Entry 124: "The Sword with No Name" (2009)

You are not getting more images than this today.

Dear Internet,

                "The Sword with No Name" is a 2009 South Korean romance film set in the late Joseon period.  A literal translation of the original title "불꽃처럼 나비처럼" would be "Like Fireworks, Like Butterflies" which makes sense with some of the films imagery and a lot more sense than "The Sword with No Name."   Specifically, the fictitious film takes place from around 1866 until 1895.  It is most important to highlight the fictitious aspect of the film within the same breath as the very real dates because the film tells of the very real Empress Myeongseong and her fictitious lover/admirer Moo-myeong.  

                The film centers itself around the two characters Moo-myeong, the bounty hunter who as a child had witnessed his mother being killed for practicing Catholicism, and Ja-yeong, the soon to be bride of the king of Joseon despite her obvious hesitations.  Ja-yeon decides to visit the ocean once more before her marriage to ease her mind.  Along the way, she comes across Moo-myeong, whom she asks for a boat ride down the river to the sea.  The man agrees, and both get close to one another during the trip.  After her marriage, Moo-myeong attempts to gain entry into the royal guard so that he can be closer to Ja-yeaong or even see her for that matter.  Even after proving his courage and entering into the guard, it is not for some time before he gets the chance to talk to her again.  Meanwhile, there is a political conspiracy that comes from the outside Japanese influence and from the old king and regent of Joeson.  The political side erupts and threatens not only Joseon's stability as a country but also the life of Ja-yeong.  It is up to Moo-myeong to save the queen while remembering both of their positions as ruler and subject.

                You can tell already that the film is a romance first with a history lesson taking back stage.  The dynamic of the two main characters is the constant string throughout the film.  In the beginning, we wonder if they are going to run off and she will not marry the king.  In the middle, we wonder if they are going to run off and leave the king.  In the end, we wonder much the same as in the middle.  The relationship between the two never gets more than platonic, although there was a night in a damp and cold cave that left me more than confused.  Despite this, or because of this, their non-sexual relationship the romance was for the most part done very sweetly.  You can see the devotion Moo-myeong has for Ja-yeong throughout the film.  His feelings do not stem straightly from shallow reasons like Ja-yeong's appearance or status.  He continues to strive to protect her with his very life for the entirety of the film.

                I will not even try to touch upon the historical accuracies of this film.  I will save that for someone much more knowledgeable in that department.  If you know your Korean history, the film's suspense filled scenes that risk the safety of the queen melt away in a moment.  It is like wondering while watching a biographical film about Julies Caesar if he is going to die on the battlefield.  If you have paid attention to that section of your history class in school, you do not have to worry about him until March comes rolling around.  If you know how the actual queen had died, then you know what to expect of the film.  The only question then for any sort of suspense is if Moo-myeong is going to die first.  His life is constantly in jeopardy.  Even when they return from the trip to the ocean, he ends up taking a few knives to his back in protecting her.  This leads into the action oriented scenes that dot the film.

                There is an immense portion of the film that is dedicated to action scenes.  Moo-myeong wields a weapon that looks like a cross between a butcher knife and a machete.  It is an intimidating weapon that he used in his life as a bounty hunter and continued to use while a palace guard.  It does seem out of place in the film, especially when he continues to wear it while garbed in a regulated uniform, but at least the film treats it with a purpose rather than merely having the weapon as a flashy object.  When he fights, he makes obvious use of the blade's unique design rather than using it as a longer bladed weapon.  The fights in the film are there most likely to amuse the boyfriends and husbands of the woman that had dragged their man to go see the film.  Thankfully, the film does not shirk away from giving its all to entertaining the thrill seekers in the audience.  The first major fight occurs between Moo-myeong and the master swordsman Noe-jeon, who is also the captain of the guard.  Their battle is quickly shifted to computer graphic assisted choreography.   This basically means that it becomes a fight between super-humans instead of being realistic.  That does not mean it is not entertaining.  The two men jump about two small boats on a lake, kicking and slashing to the point that the camera can barely keep up.  Only one other time in the film did I notice that the fight was heavily altered using computer graphics to make it more dynamic.  The second time was a little too over the top for my taste, actually melting away the setting.  What makes me hesitant to like the second time is the fact that there are witnesses to the fight.  The film can play off the first fight as being over the top because the two men are fighting alone, but since the second fight is being witnessed by a large group of people, the over-the-top action feel out of place.  It is still fun to watch it, but the gnawing problem hits the back of my head.

