Some of my writing has been published in the May 2004 issue of Inside Kung Fu. It's not much, and it's been changed a little.. and I wasn't paid.. or credited for my work.. but there it is. Impressed?
See, I was flipping through the "Inside Kung Fu" magazine at a news stand, when I came to an interview with actor and "The Red Trousers" director Robin Shou. While scanning the article, titled "Seeing Red", some of the text sounded very familiar, like I had read it before. Then I realized that the familiar words sounded like my own biography of Robin Shou. I transcribed that portion of the article exactly on some paper and later compared it to my original work. Sure enough, it is my determination that they ripped me off.
This is not the first time that this is happened to me (in print or online). As some of you may know, this site is regularly plagiarized, most famously by a certain Hollywood studio called Paramount Pictures. If I were to document every instance of this nonsense it could form an entire website in itself. However, I prefer not to dwell in negativity by regularly bitching about it.
This instance was by no means the most blatant or extensive example of what some writers have taken from me- it's only 3 sentences, tops. Yet I thought it was a classic example of "How to Plagiarize". By changing a tiny bit of someone's writing, by reversing the word order... you can get away with ripping someone off.
Let's examine the facts. Below is an exact, verbatim excerpt from the Inside Kung Fu article credited to two men- James Lew and Craig Hamann. After which, we'll compare this with my biography of Robin. The words that are in white font indicate the exact words that have been taken from my biography. Also please note that the excerpt below is an unedited portion from the opening paragraph of the article.
"Former wushu champion Robin Shou is one of only a handful of Hong Kong action stars to find success in Hollywood. After working hard as a stuntman and actor in small but demanding Hong Kong movies, he landed a leading role in Mortal Kombat, a big-budget Hollywood film based on the popular video game.
He also starred in Beverly Hills Ninja with the late Chris Farley."
Notice that the very first sentence in Lew and Hamann's article begins with the exact same 8 words as mine. This is my sentence, except they replaced my "one of the very few" with "only a handful", and they switched my "to successfully break into" with "to find success".
Also note that the very first word of the 2nd sentence is the first same word as my 2nd sentence- "After".
Then, they took my phrase: "Robin secured the lead role in Mortal Kombat, a special effects laden Hollywood film based on the popular violent game." and rephrased part of it. "Secured the lead role" was changed to "landed a leading role"; "A special effects laden film" became "a big-budget film" and my phrase "based on the popular violent video game" is reproduced entirely, except for the deletion of the word "violent."
Finally, there's my sentence, "He also starred with the late Chris Farley in the comedy Beverly Hills Ninja." They changed a little of the word order and took out the words "the comedy". Compare:
Mine: He also starred with the late Chris Farley in the comedy Beverly Hills Ninja.
Theirs: He also starred in Beverly Hills Ninja with the late Chris Farley.
As I said, this article is credited to James Lew and Craig Hamann. I knew who James Lew was, he's an actor, stuntman, martial artist, writer, and choreographer. He's written several books, his first was in 1982, plus many articles for Inside Kung Fu. He's worked with Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Charlie Sheen, Brad Pitt, and many others. Cool beans.
Craig Hamann, I have learned, also writes for a living. He is a freelance writer, screenwriter, and film director who has collaborated with Quentin Tarantino. He wrote and directed a movie starring Mark Dacascos, and on the video box it very prominently states "From the Academy Award winning writer of Pulp Fiction", even though the actual writers of Pulp Fiction were Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary. Kind of dishonest, isn't it? Well, despite not being an Academy Award Winner, Hamann is an admitted former drug addict. So he's got that going for him.
Anyhow, these are the two characters who not only read, like and trust Hong Kong Movie World, but have now stolen bits from it. Just two of my many worshippers, who like my writing so much, that they can't help themselves from sampling it. Obviously, none of these similarities are coincidences, because there's too many of them. And there's no denying that Lew and Hamann read my biography of Shou, (which I wrote years ago and only updated in 2003 to briefly mention "The Red Trousers")- Robin Shou links to it on his own official web site.
Sigh. OK, who wants to hire me?
Arash 4/6/04
