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Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling
PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
An introduction to Eastern storytelling that opens readers’ minds to radically different ways of telling a satisfying story.
Discussions in the West around diversity in the arts often focus on the identities of characters and creators. Writing instructor and speculative fiction author Henry Lien makes the pathbreaking argument that diversity is about more than just plopping different faces into stories that are 100 percent Western in spirit; it can—and should—encompass diverse structures, themes, and values.
Using examples ranging from Parasite to The 1,001 Nights to the Mario video game franchise, Lien shows how storytelling staples in the West, such as the three-act structure and themes of empowerment and change, are far from universal. He introduces the East Asian four-act structure (kishotenketsu), as well as circular and nested structures, and explains how Eastern value systems such as collectivism can dictate form. Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird is essential reading for any writer or reader who wants to broaden their understanding of how to tell a satisfying story.
An introduction to Eastern storytelling that opens readers’ minds to radically different ways of telling a satisfying story.
Discussions in the West around diversity in the arts often focus on the identities of characters and creators. Writing instructor and speculative fiction author Henry Lien makes the pathbreaking argument that diversity is about more than just plopping different faces into stories that are 100 percent Western in spirit; it can—and should—encompass diverse structures, themes, and values.
Using examples ranging from Parasite to The 1,001 Nights to the Mario video game franchise, Lien shows how storytelling staples in the West, such as the three-act structure and themes of empowerment and change, are far from universal. He introduces the East Asian four-act structure (kishotenketsu), as well as circular and nested structures, and explains how Eastern value systems such as collectivism can dictate form. Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird is essential reading for any writer or reader who wants to broaden their understanding of how to tell a satisfying story.
192 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2025
About the author
Henry Lien
17 books72 followersHenry Lien is a graduate of Brown University, UCLA School of Law, and Clarion West Writers’ Workshop. He is the author of the Peasprout Chen fantasy series (Holt) and the non-fiction book Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling (W.W. Norton). His books have received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist and New York Times acclaim. His writing has appeared in publications including Literary Hub, Poets & Writers, Asimov’s, Analog, and F&SF, and he is a four-time Nebula Award finalist. Henry also teaches for institutions including the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, the University of Iowa, Clarion West, and Writing the Other. He won the UCLA Extension Department of the Arts Outstanding Instructor of the Year Award. Henry has previously worked as an attorney and fine art dealer. He has been invited to speak about his work by the Library of Congress, Lectures on Tap, and Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater. Born in Taiwan, Henry currently lives in Hollywood, California. Hobbies include writing and performing campy anthems for his books and losing Nebula Awards.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
March 29, 2025
I wanted to like Henry Lien's Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird more than I did, because it makes such an important argument about 'surface diversity' and the publishing industry. As Lien rightly says, the push for more 'diverse stories' in the US and UK often gives us more Black, queer, disabled etc characters and more 'exotic' settings but completely fails to rethink our narrow assumptions about how we tell these stories. As I've said before, assuming protagonists must be 'active', for example, making 'choices that change the course of the narrative', becomes nonsensical when we want to write about people facing systematic oppression and trauma. Lien's focus here is what he calls 'Eastern storytelling', which, to be honest, I found a bit too big of an umbrella: he starts by focusing on Chinese and Taiwanese traditions, but ends up talking about Japanese, Indian, Persian and other Middle Eastern tales as well. Anyway, he argues that 'Eastern storytelling' is distinguished from 'Western storytelling' by its four-act, rather than three-act, structure; its use of circular or nested story-forms; and its underlying set of cultural values.
I think Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird could have been a truly fantastic long essay, but as a book, it fell a bit short for me. It inevitably skims the surface, with the chapter on cultural values standing out as especially weak, because although Lien is clearly making sensible points, it's just not possible to neatly summarise the supposed differences between so many cultures without resorting to cliche. I also think that Lien sometimes confuses problematic norms set by the publishing industry (active characters, conflict) with problematic norms dictated by three-act structure, which, while only one way of telling a story, is much more flexible and capacious than he gives it credit for, and does draw on some of the tropes that he attributes to four-act structure (a midpoint twist or reversal, mirroring). It's also a real skill to be able to recount plots usefully, and I don't think it's a skill that Lien has: I appreciated his range of examples, spanning Nintendo games, films like Parasite and Rashomon, and fiction from 1001 Nights to Ted Chiang's 'The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate', but, even when I was familiar with the text, I didn't get much from his plot summaries. I found myself comparing the book to John Yorke's craft guide Into The Woods, which has a lot of limitations of its own, not least proclaiming that three-act structure is universal, but which is very good at using and explaining examples.
I absolutely think this is worth reading, but unless you're a writer who wants to dig deep into the exercises Lien sets, it's also very skimmable. I've read other stuff on writing that I've found more challenging and thought-provoking: Matthew Salesses's Craft in the Real World and Namwali Serpell's 'The Banality of Empathy' come to mind. 3.5 stars.
I received a free proof copy of this book from the publisher for review.
I think Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird could have been a truly fantastic long essay, but as a book, it fell a bit short for me. It inevitably skims the surface, with the chapter on cultural values standing out as especially weak, because although Lien is clearly making sensible points, it's just not possible to neatly summarise the supposed differences between so many cultures without resorting to cliche. I also think that Lien sometimes confuses problematic norms set by the publishing industry (active characters, conflict) with problematic norms dictated by three-act structure, which, while only one way of telling a story, is much more flexible and capacious than he gives it credit for, and does draw on some of the tropes that he attributes to four-act structure (a midpoint twist or reversal, mirroring). It's also a real skill to be able to recount plots usefully, and I don't think it's a skill that Lien has: I appreciated his range of examples, spanning Nintendo games, films like Parasite and Rashomon, and fiction from 1001 Nights to Ted Chiang's 'The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate', but, even when I was familiar with the text, I didn't get much from his plot summaries. I found myself comparing the book to John Yorke's craft guide Into The Woods, which has a lot of limitations of its own, not least proclaiming that three-act structure is universal, but which is very good at using and explaining examples.
I absolutely think this is worth reading, but unless you're a writer who wants to dig deep into the exercises Lien sets, it's also very skimmable. I've read other stuff on writing that I've found more challenging and thought-provoking: Matthew Salesses's Craft in the Real World and Namwali Serpell's 'The Banality of Empathy' come to mind. 3.5 stars.
I received a free proof copy of this book from the publisher for review.
June 27, 2025
Witty and compelling book about the east Asian traditional storytelling style.
"Early twenty-first century dialogue in the West around diversity in the arts tends to focus on the identities of characters, creators, and performers. As important as that is, diversity can be about more than just popping different faces into stories that are 100 percent western in spirit. It can and should also encompass diverse story structures from non-Western traditions and the themes and values that inform them. Just as values are not universal across cultures, the shape of a satisfying story is not limited to one model either."
Lien, in his witty and fascinating book that I cannot recommend enough, cites Chinese, Korean, and Japanese stories, which “developed from a four-act, rather than a three- or five-act structure: in Japanese it is called kishōtenketsu (ki: introduction; sho: development; ten: twist; ketsu: reconciliation). The kishōtenketsu structure informs fiction, nonfiction, theater, and even the movements of the tea ceremony. It is a profoundly different aesthetic system from the Western model, with its primary focus on conflict and individual overcoming. Perhaps the most common critique I hear from Western readers about Japanese fiction is that nothing ever seems to happen.
ki (起)': introduction, where 起 can mean rouse, wake up, get up
sho (承)': development, where 承 can also mean acquiesce, hear, listen to, be informed, receive
ten (転)': twist, where 転 can mean revolve, turn around, change
ketsu (結)': conclusion, though 結 can also mean result, consequence, outcome, effect, coming to fruition, bearing fruit, etc.
Lien looks at many examples, from the movie Parasite to Ghibli films. These types of stories are characterized by protagonists working together (not a hero’s journey) and a comparative lack of conflict. The stories tend to have repetitions, told from other perspectives, exposition, and non-linear storytelling.
For my money, it is the “twist” or pivot, coming more than halfway through that is the best part. This in contrast with the usual “inciting incident” that kicks off most contemporary US fiction, for example.
Think of the pivot in a haiku… Here is the classic Japanese example of kishōtenketsu (and you can see other examples on the wikipedia page).
起 Daughters of Itoya, in the Honmachi of Osaka.
承 The elder daughter is sixteen and the younger one is fourteen.
転 Throughout history, daimyō killed the enemy with bows and arrows.
結 The daughters of Itoya kill with their eyes
Like Lien’s evocative and witty title: Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird. The asteroid is the pivot.
Brilliant book and a pleasure to read!!
"Early twenty-first century dialogue in the West around diversity in the arts tends to focus on the identities of characters, creators, and performers. As important as that is, diversity can be about more than just popping different faces into stories that are 100 percent western in spirit. It can and should also encompass diverse story structures from non-Western traditions and the themes and values that inform them. Just as values are not universal across cultures, the shape of a satisfying story is not limited to one model either."
Lien, in his witty and fascinating book that I cannot recommend enough, cites Chinese, Korean, and Japanese stories, which “developed from a four-act, rather than a three- or five-act structure: in Japanese it is called kishōtenketsu (ki: introduction; sho: development; ten: twist; ketsu: reconciliation). The kishōtenketsu structure informs fiction, nonfiction, theater, and even the movements of the tea ceremony. It is a profoundly different aesthetic system from the Western model, with its primary focus on conflict and individual overcoming. Perhaps the most common critique I hear from Western readers about Japanese fiction is that nothing ever seems to happen.
ki (起)': introduction, where 起 can mean rouse, wake up, get up
sho (承)': development, where 承 can also mean acquiesce, hear, listen to, be informed, receive
ten (転)': twist, where 転 can mean revolve, turn around, change
ketsu (結)': conclusion, though 結 can also mean result, consequence, outcome, effect, coming to fruition, bearing fruit, etc.
Lien looks at many examples, from the movie Parasite to Ghibli films. These types of stories are characterized by protagonists working together (not a hero’s journey) and a comparative lack of conflict. The stories tend to have repetitions, told from other perspectives, exposition, and non-linear storytelling.
For my money, it is the “twist” or pivot, coming more than halfway through that is the best part. This in contrast with the usual “inciting incident” that kicks off most contemporary US fiction, for example.
Think of the pivot in a haiku… Here is the classic Japanese example of kishōtenketsu (and you can see other examples on the wikipedia page).
起 Daughters of Itoya, in the Honmachi of Osaka.
承 The elder daughter is sixteen and the younger one is fourteen.
転 Throughout history, daimyō killed the enemy with bows and arrows.
結 The daughters of Itoya kill with their eyes
Like Lien’s evocative and witty title: Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird. The asteroid is the pivot.
Brilliant book and a pleasure to read!!
January 23, 2025
This book opens up a world of possibility for storytellers (and readers)!
Not every story needs to revolve around conflict, or follow the well-known three act structure / hero's journey, and Lien illustrates some of the alternatives (the 4-act story structure or kishoutenketsu, the circular structure, and the nested structure) beautifully, with examples, and even using the 4-act structure to write his book!
'Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird' was both inspiring and a joy to read. It left me questioning everything I thought I knew about story theory in the best of ways.
Thank you ever so much for the ARC!
August 31, 2025
A quick, engaging introduction to common, Eastern story structures. Henry Lien states in the first chapter that what we often call diversity in our modern storytelling is surface only.
Two possible different ways of storytelling that Lien examines here are the four-act structure, often referred to by its Japanese name kishshōtenketsu, and circular/nested stories. I'm not going to go into detail here on the differences between three-act, four-act, and circular/nested storytelling, as Lien already does that so well. To illustrate his explanations, he goes through the plots of many stories from books, films, and video games, not to mention using the four-act structure for his own nonfiction book. As he warns, "the book teems with plot spoilers." He recommends reading, viewing, or playing any work mentioned that you're not familiar with and don't want spoiled before reading the section or chapter that uses them. (Or not—the choice is yours.) For those who are interested, here's a list of all the works he analyzes:
Jet Li as Nameless and Donnie Yen as Sky in the weiqi court scene from Hero (2002), one of the works analysed in the section on circular story structure. Shou Xin Wang in the background, playing the guqin. Source.
