Questions about East Asian languages

Factual Questions
1

I read the following on IMDB about the movie “Hero”:

“Broken Sword’s 19 ways to write the word “sword”, only refer to different font styles, not complete different way of writing.”

What do they mean by “different font styles”? Are the actual characters for the word “sword” drawn differently?

Also, do different characters for the same word convey nuances about the emotion/tone of the speaker? For example, if someone said “I’m not scared”, would you write it differently if the speaker actually was scared, versus if the speaker was joking around, versus if the speaker was in pain, etc.?

Also, I think I know the answer to this question but I’ll ask anyway: are there spelling bees in East Asian languages?

Thanks.

2

Yes,
Yes,
and I have no clue about the spelling bees.

3

Asian languages can be phonetic or character based. Mandarin would be character based (kanji); Korean and Thai, for example, are phonetic. I don’t know why you couldn’t have spelling bees in those languages.

4

Given the fact that the majority of the world’s population is Asian–and that there are dozens and dozens of different ethnic groups in that mix–getting a generalized answer to these questions might be tough.