Just what in the heck does Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption have to do with Hong Kong cinema or Asian films in general? Absolutely nothing. It’s just what I’ve been playing since classes ended and final grades were turned in this past Monday. But me being able to play video games calls attention to the very fact that I now have possession of an elusive, oh-so-precious resource known as “free time.” As such, I suppose it’s about high time I call off my self-imposed hiatus from this blog and start contributing to the site again.

So stay tuned to this spot. There will be some new regular features like “Great Moments in Hong Kong Cinema,” “Fist of Manhua,” and much more! In the meantime, enjoy the summer!

Hello, my name is Calvin McMillin, a.k.a. Sanjuro. You might remember me from such film reviews as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Swordsman 2, or perhaps the strangely infamous Flowers of Shanghai. I’m here today to give you the skinny on my new blog, Ronin on Empty. Now, you might be aware that I once had an irregularly updated column on the site called A Man Called Sanjuro or that I most recently maintained a blogger account also called Ronin on Empty. Those previous writing venues have been folded into this brand-spankin’ new LoveHKFilm.com blog. I wasn’t sure how or where to begin, so I did a few test posts to start out, which you can read underneath this one. With that initial tomfoolery out of the way, I thought I might use this first substantive posting as an opportunity to reflect on the past, consider the present, and speculate on the future.

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The name of this blog has origins that predate it, and I’m not just talking about my previous blogger account. When I was in college, I wrote a novel called RONIN ON EMPTY. It ran about 100,000 words long. It was epic, to say the least. And way too long for a first-time novelist in terms of actually convincing someone that it should be published.

When I was working on my Master’s degree, I refined it into what I thought was the final version — about 89,00 words. I eventually printed the whole thing out and bound it (like a course reader) so I’d have a copy for myself. Since December, I’ve seriously gone back and tried to edit it, less a revision than a trimming of the fat. There was a lot of dated stuff, and some errors, which I attempted to fix. I even composited two major characters into one to streamline the story.

Anyway, I’ve trimmed the fat to 79,000 words and realigned the plot’s spinal column so that it makes more sense, narratively-speaking. Whether I’ll have time to build up the novel’s muscles, I’m not sure. But at least I have a “cleaner” version to work with the next time I pick it up.

In the mean time, I think I’m going to use the name for this blog, and on the creative side of things, work on some more short stories, and see how that goes.