title: Gimme More

text: On September 22, 2007, "Gimme More" debuted at number 85 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. On October 13, 2007, the song peaked at number three on the chart. The same week, it also peaked at number one on the "Billboard" Hot Digital Songs, due to digital sales of 179,000 downloads. It became her fifth top ten hit in the Hot 100, as well as her highest peaking since "...Baby One More Time". On February 13, 2008, the single was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) selling 1,000,000 copies. On December 15, 2007, it peaked at number one on the "Billboard" Hot Dance Club Songs. As of July 2016, "Gimme More" has sold 1,840,000 digital downloads in the United States. It is her seventh best-selling digital single in the country. In Canada, the song debuted at number 53 on September 22, 2007. On October 13, 2007, it peaked at number one and climbed from number 42, becoming the chart's "Greatest Gainer". It was certified two times platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) for sales of 160,000 copies.


title: Gimme More

text: In Australia, the single debuted at number three on the Australian Singles Chart on October 15, 2007. It received a gold certification by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for shipments over 35,000 units. In New Zealand, it debuted at number 24 on October 1, 2007. The following week, it peaked at number 15. "Gimme More" was also successful in Europe, peaking at number two in the European Hot 100 Singles. In the United Kingdom, "Gimme More" debuted and peaked at number three on October 21, 2007 (for the week ending date October 27, 2007). According to The Official Charts Company, "Gimme More" has sold 210,000 copies there. It also reached the top five in Belgium, Czech Republic, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Norway and Sweden and peaking inside the top ten in Austria and Finland.


title: Gimme More

text: The music video for "Gimme More" was filmed on July 19, 2007, at a warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, California, with additional scenes later being filmed on August 7, 2007, in the same location. It was directed by Jake Sarfaty, who was handpicked by Spears. According to "People", the production was Spears's "concept and vision". Despite this, according to Mikal Sky, who worked as the makeup artist for the video, Spears "sabotaged the director by refusing to perform and follow the script" for unknown reasons. During filming, Spears was spotted wearing a short black dress, black boots and a black hat. On September 13, 2007, it was reported by "The New York Times" that the music video was being "tweaked with input from her advisers" since "[the] gritty, stripper-themed clip...may jolt fans who are more accustomed to the slick, tightly choreographed videos that made her an MTV staple". The music video premiered exclusively in the iTunes Store on October 5, 2007, and in all other outlets, including "TRL" on October 8, 2007, and on BET's "106 & Park" on October 10, 2007.


title: Gimme More

text: The video begins with a blonde Spears sitting and laughing in a bar with two female friends, but stops to look at a brunette Spears calling out to her on a small stage in front of them, wearing a leather vest, a studded belt, panties and fishnet stockings while sporting a tattoo on her biceps. She dances erotically around a pole and up against a mirror. Throughout the video, she continues to dance and flip her hair while special effects lights flash around her as the camera moves slightly in and out of focus to the beat of the song. The video's light systems change from black and white with aura-like blue and pink hues to full-blown color. Around the middle of the video, she is joined by two alter egos of her female friends, who also dance around the pole. The blonde Spears and her friends, while watching the dancing, later draw their attention to an attractive man sitting with his friends at a table across the bar.


title: Gimme More

text: The music video received mixed to negative reviews from critics. Michael Slezak of "Entertainment Weekly" said "The moral of the story is, if you're going to build an entire video around a stripper pole, then you better work said pole like a nine-to-five. Drop it like it's hot...Alas, in the case of "Gimme More," I've seen sexier pole work during an afternoon of fly-fishing". Andrei Harmsworth of "Metro" commented "To her credit, the video is slightly less disappointing than her mimed performance of the track at the Video Music Awards last month but it is still smeared with the same smutty hallmarks". "Dose" said the video "sucks less than you think" and added "Spears appears lucid, sometimes happy, and awards-worthy editing makes her appear to be standing upright competently throughout". Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine said the lighting effects and digital body enhancement of the video "indicate a predilection toward maintaining an image that no longer reflects reality. It doesn't point to an artist who refuses to evolve, but rather one who doesn't know how—or isn't being allowed to." "IGN" writer Sketch Longwood called it one of Spears' hottest videos, adding that she "proves to be quite skilled in the art of teasingly slinking around." While reviewing the alternate version of the video in July 2011, Becky Bain of "Idolator" stated that "Spears's last few videos — particularly the joyfully silly clip for 'I Wanna Go' — more than makeup for the travesty that was the pop star's video for 'Gimme More'... The stripper concept was a poor choice, the barely-there outfits were ill-fitting, the 'choreography' was a joke, the editing was sloppy."


title: Gimme More

text: An alternative version of the video leaked online on July 18, 2011, and included new scenes, which featured Spears strutting down the street in a black outfit and laying down in a zebra-print bed with a cat. The scenes of blonde Spears were cut. Becky Bain of "Idolator" said that "Neither the deleted nor added parts add or subtract anything from the experience. This video was kind of doomed no matter how it was edited together."


title: Gimme More

text: After days of media speculation, it was confirmed on September 6, 2007, that Spears would open the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards at the Pearl Theatre in the Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, on September 9, 2007. It was also announced that she was going to perform "Gimme More", with a magic act from illusionist Criss Angel in some parts of the performance. However, the bit is thought to have been rejected by the show's organizers at the last minute. Jesse Ignjatovic, the executive producer of the 2007 VMAs, contacted Spears since she wanted to start the show in "a very big and dramatic way", and was confident that Spears would deliver and set the tone for the rest of the night. She also said Spears was excited after she was approached by MTV to perform. On September 7, 2007, Spears started rehearsing at the Pearl Theater. An exclusive video from the rehearsal was posted on MTV.com the following day. The performance began with a close-up of the back of Spears's head, and continued with Spears turning to the camera and lip synching the first lines of Elvis Presley's 1958 song "Trouble": "If you're lookin' for trouble, you came to the right place / If you're lookin' for trouble, look right in my face." "Gimme More" began, and the camera panned out to reveal Spears wearing a black, jewel-encrusted bikini and black boots. She was accompanied by male and female dancers dressed in black outfits. Several pole dancers danced in smaller stages around the audience. The backdrop videos featured images of chandeliers floating and silhouettes of women, which were compared by Gil Kaufman of MTV to the gun barrel and the title sequence of the "James Bond" series. At the end of the performance, Spears smiled and thanked the audience before leaving the stage.


title: Gimme More

text: The performance was universally panned by critics. Jeff Leeds of "The New York Times" said that "no one was prepared for Sunday night's fiasco, in which a listless Ms. Spears teetered through her dance steps and mouthed only occasional words in a wan attempt to lip-synch her new single". Vinay Menon of the "Toronto Star" commented Spears "looked hopelessly dazed. She was wearing the expression of somebody who had been deposited at the Palms Casino Resort by a tornado, one that promptly twisted away, taking her clothing and sense of purpose...[She was] lumbering, in slow motion, as if somebody had poured cement into her streetwalker boots". David Willis of BBC stated her performance would "go down in the history books as being one of the worst to grace the MTV Awards".


title: Gimme More

text: The day after the performance, American blogger Cara Cunningham (formerly Chris Crocker) posted a video in YouTube titled "Leave Britney alone!", in which she cried and defended Spears's performance, explaining that she did not want her to spiral out of control like Anna Nicole Smith, who had died in February 2007. Within the first 24 hours of its posting, the video accumulated over 2 million views. "Leave Britney alone!" turned Cunningham an internet celebrity, and was featured on television shows such as "The View" and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". It was also parodied by dozens of other YouTube users, most famously by actor Seth Green. An editor for YouTube said "the melodramatic two-minute clip made Crocker an instant YouTube star" and named it one of the top videos of 2007. "Wired" named it the top video of 2007.


title: Gimme More

text: During Spears's 2009 concert tour The Circus Starring Britney Spears, the LAZRtag Remix of "Gimme More" was used in a martial arts-inspired interlude between the first and second act. On March 25, 2011, Spears performed a special show at Rain Nightclub in Las Vegas. The setlist of the show consisted of three songs from her seventh studio album, "Femme Fatale", including "Hold It Against Me", "Big Fat Bass" and "Till the World Ends". During the performance of "Big Fat Bass", Spears wore a latex bodysuit and elements of "3", "Gimme More" and "I'm a Slave 4 U" were also included. On March 27, 2011, "Big Fat Bass" was also performed at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium that aired on "Good Morning America" on March 29, 2011, and the same day, Spears performed the set at "Jimmy Kimmel Live!".


title: Gimme More

text: Spears also performed "Gimme More" at 2011's Femme Fatale Tour. After the performance of "If U Seek Amy", a video interlude in which a stalker talked about femme fatales in history saw the beginning of the third section. Spears returned to the stage wearing a golden bikini and made her entrance in a boat whose individual parts were wheeled by dancers in Egyptian costumes. Matt Kivel of "Variety" said, "the crowd reacted wildly to all of it: screaming out the chorus to 'I'm a Slave 4 U,' pulsating along to the twitch of 'Gimme More' and going absolutely ballistic for the brief, two-verse rendition of '...Baby One More Time.'" Craig S. Semon of "Telegram & Gazette" called it the most over the top number of the show, adding "She delivered the banal, brain-numbing chorus...while her dancers (looking like extras from 'Stargate') paraded around in Egyptian garb and basked in the glow of pyrotechnic sparks." Spears also performed the song at her residency show, (2013–2017).