                Within the film, there is a great level of political intrigue and conspiracies that take place.  They were confusing to me for much of the film.  It was only about halfway through the film that I fully understood what I should have.  This might have more to do with the how common knowledge of the timeframe is for the average South Korean as compared to an outside viewer than it have to do with the amount of information that the film gives out.  If this is the case, then I cannot strike it against the film.  I did, however, find parts confusing enough that I was lost for large amounts of time.  Eventually, I pulled together who was backstabbing who, but perhaps I might just be slow when it concerns Asian politics.

                Then there is Moo-myeong's origin scene.  The film opens up with Moo-myeong as a child witnessing his parents being killed for practicing Catholicism.  This is a harsh stain on the history of Korea, but the film paints it less as a crime against religion and more of an attack against Westernization.  This might be because this was the reason for the attack since through the film, the old guard is seen striving to keep Joeson free from Western influence.  The old king constantly fights with the queen about how she interjects Western ability and individuals into the inner court.  The film wants to makes sure that the clash of East meets West is the center point for the confrontation between generations and individuals.  This is all well and understandable, however, the fact that Moo-myeong is shown to having lost his parents in one of these clashes years ago is a big hole in the story.  I do not mean that it creates a hole within the narrative, but that it creates a hole in his character.  Other than the Christian name that his mother gives him, Johannes, and a cross shaped scar on his chest that is never explained, he has no connection to those that dies that night years ago.  He does not seek out some sort of vengeance or shown to have any sort of ill will towards those that killed his parent.  In fact, there is no connecting theme to his past to the events that occur elsewhere in the film.  It just dissolves instead of being a character trait.  At that point, there really is no reason to having him be born of Catholic parents or even parents who were "Westernized."  The persecution scene is there only to illustrate the level of resistance that Joseon had to Western influences, not add character depth to Moo-myeong.  

                "The Sword with No Name" is an average film.  It does somewhat OK with the romance, action, and suspense, but nothing great or memorable worth revisiting for a second time.  You might find a moment or two that is poignant, but it is surrounded by a lot of filler.  I should not make it seem like the film has got nothing going for itself.  The romance is handled very well, showcasing Moo-myeong's devotion and the conflict with Ja-yeong having to be queen to a king she does not love.  Instead of shirking their responsibilities, like flighty children, they act accountable, respecting one another and the duties of the other, even if that means denying themselves.  The film does this one thing well, but the rest was just average.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "Parasite Dolls."

Entry 110: "Dodes'ka-den" (1970)

"Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack"

Dear Internet,

                This is the fifth Akira Kurosawa film I have gone over for the Backlog, and I will say it up front that I was unimpressed more or less.  I would rather not beat around the bush concerning what I think about this film.  Partially because I want to get this review over as quickly as possible but mostly because I would like to save you from having to experience a review as adrift as this film was.  The film suffers heavily because of this meandering narrative that goes nowhere for two hours.

                "Dodes'ka-den" is set in a landfill.  As far as the eye can see, there is trash and debris thrown about.  The houses are built from secondary materials and anything else the denizens can get a hold of.  The film follows around a collection of individuals as they go about their daily life in the shanty town.  There is the homeless bum and his son who dream of a house to call their own.  There are two couples, who are color coded for the convenience of the audience that regularly trade spouses.  There is the mentally handicapped child who daily goes out and works an imaginary tram late into the night.  On top of that are a number of other individuals that make a scattering of the setting.  As the film rolls, the audience witnesses a few mix-matched small stories play out.  All these small plots unwinds, the various characters that make up the world are displayed in deeper detail.

                If you are looking for a more cohesive story, you are not going to find one here.  "Dodes'ka-den" is about nothing in particular.  There is no overarching unification of the various stories or of the characters to one another very much.  For the most part, all of the various stories are independent of one another to the point that it feels less like a feature film and more like a series of short ones edited together.  The closest thing that unifies the stories together, besides the setting, is the collection of unnamed women that seem to perpetually do their dishes in the communal water source.  Yet, that is about the height of their interaction with any of the various stories.  They act more as narrators to create exposition through the gossip they pass to one another and inadvertently to the audience.

