[Buddha-l] Re: H.H. The Dalai Lama on Stone and Karma

[Wong Weng Fai]

One of my favorite shows from Hong Kong in recent years is Running on 
Karma (2003 - http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/running_on_karma.htm).

(spoilers from memory)
The main character of the show is Biggie - a good-for-nothing muscle man. 
It turns out that Biggie was an ex-Chinese monk who stole into Hong Kong. 
Biggie became a monk when his girlfriend was killed by a mad man (Sun Guo 
- a play on the Cantonese phrase "sour fruit") who has been hiding for 
years in the mountains. We soon learnt that Biggie has one extraordinary 
power - the ability to see the fruits of karma acting out in the lives of 
others.

In Hong Kong, Biggie befriends a rookie lady detective Yee. It later turns 
out that Yee, despite being a very nice person, was in fact in her past 
life a Japanese soldier who slaughtered people mercilessly. Biggie had 
numerous visions that Yee would die a horrible death. When Yee eventually 
became convinced of Biggie's super power and her fate, she decided to help 
Biggie catch Sour Fruit. In the end, she was beheaded by Sour Fruit. The 
entire murder was captured on Yee's video.

Biggie, on seeing Yee's video recovered by the police, first became guilty 
then became angry. Alone he went in search of Sour Fruit. It took him 
years and he was eventually to become Sour Fruit himself. In a complex 
twist at the end, just when he was to deal the fatal blow to Sour 
Fruit, Biggie finally came to the realization, which is also the punchline 
of the movie:

"Ordinary people only see the fruits and ignore the causes.
  The wise ones only concern themselves with the causes and ignore the
  fruits."

He gently led the lonely and desperate Sour Fruit out of the mountains and
handed him over to the police, and took on the robes again.

Weng-Fai