title: Gimme More

text: "Gimme More" has been covered by many artists and a great number of amateurs. In late 2007, American singer-songwriter Marié Digby posted an acoustic cover of "Gimme More" along with a cover of Rihanna's "Umbrella" in her YouTube account. Both became hits, with "Gimme More" gaining more than 300,000 views in two weeks. Shortly after, Digby became the eighth most subscribed-to artist on YouTube. She joked about the situation saying, "I could have done a karaoke video to ['Gimme More'], but I just had my stripper pole taken out the other day from my living room, and it just wouldn't have been the same". The same year, Australian pop singer Sia released an acoustic version of the song. Swedish metal band Machinae Supremacy covered the song on their third studio album "Overworld", released on February 13, 2008. Matthieu De Ronde of "Archaic Magazine" commented "[it is] one of the most unexpected covers of all time...this track has been given a somewhat comical but enjoyable makeover, but who said that metal couldn't be fun?". American singer-songwriter Christopher Dallman played a cover of the song during many of his concerts in 2007. Two years later, he showed his version to his producer Rachel Alina, who prompted him to release an EP of Spears's covers. The EP, titled "Sad Britney", was released on November 9, 2009, and also contained covers of "Radar", "Toxic" and "...Baby One More Time". It became Dallman's first record to chart on iTunes. He also released a music video for "Gimme More", which was criticized by Spears's fans who thought Dallman was making fun of her. He explained, "There have been a few folks who have misinterpreted what I was doing and thought that I was somehow making fun of her, which really isn't the case. I have such a place in my heart for Britney". American singer Slayyyter released an unauthorized remix of the song on April 25, 2020.


title: Gimme More

text: "Gimme More" has been sampled in many songs, including Girl Talk's "Give Me a Beat" (2008) and Charles Hamilton's "Devil in a Light Pink Dress" (2009). In the episode "Michael Scott Paper Company" of the television series "The Office", the character of Michael Scott is driving his convertible listening to Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" (2008). When he stops the car, he looks into the camera and says "It's Britney, bitch", mistaking Gaga for Spears. During an episode of the television series "Kath & Kim", the character of Brett Craig screams the catch phrase before starting a fight in a bar. During a skit in a 2008 episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", in which Ellen DeGeneres and Spears sang Christmas carols through a neighborhood, DeGeneres said the catch phrase when knocking on a door. "It's Britney, bitch" was also included in a video backdrop during the performance of "Human Nature" (1995) in Madonna's 2008–09 Sticky & Sweet Tour. In the video, Spears was trapped in an elevator and tried to get out. At the end of the performance, the doors opened to reveal Spears saying the catch phrase. On November 6, 2008, in the Los Angeles show at Dodger Stadium, Spears joined Madonna onstage halfway through the performance. In 2012, "Gimme More" was covered on "Glee" during its second Britney Spears tribute episode. "Britney 2.0" features "Gimme More" which is performed by Heather Morris and heavily parodies Spears's infamous 2007 MTV Music Video Awards performance. Spears and will.i.am's single "Scream & Shout" samples the phrase "Britney, bitch!". Rapper Jay-Z sampled the line "It's Britney, bitch!" in "BBC", a song on his 2013 album "Magna Carta Holy Grail". The song appears in the 2019 American crime drama film "Hustlers".


title: Ghost Story (1981 film)

text: Ghost Story is a 1981 American supernatural horror film directed by John Irvin and starring Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman, Craig Wasson, and Alice Krige. Based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Peter Straub, it follows a group of elderly businessmen in New England who gather to recount their involvement in a woman's death decades prior when one of them suspects her ghost has been haunting him.


title: Ghost Story (1981 film)

text: "Ghost Story" was the final film for Astaire and Fairbanks, and the final completed film for Douglas (he died four months before the film's release), and the first film to feature Michael O'Neill. The film was shot in Woodstock, Vermont; Saratoga Springs, New York; and at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. "Ghost Story" was released in the United States on December 18, 1981.


title: Ghost Story (1981 film)

text: In a small New England town during the frigid winter season of 1979, four elderly friends—businessman Ricky Hawthorne, lawyer Sears James, Dr. John Jaffrey, and Mayor Edward Charles Wanderley—form the Chowder Society, an informal men's club who get together each week to share tales of horror. Edward's son David, living in New York City, falls from his apartment window after seeing a girl he's been sleeping with suddenly turn into a living corpse. His other son, Don, comes home at Edward's request. Some time after David's funeral, Edward sees him walking through town during a snowstorm and follows him to a bridge, where he disappears. Calling out to his dead son, Edward suddenly sees a female apparition and he falls to his death from the bridge. Meanwhile, two escaped patients from a mental asylum, Gregory and Fenny Bate, have taken up residence in the old Eva Galli house, now in ruins.


title: Ghost Story (1981 film)

text: Doubting his father committed suicide, Don approaches the remaining three friends and tells them a "ghost" story to gain membership into the Chowder Society. In a flashback, Don tells the story of how he, a college professor in Florida, began a torrid affair with a mysterious secretary named Alma, soon becoming engaged. Alma insisted she wanted to marry Don in his home town of Milburn, but he was reluctant, as he considered the town boring. Don soon began to suspect that something was wrong with Alma, a gut feeling that was vindicated one night when he touched her and realized she was as cold as a corpse. Don eventually broke things off with a furious Alma, who disappeared from his life. He fell into a depression, costing him both his reputation and his job. A month later, Don called David in New York and learned to his horror that he had become engaged to Alma. Don desperately tried to warn David about her, but his brother scoffed at the warning. The elderly friends react to Don's story; Sears remains very skeptical. Don then shows the three elders an old photograph he's found among his father's possessions. In it there is a striking young woman who is a dead ringer for Alma. Jaffrey, realizing what has happened, pleads with his friends to tell the truth, but is rebuffed.


title: Ghost Story (1981 film)

text: The next day, Jaffrey has a nightmare about Alma and dies of a heart attack. Sears and Ricky finally explain to Don that, in the spring of 1929, the four friends became smitten with a young flirtatious girl named Eva Galli. Edward first took her to bed, but he was impotent with her. Outside her house, the other three friends serenaded Eva in hopes of catching a glimpse of her when a shirtless Edward came to the window instead, giving the impression that he'd slept with her. Edward left with his friends. The four became very drunk, discussing Eva's prowess in the bedroom. They return to the house, where all but Sears danced with her. When it was proposed that they leave, Sears suggestively insisted on getting his dance, to which Eva pointedly responded that she intended to dance with all of them. Eva confronted Edward about what he had told his friends, then began to tell them the truth when young Edward leapt to silence her, knocking her down and accidentally smashing her head into the stone fireplace. Horrified, the young men believed the unresponsive Eva to be dead. They considered calling the police, but realized it would only mean ruining their lives. Instead, they load Eva's body into her car and pushed it into a nearby pond. As the car descended, Eva stirred inside, looking out at them from the back window, screaming and hammering at the glass as the car sank.


title: Ghost Story (1981 film)

text: Back in the present, Ricky and Sears reveal that the Chowder Society never talked about it again, not even with each other. Due to Eva's reputation, the townsfolk were relieved when she'd gone missing and assumed that she'd simply skipped town. However, they admit that her death has haunted them all these years. Whereas Sears is dubious, both Ricky and Don believe that Alma and Eva are the same woman and that her ghost has returned to seek revenge. Don suggests they go to Eva's old house to confront the past and her ghost once and for all. They go there, but Don falls on the rotting stairs and breaks his leg. Sears leaves in his car to seek help, leaving Don and Ricky behind. While driving through the snowstorm, Sears comes upon Eva's apparition. He slams on the brakes and swerves to the side of the road. He survives, but is attacked and killed by Fenny Bate, one of Eva's accomplices. Ricky realizes something's happened to Sears and leaves to get help. He's picked up by Gregory Bate, who tells him of Eva's plans for them both, but Ricky stabs him and escapes, telling the authorities to pull Eva's car up from the lake to reveal her body inside. This is intercut with Don, who confronts the rotting specter of Alma/Eva. Ricky and the authorities drag out the ancient car and wrench open the rusted, corroded door. The rotting corpse of Eva lunges into view and falls harmlessly to the ground. Now that the truth about Eva is known, Don is spared from her vengeance, and the town is restored to peace.


title: Ghost Story (1981 film)

text: Universal Pictures had purchased the rights to Peter Straub's novel, "Ghost Story", in 1978 for $225,000. English director John Irvin was asked to direct the film by producer Burt Weissbourd on the basis of his direction of "Haunted: The Ferryman", a British television film. Upon reading Straub's novel and Lawrence D. Cohen's screenplay, Irvin envisioned the narrative as being about hypocrisy and principally "men's fear of women, and at some point, hatred." Irvin, who was a newcomer in Hollywood, hired several British filmmakers as part of his team, and stated that the film's cinematography was intended to be "European" in appearance,> and to "look like a Christmas card."


title: Ghost Story (1981 film)

text: Principal photography took place in Saratoga Springs, New York and Woodstock, Vermont. Interiors of the abandoned home in the film were crafted inside the former Union Station in Albany, New York, while shooting for the Florida-based scenes was completed in Deland and New Smyrna Beach, Florida; scenes set in New York City were shot on location (in Waterside Plaza). Additional photography took place at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, California. According to Irvin, the filming process was emotionally turbulent for star Fred Astaire, who confided in Irvin that he felt he was going to die or be murdered while shooting the film, and at one point considered dropping out of the production.


title: Ghost Story (1981 film)

text: Universal Pictures vied for a Christmastime release for the film based on its wintry setting, and had originally slated a tentative release date of December 11, 1981. Advance test screenings were held between October 9–11, 1981 in Denver, Colorado and Boston, Massachusetts. The film opened in the United States with a wide release two months later on December 18, 1981. Limited engagement screenings of the film took place on December 16. It grossed a total of $23,371,905 at the United States box office, and was the third-highest grossing horror film of 1981 and the 34th-highest grosser of the year.


title: Ghost Story (1981 film)

text: Critical reception was mixed to negative upon release. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 29% "rotten" rating based on 31 reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film a favorable review, praising the performances and considering it an improvement on Straub's novel. In "The New York Times", Vincent Canby had the opposite view, also praising the performances but feeling that the movie oversimplified Straub's story and themes. He also criticized the central mystery and revelation as "humdrum" and anticlimactic after a strong build-up. "Variety" agreed with Canby that the filmmakers failed to translate Straub's novel to screen, stating that there were "isolated and excellent moments separated by artful but ordinary sketches." Rex Reed of the "New York Daily News" similarly noted the film's cast as "wasted," and lambasted the film as a "horrible" adaptation of the source novel.


title: Ghost Story (1981 film)

text: The "Time Out" film guide deemed it a "disastrous distillation of Peter Straub's overrated but at least tolerably coherent novel." "TV Guide" awarded the film two out of four stars, criticizing Cohen's screenplay, but adding: "Director John Irvin does manage to evoke some mood and atmosphere from the snowy New England setting, and the performances from the four veteran lead players are enjoyable."