                What ends up happening with this lack of cohesion between the various stories is a somewhat haphazard final product.  While each one of the various stories can be taken by itself and examined to see what it is trying to showcase to the audience, the collection as a whole does not seem to have any specific direction.  Since there are only a few times that the various stories intermingle, the only thing that can be argued is that the film as a whole is meant to showcase a certain level of futility considering the rounding nature of the opening and closing segments.

                The film opens up and closes with the child that believes he is a tram conductor.  We see him begin his daily routine with all the various miming to show where his imaginary tram exists.  The audience sees his mother, who prays to Buddha alongside her son.  At the end of the film, we see him return to his home and finish his daily grind.  As bookends, these scenes do create some sort of framing mechanic, but that is about as far as it goes.  At first, I thought the film was going to follow specifically the child and treat him as a main character, but this is not the case.  After only a few minutes with this character, the film abandons him for all of two or three scenes here and there until the last scene.  When I figured out that the scope of the film was much larger than one character, I thought that maybe the film was going to continue to use him as some sort of segue to the various stories, but that did not seem to be the case.  Then I thought that the film would be using him as a sort of foil for the various characters and highlight their faults and problems, but that did not seem to be the case.  The film does not use enough juxtaposition to warrant such an outlook.  The film as a whole did not seem to have a specific direction as to where it was going.  If the point was that life is just going in an endless circle, it is a somewhat depressing point.

                There is one thing that the film does well that I cannot leave out.  "Dodes'ka-den" is Akira Kurosawa's first color film, and he presents a wonderfully vibrant world of color.  In the landfill world of the film, any sort of color quickly attracts the eye to it.  Take the color coded couples.  You can easily tell when one husband is cheating on his wife when he walks into the wrong colored house.  Then there are two characters that get gravely sick.  Kurosawa has the two painted up with deep hues of green and blue to highlight their physical maladies.  But the greatest visual display has got to be the tram child's home.  The home is made in a simple Japanese style manner, built of wood and paper.  However, instead of plain white paper being used to line the wooden doors, a large number of either crayon or water colored drawings are used.  Each one of the drawings depicts a tram car.  The effect created when the film shows the interior of the house in the morning is a beautiful stained glass house.  The light passes through the drawings and the house is illuminated by it.  Color is one of few things that the film gets spot on.

                You might find something about "Dodes'ka-den" to like.  In fact, there are a number of characters and stories to like here, but I did not find the film as a whole to be enjoyable.  At times, the quiet scenes added a dynamic to the behavior of characters, but would also make the film stretch out a bit too long.  For a film that is about nothing in particular, it takes quite a while to say nothing.  It reminds me a bit of Kurosawa's earlier work, "The Lower Depths."  While both films detail those that rest at the bottom of society, at least "Lower Depths" had something to say.  Albeit it was Russian realism, which means Russian pessimism, but at least that film carried a bit of suspense to a central plot.  "Dodes'ka-den" is like a slice of life film without any of the genre's charm.  Outside of the tram child, there is not much worth watching the film for.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell" for PC, provided I can get it operational.

Entry 109: "Battle Royale"

Dear Internet,

                You will note if you have quickly skimmed the rest of this entry that the logo is the only image that I am posting for this review.  This is because "Battle Royale" is one of the bloodiest films that I have come across.  Not the most graphic considering some parts that I will cover in a bit, but definitely one of the bloodiest.  The film cannot be less graphic than it already is if it wants to tell the story and message it is trying to convey.  What is this terrible story that requires a high level of grotesque actions to exist?

                Some time in the future of Japan, a massive depression hits the country with record high unemployment.  In reaction to this, student protests erupted around the nation.  Fearing the youth, a law was passed which became known as the BR Act.  The BR Act creates a yearly death-match game.  A random middle school class is chosen every year to be thrown onto an island.  There, they are collared with electronic monitoring devices.  Every few hours, a section of the island is marked as a danger zone.  If the student is in one of these danger zones, the collar explodes.  If the student acts against the people running the game, the collar explodes.  If more than one person is alive at the end of the three days, all the collars will explode.  The last person alive will be set free, if there is one.  Every student is given a random weapon that ranges anywhere from a cooking lid, a crossbow, a knife, to a semi-automatic rifle.  These are the rules of the BR, the Battle Royale.

