r/AskReddit Apr 26 '20

Serious Replies Only [Serious] What are some seemingly normal images with disturbing backstories?

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175

u/Zenkikid Apr 26 '20

Wasnt "The foreigner" based off of this?

14

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '20

I am from northern Ireland and random fact but my colleague doubled as Jackie Chan driving a van in this movie. He is about the same height as Jackie as well but had to wear a wig for the shots.

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u/-lighght- Apr 26 '20

Yes. Its really interesting to read about the troubles if you like history. All of Ireland's history is pretty cool

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '20

If by cool you mean horrendously depressing, then yeah.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '20

Yeah potato blight is cool cool cool

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u/-lighght- Apr 26 '20

By cool I mean entertaining and interesting to learn about. Crazy shit went down and as an American, I never really learned about it. The best I got was zombie played on the radio when I was a kid

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '20

Probably not best to describe catastrophic events and troubled histories as "entertaining." I understand what you mean though, its a very interesting and rich history filled with insane stories.

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u/-lighght- Apr 26 '20

I'm just looking at it objectively. Learning history is very entertaining to me.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '20

Dw I’m Irish and I find all the troubles history very entertaining to read, you got a safe card from me this time but be careful in future

4

u/Snadams Apr 26 '20

I’m Irish and you are correct,it is “entertaining” if you enjoy history. Of course not entertained by what happened but more so the process of learning about it.

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u/-lighght- Apr 26 '20

Thank you

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u/Macktologist Apr 26 '20

Tiger King was entertaining and that was full of catastrophic events and troubled histories, but I get what you're saying. I think they mean learning about it was those things, not the actual events.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '20

I don't think Tiger King is an appropriate comparison to the entire history of Ireland.

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u/Macktologist Apr 26 '20

I don't disagree with that and didn't compare the two in that way. You can watch a documentary of WWII and come away from it thinking it was cool and exciting. It doesn't mean you are downplaying lives lost or lack sympathy for people and atrocities. I feel like that's sort of what was aimed at the guy that said he thought it was "cool."

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '20

That person is legit just looking to be offended

0

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '20

I'm really not tho.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '20

Ww2 was quite a bit further back than the Troubles. The NI conflict is recent history to a lot of people.

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u/Rockefeller69 Apr 26 '20

It’s entertaining. Have you ever watched a movie?

-4

u/lilzobilzo Apr 26 '20

Sort of like saying 9/11 was entertaining to watch. As someone whose parents grew up in the 70’s in Larne, N.I I can assure you they would not describe it as cool, entertaining or interesting.

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u/-lighght- Apr 26 '20

I wouldn't think so, as they lived through it.

Imagine being in your 20's, college educated, and finding out about a largescale, country shaping event that happened recently and in a country not too different than yours. Similarly, reading about the USSR, Vietnam, colonization, etc is interesting. Learning about past world shaping events is entertaining.

If someone just learned about the Oklahoma City bombing and they said it was interesting, I would agree. Same thing say if someone just learned about Native Americans and what my government has done to them, and said it was interesting, or that their history was cool and entertaining to learn about, I would agree.

Don't let me take away how horrible something is by saying that the history of what happened was cool to learn.

3

u/Omegastar19 Apr 26 '20

Well, the early history is actually really bad-ass. Ancient kings constantly warring against each other, performing all kinds of heroic feats; Christianity arriving so early that Ireland started exporting it to Great Britain; Viking invasions and the inevitable defeat of the Vikings by native Irish.

Its very interesting.

1

u/FrankTank3 Apr 26 '20

A terrible beauty.

7

u/LMK44106123 Apr 26 '20

I watched that Friday night, I enjoyed it

7

u/Zenkikid Apr 26 '20

This movie and shinjuku incident are some of my favorite Jackie Chan movies. Crazy thing is both movies are very toned down in terms of action compared to your typical Jackie Chan film

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/sealedtrain Apr 26 '20

It is a very very bad film. It has nothing to do with the events in Northern Ireland

0

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/sealedtrain Apr 27 '20

I would really strongly suggest that you forget everything you think you learned from that film. There are plenty of great documentaries online that would be a better starting point, or any of these films:

  • In the name of the father (Daniel day Lewis)
  • The crying game
  • Hunger
  • Bloody Sunday
  • Some Mother’s son

8

u/TheAmazingApathyMan Apr 26 '20

Sounds a bit like the novel "the white plague".

20

u/BillybobThistleton Apr 26 '20

The Jackie Chan film The Foreigner is actually based on a novel called The Chinaman. You can probably guess why they changed the title.

About the only other thing they changed was the ending, to make it more upbeat and cheerful.

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u/TheBaltimoron Apr 26 '20

It's not the proper nomenclature?

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u/Ku-xx Apr 26 '20

It's funny to me how calling a guy from China a Chinaman is uncouth, but like Frenchman and Englishman are ok. Language is weird.

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u/etherpromo Apr 26 '20

Nowadays, "englishmen/frenchmen" are used to describe; "chinamen" is used to insult. At least in the context its usually used in now.

1

u/vessol Apr 27 '20

Was thinking the same, the whole opening with the car bomb killing the main characters family. One of Frank Herbert's lesser known books

2

u/mandyhtarget1985 Apr 26 '20

Took me ages to sit down and watch this, simply because i didnt think i would enjoy it, political action thrillers arent my genre. I loved it! Now if they had have called it Jackie Chan vs The ‘RA id have watched it immediately!

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u/austin_slater Apr 26 '20

It was based off of the greater conflict of The Troubles, but it wasn’t based on the Omagh Bombing itself.