title: Ghost Story (1981 film)

text: "Ghost Story" was released on DVD on March 25, 1998, by Image Entertainment. Universal repressed the DVD with an alternate cover art, which was released September 7, 2004. The film received its first Blu-ray release in the United States on November 24, 2015, by Scream Factory. This release featured new bonus material, including an audio commentary with director John Irvin, as well as interviews with Peter Straub, Alice Krige, Lawrence D. Cohen, Burt Weissbourd, and Bill Taylor.


title: God of Gamblers

text: God of Gamblers (; lit. "God of Gambling") is a 1989 Hong Kong action comedy-drama film written and directed by Wong Jing featuring an all-star cast led by Chow Yun-fat, Andy Lau, Joey Wong and Sharla Cheung.


title: God of Gamblers

text: Ko Chun is a world-famous gambler, so renowned and talented at winning various games of chance that he is referred to as the "God of Gamblers". He keeps his identity secret from the public (and avoids photographs so his face is not recognised), but is known for three characteristics: his slicked-back hairstyle, his love of Feodora brand chocolate, and his jade pinky ring.


title: God of Gamblers

text: Ko Chun arrives in Tokyo, accompanied by his girlfriend Janet and his assistant and cousin Ko Yee, for a match with Tanaka, the country's top ranked gambler. After convincingly defeating Tanaka in games of Mahjong and dice, Tanaka concedes defeat and asserts that Ko Chun "really [is] God".


title: God of Gamblers

text: Tanaka asks Chun to help him take revenge on Chan Kam-sing aka the "Demon of Gamblers", a famous Singaporean gambler who cheated Tanaka's father before driving him to suicide, by besting Chan in a high-stakes poker match. Ko Chun agrees, merely asking for a box of chocolate as payment. In gratitude, Tanaka sends his bodyguard, former Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces Operative, Dragon, to accompany Ko Chun for protection.


title: God of Gamblers

text: Meanwhile, Little Knife, an avid but mediocre gambler who idolises the God of Gamblers, sets a trap for an Indian neighbour as a practical joke. After a fight on a train between Ko Chun, Dragon, and henchmen sent by one of Ko Chun's rivals, Ko happens to accidentally stumble into Knife's trap. Ko falls down a hill, hitting his head, and subsequently suffers from amnesia and regresses to a childlike state.


title: God of Gamblers

text: Knife, not knowing who the unnamed stranger is, takes him in and names him "Chocolate" due to the man's seemingly obsessive love for the candy. Initially Knife is impatient with Chocolate's childish innocence and often yells at him, but soon recognises that "Chocolate" has innate gambling talent and begins to exploit his abilities in local poker games and gambling dens. As time passes, Knife comes to care for Chocolate and seeks to find a way to restore his memory.


title: God of Gamblers

text: Back at Ko Chun's mansion, it is revealed that Janet has been searching for Chun for ten days to no avail. Ko Yee, who is jealous of Chun's success and wealth, makes advances on her, which she rejects; finally, while attempting to rape her, Yee accidentally knocks Janet off the balcony, killing her. He discovers that she has been recording what has been transpiring and proceeds to burn the tape. Later, Yee allies himself with Chan Kam-sing and Ko Chun's other rival and they send assassins to find and kill Chun.


title: God of Gamblers

text: Eventually, the assassins find Chun, Knife, and their friends and attempt to kill them, but Dragon arrives to protect them after tracking Chun down. A fierce shootout ensues in a shopping centre, in which Knife saves Chun from an attempt on his life by Ko Yee. During the fight, Dragon is wounded, causing Chun to snap out of his child persona briefly to kill the rest of the assailants. However, after regressing back to his childlike state, Chun becomes horrified at the carnage and runs out into the street where he is struck by a vehicle.


title: God of Gamblers

text: Chun awakens in the hospital with his regular persona, but no memory of the events or people he met after the fight. He is informed by Ko Yee, who is feigning loyalty, that Janet had killed herself. Knife arrives and attempts to warn Chun of Ko Yee's treachery but Yee has Knife thrown out. Later, Ko Yee gives Chan Kam-sing special eyeglasses that will allow him to cheat during his upcoming poker match with Chun by reading invisible markings on the cards.


title: God of Gamblers

text: Chun, Yee, Tanaka and Dragon arrive on Chan Kam-sing's yacht for the climactic game of five-card stud. Knife, having sneaked onto the boat, again attempts to warn Chun of the danger he is in. Chun agrees to hear Knife out later but admonishes him not to interfere with the poker game.


title: God of Gamblers

text: With his ability to see the markings on the cards, Chan Kam-Sing dominates the first two rounds. After losing all of Tanaka's money, Ko Chun puts up his entire personal portfolio of wealth and holdings against Chan's wealth. Chan, using his glasses to see that Ko Chun has an inferior hand, agrees, showing his cards and gloating over his victory. Ko Chun, in turn, reveals that he actually has the superior hand and has won the game, having secretly altered the markings of the deck and using special contact lenses to read them.


title: God of Gamblers

text: Subsequently, Ko Chun tricks Chan Kam-sing into shooting Ko Yee. As Yee lies dying, Chun drops Janet's tape (which actually never finished burning) onto his body. Ko Chun then departs (as police arrive to take Chan into custody for murder) without speaking to Knife, much to the latter's dismay.


title: God of Gamblers

text: Ko Chun later surprises Knife at his home and reveals that he remembered Knife in the hospital and knew about Ko Yee's betrayal all along, but had to feign ignorance to execute his plan properly. He promises to make it up to Knife by taking him to Las Vegas as his gambling partner.


title: God of Gamblers

text: The success of the film spawned many sequels, spin-offs and parodies. The parody "All for the Winner" starring Stephen Chow led to two comedy-driven "God of Gamblers" sequels also starring Stephen Chow, followed by a more serious direct sequel with Chow Yun-Fat reprising his role as Ko Chun.


title: God of Gamblers

text: The most notable soundtrack of the film is the main theme song composed by Lowell Lo. The theme song has since been featured in sequels and spinoffs.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Hinglaj Mata (Hindi: हिंगलाज माता, , ), also known as Hinglaj Devi, Hingula Devi and Nani Mandir, is a Hindu temple in Hinglaj, a town on the Makran coast in the Lasbela district of Balochistan, and is the middle of the Hingol National Park. It is one of the 51 Shakti Peethas in Shaktism denomination of Hinduism. It is one of the three Shakti Peethas in Pakistan, other two being Shivaharkaray and Sharada Peeth. It is a form of Durga or Devi in a mountain cavern on the banks of the Hingol River. Over the last three decades the place has gained increasing popularity and became a unifying point of reference for Pakistan's many Hindu communities. Hinglaj Yatra is the largest Hindu pilgrimage in Pakistan. More than 250,000 people take part in the Hinglaj Yathra during the spring.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The shrine is in a small natural cave. There is a low mud altar. There is no man-made image of the goddess. A small divine form of Hinglaj Mata is worshipped. The stone is smeared with sindoor (vermilion), which possibly gives the location its Sanskrit name Hingula, which is the root of the present-day name Hinglaj.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The cave temple of Hinglaj Mata is in a narrow gorge in the remote, hilly area of Lyari Tehsil in Balochistan. It is to the northwest, inland from the Arabian Sea and to the west of the mouth of the Indus. It is at the end of a range of Kirthar Mountains, in the Makran desert stretch, on the west bank of Hingol River. The area is under the Hingol National Park.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Other places of worship in and around Hinglaj are Ganesh Deva, Mata Kali, Gurugorakh Nath Dooni, Braham Kudh, Tir Kundh, Gurunanak Kharao, Ramjarokha Bethak, Aneel Kundh On Chorasi Mountain, Chandra Goop, Khaririver and Aghore Pooja.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Hinglaj Mata is said to be very powerful deity who bestows good to all her devotees. While Hinglaj is her main temple, temples dedicated to her exist in neighbouring Indian states Gujarat and Rajasthan. The shrine is known as Hingula, Hingalaja, Hinglaja, and Hingulata in Hindu scriptures, particularly in Sanskrit. The goddess is known as Hinglaj Mata (the Mother Hinglaj), Hinglaj Devi (the Goddess Hinglaj), Hingula Devi (the red goddess or the Goddess of Hingula) and Kottari or Kotavi.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The chief legend of Hinglaj Mata relates to the creation of the Shakti Peethas. Sati, daughter of "Prajapati" Daksha, was married to the god Shiva against his wishes. Daksha organized a great yajna but did not invite Sati and Shiva. Uninvited, Sati reached the yajna-site, where Daksha ignored Sati and vilified Shiva. Unable to withstand this insult, Sati immolated herself activating her chakras, (energy generated through her anger).


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Sati died, but her corpse did not burn. Shiva (as Virabhadra) slew Daksha for being responsible for Sati's death and forgave him, resurrecting him. The wild, grief-stricken Shiva wandered the universe with Sati's corpse. Finally, the god Vishnu dismembered the body of Sati into 108 parts, from which 52 fell on earth and others on other planets in the universe which became Shakti Peethas, temple to a form of the Goddess.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Shiva is also worshiped at each Shakti Pitha in the form of Bhairava, the male counterpart or guardian of the presiding goddess of the Pitha. The head of Sati is believed to have fallen at Hinglaj.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The "Kularnava Tantra" mentions 18 Pithas and mentions Hingula as the third one. In the "Kubjika Tantra", Hingula is listed among the 42 Shakta or Siddha Pithas in which Hinglaj is at the fifth place. The "Pithanirnaya" or "Mahapithanirupana" section from the "Tantrachudamani" originally listed 43 names, but names were added over time making it 51 Pithas. It details the "Pitha-devata" or "Devi" (name of goddess at the Pitha), the "Kshastradishas" (Bhairava) and the "anga-pratyanga" (limbs including ornaments of Sati). Hingula or Hingulata is the first in list, with the "anga-pratyanga" being "Brahmarandhra" (a suture in the crown of the head). The Devi is known by several names such as Kottari, Kottavi, Kottarisha, and the Bhairava is Bhimalochana. In the "Shivasharitha", Hingula is again the first in a list of 55 Pithas. "Brahmarandhra" is the "anga-pratyanga", the goddess is called Kottari and the Bhairava is Bhimalochana (located in Koteshwar).


