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(03-24-2026, 11:01 AM)Greg Wrote: Is that a euphemism?
Shaolin Experience is clearly a euphemism. And a trademarked one at that.
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https://gizmodo.com/youtuber-resolves-fr...2000737954
Quote:YouTuber Resolves Fraternal Disagreement With Excavator and Hilariously Large Sword
But mom, he started it!
Tom Hawking
Published March 28, 2026, 8:00 am ET
![[Image: Handy-Geng-sword-machine.png]](https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/03/Handy-Geng-sword-machine.png)
Handy Geng sword machine © Handy Geng / YouTube
If you’ve just lost to your brother in a fight that involved you both dressing in Ned Kellyarmor made from barrels and swatting each other with absurdly large weapons, do you honorably admit defeat and step away… or do you escalate things by fabricating a comically large sword, strapping it to the arm of a construction excavator, and driving up to his doorstep to demand a rematch?
Such was the dilemma facing Hong Kong-based YouTube maniac Handy Geng. Geng specializes in constructing, let’s say, idiosyncratic machines. Some of his more memorable recent projects include “Handmade Revolver Lithium Drill” (a power drill built to look like the sort of hand-cannon that’d put Marty Robbins to shame) and “Homemade Alpaca Sausage Grill Machine” (exactly what it sounds like). So there was only ever really going to be one outcome here, and happily for those of us who enjoy watching people build very silly machines, he chose… violence.
The result, inspired by the sword wielded by a character in the manga Bleach, is one of the most impressively deranged things we’ve seen on the internet for quite some time—and we’ve seen some pretty ridiculous things of late. (Come to think of it, Handy Geng would have fit right in with the good folk at Survival Research Laboratories.) I mean, the blade must be a good 15 feet long:
© Handy Geng / YouTube
It’s fitted to the excavator arm by way of a custom-fabricated sheet metal fist, which is honestly a really impressive piece of work, not least because it also includes a speaker for blasting “intimidating music.” Geng is clearly very proud of the finished product, cackling happily as he slices and dices his way through a succession of unfortunate objects—he starts, inexplicably, with a watermelon (“It sliced very well!”), before progressing to two water barrels, a couple of derelict cars, and finally his unsuspecting brother’s three-wheeled rickshaw-type vehicle.
The brother in question is, understandably, nonplussed by the appearance of a 10-ton death machine on his doorstep. “Isn’t this basically cheating?” he asks—which, y’know, fair point. Geng, of course, has no time for such quibbling, and the video closes with brother and excavator locked in mortal combat. Who will prevail? Watch this space!
(We should add that this is all good-natured fun, and that you should absolutely not try things like “unleashing a gigantic and potentially lethal weapon upon my unsuspecting brother” at home. No matter how much he pisses you off.)
—tg
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Every Frame a Painting discusses The Blade:
the hands that guide me are invisible
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05-12-2026, 12:56 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-12-2026, 12:57 AM by Drunk Monk.)
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(03-22-2023, 10:18 PM)Drunk Monk Wrote:
HIDARI
https://gizmodo.com/keanu-reeves-gets-hi...2000759735
Quote:Keanu Reeves Gets His Samurai On with Stop-Motion ‘Hidari’ Film
Justin Carter
Do you like movies with stop-motion animation, samurai, or Keanu Reeves? If you answered “yes” to either, you may be interested in Hidari, an upcoming stop-motion movie that just landed Reeves in the lead role.
Directed and written by Masashi Kawamura, the film is a feature-length version of his 2023 samurai short film about Jingorō Hidari. In real life, Hidari was a man of many talents during Japan’s Edo period, including an architect, sculptor, and comedian. Kawamura’s film is loosely based on Hidari’s legend and will portray him as a man out for revenge after the death of his father figure and fiancee and the loss of his right arm. Having replaced his lost arm with a variety of mechanical prosthetics, Hidari and his wooden Sleeping Cat companion will hunt down those responsible and learn how it all connects to the reconstruction of Edo Castle.
“From the proof of concept to the developed script, the [Hidari] team has created something truly extraordinary,” said Reeves in a press release. “It has all the makings of an exceptional film — one I’m excited to see and eager to be part of. I believe this project has the potential to bring something very special to audiences worldwide.”
Likewise, Kawamura is “super excited” to team with Reeves on his film. “When someone with his experience and creative vision watches your proof of concept and says, ‘I want to be part of this,’ it’s an incredible feeling. He’s not just lending his voice to Hidari — he’s helping us shape and expand this world, and I can’t wait to see where we take it together.”
Look for the Keanu Reeves-led Hidari to hit theaters in the near future.
--tg
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(05-19-2026, 10:54 PM)thatguy Wrote: (03-22-2023, 10:18 PM)Drunk Monk Wrote:
HIDARI
https://gizmodo.com/keanu-reeves-gets-hi...2000759735
Quote:Keanu Reeves Gets His Samurai On with Stop-Motion ‘Hidari’ Film
Justin Carter
Do you like movies with stop-motion animation, samurai, or Keanu Reeves? If you answered “yes” to either, you may be interested in Hidari, an upcoming stop-motion movie that just landed Reeves in the lead role.