Chances are good that among the many, many examples Lien uses, you've been exposed to Eastern storytelling, maybe without realizing it beyond a quick, "Wow, that was different!" reaction. If you want to learn the nuts and bolts of just how different and why, pick this slim volume up. At a 171 pages of text, it's a quick read, and very informative.
See also
Joseph Campbell claimed that underneath it all, "the hero's journey" was the only myth and the only story. Gail Carriger ( The Heroine's Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture ) and Maria Tatar ( The Heroine with 1001 Faces ) beg to differ.
Obviously, and as Henry Lien says, the three-act structure is not the only Western way to tell a story. Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison looks at ways these different structures have been used in literature.
Early twenty-first dialogue in the West around diversity in the arts tends to focus on the identities of characters, creators, and performers. As important as that is, diversity can be about more than just plopping different faces into stories that are 100 percent Western in spirit. It can and should also encompass diverse story structures from non-Western traditions and the themes and values that inform them. Just as values are not universal across all cultures, the shape of a satisfying story is not limited to one model either.Somewhere in your schooling, you might have been told about the three-act dramatic arc as the classic story structure. There's the setup in act one where all the main characters and relevant information is introduced, the conflict in act two where characters confront an antagonist, which can be a person, place or thing, and the third act providing resolution. Or perhaps you've watched the Bill Moyers interviews with Joseph Campbell explaining his monomyth concept, epitomized by "the hero's journey". Or maybe you've caught a video of Kurt Vonnegut's lectures on story structures, using a graph with a Good/Ill Fortune vertical axis, and a Beginning/Entropy horizontal axis. The simplest example, "Man in a Hole," fits the three-act arc like a glove. This basic three-act structure and the themes of individual power and change are so common in the West that we really don't notice them until we run into a story that's set up differently.
Two possible different ways of storytelling that Lien examines here are the four-act structure, often referred to by its Japanese name kishshōtenketsu, and circular/nested stories. I'm not going to go into detail here on the differences between three-act, four-act, and circular/nested storytelling, as Lien already does that so well. To illustrate his explanations, he goes through the plots of many stories from books, films, and video games, not to mention using the four-act structure for his own nonfiction book. As he warns, "the book teems with plot spoilers." He recommends reading, viewing, or playing any work mentioned that you're not familiar with and don't want spoiled before reading the section or chapter that uses them. (Or not—the choice is yours.) For those who are interested, here's a list of all the works he analyzes:
Jet Li as Nameless and Donnie Yen as Sky in the weiqi court scene from Hero (2002), one of the works analysed in the section on circular story structure. Shou Xin Wang in the background, playing the guqin. Source.
Chances are good that among the many, many examples Lien uses, you've been exposed to Eastern storytelling, maybe without realizing it beyond a quick, "Wow, that was different!" reaction. If you want to learn the nuts and bolts of just how different and why, pick this slim volume up. At a 171 pages of text, it's a quick read, and very informative.
See also
Joseph Campbell claimed that underneath it all, "the hero's journey" was the only myth and the only story. Gail Carriger ( The Heroine's Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture ) and Maria Tatar ( The Heroine with 1001 Faces ) beg to differ.
Obviously, and as Henry Lien says, the three-act structure is not the only Western way to tell a story. Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison looks at ways these different structures have been used in literature.
December 24, 2025
O.a. besprekingen van Parasite, Rashomon, Hard Boiled Wonderland en My Neighor Totoro (or: how I learned to love the catbus), maar logischerwijs gaat dit boek vanaf de tweede helft grotendeels over cultuur (de auteur is Taiwanees-Amerikaans, als brug), en dan met name de verschillen tussen collectivisme en individualisme, tijdsperceptie/cycliditeit versus legaliteit en permanentie. Dat was een fijne insteek, en vanaf daar werd het ook beter dan verwacht, ondanks dat het een dun boekje was.
'There is a Zen parable that is applicable here, the parable of the waterfall. A river travels its course as one body of water, united, undivisible. This is the cosmic whole from which we originate.
The river then meets the edge of a cliff and tumbles over. This is analogous to being born. As the water falls through the air, it divides into individual drops of water. Each drop is unique, no two drops are alike in shape, size, position or path to the same destination. The length of the fall is the span of a life. We live our lives thinking we are individuals, each unique and irreplaceable.
Then the drop hits the bottom and rejoins with each other as one river. They become a single wholeness again. We must not mourn that merging as the loss of our individuality, which was just a temporary separation and an illusion of uniqueness.'
'There is a Zen parable that is applicable here, the parable of the waterfall. A river travels its course as one body of water, united, undivisible. This is the cosmic whole from which we originate.
The river then meets the edge of a cliff and tumbles over. This is analogous to being born. As the water falls through the air, it divides into individual drops of water. Each drop is unique, no two drops are alike in shape, size, position or path to the same destination. The length of the fall is the span of a life. We live our lives thinking we are individuals, each unique and irreplaceable.
Then the drop hits the bottom and rejoins with each other as one river. They become a single wholeness again. We must not mourn that merging as the loss of our individuality, which was just a temporary separation and an illusion of uniqueness.'
June 15, 2025
What an interesting little book! I’ll admit I have not thought about different styles of storytelling throughout the world, but I picked this up when I came across it at the library and am glad I did. Easy to read, short chapters, and lots of examples make this an engaging lesson about how different Eastern storytelling is from Western. The author not only references popular traditional Eastern stories & folk tales, but also those recognizable to a Western audience like the movies Mulan, Parasite, and Everything Everywhere All At Once, and the cultural values that shape the way each story is told. It definitely makes me appreciate nested and circular stories vs the typical Western structure of intro, rising action, climax, resolution.
March 12, 2025
I was privileged enough to attend a talk by Henry Lien on this exact topic a few years ago, so it was a nice surprise to find out he'd written a book that expanded on that discussion. This is such a nice, in depth look at alternative story structures beyond the 3-act Western ideal. If you're feeling particularly stuck in a rut re: how stories are told, I found myself constantly thinking and rethinking a current story idea based on what I was learning in these pages.
It was also a pleasant surprise to see video games & video game design discussed here - the Metroidvania genre (albeit not called that in these pages) is such a good example of cyclical storytelling that I never even thought about until Lien brought them up. As a game writer, we're often hamstrung into the "genre" of video game we're working on (genre in video games is a different thing than genre in literature, don't even get me started), so seeing how one can take advantage of game structure by not sticking to a 3-act structure was really nice to read.
I think my only wish for this was for it to be longer! I especially found myself thinking about fairy tales and how many of the same Cinderella or Snow White-type stories show up in several cultures independently, and how that same effect happens with story structures. There's so much more to explore here - I hope Lien or other writers take the baton and continue the discussion!
It was also a pleasant surprise to see video games & video game design discussed here - the Metroidvania genre (albeit not called that in these pages) is such a good example of cyclical storytelling that I never even thought about until Lien brought them up. As a game writer, we're often hamstrung into the "genre" of video game we're working on (genre in video games is a different thing than genre in literature, don't even get me started), so seeing how one can take advantage of game structure by not sticking to a 3-act structure was really nice to read.
I think my only wish for this was for it to be longer! I especially found myself thinking about fairy tales and how many of the same Cinderella or Snow White-type stories show up in several cultures independently, and how that same effect happens with story structures. There's so much more to explore here - I hope Lien or other writers take the baton and continue the discussion!
September 7, 2025
I've been waiting for years for a book on kishōtenketsu to be written--and I am so grateful for the treatment it's been given here. Henry Lien does a tremendous job of making this unique four-act structure fully accessible for the Western (a term he discusses and uses) reader, dissecting both the theory and many examples of it with humor and flair. While I got this one from my library, I'll certainly be buying a copy, and will be recommending it to every writer friend I can. Superb.
February 9, 2025
I won this one is a Goodreads giveaway and it was interesting at first, but quickly became repetitive. I would love to use the four act structure in my own writing, but I don't think this book is all that helpful for actually applying writing skills. It's more of an introduction to those who have no clue about this storytelling technique.
April 27, 2025
I found this so fascinating. I think it’s a bit dry. But I think this was the gateway into having a better understanding of eastern storytelling. And these were things I had recognized, but seeing them defined and connected to cultural values was just what I needed. The writing is both heady and accessible, but this is also like a knife of a book. It cuts a straight sharp line through the topic. This makes it at times feel a little sterile, but then there is a passion that starts to course through. And I really just want to revisit this along with the movies and books.
October 26, 2025
I’ll start by saying I have never taken any sort of Eastern Literature or Media course, so maybe this book would be old hat to those who have — but I enjoyed this very much and learned a lot! Lien does a masterful job of clearly and concisely explaining the differences between the Western “three-act” vs. Eastern “four-act” story structure (and cultural/narrative expectations that go along with them), with really helpful breakdowns of modern movies (My Neighbor Totoro, Your Name, Parasite, etc) to demonstrate how the act structure feeds into the narrative meaning.
February 12, 2025
Lovely and informative book, packed w familiar examples to illustrate the author's points. But I wish there was a bibliography/list of media recommendations for the reader to go down a rabbit hole, and perhaps some analysis on the similarities/differences bw the need for symmetry in western three-act structures and how circular/nested storytelling traditions often have passages that "rhyme" or reflect/refract one another.
January 22, 2026
I really enjoyed this book, and the way it so clearly laid out its framework through a variety of examples. I feel better equipped to identify elements of story, and make stories with collectivist values or unchanging characters more compelling. The exercises and questions were also especially nice inclusions.
Read
May 25, 2025This was really interesting! The cover caught my eye, and I liked the initial few chapters. I wish Lien talked more about how cultural appropriate negatively represents Eastern stories, but thought this was a good book over all.
March 3, 2026
Three and a half stars
An interesting overview of other story structures, focusing on two specific ones, with a good number of examples. I found this an interesting introduction which will hopefully give me another lens through which to look at different stories.
An interesting overview of other story structures, focusing on two specific ones, with a good number of examples. I found this an interesting introduction which will hopefully give me another lens through which to look at different stories.
May 11, 2026
TL;DR: The main flaw of the book is its attempt to stretch an Eastern phenomenological contemplative form over cause-and-effect blockbusters. First, the author fails to notice (or knowingly omits) that the true "engines" of his examples are completely different: not the Eastern four-act kishōtenketsu, but Aristotle's causal tragedy and Marxism in Parasite, and the "monomyth" (Hero's Journey) alongside Western Romanticism (where an individual's will and love overcome Fate) in the anime Your Name. Second, he interprets the role of the third act (“Twist / New Element”) far too broadly, failing to separate the contemplative dissonance in kishōtenketsu from the plot twist that launches a new cause-and-effect chain in his chosen examples. Third, the author wrongly calls the fourth act of kishōtenketsu "Harmonizing," entirely missing its resonating nature.
If the author had taken a humorous approach to trying to stretch a structure from Eastern poetry over Western blockbusters and, "winking" at us, openly used postmodern pastiche as a tool to synthesize box-office hits with the structure of Eastern poetry, we too could have treated this with humor and even interest. But on the nineteenth page of the book, the author digs his own grave when, while damning the practice of cultural appropriation, he defines it as “the practice of selectively and randomly using cosmetic aspects of the culture while failing to appreciate the larger cultural context from which they came... a form of cosplay that plucks superficial and trivial elements of a culture while FAILING TO UNDERSTAND AND HONOR CORE DIFFERENCES IN VALUES, AESTHETICS, OR SPIRIT”. And what does the author himself do? He does exactly this, couldn't even say it better: he plucks the superficial and trivial elements (the four-act structure, the plot twist) out of kishōtenketsu while throwing out its philosophy (ontology), values, and aesthetics, earnestly forcing its superficial elements onto blockbusters that are absolutely foreign to its philosophy and aesthetics.
II. MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF KISHŌTENKETSU:
For a story to score "10 out of 10" specifically for using the four-act kishōtenketsu, it should meet five criteria (based on the classical examples and definitions of kishōtenketsu that I will provide just a few paragraphs below):
1. Exposition without conflict and goal (Ki and Shō).
Importance: 8/10.
You can leave a little wiggle room here because the hero might still have some background micro-goal and a reason to move (in my examples of kishōtenketsu in cinema at the end, the Hedgehog carries jam to the Bear; Kino travels to see different countries). The main thing is that this goal should not be a Western "Inciting Incident" that launches a conflict from the very first minutes. This phase is critically important to create a rhythmic contrast with the future shock.
2. Non-causal nature of the “asteroid” (Ten).
Importance: 8.5/10.
This is one of the structural foundations. If the plot twist is caused by the hero's actions (they made a mistake, broke a taboo, challenged the mafia), the structure will likely collapse into a classic Western cause-and-effect arc. The “asteroid” intrudes from the outside as an element independent of the character's will and actions. But this is not the appearance of a "Main Villain" who must be defeated; it is a paradigm shift, a displacement of perspective, the revelation of a new layer, or a solid reason to re-evaluate previously given elements.
If we accept the broad definition of Ten as just a radical change, the kishōtenketsu structure turns into a concept that you can indeed stretch to fit almost anything: Fight Club, Se7en, Mulholland Drive, The Sixth Sense, Shutter Island, and Total Recall - because they all also feature routine at first, a shocking paradigm break in the third act, and an ironic or paradoxical synthesis in the finale. But if any story with a sudden shift and a binding ending is called kishōtenketsu, this structure loses its unique boundaries and becomes merely an exotic synonym for "plot twist."
In defense of this vision, here is a quote from the Japanese Wikipedia page on kishōtenketsu (AI translated):
"Hideo Satake, a Japanese linguist, (then) professor and director of the Institute of Language and Culture at Mukogawa Women's University, defines text structure based on kishōtenketsu as follows (note that Satake is not necessarily a proponent of using kishōtenketsu when writing essays):
Ki: Stating facts or events.
Shō: Narrating what is connected to what was said in Ki. An explanation is given, problems arising in connection with this are described, or impressions and opinions are expressed.
Ten: The introduction of another topic entirely unrelated to Ki and Shō.
Ketsu: Tying everything together and summarizing."
The Chinese Wikipedia page on kishōtenketsu (surprisingly it has only a couple of paragraphs and is a much shorter article than in English or Japanese) says: "Qi cheng zhuan he (kishōtenketsu) is sometimes described as a narrative structure without conflict, which particularly contrasts with Western storytelling styles."
Moreover, in the story about the bird and the asteroid invented by the author of this book himself to illustrate kishōtenketsu, as well as his proper, purest example of kishōtenketsu (the poem "Itoya"), the Ten aligns one hundred percent with this definition as they contain not a drop of Aristotelian causality. To conclusively "bury" the possibility of cause-and-effect linkage in Ten, read two textbook Chinese examples of kishōtenketsu. In the English translations (which is inevitable when translating poetry), some nuances absent in the originals have crept in, but they do not change the essence of the poems:
Li Bai — "Quiet Night Thought":
Before my bed, the moonlight streams,
I think that it is frost upon the ground.
I raise my head and look at the bright moon,
I lower my head and think of home.
Wang Zhihuan — "On the Stork Tower":
The white sun sets behind the mountains,
The Yellow River flows into the sea.
To see a thousand miles further,
Ascend another story.
3. Absence of a classic antagonist.
Importance: 8/10.
The presence of a villain with a plan automatically triggers the audience's expectation of a final battle and the "restoration of justice." A penalty of two and a half points can only be given because sometimes the source of the Ten is a specific person (for example, the maddened ruler of a country in Kino), but the hero interacts with them not as a personal enemy for a duel, but as part of an absurd, broken social ecosystem. The conflict is built not on a battle of good versus evil, but on an encounter with a new reality or an elemental force. Everyday tension, social discomfort, soft conflict, or moral dilemmas can exist from the very beginning, but the plot is not built on their gradual escalation.
4. Existential shift and deep internal re-evaluation (Ketsu).
Importance: 9/10.
The finale of the story is not a solution to a problem, not a return to a comfortable status quo, and not an opportunistic "adaptation." It is a state of profound internal re-evaluation. The hero (or just the audience or reader, as in the case of the Itoya poem) experiences an ontological shock from encountering the incomprehensibility, absurdity, or cruelty of the new paradigm (Ten). Instead of trying to remake the world to fit their morality, the hero falls silent before its majesty or horror, transitioning into the position of a Witness. They integrate (contain) this paradox within themselves.
The external status quo may remain (the Hedgehog sits with the Bear Cub again, Kino starts her engine and rides on), but the hero themselves irreversibly changes, left alone with a ringing existential resonance and an expanded picture of the universe. Often the hero at the end is in a state where they "looked into the Abyss, and the Abyss looked back." That severe psychological shock and re-evaluation is closely tied in Japanese aesthetics to the concept of Yoin (余韻) — "aftertaste," "resonance," "echo." It is the shivering of the air after a bell has stopped ringing. The hero does not find "balance" with slave traders. But they contain that humming bell within themselves. They expand their worldview to such dimensions that this new absurdity can fit into it.
5. Absence of a universal moral truth (Phenomenological nature).
Importance: 8.5/10.
This is another marker that fundamentally distinguishes the Eastern approach to storytelling from the Western one. Western dramaturgy (starting from Aristotle) is often didactic. The plot in it is a machine for proving a premise (the author's moral argument). A story is obligated to prove to the audience that "greed leads to destruction," "good defeats evil," or "love is more important than ambition."
Kishōtenketsu, growing out of Chinese poetics, Shintoism, and Zen Buddhism, is phenomenological by nature. It takes a hero, places them in a terrifying, paradoxical situation, and simply observes. It doesn't teach the audience "how to live correctly." Kino's famous phrase, "The world is not beautiful; therefore, it is," is a manifesto rejecting dogmatic morality.
III. REASONS FOR THE INCOMPATIBILITY OF THE FILM "PARASITE" WITH KISHŌTENKETSU.
As a theorist, the author confuses external symptoms with internal philosophical mechanisms. Let's dissect his analysis of Parasite, and we will see where he is disastrously wrong:
The author describes the return of the former housekeeper Moon-gwang and the discovery of the bunker. He writes that this hit the story “like a waiter roller-skating over a pothole with a tray of champagne flutes,” and suddenly “the story is in free fall”, and this is what he calls the perfect “asteroid” (Ten).
What is his fundamental mistake? Ignoring that in this movie this is a 100% classical western cause-and-effect twist in an Aristotelian tragedy (like in “Oedipus Rex”) and has nothing to do with the contemplative shift in perspective of kishōtenketsu:
Aristotle (Causality): The world works on the principle of cause and effect. Every action of the hero causes a logical counteraction from the environment. Aristotelian tragedy is the triumph of causality (cause-and-effect connection, propter hoc — "because of this"). The hero challenges the gods or fate, takes action, and inevitably falls. The goal of a tragedy is Catharsis (the emotional purification of the audience through fear and pity for the hero).
Kishōtenketsu (Phenomenology): Events are not connected by cause and effect. The world is a paradox, elemental forces are blind, and humans merely contemplate it and contain it within themselves. In kishōtenketsu, the narrative engine is juxtaposition. It is driven by observation, disrupted by a non-causal elemental force (Ten), and essentially ends with what the English poet John Keats aptly called "negative capability": the state "when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason." The world doesn't punish the hero for mistakes; it simply exists in all its terrifying majesty or absurdity. Suffering here is not retribution, but a consequence of universal entropy.
In Aristotle's tragic model, the turning point often answers the question:
"How did the hero's actions lead them to this change?"
In kishōtenketsu, the turning point usually asks a different question:
"How does the new element change our understanding of everything that came before?"
The author labels the genre shift and "shocking suddenness" in Parasite a Ten, and for us, the audience, the discovery of the bunker is a shock. But is it a blind element of nature for the plot? Did Moon-gwang appear out of nowhere? Absolutely not. She arrived on that rainy night solely because the Kim family in the first and second acts purposefully, cunningly, proactively, and basely drove her out of the house (using her peach allergy). The housekeeper's husband is starving in the basement because Mrs. Kim took his wife's place.
The bunker is not a random pothole in the road. It's a rake that the main characters carefully placed in the grass themselves, and then took a running leap onto it. What the author calls a Ten, Aristotle two thousand years ago called Peripeteia — when the hero's active deeds (hamartia/greed) — WILFUL OR NOR — launch a chain of events that hits them right in the back of the head. By calling this karmic, rock-solid cause-and-effect turning point an “asteroid”, the author misses the philosophical difference between an Eastern elemental force and contemplation and a Western thriller engine.
From Sophocles' playOedipus Rex, Aristotle deduced rules that perfectly describe the engine of Parasite but are absolutely incompatible with kishōtenketsu:
The Rule of Necessity and Probability. Aristotle writes: events in a plot must follow "one from the other," rather than happening "one after the other." An ideal story, according to Aristotle, happens propter hoc (because of this), not post hoc (after this). A true Ten (Asteroid) is post hoc (an independent element). But the bunker in Parasite opens strictly propter hoc — as a consequence of the Kims' con.
Peripeteia. Aristotle defines Peripeteia as "a change by which the action veers round to its opposite... subject to the rule of probability or necessity." He gives an example: a messenger comes to Oedipus to cheer him up, but his very words reveal the terrible truth and destroy the king. An action intended to save leads to collapse! The Kim family celebrates total victory in the empty house of the rich, but their triumph (the expulsion of the housekeeper) is the very thing that flips into a disaster.
Conclusion: What the book's author calls an Eastern "Ten" (relying purely on a genre break), the greatest Greek philosopher detailed 2,300 years ago as a brilliantly constructed Western Peripeteia. The use of a causal plot twist makes the film tragic at the end, but a poor example of an "asteroid."
What is WRONG in his description of the Fourth Act (Ketsu):
Here the author tries to prove that the bloodbath on the lawn and its aftermath is the perfect Eastern "Ketsu." Indeed, in a broad, structural sense, the finale performs a binding: it ties the house, the basement, the smell, and the class ladder into a single tragic knot. But the author tries to attribute the phenomenological depth of Eastern acceptance to this Marxist binding:
Substituting Marxism for Phenomenology.
The author contradicts himself while trying to explain Mr. Kim's motives:
“Now, Mr. Kim’s rage … ignites some sort of understanding and a moment of class affinity with the man who just stabbed his daughter. It is as if he views with clarity for an instant the fact that the system that keeps people like Mr. Park in power is the same system that pits poor people against each other instead of against the people who oppress them”.
Stop! If the hero realizes the mechanics of class struggle and the injustice of capitalism during the climax, then we are not dealing with kishōtenketsu. We are looking at a Western, piercingly didactic social manifesto. Bong Joon-ho's film proves its moral premise through blood. True Eastern Ketsu refuses to judge the world and does not lecture on political economy.
Rebellion instead of Contemplation. What does Mr. Kim do after his "revelation"? He doesn't fall silent before the Abyss in the position of a Witness. He grabs a knife and murders his employer out of a wounded ego (Mr. Park pinched his nose at the smell of the poor man). This is the supreme act of causal, egocentric Western revenge.
And what happens to the son (Ki-woo)? The author himself admits: “his son Ki-Woo’s greatest dream, after all these tragedies, remains the same: join that societal structure and buy that house. Ki-Woo doesn’t want to topple that system — he wants to be at the top of it”.
This is a brilliant verdict against the book's author by the author himself! He admits that the protagonist did not undergo an existential or even a perspective shift. The son learned nothing, did not assimilate the absurdity of the world, but remained a slave to his Western material illusion. The final unification in Parasite is certainly there — it brilliantly binds the elements of the film together. But this is not a contemplative, Zen-like Ketsu; it is a harsh social-Marxist moral verdict.
