Kuso Culture
Adam White and Janet Leung explain the fine art of online parody.
Kuso? Literally, it’s Japanese for “shit.” But before you turn the page in mock disgust, that’s about as scatological as it gets - though it gets a lot, lot odder. Known as “ok gao” (odd doings) in Cantonese, “kuso” comes from the Japanese “kuso-ge” – “shitty game” – a term evolved to describe the enjoyment we derive from games that are so bad, they’re good. It’s evolved since, and now even mainstream culture can be kuso – Stephen Chow films, for example; or the overblown, overhyped, we’re-over-it Bus Uncle.
Essentially, kuso is pop-culture parody. From making fun of awful games (and people) to doctoring movie posters to making silly music and movies, kuso is user-generated content, done for the reason that most things are done nowadays on the internet: for the hell of it. Kuso as a phenomenon started in 2000, and spread from Japan to Taiwan, and then to Hong Kong. One example known as “Iron Fist Invincible Sun Yat-sen!” features Sun Yat-sen, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-Shek as martial artists in a wuxia novel.
Kuso Games
Kuso games are where it all started: Games so horrendously bad that the only way to enjoy them was to appreciate quite how AWFUL they were. Here are two of the worst.
Hong Kong 97
One of the pioneers of the genre (and of particular interest for obvious reasons), “Hong Kong 97” was a Japanese game made for the Super Famicom (SNES) console that’s achieved legendary status on the internet for even more obvious reasons – it’s outright terrible. The “plot” of Hong Kong 97 is, well, a masterwork: After the handover, an influx of mainland Chinese to Hong Kong sends the crime rate through the roof – and so the Hong Kong government hires Bruce Lee’s brother Chin (allegedly a misspelled Jackie Chan) to, um, exterminate the 1.2 billion-strong population of China. Meanwhile, Chinese scientists are engaged in a top-secret plan to resurrect the (prematurely dead) Deng Xiaoping as the ultimate weapon - “extermination with Chinese characteristics”?
This doesn’t translate to the abysmal gameplay, which by all accounts, is impossible. The introductory sequence segues immediately to the game, where Chin has to shoot at a screen full of Chinese sprites spitting little white blobs across the screen. Touch anything and it’s immediately game over (your reward is a picture of a mutilated corpse). Survive the blobs, and three cars attack. Survive them, and you fight the boss – the giant Deng Xiaoping head recycled from the title screen. And that’s it – the game repeats. The backdrop for the entire game is a random photo – ranging from Maoist propaganda, to the ATV logo.
The English subtitles for the game are bizarrely vulgar: “The year 1997 has arrived. A herd of fuckin’ ugly reds [sic] are rushing from the mainland.” The Chinese subtitles make absolutely no sense. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the game didn’t exactly do well – but it has survived in the collective hearts and minds of kuso-ers everywhere.
The Cho Aniki series
Possibly the oddest and most kuso of all kuso-ge. In the case of this SNES game, pictures (above) tell more than all the words in the known universe.
Kuso Celebrity
Kuso culture has led to the rise of many short-lived stars and Bus Uncle was certainly not the first.
The Back Dorm Boys
One of the biggest spillovers of kuso into the western world is the duo known as the “Back Dorm Boys.” Chances are you’ve seen them before on YouTube, lip-synching to Backstreet Boys hits of yesteryear. Wei Wei (“the big one”) and Huang Yi Xin (“the little one”) were, until recently, students of sculpture at the Guangzhou Arts Institute with far too much spare time, and far too little shame. Their spoof Backstreet Boys videos (by all accounts far, far more interesting than the originals) hit the internet’s severe weakness for all things silly, and took off. The immensely popular videos have made them celebrities, and presumably pretty rich people: Since leaving college, the Back Dorm Boys have set up their own blog (complete with glamorous, styled portfolio photos), and have been picked up as spokesmen for Motorola China, as well as for online portal Sina.com. Not a bad return on buying a webcam, really.
Stephen Ngai
That Fat Poster Kid
Despite the fact that his kuso movie posters have been circulating on the internet for years, the fat kid's real identity remains a mystery. While some claim that he’s Japanese, some also contend he’s a mainlander; one online commentator even claimed him as his long-lost son. In any case, his face certainly lends itself (rather unfortunately) to comedy. Yes, it’s mean, but it doesn’t make it any less funny. Quite the opposite, really.
Bus Uncle
Yes, everyone’s pretty tired of him by now, but “Bus Uncle” Roger Chan Yuet-tong was, for a while at least, a major kuso celebrity. Netizens a-plenty hijacked the Bus Uncle’s legendary, expletive-soused tirade against a slightly belligerent Elvis Ho Yui-hei, and created film posters, raps, ballads and music videos, all in the name of kuso. The clip was filmed by a Jon Fong Wing-hang, uploaded to the HK Golden forums (HKGolden.com), and later circulated on YouTube. The famous lines “You’ve got pressure, I’ve got pressure!” and “It’s Unresolved!” have found their way into the public conciousness, even making it to local adverts. After Easyfinder published the now-notorious photos of popstar Gilian Chung’s breasts, Chan attempted to press charges against Fong, also claiming invasion of privacy: the case was thrown out of court. The unpopular Chan is currently in Taiwan, participating in rallies for the equally unpopular Chen Shui-bian. He's been assaulted for his troubles.
Kuso Tech
In 2000, mainland scientists unveiled China’s first-ever bipedal human robot, named “Xianxingzhe” (“forerunner” in Putonghua). Hailed as a great leap forward for Chinese robotics, there was just one problem – the robot looked really, really silly. Especially because it sported two rather large protuberances at, um, crotch level. Japanese forums soon posited that the “Senkousha” (as it is known in Japanese) was a top-secret military weapon, complete with “Chinese Cannon” at groin height, which fired a massive white beam by ways of a pelvic thrust. Its alleged abilities included the power to make people die laughing.
The pelvically prominent robot became so popular that two online games were made in which the lusty robot battled sleeker constructions such as Sony’s ASIMO and AIBO. The online community even composed a theme song for the Xianxingzhe, and put together a rather impressive fake CG introduction for a kid’s TV series (which would be great if it weren’t for, you know, the giant phallic protuberance firing white beams of energy.; that’s not so kiddy). There’s even some really, really weird Xianxingzhe 1/5th scale model porn. On that front, the less said, the better.
