TWILIGHT HOUR
It’s been 10 years since the last film based on Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series was released. HT looks back at the saga that changed the vampire from a figure of horror to a teen romantic hero
It landed in my mailbox one morning in 2008. The subject line was ‘mush’ and inside, along with the link to an e-book, was a one-line directive from a friend – ‘read it’. I ignored it. After all, my distaste for mush was well known. But she was insistent. And so it was that on a rainy, overcast day in Kolkata, which could compete with an average day in the US town of Forks – where Stephenie Meyer’s The Twilight Saga is set – in terms of the weather that I started reading the first of the series of four books that turned Meyer from a stay-at-home mom of three to a bestselling author. But it wasn’t until several chapters later, when the story’s young protagonist Bella realises that Edward, the boy who had occupied her thoughts from the moment she first saw him at the school canteen, was a vampire, would I understand why my friend wanted me to read the book. A human-vampire romance!
It’s been 10 years since the last book of The Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn, was
45 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH, BRUCE LEE LIVES ON IN THE MEMORY OF HIS FANS
A part of his legacy is the popularity of eastern martial arts around the world. Bruce Lee starred in five (yes, just five) English language films. But they had a huge contribution in creating an awareness of eastern martial arts.
It did not happen overnight. Bruce Lee started teaching martial arts in 1959. He was on the fringes of Hollywood for years. He choreographed action scenes, outlined plots. But he was on the point of giving up on a film career. The breakthrough came at the Long Island Karate Championship in 1964, where he performed two-finger push-ups and demonstrated his “one-inch punch”. These two sum up his appeal – phenomenal physical conditioning, and the mystique of effective demolition. He was noticed. He landed the role of Kato in the TV series The Green Hornet. He was on the way to fame. Or was he? The starring roles did not happen. Until he returned to Hong Kong in 1970. And found that Kato was a bigger celebrity than the Hornet.
In 1971, Lee starred in The Big Boss, produced by Golden Harvest. The film was a huge success. His next film, Fist of Fury, was an even bigger hit. Bruce Lee was a star. By the time Enter the Dragon was released, he was an international phenomenon. Ironically, Lee did not follow any particular school of martial arts. His own creation, Jeet Kune Do (“the intercepting fist”) was based on his “style of no style”, an amalgam of all that he found effective. His screen persona was strongly Asian, enigmatic, mystic. But he himself believed in weight training, protein drinks, vitamin supplements. He popularised the commitment to physical excellence, the paramount importance of systematic training. His washboard abs were aspirational, but he also made dedication sexy. That may be his greatest legacy.