He concludes: “All these differing interpretations and conflicting responses to the ending of Parasite are typical features of act four of the four-act structure. It elucidates the hitherto invisible strings connecting all the elements in the prior acts … without clear or easy resolution, so that the story continues to echo in our heads long after the movie ends”.
But isn’t this a textbook description of a brilliantly crafted SOCIAL TRAGEDY? Isn't this exact lack of resolution the hallmark of endings in Taxi Driver, There Will Be Blood, Bicycle Thieves, or Chinatown? With statements like this, the author commits a glaring hypocrisy: he is condemning others for cultural appropriation of superficial elements, while doing the exact same thing himself, claiming that because a social tragedy has a resonating ending it is a good illustration of kishōtenketsu!
IV. If you want to see THE CLOSEST EMBODIMENTS OF Kishōtenketsu IN CINEMA, below is the list:
1. Hedgehog in the Fog (Yuri Norstein, 1975)
Slavic Pantheism, Magical Realism, and the Phenomenology of pure perception (the gaze of a child). The foundational engine here is the existential shock of a tiny subject encountering the vast Cosmos (the Fog). The Hedgehog does not kill a dragon in the fog; he surrenders to the flow of the river. Kishōtenketsu precisely builds the geometry and ontology of this primal, non-heroic contact with the elements.
2. Kino's Journey (2003) - e.g., episodes 12, 13, 9 and 3
The macro-worlds (the countries themselves) run on strict Western engines (twisted Dialectics or Machiavelli). They have gone mad because of their ideas. But Kino herself operates exclusively on the kishōtenketsu engine. She works according to a protocol of contemplation and non-interference. If she ran on the "Hero's Journey," the series would turn into an action show about a revolutionary. Here, kishōtenketsu is the saving optics of the observer.
3. Tokyo Story (1953)
The physics of Ozu's world are built on the fact that no one is to blame. Attachments dissolve, children drift away. Existential sadness without turning into a Western melodrama (the Japanese concept of mono no aware).
If the author had taken a humorous approach to trying to stretch a structure from Eastern poetry over Western blockbusters and, "winking" at us, openly used postmodern pastiche as a tool to synthesize box-office hits with the structure of Eastern poetry, we too could have treated this with humor and even interest. But on the nineteenth page of the book, the author digs his own grave when, while damning the practice of cultural appropriation, he defines it as “the practice of selectively and randomly using cosmetic aspects of the culture while failing to appreciate the larger cultural context from which they came... a form of cosplay that plucks superficial and trivial elements of a culture while FAILING TO UNDERSTAND AND HONOR CORE DIFFERENCES IN VALUES, AESTHETICS, OR SPIRIT”. And what does the author himself do? He does exactly this, couldn't even say it better: he plucks the superficial and trivial elements (the four-act structure, the plot twist) out of kishōtenketsu while throwing out its philosophy (ontology), values, and aesthetics, earnestly forcing its superficial elements onto blockbusters that are absolutely foreign to its philosophy and aesthetics.
II. MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF KISHŌTENKETSU:
For a story to score "10 out of 10" specifically for using the four-act kishōtenketsu, it should meet five criteria (based on the classical examples and definitions of kishōtenketsu that I will provide just a few paragraphs below):
1. Exposition without conflict and goal (Ki and Shō).
Importance: 8/10.
You can leave a little wiggle room here because the hero might still have some background micro-goal and a reason to move (in my examples of kishōtenketsu in cinema at the end, the Hedgehog carries jam to the Bear; Kino travels to see different countries). The main thing is that this goal should not be a Western "Inciting Incident" that launches a conflict from the very first minutes. This phase is critically important to create a rhythmic contrast with the future shock.
2. Non-causal nature of the “asteroid” (Ten).
Importance: 8.5/10.
This is one of the structural foundations. If the plot twist is caused by the hero's actions (they made a mistake, broke a taboo, challenged the mafia), the structure will likely collapse into a classic Western cause-and-effect arc. The “asteroid” intrudes from the outside as an element independent of the character's will and actions. But this is not the appearance of a "Main Villain" who must be defeated; it is a paradigm shift, a displacement of perspective, the revelation of a new layer, or a solid reason to re-evaluate previously given elements.
If we accept the broad definition of Ten as just a radical change, the kishōtenketsu structure turns into a concept that you can indeed stretch to fit almost anything: Fight Club, Se7en, Mulholland Drive, The Sixth Sense, Shutter Island, and Total Recall - because they all also feature routine at first, a shocking paradigm break in the third act, and an ironic or paradoxical synthesis in the finale. But if any story with a sudden shift and a binding ending is called kishōtenketsu, this structure loses its unique boundaries and becomes merely an exotic synonym for "plot twist."
In defense of this vision, here is a quote from the Japanese Wikipedia page on kishōtenketsu (AI translated):
"Hideo Satake, a Japanese linguist, (then) professor and director of the Institute of Language and Culture at Mukogawa Women's University, defines text structure based on kishōtenketsu as follows (note that Satake is not necessarily a proponent of using kishōtenketsu when writing essays):
Ki: Stating facts or events.
Shō: Narrating what is connected to what was said in Ki. An explanation is given, problems arising in connection with this are described, or impressions and opinions are expressed.
Ten: The introduction of another topic entirely unrelated to Ki and Shō.
Ketsu: Tying everything together and summarizing."
The Chinese Wikipedia page on kishōtenketsu (surprisingly it has only a couple of paragraphs and is a much shorter article than in English or Japanese) says: "Qi cheng zhuan he (kishōtenketsu) is sometimes described as a narrative structure without conflict, which particularly contrasts with Western storytelling styles."
Moreover, in the story about the bird and the asteroid invented by the author of this book himself to illustrate kishōtenketsu, as well as his proper, purest example of kishōtenketsu (the poem "Itoya"), the Ten aligns one hundred percent with this definition as they contain not a drop of Aristotelian causality. To conclusively "bury" the possibility of cause-and-effect linkage in Ten, read two textbook Chinese examples of kishōtenketsu. In the English translations (which is inevitable when translating poetry), some nuances absent in the originals have crept in, but they do not change the essence of the poems:
Li Bai — "Quiet Night Thought":
Before my bed, the moonlight streams,
I think that it is frost upon the ground.
I raise my head and look at the bright moon,
I lower my head and think of home.
Wang Zhihuan — "On the Stork Tower":
The white sun sets behind the mountains,
The Yellow River flows into the sea.
To see a thousand miles further,
Ascend another story.
3. Absence of a classic antagonist.
Importance: 8/10.
The presence of a villain with a plan automatically triggers the audience's expectation of a final battle and the "restoration of justice." A penalty of two and a half points can only be given because sometimes the source of the Ten is a specific person (for example, the maddened ruler of a country in Kino), but the hero interacts with them not as a personal enemy for a duel, but as part of an absurd, broken social ecosystem. The conflict is built not on a battle of good versus evil, but on an encounter with a new reality or an elemental force. Everyday tension, social discomfort, soft conflict, or moral dilemmas can exist from the very beginning, but the plot is not built on their gradual escalation.
4. Existential shift and deep internal re-evaluation (Ketsu).
Importance: 9/10.
The finale of the story is not a solution to a problem, not a return to a comfortable status quo, and not an opportunistic "adaptation." It is a state of profound internal re-evaluation. The hero (or just the audience or reader, as in the case of the Itoya poem) experiences an ontological shock from encountering the incomprehensibility, absurdity, or cruelty of the new paradigm (Ten). Instead of trying to remake the world to fit their morality, the hero falls silent before its majesty or horror, transitioning into the position of a Witness. They integrate (contain) this paradox within themselves.
The external status quo may remain (the Hedgehog sits with the Bear Cub again, Kino starts her engine and rides on), but the hero themselves irreversibly changes, left alone with a ringing existential resonance and an expanded picture of the universe. Often the hero at the end is in a state where they "looked into the Abyss, and the Abyss looked back." That severe psychological shock and re-evaluation is closely tied in Japanese aesthetics to the concept of Yoin (余韻) — "aftertaste," "resonance," "echo." It is the shivering of the air after a bell has stopped ringing. The hero does not find "balance" with slave traders. But they contain that humming bell within themselves. They expand their worldview to such dimensions that this new absurdity can fit into it.
5. Absence of a universal moral truth (Phenomenological nature).
Importance: 8.5/10.
This is another marker that fundamentally distinguishes the Eastern approach to storytelling from the Western one. Western dramaturgy (starting from Aristotle) is often didactic. The plot in it is a machine for proving a premise (the author's moral argument). A story is obligated to prove to the audience that "greed leads to destruction," "good defeats evil," or "love is more important than ambition."
Kishōtenketsu, growing out of Chinese poetics, Shintoism, and Zen Buddhism, is phenomenological by nature. It takes a hero, places them in a terrifying, paradoxical situation, and simply observes. It doesn't teach the audience "how to live correctly." Kino's famous phrase, "The world is not beautiful; therefore, it is," is a manifesto rejecting dogmatic morality.
III. REASONS FOR THE INCOMPATIBILITY OF THE FILM "PARASITE" WITH KISHŌTENKETSU.
As a theorist, the author confuses external symptoms with internal philosophical mechanisms. Let's dissect his analysis of Parasite, and we will see where he is disastrously wrong:
The author describes the return of the former housekeeper Moon-gwang and the discovery of the bunker. He writes that this hit the story “like a waiter roller-skating over a pothole with a tray of champagne flutes,” and suddenly “the story is in free fall”, and this is what he calls the perfect “asteroid” (Ten).
What is his fundamental mistake? Ignoring that in this movie this is a 100% classical western cause-and-effect twist in an Aristotelian tragedy (like in “Oedipus Rex”) and has nothing to do with the contemplative shift in perspective of kishōtenketsu:
Aristotle (Causality): The world works on the principle of cause and effect. Every action of the hero causes a logical counteraction from the environment. Aristotelian tragedy is the triumph of causality (cause-and-effect connection, propter hoc — "because of this"). The hero challenges the gods or fate, takes action, and inevitably falls. The goal of a tragedy is Catharsis (the emotional purification of the audience through fear and pity for the hero).
Kishōtenketsu (Phenomenology): Events are not connected by cause and effect. The world is a paradox, elemental forces are blind, and humans merely contemplate it and contain it within themselves. In kishōtenketsu, the narrative engine is juxtaposition. It is driven by observation, disrupted by a non-causal elemental force (Ten), and essentially ends with what the English poet John Keats aptly called "negative capability": the state "when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason." The world doesn't punish the hero for mistakes; it simply exists in all its terrifying majesty or absurdity. Suffering here is not retribution, but a consequence of universal entropy.
In Aristotle's tragic model, the turning point often answers the question:
"How did the hero's actions lead them to this change?"
In kishōtenketsu, the turning point usually asks a different question:
"How does the new element change our understanding of everything that came before?"
The author labels the genre shift and "shocking suddenness" in Parasite a Ten, and for us, the audience, the discovery of the bunker is a shock. But is it a blind element of nature for the plot? Did Moon-gwang appear out of nowhere? Absolutely not. She arrived on that rainy night solely because the Kim family in the first and second acts purposefully, cunningly, proactively, and basely drove her out of the house (using her peach allergy). The housekeeper's husband is starving in the basement because Mrs. Kim took his wife's place.
The bunker is not a random pothole in the road. It's a rake that the main characters carefully placed in the grass themselves, and then took a running leap onto it. What the author calls a Ten, Aristotle two thousand years ago called Peripeteia — when the hero's active deeds (hamartia/greed) — WILFUL OR NOR — launch a chain of events that hits them right in the back of the head. By calling this karmic, rock-solid cause-and-effect turning point an “asteroid”, the author misses the philosophical difference between an Eastern elemental force and contemplation and a Western thriller engine.
From Sophocles' playOedipus Rex, Aristotle deduced rules that perfectly describe the engine of Parasite but are absolutely incompatible with kishōtenketsu:
The Rule of Necessity and Probability. Aristotle writes: events in a plot must follow "one from the other," rather than happening "one after the other." An ideal story, according to Aristotle, happens propter hoc (because of this), not post hoc (after this). A true Ten (Asteroid) is post hoc (an independent element). But the bunker in Parasite opens strictly propter hoc — as a consequence of the Kims' con.