                Well, that is actually more the premise than the story in the film.  The story follows a few select students that participate in a specific yearly game and the former teacher that moderates it with the help of armed personnel.  I could go into details about the various characters, but that would place too much emphasis on specific ones.  This in turn would give away who finally wins the BR, and seeing as the film is a suspenseful one that relies heavily upon the outcome of the game, I will try and not talk about anyone specific.  That does not prevent me from talking about the former teacher, Kitano.  Kitano had been the group's teacher before he left because of being attacked by one of his students with a knife.  He is a multi-layered character, but is also somewhat a broken one.  This comes from the way that the game functions in the greater scheme, but I am again getting ahead of myself for the second time in one entry.  Let me talk about that graphic stuff first.

                The film rarely holds back the plethora of ways that characters die off.  Many students are killed by gunfire.  There are a number of double-suicides, and blood flows like stolen cash through a second world bank.  The film is not meant to be seen by the squeamish or the younger members of the audience.  That having been said, there is not much graphic stuff if you look really close.  Take the students that die by gunfire.  Not a single one had a bullet wound anywhere they were shot.  After hundreds of hours of watching old western films/TV shows, it has become second nature for me to look for bullet holes when someone gets shot.  In "Battle Royale," everyone only gets covered with blood.  One student, when being sliced in the back from a knife, tumbled forward to show where he had been hurt.  The blood was not what struck me first, visually, but the lack of a tear in his shirt.  Many of the "graphic" injuries that take part in the film are represented by these budget makeup tricks that make the film actually less graphic that what it is trying to be.   Sure, some people lose their heads, and quite a number of the violent acts are reproducible in a real life setting, but even a film like "Ichi the Killer" is more graphic despite being even more cartoonish than this film.  Is it the fact that the violence is being done by and towards individuals below the legal adult cutoff?  If that is the case, there needs to be a better reason.

                The film's violence is primarily being done towards and by minors, specifically 15 year-olds or so.  While from a legal point of view, they are seen as children, the film's nature throws this away with the "point" of the game.  The reason that the film's antagonist, Kitano, gives to the students as to why they are being forced to play the twisted game is that Japan has gotten tired of its youth acting like spoiled children.  From a lack of respect to the teachers, skipping school, and even assaulting people, the youth of Japan are painted as delinquents broadly.  In the real world, there are numerous problems with the Japanese educational system and the students that have to go through it.  A quick search of Japanese female bullying can bring up stories and attitudes that will turn your stomach even more than the film can.  The film, however, shows that the adults of the fictitious world shirk their own responsibilities and blame the problems of the children on the children.  It is the polar opposite extreme of the argument "I am this way because of my parents" where the individual shirks the blame higher up the family tree.  The adults of the film wash their hands of the responsibility of the children that they must raise and care for.  Take the suicide of one of the character's parents. This is an obvious running away from the responsibilities of everything in the specific character's life but most importantly the raising of his child.  Then you can take the whole BR game as a whole.  Instead of the government fixing the unemployment problem or even addressing the problems of the educational system, it decides that the children are not acting adult enough.  It concocts a death-match game to scare the students to keep going to school.  The final victor of each game is supposed to be the model individual by the logic of the game.  This only makes it seem that the model Japanese adult is one that should kill the competition ruthlessly for the sake of that one individual rather than aiding the group and working for the betterment of the community.  Then again, that does sound like the typical Japanese businessman mentality.  

                But I have digressed, again.  The violence of the film is no worse than the kind that is found in any other sort of violent action film.  The complete lack of visual wounds makes the violence no worse than stage acting, with blood capsules popping when a trick dagger "stabs" a person.  I have seen animated films be more violent than "Battle Royale," with the actions being directed at a much wider age range.  If one is suppose to be outraged at the violence being done to and by kids, you cannot at the same time sweep under the rug the real world problems that the film is trying to talk about which stem greatly from the educational system.  Japan has got one of the most messed up educational systems in the world.  Between the excessive national ranking exams and the emphasis on rote memorization rather than critical thinking skills, it is a wonder that the country is still able to function with the stress being placed squarely on the student.  If you do not get into a top level college, you are branded a failure with the stigma following you even to your job years later.  That is after you get into the prestigious high school before that.  The label of failure is placed so much on an individual who does not meet the expectations of this top percentile mentality that many people become shut-ins for years, refusing to try interacting with the world.  The mentality that these individuals should just "grow up and get a job" is the same kind that is directed to the students.  While there is some truth to the fact that one should take hold of one's life, the attitude that kids should just grow up as quickly as possible and begin to fit a broken mold is lunatic in nature.  They are the way they are because you molded them that way.  It reminds me of the lyrics of the song "Institutionalized" which went like:

