When you say "It is, after all, only a game to most of us" I assume you are refering to the Dynasty Warriors series but are you familiar with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy games for PS2 and PC. ROTK 11 comes out on Feb.7 2007.

Lu Bu, O fool! Death is but death, and why are you scared of it?

[–] forcedtoregister 17 years ago

SGZ is notoriously tricky to find. Abebooks might be a good starting point- I have never seen it on Amazon, but you may see it on eBay from time to time. That's where I got mine, but bidding was very fierce. I'm not sure what your currency is but I ended up shelling out something like £60 (about US$120 at the time)

And I have a handful of ROTK games including the Dynasty Warriors series. If I'm honest, it's only my affection for the books that draws me to the strategy games, since I find there are better strategy games out there- Total War is the one for me, be it Shogun or Rome or what have you. But much love to Koei, they have brought a great many people to the history. They've also created a tribe of ignoramuses that think that Pang De dressed like a Roman and that Chengdu is a small village but we can forgive them.

[–] Moonchild666 17 years ago

Based on the currency that you paid I assume you are from Europe. Where I live now(Canada) SGZ would probally cost me $130-150 if I could even find it.

Yeah, the ROTK games aren't the best strategy games on the market, though #11 is looking pretty good. but I too forgive them because of the subject matter.

You seem to know your games and history so tell me, who is your favorite 3 Kingdoms warrior and what do you think Koei should do with Dynasty Warriors 6 for the next-gen(PS3)

Lu Bu, O fool! Death is but death, and why are you scared of it?

[–] forcedtoregister 17 years ago

My favourite 3 Kingdoms warrior? Tricky- there were so many. I have long had an affection for Xu Shu (I forget his pseudonym and style, but I'm not talking about Xu Chu- Xu Zhu in the games, the fat stupid one) because of the episode where he attracted Xuande's attention in the market place after Xiakou. He displayed enormous filial piety and refused Cao Cao's demands as best he could. But he had only a small part. In terms of the "main" men in the affair, I suppose Cao Cao showed the best and worst of himself and is the richest character, but he has the advantage of having most of the first 60 chapters devoted to him.
In terms of the game, my current favourite is Ling Tong because nunchaku and pyjamas is cool.

As for what Koei should do, my worthless opinion would be that given the processing power of the next gen consoles, more playable characters would be nice. People who only know of T3K through the game would be unaware of the importance of Lu Su or Guo Si. I would like a little more in the way of strategy, but not so much as to take away from the button bashing completely: perhaps one could find ambush tokens as power ups, perhaps more than one kind of musou attack to deal with the different kinds of NPC general, you know how there were basically four or so types? Like the big burly fellow, the desk worker, the two swords general and the armour and spear? Perhaps distictive behaviours and responses could enrich the game. I should like to see more in the way of "side quests", too. Perhaps like Wu Zhang Plains where you need to secure your supply lines or the Battle of Fan Castle where you need to take checkpoints to ensure your reinforcements arrive, more or every level would offer opportunities to strengthen you or weaken them. Care must be taken to ensure that it doesn't become too much like a strategy game.

And finally, just a finishing touch that would be nice but not necessary: individual musou animations rather than the generic lightning effect. Imagine setting of Sun Quan's musou and out of the lightning and smoke rise the ghosts of Sun Ce and Sun Jian! That would work so well! Or Kongming being circled by a prancing dragon as he makes an incantation.

I return the question, what are your views?

[–] Moonchild666 17 years ago

I have many views concerning what changes should be made to the Dynasty Warriors franchise:

1. With the higher storage capacity of Blu-ray disks, I want to see more HD cinematics and they have to be longer than the current 15-25 sec. crap seen in every dynasty game.

2. Better direction of cutscenes(all the death/retreat scenes are laughable)

3. More interesting/intelligent dialogue and for the love of god- some decent voice acting.

4. Much bigger playing fields. In DW5 there was one battle called "Battle of Tian Shui" that had you taking control of An Ding, Nan An, and Tian Shui castle and I swear on horseback you could reach all 3 castles in less than 1 minute.

5.During key levels I want a cinamitic feel. Take for example the Call of Duty series, when the enemy brings out catupult units I want to see the rocks smash into my force and i want to hear mass panic/death amongst my fellow troops same thing with the battle of Chi Bi.

6. Improved AI for both your units and the CPU. It would be nice if my fellow troops actually attacked.

7. More unique combos, smother animations(the Sun Quan musou you mentioned would be sweet) have characters get bruised up/ripped clothing etc.

8. More playable characters and please get rid of Diao Chan, I don't care that she plays an important part in the novel, she sucks.

9. Add some strategy but I was thinking more along the lines of being able to tell your officers where to go if your the main general ex: Cao Cao/Zhuge Liang

10. Keep a dergee of realism I don't want this game to turn into Ninety Nine Nights where you can kill 200 troops with one small combo.

We will see how Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War turns out...

But yeah, 3 Kingdoms talk... which battle/event interests you the most?

Also a side note... What game genres do you enjoy and what console is your preference or are you a PC guy?

Lu Bu, O fool! Death is but death, and why are you scared of it?