Peripeteia. Aristotle defines Peripeteia as "a change by which the action veers round to its opposite... subject to the rule of probability or necessity." He gives an example: a messenger comes to Oedipus to cheer him up, but his very words reveal the terrible truth and destroy the king. An action intended to save leads to collapse! The Kim family celebrates total victory in the empty house of the rich, but their triumph (the expulsion of the housekeeper) is the very thing that flips into a disaster.
Conclusion: What the book's author calls an Eastern "Ten" (relying purely on a genre break), the greatest Greek philosopher detailed 2,300 years ago as a brilliantly constructed Western Peripeteia. The use of a causal plot twist makes the film tragic at the end, but a poor example of an "asteroid."
What is WRONG in his description of the Fourth Act (Ketsu):
Here the author tries to prove that the bloodbath on the lawn and its aftermath is the perfect Eastern "Ketsu." Indeed, in a broad, structural sense, the finale performs a binding: it ties the house, the basement, the smell, and the class ladder into a single tragic knot. But the author tries to attribute the phenomenological depth of Eastern acceptance to this Marxist binding:
Substituting Marxism for Phenomenology.
The author contradicts himself while trying to explain Mr. Kim's motives:
“Now, Mr. Kim’s rage … ignites some sort of understanding and a moment of class affinity with the man who just stabbed his daughter. It is as if he views with clarity for an instant the fact that the system that keeps people like Mr. Park in power is the same system that pits poor people against each other instead of against the people who oppress them”.
Stop! If the hero realizes the mechanics of class struggle and the injustice of capitalism during the climax, then we are not dealing with kishōtenketsu. We are looking at a Western, piercingly didactic social manifesto. Bong Joon-ho's film proves its moral premise through blood. True Eastern Ketsu refuses to judge the world and does not lecture on political economy.
Rebellion instead of Contemplation. What does Mr. Kim do after his "revelation"? He doesn't fall silent before the Abyss in the position of a Witness. He grabs a knife and murders his employer out of a wounded ego (Mr. Park pinched his nose at the smell of the poor man). This is the supreme act of causal, egocentric Western revenge.
And what happens to the son (Ki-woo)? The author himself admits: “his son Ki-Woo’s greatest dream, after all these tragedies, remains the same: join that societal structure and buy that house. Ki-Woo doesn’t want to topple that system — he wants to be at the top of it”.
This is a brilliant verdict against the book's author by the author himself! He admits that the protagonist did not undergo an existential or even a perspective shift. The son learned nothing, did not assimilate the absurdity of the world, but remained a slave to his Western material illusion. The final unification in Parasite is certainly there — it brilliantly binds the elements of the film together. But this is not a contemplative, Zen-like Ketsu; it is a harsh social-Marxist moral verdict.
He concludes: “All these differing interpretations and conflicting responses to the ending of Parasite are typical features of act four of the four-act structure. It elucidates the hitherto invisible strings connecting all the elements in the prior acts … without clear or easy resolution, so that the story continues to echo in our heads long after the movie ends”.
But isn’t this a textbook description of a brilliantly crafted SOCIAL TRAGEDY? Isn't this exact lack of resolution the hallmark of endings in Taxi Driver, There Will Be Blood, Bicycle Thieves, or Chinatown? With statements like this, the author commits a glaring hypocrisy: he is condemning others for cultural appropriation of superficial elements, while doing the exact same thing himself, claiming that because a social tragedy has a resonating ending it is a good illustration of kishōtenketsu!
IV. If you want to see THE CLOSEST EMBODIMENTS OF Kishōtenketsu IN CINEMA, below is the list:
1. Hedgehog in the Fog (Yuri Norstein, 1975)
Slavic Pantheism, Magical Realism, and the Phenomenology of pure perception (the gaze of a child). The foundational engine here is the existential shock of a tiny subject encountering the vast Cosmos (the Fog). The Hedgehog does not kill a dragon in the fog; he surrenders to the flow of the river. Kishōtenketsu precisely builds the geometry and ontology of this primal, non-heroic contact with the elements.
2. Kino's Journey (2003) - e.g., episodes 12, 13, 9 and 3
The macro-worlds (the countries themselves) run on strict Western engines (twisted Dialectics or Machiavelli). They have gone mad because of their ideas. But Kino herself operates exclusively on the kishōtenketsu engine. She works according to a protocol of contemplation and non-interference. If she ran on the "Hero's Journey," the series would turn into an action show about a revolutionary. Here, kishōtenketsu is the saving optics of the observer.
3. Tokyo Story (1953)
The physics of Ozu's world are built on the fact that no one is to blame. Attachments dissolve, children drift away. Existential sadness without turning into a Western melodrama (the Japanese concept of mono no aware).
February 4, 2026
tbh idk if i actually liked this book or just felt very enlightened by the introduction of kishotenketsu and the merits of nested/circular stories. i hadn’t really considered the underlying structure that contributes so much to the impact of stories that i like and found it cool to read how this style of storytelling originated from eastern cultures possibly due to certain common values. in my favorite critique of non-fiction, i didn’t love where this got prescriptive rather than descriptive. in giving his take on how kishotenketsu formats enhance the example stories, lien kind of imposes his own biases or interpretations. at times this was insightful, at other times a bit patronizing. however i liked the general structure of the book, some of the theorizing about why these storytelling approaches are so effective, and the questions lien included at the end as opportunities for further reflection. if i end up writing anything other than goodreads reviews i would definitely reference those questions and the ideas presented in this book.
out of the things i am reflecting on (including how heated rivalry the tv show is somehow peak kishotenketsu) i think it’s generally nice to think that certain values and stories i am attached to are told in a more western, three act mode and others in the more eastern, four act or circular/nested mode. maybe because i was born and raised in the u.s. by chinese parents but as much as the open-ended modes of eastern storytelling often result in more thought-provoking and layered stories, i still enjoy the satisfaction of a somewhat more straightforward, self-contained, and predictable western storyline.
in suggesting that the dominant western media landscape unfairly overlooks those eastern approaches to storytelling in favor of the western way, the book felt a bit in opposition to its central thesis that just as much as structure suggests values, values inform structure. clearly people with different backgrounds will have different propensities for the stories they are best equipped to tell, and the popularity of many of the four act or circular/nested stories that lien delineates is evidence that as these formats are introduced through increasingly open exchange between eastern and western cultures, the more possibilities there are for mutual adoption of diverse modes of storytelling, without judging one as more or less effective in general. to take an example heavily criticized by lien, even though disney’s animated mulan overwrote many of the themes of the original chinese legend, as a chinese american girl, i related more to the tomboyish protagonist who questioned her place in society and thus felt compelled to defy authority, prove her worth through her own efforts, and make her own path. i don’t think an adaptation made solely by chinese storytellers would have distilled the legend in a way that emphasized mulan’s autonomy or strength so heavily, yet without this ‘americanized’ retelling, girls like me would not have experienced the pride and sense of belonging through representation in one of the strongest and most beloved of disney princesses (who i also argue still embodies central chinese values like filial piety and hard work and humility AND slays just as much in a full face and dress as she does in a soldier’s uniform). just as i am sure lien would applaud something like a western fairy tale being rewritten in four acts to reveal new aspects of the underlying story, a more western story arc can also provide new perspectives to traditionally eastern stories without completely undermining their essence.
i am also interested in the ambiguity between the structures? like i don’t think they are mutually exclusive at this point and i think some of the examples in this book don’t totally match the four act template and some of the nested/circular stories are sort of three act in a roundabout way. this blurring feels like another way in which we are able to explore a more varied landscape of storytelling through the sharing and appreciation of diverse stories. i watched (and quite enjoyed) zootopia 2 while i was in the middle of this book and tried to outline it in both a three and four act structure and didn’t feel that either quite encompassed all the layers of the story. there are aspects of exposition, confrontation, and resolution but it also feels like there is a discovery about their environment along the way that alters the characters’ motivations and how i received the movie. beyond movies, which i think can be more constrained in structure by runtime and the demands of visual storytelling, a lot of books also meander and experiment with formats that could be understood through multiple interpretations which may lead readers to consider totally different themes depending on the structure they find within the story. as expressed in this book, i feel like this is the most compelling part of embracing diverse storytelling structures as a reader/writer. we are able to come away from and imbue stories with our own subjective experiences, which are constantly accumulating and being enriched by the stories of others.
out of the things i am reflecting on (including how heated rivalry the tv show is somehow peak kishotenketsu) i think it’s generally nice to think that certain values and stories i am attached to are told in a more western, three act mode and others in the more eastern, four act or circular/nested mode. maybe because i was born and raised in the u.s. by chinese parents but as much as the open-ended modes of eastern storytelling often result in more thought-provoking and layered stories, i still enjoy the satisfaction of a somewhat more straightforward, self-contained, and predictable western storyline.
in suggesting that the dominant western media landscape unfairly overlooks those eastern approaches to storytelling in favor of the western way, the book felt a bit in opposition to its central thesis that just as much as structure suggests values, values inform structure. clearly people with different backgrounds will have different propensities for the stories they are best equipped to tell, and the popularity of many of the four act or circular/nested stories that lien delineates is evidence that as these formats are introduced through increasingly open exchange between eastern and western cultures, the more possibilities there are for mutual adoption of diverse modes of storytelling, without judging one as more or less effective in general. to take an example heavily criticized by lien, even though disney’s animated mulan overwrote many of the themes of the original chinese legend, as a chinese american girl, i related more to the tomboyish protagonist who questioned her place in society and thus felt compelled to defy authority, prove her worth through her own efforts, and make her own path. i don’t think an adaptation made solely by chinese storytellers would have distilled the legend in a way that emphasized mulan’s autonomy or strength so heavily, yet without this ‘americanized’ retelling, girls like me would not have experienced the pride and sense of belonging through representation in one of the strongest and most beloved of disney princesses (who i also argue still embodies central chinese values like filial piety and hard work and humility AND slays just as much in a full face and dress as she does in a soldier’s uniform). just as i am sure lien would applaud something like a western fairy tale being rewritten in four acts to reveal new aspects of the underlying story, a more western story arc can also provide new perspectives to traditionally eastern stories without completely undermining their essence.
i am also interested in the ambiguity between the structures? like i don’t think they are mutually exclusive at this point and i think some of the examples in this book don’t totally match the four act template and some of the nested/circular stories are sort of three act in a roundabout way. this blurring feels like another way in which we are able to explore a more varied landscape of storytelling through the sharing and appreciation of diverse stories. i watched (and quite enjoyed) zootopia 2 while i was in the middle of this book and tried to outline it in both a three and four act structure and didn’t feel that either quite encompassed all the layers of the story. there are aspects of exposition, confrontation, and resolution but it also feels like there is a discovery about their environment along the way that alters the characters’ motivations and how i received the movie. beyond movies, which i think can be more constrained in structure by runtime and the demands of visual storytelling, a lot of books also meander and experiment with formats that could be understood through multiple interpretations which may lead readers to consider totally different themes depending on the structure they find within the story. as expressed in this book, i feel like this is the most compelling part of embracing diverse storytelling structures as a reader/writer. we are able to come away from and imbue stories with our own subjective experiences, which are constantly accumulating and being enriched by the stories of others.
January 23, 2025
I enjoyed, and was stimulated in thought, by the first half of this book, as well as by sections of the latter half, especially in the fourth chapter. (It's arranged into four chapters, echoing the book's central idea of a unique four-act approach to storytelling prevalent in Eastern societies. I'll get to why I was not so fond of Ch. 3 later.) The book employs exemplary works of literature, film, and even video games to support the claim that there's not just one approach to sound story crafting -- but, rather, that Eastern societies developed distinct modes of storytelling reflecting their values and worldview. (A note on the use of the word "Eastern": while the book draws heavily on East Asian sources, it tries to make a broader case suggesting not only South Asia but also the Middle East [i.e. everyplace not big-W "Western"] fit this mold. The book might have made a stronger case sticking to East Asia, as - for example - it might be argued that Arabia / Persia of the time of One Thousand and One Nights, being Abrahamic, was closer to Europe than East Asia in values and worldview. To be fair, the author does argue that some parts of that book are believed to have come from farther East (India and, possibly, beyond.))