                "How can you say what my best interest is? What are you trying to say, I'm crazy?
                When I went to your schools, I went to your churches,
                I went to your institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'm crazy?"

You cannot blame the child without also blaming the adult.  Both are responsible, not one without the other.

                The film is an obvious critique of the nature of Japanese upbringing where the adult is barely an adult themselves and criticizes the child for being a child.  However, the film does not make this critique well because of how it handles the reason for the game.  While on one hand, the fact that the Japanese adult makes an outlandish decision to bring forth a death-match to shirk the blame of how the youth are acting up and to attempt to discipline the youth is a great way to showcase the real life manner that parents hide from their responsibilities, it just does not come across as feasible in its explanation.  The fact that a bigger uprising against the government does not occur in response to an inhuman decision to bring back the gladiatorial games and mix it together with a Communistic fear of the government is hard to believe, but then again, there is a sequel that deals a bit like that.  The film does little to nothing to present why the game is the way it is.  It would be understandable if the true answer to the game was to not kill one another and that after three days all the survivors were let go free.  The film does not go into detail as to why the government makes the game.  Is it supposed to make the student populace obey?  It cannot since the class for the game is chosen at random according to the rules.  It is supposed to show the populace that a dog-eat-dog mentality is the best kind?  Surely not, since it would then be condoning wanton murder in the streets.  Is the government trying to control the rest of the populace into fearing for the lives of their children?  This cannot be the case since every adult, save one, thinks not for what is truly best for the children but that they should be aiming for this messed-up ideology.  The film just does a poor job in rationalizing the reason for the BR game that it becomes a nagging bug in the back of the mind.  It continues to nag for the whole film.  

                "Battle Royale" is a good film that knows how to keep the audience on the edge of their seat.  You can think of it as "Ten Little Indians" mixed with "The Orient Express."  A group of people are confined to a single place, and the mystery killer is everyone.  While it does try to tackle some modern problems of Japan, it does so ham-fisted by concocting a game with broken motives.  It would have done a better job if it tackled the problems head on, rather than going through a roundabout way.  In the end, it makes me want to pick up "Jisatsutou" which handled an apathetic government better.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Tomorrow is "Dodes'ka-den."

Entry 105: "The Lower Depths" (1957)

Dear Internet,

                "The Lower Depths" is the second film by Akira Kurosawa which has got stems in play acting that I have reviewed for this Backlog.  If you remember, the first was "Throne of Blood" which was based off of Shakespeare's "Macbeth."  This film is based on a play by the same name, written by Maxim Gorky.  I am unfamiliar with the play.  So, I cannot do some sort of adaptation awareness review as I did with "Throne of Blood", and I will not try.  From what I have read, the film is a close adaptation, and in some aspects, this is evident.  The most notable aspect is the fact that the film only has five scenes, which I assume is a reflection of the five act structure found so often in plays.  But that is a guess at best and a bit of speculation at worst.

                "The Lower Depths" tells of a group of people in the Edo period.  In the group are gamblers, thieves, whores, adulterers, and maybe even a murderer.  They are all gathered under a ramshackle roof of a greedy landlady.  Within the film, we are introduced to the various characters.  There is Sutekichi, the thief and lover of Okayo, who is the sister to the landlady, Osugi.  Then there is the former actor who is dying of long term alcohol poisoning.  After that is the tinker whose wife is on her deathbed.  There is also the man who claims to have been a samurai lord years prior to the jeers of his peers.  Beyond that are a number of other characters who all have similarly tragic and depressing tales.  But perhaps most noteworthy is the old man in pilgrim garb named Kahei.  Kahei enters into the bottom barrel in as a fresh element into the mix.  He gives the various characters advise to better their situations and attempt to steer their cynicism away.  However, as the film continues, the story takes a final dark turn.