Directed and written by Masashi Kawamura, the film is a feature-length version of his 2023 samurai short film about Jingorō Hidari. In real life, Hidari was a man of many talents during Japan’s Edo period, including an architect, sculptor, and comedian. Kawamura’s film is loosely based on Hidari’s legend and will portray him as a man out for revenge after the death of his father figure and fiancee and the loss of his right arm. Having replaced his lost arm with a variety of mechanical prosthetics, Hidari and his wooden Sleeping Cat companion will hunt down those responsible and learn how it all connects to the reconstruction of Edo Castle.
“From the proof of concept to the developed script, the [Hidari] team has created something truly extraordinary,” said Reeves in a press release. “It has all the makings of an exceptional film — one I’m excited to see and eager to be part of. I believe this project has the potential to bring something very special to audiences worldwide.”
Likewise, Kawamura is “super excited” to team with Reeves on his film. “When someone with his experience and creative vision watches your proof of concept and says, ‘I want to be part of this,’ it’s an incredible feeling. He’s not just lending his voice to Hidari — he’s helping us shape and expand this world, and I can’t wait to see where we take it together.”
Look for the Keanu Reeves-led Hidari to hit theaters in the near future.
--tg
Cool. Poaching this for KFM
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05-20-2026, 01:32 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-20-2026, 01:34 PM by Greg.)
I don't know how much you follow the NBA, but Wembayama is one of the leagues rising superstars. You can read more at ESPN. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/4881...wembanyama
ESPN wrote Wrote:MASTER YAN'AN HAS trained at the Shaolin Temple in the Henan province of China since he was 6 years old. He has climbed the roughly 1,500 stone steps up Wuru Peak to the Bodhidharma Cave thousands of times. None of the steps is the same size or height. Some are narrow; some are tall. During the day, tourists who visit the temple usually take one to two hours to reach the peak. It is not advised to climb at night. There are no lights along the trail, and one wrong step could send a hiker tumbling down the steep staircase.
But Master Yan'an had an unusual student last summer. San Antonio Spurs All-NBA center Victor Wembanyama was looking for a challenge that would test him in ways he'd never been tested before. He wanted to build his inner strength alongside his already prodigious physical strength.
His goals, he said, transcended mere athletic glory.
"I told him: You play basketball, and I do kung fu. If you want to be great, you have to do things that other people can't do," Master Yan'an told ESPN. "There are two parts to climbing the mountain. The daytime is for your body. Your endurance, your strength. The nighttime is for your mind. Your awareness."
Wembanyama understood.
After darkness fell on the sixth night of his retreat at the Shaolin Temple last summer, he joined Master Yan'an and a group of monks for a hike to the Bodhidharma Cave.
"There were no lights anywhere," Master Yan'an said. "You can't see anything. The only way to go is step by step. Listen to your breath and listen to your heart. Feel each step with your foot. Use your awareness."
EDITOR'S PICKS
Two staffers from San Antonio who had accompanied Wembanyama expressed their reservations. Master Yan'an worried, too. He'd been entrusted to train a global icon, a generational talent, and they were about to embark on a treacherous mountain path in total darkness.
"He's really young, and he has a really great future in basketball," Master Yan'an said. "He's also very tall, so he hit his head on some of the trees along the path and had to lean forward to go under them." But the entire point of this training, he said, was to free your mind from fear and trust your awareness to guide you.
The group walked and climbed for about an hour, a moving meditation in darkness and silence.
Throughout his time at the monastery, meditation had been the most difficult aspect for Wembanyama to embrace. It's hard for someone 7-foot-4 to sit cross-legged at all, let alone silently for up to 90 minutes, without moving.
But he kept at it. Each night he slept in three single-size beds that had been pushed together to accommodate his frame. Each morning he rose at 4:30 to train. The monks would have him run through the forests near the monastery or along an uneven 200-meter hillside track, doing frog jumps, sprints and one-legged hops uphill and downhill to build his balance and stamina.
They taught him the Shaolin 13 Fist Form -- one of the two basic forms of kung fu meant to teach efficient weight shifts, stability and striking principles.
Master Yan'an said he designed Wembanyama's customized martial arts training to emphasize controlling his center of gravity, which would generate force from different positions and resist external forces, to mimic the double-teams and physical play he'd face from NBA opponents.
Several times a day Wembanyama meditated with 100 other monks, each session's length determined by the length of the wick of incense that burned in the center of the room. Thirty minutes was doable. But sometimes the incense burned for 90 minutes, and it was agonizing for the then-21-year-old Wembanyama to sit that long.
"I knew he could do it," Master Yan'an said. "Because when he trains, he always tries again and again until he is the best."
Master Yan'an recognized then what the basketball world is recognizing now: that Victor Wembanyama has perhaps the most unprecedented set of skills and untapped potential anyone has ever seen, and that he requires a similarly unprecedented training regimen to realize it.
This is the story of how 34 generations of Shaolin warrior history trained a once-in-a-generation NBA superstar -- helping to build the player who not only dominated the league's best team in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals with frightening ease, but who also looks poised to do so for the rest of his nascent career.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm
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05-20-2026, 04:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-20-2026, 05:15 PM by Drunk Monk.)
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ESPN is a little slow.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm
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