The book proposes that there are two (arguably three) styles of story construction that are distinctly Eastern. The first is a four-act structure that is far from just a rejiggering of the three and five act forms with which English Literature students will be familiar. Incidentally, the book's rather unusual title maps to the elements of this four-act structure. The second involves circular and nested story structure. I don't know that the author succeeds in (or even seeks to) convince the reader that this is a uniquely Eastern approach, but -rather - makes an argument as to why it is prominent in Eastern storytelling.
The author picked an excellent set of works to illustrate his points. Generally, the works are both well-known and well-received among diverse audiences. The films he employs as cases include Parasite, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Rashomon (the latter also being a literary work.) Lien uses one of my favorite Haruki Murakami novels Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World as a critical example. I was not at all familiar with the video games he describes (beyond name,) but - given that I'd at least heard of them - I assume they are pretty popular (though I can't speak to whether they have any discernable stories and will have to take that on faith.)
As for why I didn't care for the book's third part. I should point out that is the most philosophical (and the least explicitly concerned with story) part of the book, and it aims to show how values and worldview vary across cultures such that there are differences in story structure and crafting between different parts of the world. That could be a laudable objective and germane to the book's point and it's not why I found this section to be muddled and ineffective. The problem is that the chapter oversimplifies the issue in a way that seems to undercut a broader central argument (that Eastern modes of storytelling are underrepresented outside of the East.) Instead of suggesting that people experience conflicts along continuums (e.g. individual to group identity) and that Easterners tend come to different conclusions than Westerners do based on differing values and cultural perspectives, it engages in an elaboration of the distinctions that seems to suggest there's some unbridgeable gulf of understanding between cultures (and, quite frankly, kind of feels like it's shifted from making the aforementioned point to just being a thinly veiled critique of Western culture -- which is fine, but probably belongs in a different book -- or maybe a manifesto.) But if there were no basis for stories to resonate across this gulf, then not only wouldn't Parasite and Everything Everywhere All at Once have killed it at both the Oscars and American box office, there'd be no reason for artists to attempt to branch out and tells stories across tribal lines. Without establishing a basis for story resonance, it's ridiculous to argue that Hollywood should use Eastern modes of storytelling and Eastern worldviews to a greater extent. (A profit pursuing entity is always going to seek out its largest possible customer base.) I'm not attempting to negate the argument that there are different approaches to storytelling among different peoples nor that more diversity of approaches shouldn't be seen across cultures. I'm saying that this chapter doesn't well support the argument for greater representation of Eastern modes of storytelling outside of Eastern outlets (publishers, film studios, etc.) because it spends so much time arguing the cultural differences that it doesn't indicate how cross-cultural story resonance is possible.
Overall, I found this to be an interesting and thought-provoking read, though it was - for me - a bit muddled in the middle.
The book proposes that there are two (arguably three) styles of story construction that are distinctly Eastern. The first is a four-act structure that is far from just a rejiggering of the three and five act forms with which English Literature students will be familiar. Incidentally, the book's rather unusual title maps to the elements of this four-act structure. The second involves circular and nested story structure. I don't know that the author succeeds in (or even seeks to) convince the reader that this is a uniquely Eastern approach, but -rather - makes an argument as to why it is prominent in Eastern storytelling.
The author picked an excellent set of works to illustrate his points. Generally, the works are both well-known and well-received among diverse audiences. The films he employs as cases include Parasite, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Rashomon (the latter also being a literary work.) Lien uses one of my favorite Haruki Murakami novels Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World as a critical example. I was not at all familiar with the video games he describes (beyond name,) but - given that I'd at least heard of them - I assume they are pretty popular (though I can't speak to whether they have any discernable stories and will have to take that on faith.)
As for why I didn't care for the book's third part. I should point out that is the most philosophical (and the least explicitly concerned with story) part of the book, and it aims to show how values and worldview vary across cultures such that there are differences in story structure and crafting between different parts of the world. That could be a laudable objective and germane to the book's point and it's not why I found this section to be muddled and ineffective. The problem is that the chapter oversimplifies the issue in a way that seems to undercut a broader central argument (that Eastern modes of storytelling are underrepresented outside of the East.) Instead of suggesting that people experience conflicts along continuums (e.g. individual to group identity) and that Easterners tend come to different conclusions than Westerners do based on differing values and cultural perspectives, it engages in an elaboration of the distinctions that seems to suggest there's some unbridgeable gulf of understanding between cultures (and, quite frankly, kind of feels like it's shifted from making the aforementioned point to just being a thinly veiled critique of Western culture -- which is fine, but probably belongs in a different book -- or maybe a manifesto.) But if there were no basis for stories to resonate across this gulf, then not only wouldn't Parasite and Everything Everywhere All at Once have killed it at both the Oscars and American box office, there'd be no reason for artists to attempt to branch out and tells stories across tribal lines. Without establishing a basis for story resonance, it's ridiculous to argue that Hollywood should use Eastern modes of storytelling and Eastern worldviews to a greater extent. (A profit pursuing entity is always going to seek out its largest possible customer base.) I'm not attempting to negate the argument that there are different approaches to storytelling among different peoples nor that more diversity of approaches shouldn't be seen across cultures. I'm saying that this chapter doesn't well support the argument for greater representation of Eastern modes of storytelling outside of Eastern outlets (publishers, film studios, etc.) because it spends so much time arguing the cultural differences that it doesn't indicate how cross-cultural story resonance is possible.
Overall, I found this to be an interesting and thought-provoking read, though it was - for me - a bit muddled in the middle.
December 26, 2024
My thanks to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for an advance copy of this book that shows the differences in how cultures present and accept certain stories, and how these differences can effect not only understanding but enjoyment, leaving some audiences satisfied and others confused and lost.
I remember once talking to a customer in a book store about movies. She was lamenting the fact that a Hollywood studio was remaking a movie from possibly Japan, maybe China, I don't remember, and how they will just the essence of what made it good. I agreed, and went more the subtitle route saying people just don't like to read movies. She had a much better answer, they won't understand how the story is set up, and will make it in a way they are familiar with. I didn't really grasp that idea, thinking more that Hollywood would dumb it down, add music to sell soundtracks, maybe even toys. Now after reading this fascinating book, I understand her completely. They took a work that needed Four acts, and made it one that could be told in three acts. And that made all the difference. In Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling educator and writer Henry Lien looks at the differences in western and eastern stories, using examples drawn from different media and showing how different cultures view stories, and what to expect from them.
Henry Lien does not waste anytime in this slim book going right to the heart of what makes Eastern stories different and that is the addition of a fourth act. Western stories usually have three, introduction, problem, solution and everyone lives happily ever after. Eastern stories might have an introduction, a problems, a sudden out of nowhere additional problem and an ending, that might come surprisingly quick to some audiences. Lien draws from many sources, novels, poems, video games and movies. However the best example is a short story that shares they title with this book. A short story that is really worth the price of the book. Lien looks at stories that feed off of each each other, growing in length and calling on earlier parts to expand their meanings. All told in a way that makes sense, with very good examples and lots of ohhh I get it moments. I must admit after finishing this book, I began to think about many books I have read, manga and movies, with Eastern writers, and could see the laying out of four acts, and why I enjoyed the stories so much.
I am not sure what I expected from this book, but I leaned quite a lot. Actually I found a new short story writer that I am going to have to look for. I really enjoyed the story alot. What I found was as I read I could see quite clearly where Lien was going, and understood what he was showing. Even in the video games, some I haven't played in years I could see what he was describing, and how enthralled and lost I was in these games. And why. Lien looks at a novel by Haruki Murakami, and breaks down the four act process to the story, and in thinking of the other books I have read by Murakami, again have a deeper understanding and appreciation for the books. Was I drawn to what I thought was quirky, writing, like hey what the heck has this section have to do with anything, or was it the four act breakdown that made the story richer.
I highly recommend this book both for readers and for writers. The examples are worth checking out, his descriptions of some of the more popular books in the western world, view through eastern readers is quite funny. One learns a lot about what can write, what audiences can handle, and maybe to challenge readers with. Again, I leaned quite a lot, and enjoyed this book on many levels. In many ways this has opened my eyes up to why I love stories so much.
I remember once talking to a customer in a book store about movies. She was lamenting the fact that a Hollywood studio was remaking a movie from possibly Japan, maybe China, I don't remember, and how they will just the essence of what made it good. I agreed, and went more the subtitle route saying people just don't like to read movies. She had a much better answer, they won't understand how the story is set up, and will make it in a way they are familiar with. I didn't really grasp that idea, thinking more that Hollywood would dumb it down, add music to sell soundtracks, maybe even toys. Now after reading this fascinating book, I understand her completely. They took a work that needed Four acts, and made it one that could be told in three acts. And that made all the difference. In Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling educator and writer Henry Lien looks at the differences in western and eastern stories, using examples drawn from different media and showing how different cultures view stories, and what to expect from them.
Henry Lien does not waste anytime in this slim book going right to the heart of what makes Eastern stories different and that is the addition of a fourth act. Western stories usually have three, introduction, problem, solution and everyone lives happily ever after. Eastern stories might have an introduction, a problems, a sudden out of nowhere additional problem and an ending, that might come surprisingly quick to some audiences. Lien draws from many sources, novels, poems, video games and movies. However the best example is a short story that shares they title with this book. A short story that is really worth the price of the book. Lien looks at stories that feed off of each each other, growing in length and calling on earlier parts to expand their meanings. All told in a way that makes sense, with very good examples and lots of ohhh I get it moments. I must admit after finishing this book, I began to think about many books I have read, manga and movies, with Eastern writers, and could see the laying out of four acts, and why I enjoyed the stories so much.
I am not sure what I expected from this book, but I leaned quite a lot. Actually I found a new short story writer that I am going to have to look for. I really enjoyed the story alot. What I found was as I read I could see quite clearly where Lien was going, and understood what he was showing. Even in the video games, some I haven't played in years I could see what he was describing, and how enthralled and lost I was in these games. And why. Lien looks at a novel by Haruki Murakami, and breaks down the four act process to the story, and in thinking of the other books I have read by Murakami, again have a deeper understanding and appreciation for the books. Was I drawn to what I thought was quirky, writing, like hey what the heck has this section have to do with anything, or was it the four act breakdown that made the story richer.
I highly recommend this book both for readers and for writers. The examples are worth checking out, his descriptions of some of the more popular books in the western world, view through eastern readers is quite funny. One learns a lot about what can write, what audiences can handle, and maybe to challenge readers with. Again, I leaned quite a lot, and enjoyed this book on many levels. In many ways this has opened my eyes up to why I love stories so much.
January 4, 2025
Henry Lien’s book Spring Summer Asteroid Bird provides an introduction to a common form of Asian storytelling known in the West by its Japanese name kishotenketsu.
To understand and appreciate kishotenketsu we need to quickly recap the traditional three-act story structure. In this familiar structure the first act sets up the story and introduces the catalyst that propels the protagonist on their ‘hero’s journey’. By the end of the first act, we have met the main characters and understand the protagonist’s mission. In the second act, multiple obstacles are encountered by the protagonist from antagonist forces. Often it appears the protagonist will achieve his goal at around the half way mark only for his plans to collapse and by the end of the second act the antagonist looks victorious. In the third act, the protagonist gains some inspiration and rallies to defeat the antagonist (or fails if it’s a tragedy) in the climax thus providing resolution to the story.
Henry Lien describes how kishotenketsu is a four-act structure. It is not symmetrical. The first act introduces the character and setting. In the second act the story develops through a series of events. The third act features a surprise twist or introduction of a brand new element which challenges the assumptions in the first two acts. The fourth act harmonizes the preceding elements and sometimes concludes abruptly leaving the reader/viewer to draw their own conclusions. The story arc when shown graphically depicts how disruptive the third act twist can be.