                Beyond that, there really is not much of a story or plot.   It is more of a premise than anything else, but the most central story would have to be the relationship between Sutekichi and Okayo.  Sutekichi was one having an affair with Osugi, but wants nothing to do with her now.  He is stuck in his way of life and wants to get himself and Okayo away from the dead end tenement that the film takes place in.  The film most closely follows this as the central plot, but since there are so many characters that exist within the film, it is hard to only tie it down to this one thing.  The rest of the cast receive almost equal footing in their presentation to the audience.  The tinker is on equal footing as the drunk.  The thief is just as important as the prostitute.  The landlord is as important as the sister's uncle, and so on.  This creates an effect that the film is more about the collection rather than anyone specific.  The film is about a premise, not a story.

                But then, what is the premise trying to get to?  It is wracked with human suffering, obviously.  There is not a single individual in the entire film that does not suffer or have some sort of heartache.  Even Kahei, the traveling pilgrim, shows signs of his less than perfect life before appearing in the film.  The film starts with this suffering and ends with it.  It does not have much hope for the characters.  Considering that the majority of the characters ended up there because of their own actions, it would make sense that the only way for them to get out would be for them to pull themselves out.  Unless some change occurs either within them from some outside source, they will most likely remain there until they all die, one by one.  "The Lower Depths" does not paint a pretty picture.

                Kurosawa does a great job making the miniature world come alive.  Between the varied cast and the set, the film is able to draw in the viewer. I definitely want to give some praise to the sets and costumes.  The building they all live in looks like it is about to fall in on itself.  At the start of the film, two women toss their rubbish over a cliff onto the building thinking it is desolate.  The walls are made of irregular sized boards that show how many times it has required patchwork fixes.  There is one specific shot that shows the roofs of both the shanty house and the one that the landlord lives in.  The landlord's roof is made of perfectly shaped and organized shingles.  The other roof is made of a mix match of shingles from a variety of different styles and sizes.  The contrast between the quality of living is stark and quick to understand.  Then there is the wardrobe that the characters wear.  Every single one of the shanty tenants wears cloths dirtied to the point of being threadbare and nearly black in most parts.  When Kahei appears, he is wearing white garments that are so bright that everything else is made darker by comparison.  The visual effect gets its point across.

The haves, the have-nots, and the thin line between,

                The film progresses nicely for about four-fifths of its length.  At the climax, it bottoms out quickly.  The last scene of the five is the weakest one despite the final moments of the film.  Short of the last minute, it is uneventful and got me wanting the film to end quickly since it showed no signs of going anywhere.  On top of that, the final kicker does not deliver all that much kick.  I can say that there is a suicide at the end and not really be spoiling the ending.  This is because the film does not hint at much of anything less.  The film is a collection of people at the edge of society with mentalities and personalities driven just as far.  The suicide is precisely what the story was veering to all along.  It is the final crime that had yet to be committed.  The character that commits the deed is somewhat surprising unless you examine them closely.  I would even say that the character that does it is the one that had been most likely to do it.  But in the end, the film goes nowhere except to show the spiraling downward nature of a self-destructing behavior.  

                This would not be so bad if it were not for, well everything.  The film is way too depressing and negative that it would be sickening if it went on after the suicide.  I cannot help but think of "The Bad Sleep Well."  Both films detail a cast of characters that have grey morality.  However, "The Bad Sleep Well" is a examination at the attempt of revenge and how it is a black deed no matter the angle of viewing.  "The Lower Depths" has got too much of a sense of futility.  Both films can be seen as cautionary tales, but "The Lower Depths" plays a heavier hand.  The villain, if there is one, gets away with exactly what they wanted.  At least in "The Bad Sleep Well," there was comfort in knowing the villain lost what he really wanted.

                "The Lower Depths" is a not a fun film, but it is a good one.  It gets its point across, I think.  Then again, with a work like this, it might be actually trying to portray the world it creates as a final truth.  In the end, it is a fantasy born from select realities, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.  That is what all fiction is.  The end result is what matters.  For the film, it is an end that is just too black for reality.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. See the announcement for further entry details.