"Why opium? That’s why. And why the opium den? The answer to that can be expressed in one word: romance. Visions of dark, brocade-curtained, velvet-cushioned places of luxurious decadence, filled with the mingled smoke and scents of burning joss sticks and the celestial, forbidden, fabulous stuff itself. Wordless, kowtowing servants. Timelessness. Sanctuary. Lovely loosened limbs draped from the high-slit cheongsams of recumbent exotic concubines of sweet intoxication. Dreams within dreams. Romance. Yes, I was born to smoke opium, born to smoke it in an opium den" ..... "I approach the regulation rickety slat stairs, ascend one step, and I can smell it: the most lovely smell on earth. At the top of the rickety stairs is a rickety door. Above the door is nailed a piece of wood painted with the image of a protective spirit-creature, sword in mouth, beneath the octagonal symbol of the Chinese Eight Trigrams. I knock, then knock again. The head and shirtless upper body of a young man protrude from the window to my left, waving me in. I enter a dark room at the far side of which is an altar in shambles. The shirtless young man appears, beckons me up a step...

There is the tale, commonly accepted as truth, that the Dutch introduced the practice of smoking opium in a tobacco pipe to the Chinese at the turn of the 18th century. But it is impossible to “smoke” opium in a tobacco pipe, as opium neither burns nor converts into smoke. Rather, it is distilled into vapor through a chemistry quite unlike that of any other “smoking.” The process, or art, of this chemistry, though quite simple when mastered, demands many things: the combined exactitudes of appropriate lamp oil, design of lamp and lamp chimney, properly trimmed wick of fitting fiber; the craft of employing the slender spindle to heat, spin, and knead the opium—to say nothing of the lengthy previous preparations of the opium—prior to its insertion into the tiny hole of the pipe bowl, or damper; the precisely manipulated distance and downward angle of the pipe bowl over the lamp flame. These are all necessary to facilitate the exact degree of latent heat required to convert the opium into vapor. There are those who might say that the chemistry of opium smoking is chemistry as much in the original sense of the word—chymistrie: the dark and magic art...

Film In Dodgeball, the mockumentary on how to play dodgeball claims that the game was invented in Chinese Opium Dens. Williams from Enter the Dragon met his end in one of these at the hands of Mr. Han. The Doctor Mabuse films feature a few ones. The titular Doctor finds his victims there, among corrupt millionaires and aristocrats. Once Upon a Time in America. In Brick, the area behind Carrow's Restaurant where Dode and the other stoners hang out is intended to reference this, as evidenced by the Asian-sounding musical cues. Both the graphic novel and film versions of Alan Moore's From Hell. Thoroughly Modern Millie has one of these that doubles as a prostitution/white slaving ring. Harvey Keitel's eponymous (and nameless) Bad Lieutenant visits a latter-day heroin den that otherwise fits the trope. In Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Anthony passes by one while traveling through London. The Oscar-winning French film Indochine: The protagonist is an addict who introduces her younger lover to them (even though he's supposed to be police its traffic). He drags her out of a den at one point. Eddie visits one toward the end of 1935's The Cocaine Fiends. In...

The door opens into warm darkness. The air is filled with smoke, its bitter-sweet scent undercut by a faint stink of sweat and bile. An attendant scurries toward you, seemingly out of nowhere, bearing a pipe and a pill of opium. You settle into the lower level of a two-tiered bunk much like a train sleeping compartment. Declining to close the curtain — that is for those already drugged to either stupefaction or hypersensitivity — you cast your eyes about the room as the first breaths of hot vapor connect with your lungs. Around you are men and women of every conceivable race and class, some silent in contemplation of their private fantasies, others talking to or amongst themselves in strange accents and hushed tones. They coexist in a peaceful single-mindedness that would be the envy of church or state. This is not a luxurious place, not a picture-postcard place in red and gilt. The wooden walls know neither paint nor plaster; the floor is grimy; the air is close. But to the habitué, it is paradise. The image of the opium den is often romanticized, probably because few such places still exist. The media are more realistic in...

Details of our prospective production schedule, Crew and Budget projection.

Kipling's beautiful short story - more information about which is below, courtesy of Kipling.org.uk. Publication This story was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on September 26th 1884, when Kipling was not yet nineteen, and collected in Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of this collection. It was his first short story to be published – a tour de force that set a standard which – with a few lapses – he maintained for the rest of his life. When it was first published, the distinguished critic Andrew Lang said that the tale "defeats de Quincey on his own ground". The story The tale is presented as a monologue by Gabral Misquitta, a half-caste opium addict, six weeks before his death. It describes the life of the opium den, and of the opium smokers, in the Coppersmith's Gully near the mosque of Wazir Khan. In the end, all life for them revolves around the 'black smoke'. There is nothing else. It is written entirely as reported speech, indeed the ORG suggested that it might have been taken down verbatim in shorthand, in the notebook which Kipling sometimes took with him. It may...

This is a secondary screenplay written and submitted by Redmond Bacon. It builds on some of the formats and themes in the Preliminary Screenplay, and takes a few new directions.   Like it? Dont like it? Think you can do better or could take it in a new direction? JOIN THE GROUP AND SUBMIT YOUR INTERPRETATION

This is the preliminary screenplay for The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows. It is designed to be the 'jumping-off-point' for the development of the script. It is effectively a simple adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's short story into a screenplay format. From here we hope that young IdeasTap writers might find inspiration, download the screenplay, edit, rework it, rewrite it in anyway they see fit, and re-upload it to the group portfolio .   From here, submissions will close on the 1st May, and our Head Writer Thomas Moodie will curate the hopefully exiting and divergent interpretations into one coherent narrative. All writers will be credited as Assistant Writers in the film, and the single writer that Thom decides was most pivotal in he final adaptation will be invited into the team as Co-Writer to see their vision realised.   We think that this is a novel and very exciting way to harness the collaborative power of the IdeasTap Community, and hope that any writers reading this will feel the same way!   Please visit the group , join, write, submit, collaborate!!