Blowing Up the Movies: Game the Action Movie Classics

by Robin D. Laws

TWENTY-FOUR ACTION MOVIES EXPLODE

Robin D. Laws, game designer by day, cinema super-enthusiast by night, sets his analytic laser sights on action and thrills in a collection of essays sure to supercharge your tabletop roleplaying experience.

As the countdown ticks and the bullets fly, Robin takes you inside the workings of 24 action movies, from the stone cold classic to the unjustifiably obscure. Each essay shows you how the film delivers, and the lessons you can extract from it to enhance your own efforts as GM or player. Explore:

• Star Wars as a model of storytelling economy.

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to see how fights can express inner drama.

• Seven Samurai as a master class in theme.

• Die Hard as textbook cat-and-mouse.

• The Killer, to learn the blood-soaked vocabulary of blood- soaked hyper-romanticism.

• Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, because deer fu.

Though honed as a companion volume to the exciting new reboot of his classic RPG Feng Shui, you can easily apply this book’s insights to any game with swords or explosions in it.

With a special focus on high water marks of the Hong Kong action golden age, alongside the flicks that inspired it and were inspired by it, the book also serves up a crash course in that essential action canon.

So dig in, fire up one of these flicks for the first or five millionth time, and be ready to be blown up. Er, away. Blown away.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gaming, Games, Role Playing Games, Film

146 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Writer and game designer Robin D. Laws brought you such roleplaying games as Ashen Stars, The Esoterrorists, The Dying Earth, Heroquest and Feng Shui. He is the author of seven novels, most recently The Worldwound Gambit from Paizo. For Robin's much-praised works of gaming history and analysis, see Hamlet's Hit Points, Robin's Laws of Game Mastering and 40 Years of Gen Con.

Reviews

[Ernesto I. Ramirez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent analysis of different movies and their valuable elements for use in RPG games, but just for the rich analysis of each movie, of its elements and its comparison with others of its kind, this read is completely worthwhile.

It's not only a travel through well known (and some pretty unknown movies), it's a deep analysis of their themes, their characters, the tropes they genre use. So in general is quite useful both for the roleplayer (either fen shuist or otherwise) as to simply the cinephile with a preference with Asian movies, and particularly Hong Kong cinema.

[Brian Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick read that was deeply amusing and highly informative. Robin's game writing is always both fun and flavorful - the original Feng Shui rule book is one I reread for fun - so him riffing on the cinema that is Feng Shui's foundation can be expected to be good. But in addition to be a good set of reviews and a primer on action cinema and what makes great pieces of it great it's full of very solid GM advice. Highly recommended.

[Felix Castro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laws is obviously a devotee of Hong Kong action films. His latest is in is essence a supplement to his latest rpg Feng Shui 2. in it, he breaks down some of the more popular Hong Kong films and how to incorporate their themes into Feng Shui sessions. Less meaty scene by scene analysis than Hamlet's Hit Points, this book nevertheless helps GMs capture the spirit of the films about which Laws writes.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting walk through a lot of action cinema with a focus on 1.) Hong Kong cinema and 2.) how the movies apply towards roleplaying games (specifically Feng Shui 2, but probably applicable elsewhere). It's a pretty interesting read as a gamer and also interesting as a fan of those sorts of movies.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Half movie analysis and half gaming advice. This book examines a number of (mostly) Asian action movies and then offers advice on how to incorporate one or more elements from them into your roleplaying game sessions.

The focus in on Feng Shui 2 with some references to other games by the author, but most of the advice could be applied to other games as well.

[CountZeroOr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good critical analysis from a gaming (Feng Shui in particular) perspective of various action films, from Hong Kong and the west, along with a bunch of great film recommendations. Definitely worth picking up.

[Loki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun dissection of the tropes and practices of action movies, especially the ones made in Hong Kong in the Eighties and Nineties, and how you can use these to enhance your gaming experience. I'm planning some more colourful combats in my next game...

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5. Absolutely worth reading as an rpg or Hong Kong film fan.