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: In the non-scripture 16th century Bengali work "Chandimangal", Mukundaram lists nine Pithas in the "Daksha-yajna-bhanga" section. Hinglaja is the last Pitha described to be the place where Sati's forehead fell.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Another legend is that Devi killed Hingol as he tormented the people. She followed Hingol to the cave, which is currently the Hinglaj Mata shrine. Before he was killed, Hingol requested the goddess to name the place after him, which she granted.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The Brahmakshatriya community and Charan community also known as Gadhvi venerate Hinglaj Mata as their family deity. They believe that when the god Parashurama was persecuting kshatriyas (the warrior caste), some Brahmins (priest caste) provided protection to 12 kshatriyas and disguised them as Brahmins, and they were protected by Hinglaj Mata. Another variation of the tale is that the sage Dadhichi provided protection to Ratnasena, a king ruling in Sind, in his ashram (hermitage). However, Parashurama killed him when he ventured out. His sons remained in the ashram. When Parashurama visited the ashram, they were disguised as Brahmins. One of them, Jayasena, returned to Sind to rule the kingdom, armed with a protective mantra of Hinglaj Mata, given by Dadhici. Hinglaj Mata protected Jayasena and ordered Parshurama to end his killing spree.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: As per the popular folklore of Treta Yuga, a virtuous Haihaya king of Mahishmati of Malwa region, Sahastrabahu Arjuna or Sahastararjun, more widely known as Kartavirya Arjuna drunk with power and sense of invincibility ends up killing the great Brahman sage Jamadagni over a sacred cow Kamadhenu. Furious at this heinous crime, son of Jamadagni, Lord Parashurama vows to vanquish the power-drunk Kshatriya clan from Earth. Wielding his divine axe, he eliminates Sahastararjun and later on he rages on earth 21 times, each time decimating unvirtuous and unworthy kings wherever he went.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Terrified with the prospect of death at Lord Parashuram, the progeny of Sahastararjun seek Janaka Maharaj, one of the most learned king of Videha who advises them to seek Hinglaji Mata's blessing. The clan devotedly pray to Devi at Higloj who is overcome with compassion and assures shelter in her place. Over time, when Lord Parasuraman visits this place, he was pleasantly surprised to see Kshatriya clan involved in many Brahminical activities having shed their arms. Hinglaj Mata intervenes on their behalf, and since then the clan disowned arms. Lord Parasuraman not only taught them scriptures and Vedas, but also weaving for a living. The clan with a sense of relief then branches out and spread across Sindh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka. And where ever they went they continued worshiping Hinglaj Devi. Charan also known as Gadhvi , Khatris, Bhavasars, Barot (caste), and Shimpis of Somavaunsha Sahasrarjun Kshatriya trace their origin to this clan. Some of those who remained in Sindh province later on converted to Islam. Of note, even today they are one of the oldest non-Brahmin clans who had knowledge of Vedas. To this day many works as weavers and tailors.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The local Muslims, particularly the Zikri Muslims also hold Hinglaj Mata in reverence and provide security to the shrine. They call the temple the "Nani Mandir" (lit. "maternal grandmother’s temple"). Local Muslim tribes along with Hindus make pilgrimage to the Hinglaj Mata shrine and some call the pilgrimage as the "Nani Ki Haj".


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Sufi Muslims also revere Hinglaj Mata. The Sufi saint Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai had visited the Hinglaj Mata temple and it is mentioned in his poetry. The Sur Ramkali was composed by Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai in reverence to the Hinglaj Mata and the visiting jogis. There is a legend that the Shah Abdul Latin Bhittai took on the arduous journey to visit the Hinglaj Mata Mandir to pay tribute to the Hinglaj Mata and offered milk to the Hinglaj Mata. It is also believed that after he offered the milk, the Hinglaj Mata appeared in front of him.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Once pilgrims arrive in Hinglaj they complete a series of rituals, like climbing the Chandragup and Khandewari mud volcanoes. Devotees throw coconuts into the craters in the Chandragup mud volcano to make wishes and thank the gods for answering their prayers. Some scatter rose petals, others paint their bodies and faces with clay. Pilgrims then take a ritual bath in the sacred Hingol River before finally approaching the shrine marking the goddess's resting place.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The annual four-day pilgrimage to the Hinglaj Mata Temple is in April. The major ceremony in the pilgrimage occurs on the third day, when the priests of the shrine recite mantras to invoke the gods to accept the offerings brought by the pilgrims, and bless them. Offerings made by the pilgrims to the deity primarily consist of three coconuts. While some remain in Hinglaj for all four days, others make a short day trip.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Pilgrimage to the site is traditionally begun from the "Nanad Panthi Akhada" in Karachi. The pilgrim groups are headed by a holy staff bearer called the "chaadiar", authorized by the Akhada (a Hindu organization of sadhus). The sadhus (holy-men) belonging to this group are a very cohesive group of Hata yogis with ancestral genealogy of their own; and they also observe secret rites.Historically few could make the taxing journey to Hinglaj—a grueling trek across more than 160 miles of isolated desert to the temple. But in recent years, new infrastructure has allowed an unprecedented number of pilgrims to enter the site, altering centuries-old rituals.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Pilgrims from all over Pakistan and even India visit the temple, holding traditional red banners and wearing red-gold decorative head-scarves, which are associated with sanctuaries of Hindu goddesses, in this case Hinglaj Mata. What was once a journey of more than by foot through the desert from the nearest road, is now made easy by the Makran Coastal Highway connecting Karachi with Gwadar. Hinglaj is 328 km and nearly 4 hours drive from Karachi on the Makran Coastal Highway. Consequently, the number of pilgrims visiting the shrine has substantially increased over the years; the last reported figure was 25,000 to 30,000. While most pilgrims come by buses or private cars, a few cycle their way to the shrine, as it is believed that more the austerities, the more is the grace of the deity.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Before the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the region constituting present-day Pakistan had 14% Hindu and Sikh population, which fell to 1.6% or about 3 million due to migration of 6 million Hindus and Sikhs to India. Of these, nearly 2.3 million Hindus, the largest concentration is in a single district: Tharparkar District (Thar) district of Sindh Province. They form the largest contingent of pilgrims to Hinglaj Mata Temple. They include merchants, government servants, but the majority are the lower-class Hindus, serving as bonded labourers and farm workers. The costumes of these folks from rural Pakistan are most colourful. Their women dress in heavily embroidered clothes with bangles adorning their wrists. For Thari children employed as bonded labour, this is a one-time fun time. The pilgrims include middle-class Hindus, especially from nearby Karachi, which is a stop on the pilgrimage route to Hinglaj.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The pilgrimage serves as meeting point for places and doing community activity like gathering funds for construction of a Hindu temple. Hundreds of volunteers help in the organization. Diesel generators are installed. Vast community kitchens are set up to cook food prepared with tonnes of food stuff such as wheat floor, rice, lentils, and vegetables supplied by local people to feed the pilgrims. Three meals are prepared. Temporary bathroom facilities and camps are installed.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Historically few could make the taxing journey to Hinglaj—a grueling trek across more than 160 miles of isolated desert to the site of Sati's fallen head. But in recent years, new infrastructure has allowed an unprecedented number of pilgrims to enter the site, altering centuries-old rituals.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The mud volcano Chandragup is considered holy by Hindus and is an important stop for pilgrims on their way to the shrine of Hinglaj Mata. Devotees throw coconuts into the craters to make wishes and thank the gods for answering their prayers.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The Chandragup mud volcano is worshipped as an embodiment of Lord Shiva and hence called Baba Chandragup. Many pilgrims believe that Hinglaj's temple may only be entered only after paying homage to Baba Chandrakup. Traditionally, the pilgrims stays awake all the night fasting and meditating on the sins they will confess at the rim of the crater next day and bake roti made out of ingredients contributed by all the yātrīs. On the next day they ascend the slope of Chandrakup. The roṭi is then served as an offering to Baba Chandrakup. Nowadays, coconuts, betel nut and dal are also offered. At the top of the Volcano, the pilgrims first have to introduce themselves with their full name and place of origin and then call out their sins in front of the group. According to the bubbling of the mud and the reaction of the wind, the is able to tell if the pilgrim's sins are forgiven.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The Valley of Hinglaj is considered as Hinglaj Mata herself and hence is considered Sacred. This is the Swayambhu concept in Hinduism which implies


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: a divine presence in natural manifestations such as particular landscapes or, on a smaller scale. Here the concept of svayaṃbhū not only relates fto the major shrine but also can be linked to whole areas of the Hinglaj Valley, the area surrounding Chandragup volcano, or even the whole


