When I took a film class in college, the instructor hated that director. I really liked said director at the time, and I still think he's capable of creating beautiful images. But when I was into his stuff, I was really into extreme things... not like "Faces of Death" movies, but emotional-taboo-breaking and emotional violence; extremes of cruelty but not gore. I totally get what you're saying about the "asiaphile" aspect of said movie... there IS something fetishistic about it.

I liked Quicksilver and finally got the whole series, but I think I quit reading the first about two years ago just after the pirate battle. I loved it to death but I didn't want to wait for the sequels, so I read Snow Crash instead. Now I have all of them and Cryptonomicon, and plan to devote at least a few weeks to them all probably sometime next year.

I will probably read either V or GR next.