[–] forcedtoregister 17 years ago

I agree with most of what you say; I actually like the voice "acting", it's absolutely preposterous and very amusing, even the hopeless mispronuncuation (Cow Cow, Cow Pea etc etc.). I also like the mad body counts- "Cao Pi has defeated 50 enemies!" when you're just clocking 1000: the intro with Yilong cutting a swathe through a cornfield of enemies is what I want in-game.

My preferred battle/event would be the whole Red Cliffs (Chibi) incident and the fallout, where the million strong army was defeated and Kongming engineered a return to power, taking the main cities of Jingzhou (Jing) despite the best efforts of Zhou Yu and Sun Quan to establish their power in the area.

Games wise, I am an old man and what you might call a veteran. At all times I acknowledge the superior abilities of the PC for strategy and FPS (with the exception of the N64's Goldeneye, the best FPS of all time. Your mileage may vary.) I have been gaming since 1982 and to this day own a dozen consoles that see semi-regular service; I still love my Dreamcast and N64, and I still take the SNES down from time to time. I have yet to see any reason to buy a 360 or a PS3. Flashy graphics do not thrill me: many so-called "next gen" strategies look good but still cannot compare to the original Command and Conquer. Genre-wise I have a preference for Strategy, either realtime or turn based. But how many hours of my life I have sacrificed to GTA!

[–] Moonchild666 17 years ago

Gaming since 1982, very impressive, you are definentely older than I. The Battle of Chi Bi was interesting but there is no way that Cao's army had a million men...

On that matter, your probally exited as I am about the upcoming movie Battle of Red Cliff directed by John Woo. With a reasonable budget of 50 million it better be good and give justice to the actual event.

Yeah, GTA is good but I prefer the Driver series and as for next-gen, I am a PS3 supporter. You must me a night person because all your posts on this thread are always between midnight and like 7:00 AM.

And I gotta ask, you lived during the 70-80's, are you a Heavy Metal fan?

Lu Bu, O fool! Death is but death, and why are you scared of it?

[–] forcedtoregister 17 years ago

Red Cliff: if anyone can do it, John Woo can. Ang Lee's gone a bit artsy, I think. I hope it will be sympathetically done, but 50 mill of Hollywierd's money means that we will probably have someone with a cut-glass English accent voicing Cao, because English= villainy. And I hope that there's not too much CG. CG has it's place (fleets of ships in wide river combat would be impossible to direct) but it seems to take the place of film maker's craft nowadays. The Harry Potter films are a great example of "no idea, just get the CG boys to do it" film-making.

Console-wise I do not think it prudent to be a "supporter" of one format or another. But that's easy for me to say, I have both the income and dedication to buy what I want. When it comes to 16 bit, how can one say Megadrive (Genesis) OR SNES (Super Famicom)? How can one choose PS2 OR Xbox? And when the software makes it worthwhile, I will buy PS3 AND XB360. My son is 5 now, he's just discovering the delights of the SNES and Megadrive.

I am in the UK and you'd be some hours behind me, my posts are usually made in work. And yeah, I'm an old-school metalhead. I apologise for giving yet further opinion, but it has to be old school. There are bands around now with undeniable merit (Avenged Sevenfold are a good example) among others but they seem to be more about selling T-shirts than killer discs. I have time for Metallica, Slayer et al, but the NWOBHM bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest are the main thing, and before them other British bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zep, Deep Purple all matter more than many bands today. I love your country's Rush, they are visionary. I spit on "nu-rock".

But I talk (type) too much.

[–] Moonchild666 17 years ago

Alright let's get this started, the common interests/hobby's that we hold continues to grow... I LOVE IRON MAIDEN!!! I have all 14 of there studio albums and hell look at my username, it revolves around the first song off of Maiden's 1988 release Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son and the Number Of The Beast.

Hell yes that "nu-rock" sucks and that the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal is where it's at.

About the John Woo movie... it's budget is actually 36,000,000 and the film will be in Chinese(like Hero etc.) No white people in this movie, if you want to know more about it...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Red_Cliff_%28film%29

As for the PS3 thing, I have grown up with Playstation systems(I'm only 18) but to get the full gaming merit I'll probally buy both the 360 and PS3.

Finally, you haven't mentioned the WII, since you own previous Nintendo hardware what is your opinion on the new machine-revolutionary or a gimmick?

Lu Bu, O fool! Death is but death, and why are you scared of it?

[–] forcedtoregister 17 years ago

Why, the Wii is both revolutionary and gimmick! Nintendo has a fine history of inventing or popularising new forms of control: the joypad itself, shoulder buttons, analog sticks, rumble packs, triggers on pads- not necessarily inventions of the big N, but certainly brought to the masses by them.

Again, I would buy a Wii when the software support renders it prudent to do so: I am a massive fan of the Zelda series. But I find the Wii's games so far suffer from the perennial Nintendo complaint of being a bit childish.

It is refreshing to see someone half my age (yep, half) with a taste for good music.

Today is my birthday and I received the DVDs of Romance of the Three Kindoms. 20 odd discs containing all 84 episodes (at a mere £50, too!). Best you believe my social life is going to suffer.

[–] Moonchild666 17 years ago

Today is my birthday and I received the DVDs of Romance of the Three Kindoms. 20 odd discs containing all 84 episodes (at a mere £50, too!). Best you believe my social life is going to suffer.

You lucky lucky b@stard, well all I can say is happy birthday and enjoy the show.

Lu Bu, O fool! Death is but death, and why are you scared of it?