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The point at which the Hinglaj Valley begins is clearly marked by a wall built by the Hinglaj Sheva Mandali in 1996. However, traditional travelogues and of pilgrims coming to the shrine generally demonstrate that the Goddess's sacred geography more extended than this, the disappearance of the old pilgrimage paths led to the elimination of many stops en route. Due to the divinity of the Goddess's sacred geography commercial activities including shops and teastalls are not allowed to be set up in the valley.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: After killing Ravana, Rama returned from exile to ascend to the throne of Ayodhya. A sage Kumbodhar explained that to cleanse himself of this sin, Rama would have to make a pilgrimage to Hinglaj Mata, the only place that could purify him. Rama followed the advice and immediately left with his army for Hinglaj. Sita, Lakshmana, and Hanuman also accompanied him.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: At the mountain pass, the goddess's army, which guarded the entry to her empire (Sacred Valley of Hinglaj) stopped them and a war broke out in which the goddess's army defeated Rama's army and told him that his army must retreat. When Rama sent a messenger to the goddess to inquire why she fought him, she responds that he must return to his first stop, which is now called Ram Bagh, and make the journey again as a simple pilgrim.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Therefore, Rama left his entourage, his army, and vehicles behind and set out to walk to the shrine accompanied only by his closest friends. Rama's men were devastated at not being allowed to accompany their lord to the goddess's abode. The Devi thus promised them that their descendants will, at some point in time, all come back to do the pilgrimage. For guidance through the harsh desert, Rama called on the pious Lalu Jasraj, a hermit who resided nearby at some hot springs, to be their charidar for the yatra. Only now did the goddess allow the group to cross the pass.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: After only a few kilometers, Sita became thirsty in the burning desert heat and requested that Hanuman and Lakshmana bring her water. Hanuman tried to extract water from the soil by stomping his foot violently on the ground, but this produces only a dry riverbed. With the same aim, Lakshmana shot an arrow into the mountain range, but only succeeded in detaching one of the hills. In agony, Sita placed her palm down on the soil and thereby made five wells appear, from which the group drank. These five wells are known as Seeta Koowas. The river followed by a series of five wells reportedly produced either by the power of Sita or by Hinglaj herself. But these landmarks are not seen today.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: After a physically challenging journey, Rama reached the shrine of the goddess, and the Devi granted him purification of his sin. To mark his completed yātrā, he carved the symbols of the Sun and Moon on the mountain opposite the temple which can be seen even today.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Hinglaj pilgrims before going to Hinglaj go to Khari Nadi, where people take a bath in the ocean and worship Rama.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The Hinglaj Sheva Mandali is the temple committee established to promote an annual pilgrimage to the shrine. It was created on January 5, 1986, and continues to be the main organization serving the Hinglaj Mata temple and its pilgrims.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: The chairman of the temple committee was kidnapped two days before the annual Hinglaj Yatra in 2012 by suspected Islamists. He was kept in captivity for 73 days and later released. The Pakistan Hindu Council strongly criticised that his kidnapping was to warn the Hindus residing in Pakistan.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: In 2008, Water and Power Development Authority of Pakistan proposed a plan to build a dam on the Hingol River close to the shrine. The dam would have flooded the access roads to the temple and endangered the locality and its associated festivals. Following protest from the Hindu community, the dam proposal was abandoned by the Balochistan Assembly.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: After this, the WAPDA initially suggested relocating three holy places to a higher elevation and guaranteed the construction of a new access road. This proposition was rejected by the Hinglaj Sheva Mandali, which argued that these sites were not like common temples and could not simply be relocated. In 2008, the lawmakers on the Balochistan Assembly reacted to the concerns and protests of the Hindu community and asked the federal government to stop the project. In 2009, after a year of suspension, WAPDA chose to continue with the controversial Hingol Dam construction plans but decided to shift the site of the dam a few kilometers north in order to protect the temple. This resolution was in keeping with a consensus between WAPDA, the Balochistan Assembly, and the Hindu community.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Hinglaj Devi worshipped as Kuldevi of Parajiya Soni (Parajiya soni, Pattni Soni, Girnara Soni, Kutchi Soni), Bhawsar (Bhavsar), Gosavi, Goswami (Dashnami), Bhanushali samaj (caste), Brhamkshatriya samaj (Hindu Khatri), Sepau Rajpurohit, Charan-Gadhvi(caste), Bavaliya (mer) (Samaj of Saurastra Gujarat), Barot (caste) in south India Especially Banjaras or Lambadi's Community Worship Hingalaj Devi as one of the Sathi Bhavani. Hingalaj Devi late Incarnation Jagadamba or Merama Yadi is famous in South India Banjara community. Sevalal, devotee of Jagadamba is also worshiped in most of the south Indian states by Banjaras.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: Hinglaj Devi is given center of sphere in Bengali language film named "Morutirth Hinglaj" in which group of people mostly devotees were shown to go by walking in the desert of about 150 miles. Leading role in film was played by Indian artist Uttam Kumar who acted in many Bengali and Hindi films. The film was notable and critics made good reviews. The songs in this film are enchanting and sung by singer Hemant Kumar. "Sahasam", Indian Telugu action movie starring Gopichand and Tapsee Pannu directed by Chandra Sekhar Yeleti.


title: Hinglaj Mata mandir

text: 'Hinglaj Shaktipeeth', a book by Onkar Singh Lakhawat who took the journey in 2006 along with Jaswant Singh, narrates his experiences & provides extensive details of the Hinglaj shrine. Lakhawat started writing after returning to India and the book was published in 2011.


title: Kadru

text: Kadru () is usually regarded as the daughter of Daksha and the consort of the sage Kashyapa in Hindu scriptures. Kashyapa is the son of Marichi, who is a manasaputra, a mind-born son of Brahma. Kadru is best known as the mother of the nagas, the race of serpents.


title: Kadru

text: Legends of Kadru detail her relationship with her elder sister Vinata, who was also one of Kashyapa's many wives. In one story, Kadru and Vinata vie to bear the children of Kashyapa who are more powerful than the other. While Kadru gives birth to a thousand nagas, Vinata bears two sons, Aruṇa and Garuda. Kadru is also portrayed as more scheming and wily than Vinata. She challenges Vinata to guess the colour of the tail of Uchchaihshravas, the divine white horse. After Vinata says the tail is white, Kadru tricks Vinata by directing her sons to coil around the horse's tail, causing it to appear black. As a result, Vinata loses the bet and she and her sons are forced to become the slaves of Kadru and her sons. Another legend states that when Kadru asks Garuda to take her sons on his back to the abode of the sun so that they can pay obeisance, they are scorched. Vinata asks Garuda to carry the water of the Ganga from the netherworld and sprinkle it on the nagas to revive them.


title: Kadru

text: In another tale, Kadru and Suparna, another of Kashyapa's wives, disobey Kashyapa and disrupt some sages who are performing rites on the banks of the Ganga. As a result, they are turned into rivers. Kashyapa is only able to restore them to their original forms by performing a penance to Shiva.


title: Kadru

text: Generally, Kadru is described as the daughter of Daksha Prajapati and the wife of the sage Maharishi Kashyapa. The Hindu epic "Mahabharata", which gives a detailed tale about her, recognizes her as one of Kashyapa's many wives.


title: Kadru

text: There is also a view that she was the daughter of Daksha, but it has not been established from Puranic literature. In the "Aranyakanda" of the Valmiki "Ramayana" it is mentioned that Daksaprajapati had sixty daughters of whom he married off Aditi, Diti, Danu, Tamra, Krodhavasa, Muni and Surasa to Kashyapa. Krodhavasa had eight daughters of whom Kadru was one. Thus, Kadru may alternatively be considered the granddaughter of Daksha. Vinata, Kadru's sister, is another wife of Kashyapa.


title: Kadru

text: According to the "Sabha Parva" of the "Mahabharata", Kadru lived in Brahmaloka, the abode of Brahma. In the "Vana Parva" of the "Mahabharata" it is stated that to destroy the embryo in a woman, Kadru enters her womb by assuming a very tiny form called "Skanda graha".


title: Kadru

text: Kadru was the younger sister of Vinata, and when they both lived with Kashyapa as his wives and attended to all his comforts he blessed them by granting each of them a boon. Kadru asked for a thousand naga or serpent sons who should be valiant. Prompted by her sister's demand for sons, Vinata asked for only two sons who should be more powerful and bright than Kadru's children. Kashyapa granted them their wishes. After his wives became pregnant, he advised them to look after the children, and then left for his penance in the forest.


title: Kadru

text: After a long time Kadru gave birth to a thousand eggs and Vinata to two eggs. The eggs were carefully incubated in containers with hot water or in jars which were kept warm. After a lapse of five hundred years, the eggs laid by Kadru hatched and her sons came to life; of these thousand naga sons, the most prominent ones were Shesha, Vasuki and Takshaka. All the serpents born in this world are the descendants of these thousand sons. Vinata became jealous as her eggs had not hatched. In a moment of haste, she broke open one of the eggs, revealing a half-formed son. This son was enraged by his physical form and cursed his mother for her hasty act, saying she would be a slave to Kadru for five hundred years till the son from her second egg was born. He became a charioteer and herald for the sun god and the creator of the red sky at dawn, and was therefore named Aruṇa. Eventually, after five hundred years, Vinata's second son Garuda was born in the form of a huge bird with immense power. As soon as he was born he flew away with grace, seeking food.


title: Kadru

text: According to the "Brahma Purana", Kashyapa, who is also known as Prajapati Kashyapa, was approached by the Valakhilyas. Offering him half of their ascetic powers, they requested that he beget them a son who could take revenge on Indra who had insulted them. Kashyapa then had one son from each of his two wives, Kadru the mother of snakes and Suparna. Before going on an errand, Kashyapa instructed his wives not to leave the house as they would create mischief and do evil acts and eventually come to grief. In spite of these instructions, Kadru and Suparna went out to the banks of the Ganga where enlightened sages were performing "sattra" rites and started disturbing the rites. Infuriated, the sages cursed them to become rivers. Kashyapa returned home to find his wives, but was told of the incident by the sages. When Kashyapa asked how he might retrieve his wives, the sages advised him to do penance to Shiva at Gautami Ganga. Kashyapa prayed by reciting a hymn that praised Shiva in the role of a triad, his role in the three worlds, and his three gunas (qualities of virtue, merit, excellence). Pleased with Kashyapa's hymn, Shiva restored to him his wives, and blessed the wives so that they would beget children again by the grace of Ganga. Kashyapa invited the sages to participate in the fourth-to-sixth month hair-parting ceremony of his pregnant wives. After the sages were fed, when Kashyapa respectfully stood before them with his wife to thank them, Kadru looked at the sages and gave them a sly look with one of her eyes. The sages were annoyed and cursed Kadru to lose that eye. Thus, Kadru became one-eyed.


title: Kadru

text: Once, Kadru called Vinata and asked her to tell her the colour of Uchchaihshravas, the divine white horse that had emerged from the ocean when it was churned by the devas and asuras to generate nectar. Without any guile, Vinata said that it was pure white. Kadru contradicted her and said that its tail was black. An argument ensued, and Kadru challenged Vinata to a bet, saying that whoever lost the bet would have to become the other's servant. Intending to cheat Vinata, Kadru called her thousand sons to coil around Uchchaihshravas's tail neatly so that it appeared black in colour. While some of her sons obeyed her instructions, others refused to oblige her. Those who disobeyed her instructions were cursed by Kadru, and she prophesied that they would be charred alive in the "sarpa satra yagna" (snake sacrifice) that would be performed by King Janamejaya of Hastinapura. Kashyapa was upset by this curse, but Brahma who happened to be there told him such a curse was essential as serpents had become very dangerous to society. Brahma then gave Kashyapa the antidote for snake poisoning. Kadru won the bet as the nagas had wound around Uchchaihshravas's tail, giving it a black shade. Vinata thus became the slave of Kadru. She would eventually be freed by Garuda, when he brought Kadru and the nagas a pot of amṛtam, in an episode called the Amṛtakalaśāpaharaṇam.