The third act new element is quite different to traditional approaches where most of what’s needed to conclude the story has already been introduced. Another feature that’s different is that the story often lacks the conflict and tension in the first two acts that is common in three-act structures.
Lien illustrates kishotenketsu by examining well-known stories using the form including Academy Award winners Parasite and Everything Everywhere All At Once. By doing so he demonstrates that western audiences can readily embrace the four-act structure. However he also shows how the original story of Mulan and other Eastern stories can be lost when translated into traditional three-act forms.
Most of the book covers case studies of four-act storytelling. This includes nested and circular structures. He even uses video game stories to illustrate the form. Indeed, kishotenketsu is common in manga and anime stories.
The most interesting chapter is on the values dictating the four-act structure. The third act twist gives us the opportunity to see how a character responds to an unplanned or unwelcome complication. With circular stories multiple passes at the same event reveal more than an individual linear account. Nested storytelling allows deep relational networks to emerge that transcend individual experiences.
Lien finishes by reviewing one of the most famous and complex nested stories – 1001 Nights.
Helpfully the book ends with questions for the reader/writer that allow those interested to further consolidate their understanding and thinking on the four-act structure.
Spring Summer Asteroid Bird is a very useful antidote to the formulaic western storytelling that we are most familiar with or, as writers, are taught. It provides a different perspective on how to think about story. For that reason alone it is worth a read.
Full review: https://courtofthegrandchildren.com/e...
To understand and appreciate kishotenketsu we need to quickly recap the traditional three-act story structure. In this familiar structure the first act sets up the story and introduces the catalyst that propels the protagonist on their ‘hero’s journey’. By the end of the first act, we have met the main characters and understand the protagonist’s mission. In the second act, multiple obstacles are encountered by the protagonist from antagonist forces. Often it appears the protagonist will achieve his goal at around the half way mark only for his plans to collapse and by the end of the second act the antagonist looks victorious. In the third act, the protagonist gains some inspiration and rallies to defeat the antagonist (or fails if it’s a tragedy) in the climax thus providing resolution to the story.
Henry Lien describes how kishotenketsu is a four-act structure. It is not symmetrical. The first act introduces the character and setting. In the second act the story develops through a series of events. The third act features a surprise twist or introduction of a brand new element which challenges the assumptions in the first two acts. The fourth act harmonizes the preceding elements and sometimes concludes abruptly leaving the reader/viewer to draw their own conclusions. The story arc when shown graphically depicts how disruptive the third act twist can be.
The third act new element is quite different to traditional approaches where most of what’s needed to conclude the story has already been introduced. Another feature that’s different is that the story often lacks the conflict and tension in the first two acts that is common in three-act structures.
Lien illustrates kishotenketsu by examining well-known stories using the form including Academy Award winners Parasite and Everything Everywhere All At Once. By doing so he demonstrates that western audiences can readily embrace the four-act structure. However he also shows how the original story of Mulan and other Eastern stories can be lost when translated into traditional three-act forms.
Most of the book covers case studies of four-act storytelling. This includes nested and circular structures. He even uses video game stories to illustrate the form. Indeed, kishotenketsu is common in manga and anime stories.
The most interesting chapter is on the values dictating the four-act structure. The third act twist gives us the opportunity to see how a character responds to an unplanned or unwelcome complication. With circular stories multiple passes at the same event reveal more than an individual linear account. Nested storytelling allows deep relational networks to emerge that transcend individual experiences.
Lien finishes by reviewing one of the most famous and complex nested stories – 1001 Nights.
Helpfully the book ends with questions for the reader/writer that allow those interested to further consolidate their understanding and thinking on the four-act structure.
Spring Summer Asteroid Bird is a very useful antidote to the formulaic western storytelling that we are most familiar with or, as writers, are taught. It provides a different perspective on how to think about story. For that reason alone it is worth a read.
Full review: https://courtofthegrandchildren.com/e...
February 22, 2026
Overall, well written explanation and comparison of different story telling structures, their origins, and how they add to certain themes or messages in stories.
I especially liked how I was losing a little steam in act 2 reading about the nested structures as those examples were not familiar to me, and then act 3 threw in the "twist" of how western stories often highlight individualistic values which are commonly emphasized in western cultures, and how this might add to symptoms of loneliness in western places. Whereas the collectivist leanings of eastern stories and countries may add to issues associated with the disregard of the individual.
I did find the analysis of prisoner of Azkaban as kishotenketsu a little off as I don't think the introduction of the time turned changed the genre from fantasy to sci-fi and that the story was mostly driven by the identify of Sirius black, where act 1 has him as an abstract villain, the act 2 develops Harry's (misguided) understanding of Sirius as the betrayer of his parents, then act 3 twists with sirius's innocence and the reveal of pettigrew, and then act 4 harmonizes by saving Sirius (by using the time turner which explains a lot of earlier mystery) and letting pettigrew escape. Nevertheless, a very interesting example of kishotenketsu in a very familiar story.
I also appreciated the neutral, balanced review of Western and eastern storytelling without criticizing or praising one over the other. However, I think the perception of Mulan as an example of cultural appropriation or at least a poor excuse to tell a western story using an eastern backdrop is a little one-sided. Lien explains how "reverse" cultural appropriation doesn't really exist because the harm in cultural appropriation comes from marginalizing a minority culture which wouldn't happen to the majority culture in a place. I think this idea can apply to Mulan from a viewer's perspective in an Eastern culture. Someone I know who grew up in Asia really enjoys Mulan because she saw an example of someone who looked like her on screen taking on western values of individualism and heroism which my friend identified more with despite having grown up in an Eastern culture. In this case, the dominant culture promotes Eastern values so Mulan could function as the minority western culture providing a different perspective.
I especially liked how I was losing a little steam in act 2 reading about the nested structures as those examples were not familiar to me, and then act 3 threw in the "twist" of how western stories often highlight individualistic values which are commonly emphasized in western cultures, and how this might add to symptoms of loneliness in western places. Whereas the collectivist leanings of eastern stories and countries may add to issues associated with the disregard of the individual.
I did find the analysis of prisoner of Azkaban as kishotenketsu a little off as I don't think the introduction of the time turned changed the genre from fantasy to sci-fi and that the story was mostly driven by the identify of Sirius black, where act 1 has him as an abstract villain, the act 2 develops Harry's (misguided) understanding of Sirius as the betrayer of his parents, then act 3 twists with sirius's innocence and the reveal of pettigrew, and then act 4 harmonizes by saving Sirius (by using the time turner which explains a lot of earlier mystery) and letting pettigrew escape. Nevertheless, a very interesting example of kishotenketsu in a very familiar story.
I also appreciated the neutral, balanced review of Western and eastern storytelling without criticizing or praising one over the other. However, I think the perception of Mulan as an example of cultural appropriation or at least a poor excuse to tell a western story using an eastern backdrop is a little one-sided. Lien explains how "reverse" cultural appropriation doesn't really exist because the harm in cultural appropriation comes from marginalizing a minority culture which wouldn't happen to the majority culture in a place. I think this idea can apply to Mulan from a viewer's perspective in an Eastern culture. Someone I know who grew up in Asia really enjoys Mulan because she saw an example of someone who looked like her on screen taking on western values of individualism and heroism which my friend identified more with despite having grown up in an Eastern culture. In this case, the dominant culture promotes Eastern values so Mulan could function as the minority western culture providing a different perspective.
May 19, 2025
Before stumbling on this book, I had never heard of anyone distinguishing the classic three act structure of Western stories, which is mostly used in films and TV, but sometimes also in novels, with a four act structure in East Asian storytelling, which Mr. Lien also carries into India and the Middle East. I guess this concept isn’t original to Mr. Lien, but it was new to me. The main thing that distinguishes the three act structure from the four act is the third act “twist” in Asian stories that comes out of nowhere and confounds expectations. There is also a distinction in the final acts, with the Western structure calling for victory and resolution and the Asian structure calling for a harmonization of elements. I can see his point. It’s an interesting idea. I also think that it is more true in films and television where there is a formula-based assembly line of products that must conform to cultural norms, than in books where there is more experimentation with structures and styles. Very few of the novels I read follow conventional three act (or for that matter four act) structures. And plenty of films don’t do so either. Consider the classic formula for French films as character/relationship pieces in which nothing happens. I felt more than once as I read this book that Mr. Lien was jamming the works he discussed into the Procrustean bed of his theory. As far as I am concerned the main point of conventional structures is to understand them so that you can play with them and twist them around until they are unrecognizable or even broken. I feel the same way about the Hero’s Journey. So this kind of structural thinking has some value, if only as a springboard for going off into something different.
December 29, 2025
This is a thought-provoking exploration of narrative structures that challenges the dominance of Western storytelling norms. Rather than focusing solely on diverse characters or settings, Lien examines how stories are constructed, introducing readers to alternative approaches common in Eastern traditions. Central to his discussion is the concept of kishōtenketsu, a four-act structure that emphasizes surprise, reflection, and perspective shifts instead of the conflict-driven arcs typical of Western narratives.
By highlighting circular and nested forms, Lien broadens our understanding of what it means for a story to “work,” showing that tension and resolution are not the only paths to narrative satisfaction.
Lien supports his arguments with a wide array of examples from literature, film, and video games. References to works such as Parasite, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and classic texts like The Thousand and One Nights demonstrate that these structures are not only theoretical but actively employed in engaging, globally recognized stories. This approach makes the book highly accessible, illustrating complex ideas in a way that resonates with both writers and casual readers. Moreover, Lien connects narrative form to broader cultural values, showing how Eastern stories often reflect collectivist perspectives, which can shape character roles and thematic emphasis.
Overall, Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird is a compelling read that encourages readers to reconsider their assumptions about narrative.
Western Story
Act 1: Set Up
Act 2: Confrontation
Act 3: Resolution
Eastern Story
Act 1: The Introduction of the Main Elements
Act 2: The Development if the Main Elements
Act 3: The Twist/New Element
Act 4: The Harmonization of All Elements
By highlighting circular and nested forms, Lien broadens our understanding of what it means for a story to “work,” showing that tension and resolution are not the only paths to narrative satisfaction.
Lien supports his arguments with a wide array of examples from literature, film, and video games. References to works such as Parasite, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and classic texts like The Thousand and One Nights demonstrate that these structures are not only theoretical but actively employed in engaging, globally recognized stories. This approach makes the book highly accessible, illustrating complex ideas in a way that resonates with both writers and casual readers. Moreover, Lien connects narrative form to broader cultural values, showing how Eastern stories often reflect collectivist perspectives, which can shape character roles and thematic emphasis.
Overall, Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird is a compelling read that encourages readers to reconsider their assumptions about narrative.
Western Story
Act 1: Set Up
Act 2: Confrontation
Act 3: Resolution
Eastern Story
Act 1: The Introduction of the Main Elements
Act 2: The Development if the Main Elements
Act 3: The Twist/New Element
Act 4: The Harmonization of All Elements
November 6, 2024
Excellence.
Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird is an accessible resource on non-Western, non-three-act-structure storytelling.
I had my fair share of discussing and readings around structure, story themes/human values in stories and narrative styles and choices as an educator and writer myself. Many of the resources published are first and foremost academic, colossal and not suitable for the general reader’s interests or only for those in academia/those who have a deep interest in the topic.
Lien’s book is one of the most accessible, most practical books on circular, nesting stories and four-act structure; in other words, non-Western storytelling with different values than the Western story value norms.
Lien offers various and diverse examples in different mediums, and break them down in a way that many readers can comprehend and enjoy.
The questions and cases are well structured. This book is an epitome of story analysis for the general reader.
The length is ideal and sets the right expectations for the depth, and Lien manages to convey the essentials without sacrificing the quality of his arguments. This is also the kind of tone that I am writing in when I am addressing beginners in my expertise.