title: Kadru

text: On another occasion, Kadru suggested to Vinata that Vinata should take Kadru, and that Garuda should take her naga sons, to the beautiful island of Ramaniyaka in the middle of the ocean within the abode of snakes. Vinata and Garuda did as directed. After reaching the destination Kadru asked Garuda to take her sons to the abode of the sun to pay their respectful obeisance. Garuda carried the naga sons of Kadru on his back and approached the sun. As he flew closer, the nagas could not withstand the heat and started falling off him to the ground in a faint, on the island of Virana. Hearing the cries of her children, Kadru was deeply distressed and blamed Garuda for what had happened to her children. Vinata, distressed by her son's plight and, following a suggestion by Kadru, asked Garuda to bring water of the Ganga from the netherworld. Garuda obeyed and brought the water to the southern bank of the Gautami river and sprinkled it on the snakes, which then revived. The place where this incident occurred is called Nagalaya, the abode of the snakes. In another version of the story related in the "Adi Parva" of the Valmiki "Ramayana", it is said that when the nagas fainted and fell to the ground due to intense heat of the sun, Kadru offered prayers to Indra to come to her children's rescue. Indra promptly created rain showers to fall on the nagas and they were restored from their charred state. They then lived in the island of Ramaniyaka.


title: Pyrethroid

text: A pyrethroid is an organic compound similar to the natural pyrethrins, which are produced by the flowers of pyrethrums ("Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium" and "C. coccineum"). Pyrethroids are used as commercial and household insecticides.


title: Pyrethroid

text: In household concentrations pyrethroids are generally harmless to humans. However, pyrethroids are toxic to insects such as bees, dragonflies, mayflies, gadflies, and some other invertebrates, including those that constitute the base of aquatic and terrestrial food webs. Pyrethroids are toxic to aquatic organisms, especially fish. They have been shown to be an effective control measure for malaria outbreaks, through indoor applications.


title: Pyrethroid

text: Pyrethroids are axonic excitotoxins, the toxic effects of which are mediated through preventing the closure of the voltage-gated sodium channels in the axonal membranes. The sodium channel is a membrane protein with a hydrophilic interior. This interior is shaped precisely to allow sodium ions to pass through the membrane, enter the axon, and propagate an action potential. When the toxin keeps the channels in their open state, the nerves cannot repolarize, leaving the axonal membrane permanently depolarized, thereby paralyzing the organism. Pyrethroids can be combined with the synergist piperonyl butoxide, a known inhibitor of microsomal cytochrome P450 enzymes which are important in metabolizing the pyrethroid. By that means, the efficacy (lethality) of the pyrethroid is increased. It is likely that there are other mechanisms of intoxication also. Disruption of neuroendocrine activity is thought to contribute to their irreversible effects on insects, which indicates a pyrethroid action on voltage-gated calcium channels (and perhaps other voltage-gated channels more widely).


title: Pyrethroid

text: Pyrethroids are classified based on their mechanism of biological action, as they do not share a common chemical structure. Many are 2,2-dimethylcyclopropanecarboxylic acid derivatives, like chrysanthemic acid, esterified with an alcohol. However, the cyclopropyl ring does not occur in all pyrethroids. Fenvalerate, which was developed in 1972, is one such example and was the first commercialized pyrethroid without that group.


title: Pyrethroid

text: Pyrethroids which lack an α-cyano group are often classified as "type I pyrethroids" and those with it are called "type II pyrethroids". Pyrethroids that have a common name starting with "cy" have a cyano group and are type II. Fenvalerate also contains an α-cyano group.


title: Pyrethroid

text: Some pyrethroids, like etofenprox, also lack the ester bond found in most other pyrethroids and have an ether bond in its place. Silafluofen is also classified as a pyrethroid and has a silicon atom in the place of the ester. Pyrethroids often have chiral centers and only certain stereoisomers work efficiently as insecticides.


title: Pyrethroid

text: Pyrethroids are toxic to insects such as bees, dragonflies, mayflies, gadflies, and some other invertebrates, including those that constitute the base of aquatic and terrestrial food webs. They are toxic to aquatic organisms including fish.


title: Pyrethroid

text: Pyrethroids are usually broken apart by sunlight and the atmosphere in one or two days, however when associated with sediment they can persist for some time.


title: Pyrethroid

text: Pyrethroids are unaffected by conventional secondary treatment systems at municipal wastewater treatment facilities. They appear in the effluent, usually at levels lethal to invertebrates.


title: Pyrethroid

text: Pyrethroid absorption can happen via skin, inhalation or ingestion. Pyrethroids often do not bind efficiently to mammalian sodium channels. They also absorb poorly via skin and human liver is often able to metabolize them relatively efficiently. Pyrethroids are thus much less toxic to humans than to insects.


title: Pyrethroid

text: It is not well established if chronic exposure to small amounts of pyrethroids is hazardous or not. However, large doses can cause acute poisoning, which is rarely life threatening. Typical symptoms include facial paresthesia, itching, burning, dizziness, nausea, vomiting and more severe cases of muscle twitching. Severe poisoning is often caused by ingestion of pyrethroids and can result in a variety of symptoms like seizures, coma, bleeding or pulmonary edema. There is an association of pyrethroids with poorer early social-emotional and language development.


title: Pyrethroid

text: Pyrethroids are very toxic to cats, but not to dogs. Poisoning in cats can result in seizures, fever, ataxia and even death. Poisoning can occur if pyrethroid containing flea treatment products, which are intended for dogs, are used on cats. The livers of cats detoxify pyrethroids via glucuronidation more poorly than dogs, which is the cause of this difference. Aside from cats, pyrethroids are typically not toxic to mammals or birds. They are often toxic to fish, reptiles and amphibians.


title: Pyrethroid

text: The use of pyrethroids as insecticides has led to the development of widespread resistance to them among some insect populations, especially mosquitoes.


title: Pyrethroid

text: Although bedbugs were almost eradicated in North America through the use of DDT and organophosphates, populations of bedbugs resistant to both have developed. The use of DDT for this purpose was banned, and its reintroduction would not offer a solution to the problem of bedbugs, due to resistance. Pyrethroids became more commonly used against bedbugs, but resistant populations have now developed to them as well. Populations of Diamondback moths have also commonly developed resistance to pyrethroids including in U.S. states North Dakota and Wisconsin while pyrethroids are still recommended in California. Various mosquito populations have been discovered to have a high level of resistance, including "Anopheles gambiae s.l." in West Africa by Chandre et al 1999 through Pwalia et al 2019, "A. arabiensis" in Sudan by Ismail et al 2018 and The Gambia by Opondo et al 2019, and "Aedes aegypti" in South East Asia by Amelia-Yap et al 2018, Papua New Guinea by Demok et al 2019, and various other locations by Smith et al 2016.


title: Pyrethroid

text: Pyrethroids were introduced by a team of Rothamsted Research scientists in the 1960s and 1970s following the elucidation of the structures of pyrethrin I and II by Hermann Staudinger and Leopold Ružička in the 1920s. The pyrethroids represented a major advancement in the chemistry that would synthesize the analog of the natural version found in pyrethrum. Its insecticidal activity has relatively low mammalian toxicity and an unusually fast biodegradation. Their development coincided with the identification of problems with DDT use. Their work consisted firstly of identifying the most active components of pyrethrum, extracted from East African chrysanthemum flowers and long known to have insecticidal properties. Pyrethrum rapidly knocks down flying insects but has negligible persistence — which is good for the environment but gives poor efficacy when applied in the field. Pyrethroids are essentially chemically stabilized forms of natural pyrethrum and belong to IRAC MoA group 3 (they interfere with sodium transport in insect nerve cells).


title: Pyrethroid

text: The "first-generation pyrethroids", developed in the 1960s, include bioallethrin, tetramethrin, resmethrin, and bioresmethrin. They are more active than the natural pyrethrum but are unstable in sunlight. With the 91/414/EEC review, many 1st-generation compounds have not been included on Annex 1, probably because the market is not big enough to warrant the costs of re-registration (rather than any special concerns about safety).


title: Pyrethroid

text: By 1974, the Rothamsted team had discovered a "second generation" of more persistent compounds notably: permethrin, cypermethrin and deltamethrin. They are substantially more resistant to degradation by light and air, thus making them suitable for use in agriculture, but they have significantly higher mammalian toxicities. Over the subsequent decades these derivatives were followed with other proprietary compounds such as fenvalerate, lambda-cyhalothrin and beta-cyfluthrin. Most patents have now expired, making these compounds cheap and therefore popular (although permethrin and fenvalerate have not been re-registered under the 91/414/EEC process).


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: Pembroke Pines is a city in southern Broward County, Florida, United States. The city is located 22 miles (35 km) north of Miami. The population of Pembroke Pines is 171,178 as of the 2020 census. It is a suburb of and the fourth-most populous city in the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6,012,331 people in 2015.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: Pembroke Pines was officially incorporated on January 16, 1960. The city's name, Pembroke Pines, is traced back to Sir Edward J. Reed, a member of Britain's Parliament for the County of Pembroke from 1874 to 1880, who in 1882 formed the Florida Land and Mortgage Company to purchase from Hamilton Disston a total of 2 million acres of mostly swampland located throughout the southern half of Florida. A road put through one of the tracts came to be known as Pembroke Road. When incorporating the city, Walter Smith Kipnis, who became the city's first mayor, suggested the name Pembroke Pines because of the pine trees growing near Pembroke Road.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: The first inhabitants of the area were American Indians, who first appeared about 4,000 years ago. Skeletal remains of animal hunters dating back about 10,000 years were found around Broward County, showing that perhaps human beings had lived in the area even earlier.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: The town started as agricultural land occupied by dairy farms, and grew after World War II as service members were retiring, including large eastern sections that were part of the Waldrep Dairy Farm, including the present-day Pembroke Lakes Mall. The first two subdivisions were called Pembroke Pines. One of the first homes in the city belonged to Kipnis, the city's first mayor, and was built in 1956. It was then known as the "Village of Pembroke Pines" and was incorporated into a village in 1959. Builders contested the incorporation, so a legal battle ensued concerning the boundaries of the new municipality. City services were added in the 1960s with the building of the first fire department building near North Perry Airport. University Drive was then the western edge of habitable land for residents.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: In January 1960, Pembroke Pines held another election, and the village became a city. This small property was less than a square mile and was between Hollywood Boulevard and SW 72nd Avenue, and had the Florida Turnpike to the east. Pembroke Pines sought to give citizens involvement, so they organized the Pembroke Pines Civic Association. The square-mile city was unable to expand due to North Perry Airport and the South Florida State Hospital. Joseph LaCroix, a developer, had his of land north of Pines Boulevard annexed to the city. This gave a new pathway to proceed westward. In 1977, a maximum security prison known as the Broward Correctional Institution was built in the northwestern part of town. This facility closed in 2012. In 1980, property from Flamingo Road to U.S. 27 was incorporated into Pembroke Pines, doubling the size of the city. This expansion included the property that is currently C.B. Smith Park as well as what was once the Hollywood Sportatorium and the Miami-Hollywood Motorsports Park. Also, in 1980, construction began to extend Interstate 75 from U.S. 27 towards Miami, passing through the new western part of the city. By 1984 the expressway reached Pines Boulevard, the main east-west arterial road in the city.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: In May 1977, the Grateful Dead put on a storied performance at the Sportatorium. Many Deadheads consider the version of "Sugaree" played during the first set to be the band's—and particularly guitarist Jerry Garcia's—finest performance of the song.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: The city's rapid population growth in the mid-to late 1990s was part of the effect of Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Thousands of southern Miami-Dade County residents moved northward to Broward County, many to Pembroke Pines. The resulting boom ranked the City of Pembroke Pines third in a list of "Fastest Growing Cities" in the United States in 1999. The increase in population has increased the need for schools. In 2003, Charles W. Flanagan High School had close to 6,000 students, making it the most populated high school in Florida. In response to Broward County's need to keep up with demands, Mayor Alex Fekete and City Manager Charles Dodge started a charter school system. As of 2006, Pembroke Pines had the largest charter school system in the county. The city is also home to campuses for Broward Community College and Florida International University. The city's population had grown from 65,452 in 1990 to 157,594 in 2011.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: In 2001, Pembroke Pines was home to the most dangerous road intersection (Pines Boulevard and Flamingo Road) in the United States, according to State Farm Insurance. City residents passed a bond initiative to allow the city to begin construction to redesign the intersection. The intersection has since been expanded with additional east/west Pines Boulevard lanes.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: As developers expanded Pembroke Pines westward, more hurricanes have affected the city and its residents. In 1999, Hurricane Irene dumped up to of rain in the city. The western communities, such as Chapel Trail and Silver Lakes, received an estimated . Then in 2004, Hurricane Frances and Jeanne passed to the north (Palm Beach County), but brought tropical storm-force winds and left minor tree and shrub damage. The 2005 hurricane season left a mark on the city. Hurricane Katrina passed directly over the city as a category-one storm. In its wake, it left some damage, such as downed power lines and trees, especially in the Chapel Trail and Silver Lakes developments. In late October, the eye of Hurricane Wilma passed about toward the north of the city, which saw the strongest winds its residents had experienced in decades. The strongest wind officially recorded in the city was a sustained wind, with a wind gust. Most of the city was left without power for days, lights at intersections had been destroyed, a riot at a gas station led to it being closed, most landscaping was destroyed or damaged beyond repair, and minor structural damage (mainly roof and screen damage) occurred. In addition, schools remained closed for two weeks.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which are land and (4.88%) are covered by water, making it one of the largest cities in Broward County.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: A 2017 study put the city in third place for US cities most vulnerable to coastal flooding, with 116,000 residents living within FEMA's coastal floodplain.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: The area of Pembroke Pines west of Interstate 75 is commonly known as West Pines, and consists mostly of subdivisions built since Hurricane Andrew.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: As of the 2020 United States census, there were 171,178 people, 57,399 households, and 39,823 families residing in the city.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: As of 2010, 61,703 households were available, with 7.8% of them being vacant. In 2000, 36.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.4% were married couples living together, 11.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.1% were not families. About 24.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.62 and the average family size was 3.13.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: In 2000, the city the population was distributed as 25.6% under the age of 18, 6.4% from 18 to 24, 33.5% from 25 to 44, 19.3% from 45 to 64, and 15.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 81.8 males.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: In 2000, the median income for a household in the city was $52,629, and for a family was $61,480. Males had a median income of $45,129 versus $32,531 for females. The per capita income for the city was $23,843. About 3.9% of families and 5.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 5.2% of those under age 18 and 8.1% of those age 65 or over.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: As of 2000, speakers of English as a first language were at 63.06%, while Spanish accounted for 27.91%, French made up 1.24%, French Creole was 0.99%, Portuguese was 0.94%, Italian was at 0.92%, Yiddish at 0.74%, and Tagalog was the mother tongue of 0.52% of the population.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: As of 2000, Pembroke Pines had the 45th-highest percentage of Colombian residents in the US, at 3% of the city's population, and the 50th-highest percentage of Cuban residents in the US, at 8.66% of the city's population. It also had the 24th-highest percentage of Jamaicans in the US (tied with Wheatley Heights, New York,) at 5.1% of all residents.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: Pembroke Pines has a Commission-Manager form of government. The city commission has five members elected to four-year terms: a mayor elected city-wide and four commissioners elected from four Single-member districts.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: Broward County Public Schools serve Pembroke Pines. In addition, several charter schools are located in Pembroke Pines, and the City of Pembroke Pines operates its own charter school system.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: Parts of the city are zoned to Everglades High School and Miramar High School in Miramar and McArthur High School in Hollywood.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: Parts of the city are zoned to Apollo Middle School and Driftwood Middle School in Hollywood and Glades Middle School and New Renaissance Middle School in Miramar.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: Parts of the city are zoned to Boulevard Heights Elementary School and Sheridan Park Elementary School in Hollywood, Hawkes Bluff Elementary School in Davie, Manatee Bay Elementary School in Weston, and Miramar Elementary School, Silver Lakes Elementary School, Silver Shores Elementary School, Sunset Lakes Elementary School, and Sunshine Elementary School in Miramar.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: For scheduled commercial service, Pembroke Pines is primarily served by nearby Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport and Miami International Airport. The city itself is home to North Perry Airport, a general aviation airport owned by the Broward County Aviation Department.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: Local bus service is provided by Broward County Transit. The city also partners with Broward County Transit to provide additional bus routes within the city limits.