In other words, this book is what it says in the blurb, and does not claim to be what it is not, and Lien does an excellent job of getting his argument across. A wonderful book for literature and film undergrad students, literature and storytelling enthusiasts, and those who wish to read about the other storytelling qualities than the Western ones.
Thanks to #netgalley and #wwnortonandcompany for the eARC and the author for their work.
Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird is an accessible resource on non-Western, non-three-act-structure storytelling.
I had my fair share of discussing and readings around structure, story themes/human values in stories and narrative styles and choices as an educator and writer myself. Many of the resources published are first and foremost academic, colossal and not suitable for the general reader’s interests or only for those in academia/those who have a deep interest in the topic.
Lien’s book is one of the most accessible, most practical books on circular, nesting stories and four-act structure; in other words, non-Western storytelling with different values than the Western story value norms.
Lien offers various and diverse examples in different mediums, and break them down in a way that many readers can comprehend and enjoy.
The questions and cases are well structured. This book is an epitome of story analysis for the general reader.
The length is ideal and sets the right expectations for the depth, and Lien manages to convey the essentials without sacrificing the quality of his arguments. This is also the kind of tone that I am writing in when I am addressing beginners in my expertise.
In other words, this book is what it says in the blurb, and does not claim to be what it is not, and Lien does an excellent job of getting his argument across. A wonderful book for literature and film undergrad students, literature and storytelling enthusiasts, and those who wish to read about the other storytelling qualities than the Western ones.
Thanks to #netgalley and #wwnortonandcompany for the eARC and the author for their work.
March 18, 2025
I hope you like your literary theory with a giant heap of unfounded generalizations and condemnations. Though the author disclaims that this isn't an ethnography, he would have benefited from an anthropology class or two and learning about cultural relativism. Instead, he jumps whole-heartedly into taking an ax to Western individualism. Does the West--and America in particular--maybe take individualism too far? Absolutely. Does that mean that we should subsume individuality and diversity into an oppressive monoculture, as he defends explicitly when analyzing the movie Hero? NO! America is experiencing 2025. Making this argument without nuance is indefensible.
Throw in a little "Westerners are all entitled because their parents tell them they're special all the time and kids these days are awful," and you've got this book. If you're not going to take the time to craft a nuanced look at comparing Eastern and Western cultures, why are you making such claims?
Oh, and I see you telling an anecdote of one time one anthropologist tried to retell Hamlet and using it as a blanket statement. I'm seriously considering recommending this book to the If Books Could Kill podcast, because I have thoughts, and they'd have more.
At least the lit theory was interesting, though the author immediately undermined his own assertion that the four-act structure is predominantly an Eastern cultural construct by looking at Prisoner of Azkaban and Matilda.
If, as a writer, you have to pick up this book because it sounds fascinating, read through the plot structure and analysis of specific texts portions and ignore the rest as unworthy of your time.
Throw in a little "Westerners are all entitled because their parents tell them they're special all the time and kids these days are awful," and you've got this book. If you're not going to take the time to craft a nuanced look at comparing Eastern and Western cultures, why are you making such claims?
Oh, and I see you telling an anecdote of one time one anthropologist tried to retell Hamlet and using it as a blanket statement. I'm seriously considering recommending this book to the If Books Could Kill podcast, because I have thoughts, and they'd have more.
At least the lit theory was interesting, though the author immediately undermined his own assertion that the four-act structure is predominantly an Eastern cultural construct by looking at Prisoner of Azkaban and Matilda.
If, as a writer, you have to pick up this book because it sounds fascinating, read through the plot structure and analysis of specific texts portions and ignore the rest as unworthy of your time.
Read
January 3, 2025This was absolutely super. I’ve often found myself struggling with two separate but related things: the apparent “diversity” of putting Global Majority characters inside plots that seem pretty Western to me, and the often completely alien feeling of reading a writer whose approach to plot, characterisation, pacing, and other literary building blocks is obviously formed by a totally different tradition. (This is the feeling I had when reading Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Kintu, for example, and several other African Summer authors like Amos Tutuola; it’s also a feeling I get when contemplating much J- and K-lit.) Lien’s explanation for this makes total sense to me: the structure is different, first of all, and secondly—a very useful dictum—”values inform structures”. (He’s not super-prescriptive about all of this, thankfully; the case studies, which take in very Western media that use “Eastern” techniques like four-act, nested, and circular structures as well as Eastern media that uses three-act structures, are good at making clear the contingency of these theories.) His illustrations and dissections of three- vs. four-act structures are forensic, erudite, and deeply loving of the properties he discusses, from Metroid and Parasite to Never Let Me Go and Disney’s Mulan (and a hilarious reassessment of The Hobbit). I’m already fired up to use this in my own teaching, which in the first two weeks of term will be explicitly focused on plot and structure! Highly recommended to anyone interested in how stories are (or can be) put together. Source: NetGalley, publishing 4 Feb.
October 5, 2024
Immediately, Lien sets the pace and expectations that this book is an exercise in exploration, not hard and fast “rules” or binaries. His words about diversity in storytelling being bigger than identities of characters and authors deeply resonated with me.
I liked the use of storytelling in all its forms: books, video games, movies, oral stories. Lien advises that readers familiarize themselves with the works cited before diving into the book. And while he gives an overview of plot for readers that might not be familiar with the examples, I took so much more away from the sections on the works I was familiar with. Dive into the materials, fellow readers!
I loved the exercises that were included. Lien gives us a robust exploration of his observations and research and then invites us to put it into practice.
The only slightly off thing I noticed was how the structure sometimes felt like a thesis being defended. It was academic in its layout and some of its language; the detailed deconstruction of the examples sometimes felt more like a research project than something designed to educate the curious.
Sections of this book should be required reading for creative writing courses, and anyone who works in publishing. How freeing is Lien’s invitation to throw off stifling and tired western tropes, rules, and confines in our stories!
I was privileged to have my request to read this book accepted through NetGalley. Thank you W. W. Norton! 💫
I liked the use of storytelling in all its forms: books, video games, movies, oral stories. Lien advises that readers familiarize themselves with the works cited before diving into the book. And while he gives an overview of plot for readers that might not be familiar with the examples, I took so much more away from the sections on the works I was familiar with. Dive into the materials, fellow readers!
I loved the exercises that were included. Lien gives us a robust exploration of his observations and research and then invites us to put it into practice.
The only slightly off thing I noticed was how the structure sometimes felt like a thesis being defended. It was academic in its layout and some of its language; the detailed deconstruction of the examples sometimes felt more like a research project than something designed to educate the curious.
Sections of this book should be required reading for creative writing courses, and anyone who works in publishing. How freeing is Lien’s invitation to throw off stifling and tired western tropes, rules, and confines in our stories!
I was privileged to have my request to read this book accepted through NetGalley. Thank you W. W. Norton! 💫
April 14, 2026
As I see it, writers, scholars, and philosophers in the western tradition have accepted Joseph Campbell's concept of The Hero's Journey, based on Jungian archetypes, as something so fundamentally universal as to be literally wired into the brains of all human beings from the moment we emerge from the womb. The only way a story can be successfully told, we're indoctrinated to believe, is to adhere to the three-act structure and a set menu of character archetypes.
Decades of immersing myself in Chinese and Japanese literature, even in translation, has given me a strong sense that maybe the above isn't quite true, but I couldn't put a finger on it until I happened upon this book. It also helped me, a former newspaper cartoonist, to finally understand the differences I sensed, but could never fully explain to myself, between Anglophone and Asian styles and rhythms of written humor.
I won't go into describing the precepts of kishotenketsu. Just to say that this book is compelling reading, offering me many, many eye-opening and vigorous head-nodding moments. Even if you don't intend to write a story following the so-called eastern structure, this book will open your eyes to other ways to convey meaning and stories than the holy Hero's Journey.
I believe this book should be required reading for any aspiring or experienced writer, or student of storytelling.
Decades of immersing myself in Chinese and Japanese literature, even in translation, has given me a strong sense that maybe the above isn't quite true, but I couldn't put a finger on it until I happened upon this book. It also helped me, a former newspaper cartoonist, to finally understand the differences I sensed, but could never fully explain to myself, between Anglophone and Asian styles and rhythms of written humor.
I won't go into describing the precepts of kishotenketsu. Just to say that this book is compelling reading, offering me many, many eye-opening and vigorous head-nodding moments. Even if you don't intend to write a story following the so-called eastern structure, this book will open your eyes to other ways to convey meaning and stories than the holy Hero's Journey.
I believe this book should be required reading for any aspiring or experienced writer, or student of storytelling.
September 4, 2025
Essential introduction to kishotenketsu
—
Covering both the East Asian story structure of kishotenketsu and the nested/circular structure of Eastern tales of The Arabian Nights, Lien’s book is the essential introduction to story structures as alternatives to the Hero’s Journey, making the distinct connection between stories as a textual reflection of the cultural values of the storyteller/listener/reader. Lien demonstrates that these story structures are as universally understood as other forms, using examples from the films of Studio Ghibli, adventure games like the Legend of Zelda, and Oscar winners Parasite and Everything Everywhere All At Once, amongst others, as well as the stories that are 100% Western story structures wrapped in East Asian camouflage.
I’ve read a lot of writing books but this is the first dedicated to kishotenketsu (which I won’t go into here), and it couldn’t be more timely or charming. This is an essential read for any reader or writer to understand where the energy of a novel, short story or poem comes from, and how even the most domestic or miniature of these texts connects to bigger themes. From small acorns mighty oaks grow.
—
Covering both the East Asian story structure of kishotenketsu and the nested/circular structure of Eastern tales of The Arabian Nights, Lien’s book is the essential introduction to story structures as alternatives to the Hero’s Journey, making the distinct connection between stories as a textual reflection of the cultural values of the storyteller/listener/reader. Lien demonstrates that these story structures are as universally understood as other forms, using examples from the films of Studio Ghibli, adventure games like the Legend of Zelda, and Oscar winners Parasite and Everything Everywhere All At Once, amongst others, as well as the stories that are 100% Western story structures wrapped in East Asian camouflage.
I’ve read a lot of writing books but this is the first dedicated to kishotenketsu (which I won’t go into here), and it couldn’t be more timely or charming. This is an essential read for any reader or writer to understand where the energy of a novel, short story or poem comes from, and how even the most domestic or miniature of these texts connects to bigger themes. From small acorns mighty oaks grow.
February 7, 2026
Lately been obsessing on the four-act structure common to China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan – kishōtwnketsu.
Act 1 (ki) – The introduction of the main elements
Act 2 (shō) – The development of the main elements
Act 3 (ten) – The twist/new element
Act 4 (ketsu)– The harmonizing of all elements
A plot not based on the Western three-act structure of tension, conflict, and resolution.
Think Roshomon, Totoro, Murikami, Parasite, or, from the West, Becky Chambers.
This was sorta a meh book but a great introduction to the ideas. Looking to explore this new Special Interest even more.
"Different story structures arise from different cultural values. The four-act structure arises from surrendering ego and will and embracing chance and change. Circular and nested structures arise from a recognition of the larger relationship, community, or history that eack individual belongs to, rather than a focus on the individual. These story shapes often contain themes about sublimating the individual and exalting the relationship, community, or history. Values thus unite substance and form. There is harmony and synthesis between what a story is about and how it is structured"
Act 1 (ki) – The introduction of the main elements
Act 2 (shō) – The development of the main elements
Act 3 (ten) – The twist/new element
Act 4 (ketsu)– The harmonizing of all elements
A plot not based on the Western three-act structure of tension, conflict, and resolution.
Think Roshomon, Totoro, Murikami, Parasite, or, from the West, Becky Chambers.
This was sorta a meh book but a great introduction to the ideas. Looking to explore this new Special Interest even more.
"Different story structures arise from different cultural values. The four-act structure arises from surrendering ego and will and embracing chance and change. Circular and nested structures arise from a recognition of the larger relationship, community, or history that eack individual belongs to, rather than a focus on the individual. These story shapes often contain themes about sublimating the individual and exalting the relationship, community, or history. Values thus unite substance and form. There is harmony and synthesis between what a story is about and how it is structured"
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