title: Pembroke Pines, Florida

text: Streets in Pembroke Pines are numbered as a continuation of the street grid of neighboring Hollywood; streets are distinguished from those of Hollywood itself by adding a 'west' to the cardinal direction. Streets north of Pines Boulevard are labeled 'northwest' and those south of Pines Boulevard are labeled 'southwest'.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: The game's story centers on four children; Marche, Mewt, Ritz, and Doned, who live in a small town named St. Ivalice. The children are transported to a realm of the same name as their town, "Ivalice", after discovering an ancient magical book. The story then focuses on the exploits of Marche as he attempts to return to the real world while facing opposition from those around him.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: "Tactics Advance" is one of the initial products from the cooperation of Square and Nintendo made for the Game Boy Advance console; it was developed by the team brought over from the game company Quest Corporation. Following its release, "Tactics Advance"-themed merchandise was introduced. The game was positively received. It has a sequel, "" for the Nintendo DS.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: "Tactics Advance" was re-released for the Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console on January 28, 2016 for Europe, Australia and North America with Japan on March 30, 2016.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: In "Tactics Advance", turn-based tactical battles take place on a three-dimensional isometric field. The player takes the role of Marche, a clan leader; he must organize the clan's members and advance their status through missions that are offered in pubs. The player competes against the computer's team in turn-based play, although unlike "Final Fantasy Tactics" characters execute their actions instantly.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: Missions are tasks undertaken by a clan. There are four types of missions: regular, encounter, dispatch, and area. In regular missions, Marche's entire party ventures to a particular location to do battle. Many of these missions are used to advance the story. In encounter missions, Marche's group battles a rival mercenary clan by purchasing a mission or meeting them on the map. In dispatch missions, which do not involve battle, Marche temporarily sends away one member from his party. Area missions are usually a dispatch mission where Marche's clan can liberate certain regions to obtain bonuses and discounts at shops.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: Some missions, typically dispatch missions, require a special item to be in possession in order to accept the mission. Others require a dispatch character to have a specific job class. In regards to items, this may mean another mission must be done to get an item that would allow you to perform the later mission.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: The world map is initially empty except for the starting location; it is customized as the player wins location "tokens" after certain missions. These tokens represent different terrains and settlements, such as plains, mountains, deserts, forests, and towns, that can be placed in slots on the world map. Items are rewarded to the player depending on the placement of the tokens. Ivalice also introduces areas called , lawless slums that Judges avoid. is a German word which means "the hunt". are the only places in the game in which a character can die; everywhere else, they are protected from death by the Judges and are simply knocked out.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: "Tactics Advance" also offers multiplayer capability for two players. Players may cooperate or compete using a link-cable peripheral, and also trade items and party members. Additional missions and items are also offered when players link.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: There are 34 "jobs" in "Tactics Advance" that govern a character's stats, equipment, and abilities. Most items that can be equipped have various abilities assigned to them, each available for use by characters of a certain job while the item is equipped. When a battle is completed, characters will receive Ability Points (AP) distributed over their currently equipped weapons or items (such as armor). Once a target amount of AP has been accumulated for a given ability, the character will master that ability, allowing the character to use them at any time, regardless of items equipped and job chosen. Mastery of abilities in different jobs will eventually allow the character access to more jobs. For example, if a human unit wishes to change jobs to Paladin, it needs to master at least two "action" abilities from the Soldier job.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: Units have a primary job which determines the stat boosts they receive when they level up and the attributes associated with that class. A unit may also have a secondary job set of abilities, where it can use any abilities of the selected job, but with the stat profile of the primary job. For example, an Assassin with a Sniper secondary job could use abilities from both jobs, but has the stat profile and appearance of an Assassin, its primary job. This may deny the use of some abilities depending on their equipped weapon. In the previous example, any abilities that require the possession of a great bow, will not be allowed for use if the character has a Katana equipped.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: "Tactics Advance" also introduces five playable races: Humans, the small rodentlike Moogles, the strong lizard-like Bangaa, the agile rabbit-like Viera, and the magically-skilled Nu Mou. Certain jobs are only available to certain races. Along with the abilities obtained with experience, each race has a guardian beast called a "Totema" to represent whom and which can be summoned to whose aid when a member of that race has 10 Judge Points, that is after your clan has defeated that Totema as part of the main story line.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: One arbitrary game mechanic of "Tactics Advance" is the Laws system. Laws are set by Judges, invincible arbiters present at each battle, with some exceptions. Laws may forbid the use of certain weapons, items, elemental spells, or status changes. Breaking a law results in punishment by Carding, the receipt of a red or yellow card. Imprisonment happens if a character infringes a law twice or knocks out another unit with a forbidden ability or weapon. However, have no Judges or laws; units knocked out in the will die and permanently leave the clan if they are not revived by the end of the battle.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: To offset the difficulty of having things forbidden for use, there are certain things that are recommended by the Judges, and therefore grant Judge Points if used. Judge Points (JP) are used to carry out combos with nearby allies or to summon a Totema. JP are also received upon knocking out an opponent. Later in the game, the player gains the ability to use law cards, which can add laws, and anti-law cards, which can nullify laws that are already in effect.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: The story of "Tactics Advance" revolves around three primary characters: Marche Radiuju, the main character who battles the dream worlds of his friends; Ritz Malheur, a stubborn girl who speaks her mind and changes sides in her struggle for self-acceptance; and Mewt Randell, a boy whose mother died that discovers a magical entity that changes the world into the world of Ivalice. There are also secondary characters, such as Doned Radiuju, Marche's little brother who does not desire to return to the real world, since he is sick in the real world and healthy in the dream one; and Cid Randell, Mewt's father who becomes the Judgemaster of Ivalice.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: Within Ivalice, there are other characters that help advance the plot. Some characters befriended Marche, such as the moogles Montblanc and Nono; Ezel Berbier, a Nu Mou troublemaker and self-proclaimed genius; and Shara, a Viera archer who befriends Ritz. There are other characters who antagonize Marche, including Babus Swain, a Nu Mou Royal mage in Mewt's service; Llednar Twem, a mysterious enforcer who replaces the Judges when they become independent of the Palace; and Queen Remedi, who is the ruler of Ivalice and was in the Gran Grimoire itself in a form modeled after Mewt's deceased mother.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: Ivalice is a world created by four ordinary children: Marche Radiuju, a new student and resident of St. Ivalice and its school; Mewt Randell, a shy boy still attached to the memory of his late mother; Ritz Malheur, an assertive and outspoken classmate of Marche and Mewt; and Doned Radiuju, Marche's younger, handicapped brother and a big fan of fantasy novels and video games. Mewt comes across a dusty old tome in a local used bookstore and eagerly wishes to show it to his friends. Unaware that the book is the legendary Gran Grimoire, Mewt brings the book over to Marche's house along with Ritz. The old book is written in a language none of them have ever seen before, and a single inscription reads: "Alta oron, Sondus kameela". The next morning, Marche wakes up in the world of Ivalice. The fantasy Ivalice is supposedly a reincarnation of Mewt's memories from a "Final Fantasy" game.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: Marche is separated from the others, and immediately begins a quest to return home. Even after realizing how much better his life is in the new Ivalice, he believes that none of it is real and is even more determined to return to his home when he realizes that everyone in town has been dragged into the dream as well, many of whom are now suffering under Mewt's rule or are being slaughtered by the adventuring Clans that populate the world. The other children, and Mewt's father Cid, slowly realize through Marche's efforts that the world has been shaped according to their wishes. Mewt is no longer being teased, is reunited with his deceased mother, and is now the Prince of Ivalice; Ritz no longer has her white albinic hair, instead having the silky red hair which she always wanted; Doned can now walk and is no longer sickly; Marche is suddenly athletic and popular; Cid is the highest-ranking official in the nation; and all of them now live in "Final Fantasy", the video game the children all love.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: Eventually Marche succeeds in his quest to return Ivalice to normal. He achieves this by destroying the crystals, or world threads, of Ivalice, defeating Llednar Twem (the manifestation of Mewt's negative emotions), and killing the Li-Grim, the physical manifestation of the book's wish-based magic that had been masquerading as Mewt's mother, Queen Remedi. He teaches the other children in the process that they cannot live in fantasy but must learn to live with their misfortunes in reality. The other children are wiser from the experience, as the ending reveals them all to have become happy with themselves.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: In addition to the main plot, there are two side plots: the Redwing Arc and the Judge Arc. The Redwing Arc centers around the Redwings clan, a foreign crime ring, their subordinate clan Borzoi, and their smuggled foreign monsters. The other is the Judge Arc, unlockable after beating the main three hundred missions. This serves as an alternative ending where Marche never goes on his quest and stays in Ivalice, overthrows several corrupt judges, and becomes next in line for Cid's judge sword.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: Rumors of the game's development began when Square announced its publishing agreement with Nintendo, and it was later confirmed by the producer Matsuno. The development team of "Tactics Advance", Square's Product Development Division 4, was constructed from employees of Quest Corporation, and work began in February 2002. This comes after Quest announced the handover of its software development team to Square, of which the former is famed for its "" series. Initially thought of as a port of "Final Fantasy Tactics", "Tactics Advance" is developed with an entirely new storyline and setting, and received significant changes to make it more user-friendly for the GBA handheld console; e.g. a quick-save function.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" uses the gameplay of "Final Fantasy Tactics", but introduced certain changes such as a customizable map for the world of Ivalice. While built for the Game Boy Advance, "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" graphics are vibrantly colored and extensively detailed, and though environments and characters are wholly sprite-based, facial expressions are easily identifiable and many motion frames have been given to create a smooth animation. The game also introduced an option to switch between three display modes. Two of the modes are optimized for gameplay on Game Boy Advance and the new Game Boy Advance SP respectively, and there's also a TV mode for better color display while playing this game into a television screen by using a Game Boy Player which, must be attached to a GameCube for this to work.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: In Japan, "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" story was expanded and broadcast in Japanese radio stations. The radio drama entitled "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Radio Edition" was broadcast in four radio stations within Japan from early January 2003 to late March 2003.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: The music in "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" was primarily composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto, with additional music contributed by Kaori Ohkoshi and Ayako Saso; Nobuo Uematsu provided the main theme. The "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Original Soundtrack" album was released by DigiCube on February 19, 2003. It spans 74 tracks and has a duration of 2:05:27. The first disk includes every song from the game, as it sounds through the Game Boy Advance hardware. The second disk contains fully orchestrated versions of 32 of the same 42 tracks. A new age arrangement album entitled "White: Melodies of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance", a selection of musical tracks from the game arranged by Yo Yamazaki, Akira Sasaki, and Satoshi Henmi, was released by SME Visual Works on February 26, 2003. "White" spans 11 tracks and has a duration of 46:10. Within the game, the classical-themed soundtrack is compressed into MIDI file format. Simple sound effects are used during battles, and there are no voices or speech within the game.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" sold over 440,000 copies during its year of release in Japan, with nearly 225,000 units being sold in its first week alone. By August 6, 2004, more than 1 million units of the game were sold in North America and Europe together. In the United States alone, the game sold 660,000 copies and earned $22 million by August 2006. During the period between January 2000 and August 2006, it was the 40th highest-selling game launched for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS or PlayStation Portable in that country.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: The game was well received among the gaming community, widely regarded to feature an outstanding combination of music, graphics, gameplay, and storyline. "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" won Best Handheld Game at the 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in 2004. "GameSpot" named it the best Game Boy Advance game of September 2003. It was also rated as outstanding by IGN (9.0 out of 10) and given 5 out of 5 by GameSpy. In 2007, "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" was named 14th best Game Boy Advance game of all time in IGN's feature reflecting on the Game Boy Advance's long lifespan. It was also rated the 67th best game made on a Nintendo System in "Nintendo Power" Top 200 Games list. "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" also nominated for NAVGTR Award for Strategy Game of The Year Category, but lost to for Windows 9x Compatible-PC.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: Reviewers were pleased with graphics and visuals of "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance"; GameSpot adding that the battles are "clear and colorful", and character jobs are easily identified, though gameplay becomes slow when too many character sprites are in one screen. The gameplay is also lauded for retaining the elements of "Tactics Ogre" yet offers freedom to players to develop characters as they wish. "GameNOW" said that the game "lives up to its legacy—and then some", and called it "easily one of the best GBA games around". Criticism was directed at the game's menu, which was cluttered with complicated options in organizing the clan members, and did not detail out statistics for characters and equipment. Some reviewers thought there are too many character jobs since some jobs overlap one another and certain abilities are redundant.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: In 2007, a sequel to "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" was released for the Nintendo DS as part of the Ivalice Alliance series, "". While the story focuses on different characters than "Advance", several characters from the game appear in cameo roles, such as Montblanc and Mewt. Montblanc also appears in "Final Fantasy XII" as the leader of Clan Centurio.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

text: To commemorate the release of "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" in Japan, several pieces of merchandise were introduced exclusive for the region: web money cards, posters, character card collections and a set of twenty pin badges. Square and Nintendo also announced a limited-edition "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance"-themed Game Boy Advance SP package to commemorate the game and the console's launching in February 2003. A Japanese-exclusive adaptation of the game's story in radio drama form was also released. It was aired in January to March 2003. The series was released by DigiCube on CD in four separate parts, with some changes to plot details.