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dangermousieYes, I am still obsessing over Return of the Condor Heroes. I put aside Sweet 18, however cute it is, because I need my Angsty Hotties with Swords.
One of the things I like the most about this drama is that there is a degree of moral ambivalence (within the confines of the genre of course).
Yang Guo, our hunky awesome protagonist, is someone who could very easily be the villain in another story. One of those ‘tragic past, good reason’ villains that the hero fights. Just think about it: son a villain, he believes his Dad was killed by the closest thing he has to parental figures. So he sets out to kill them, underhandedly. Oh, and he is also sick enough to break the major taboo of hooking up with your martial arts master. And one of the people who taught him is a former villain.
Yet, when you look at it the way it’s in the story, it is quite different, isn’t it? The villain teacher is a harmless old crackpot by the time YG meets him and all YG knows of him is that it’s a weird old man who is nice to him.
His love for XLN is pure and true and one of the most awesome things I’ve seen in dramas and they had no idea it was taboo when they fell in love.
And vengeance seems to be the creed in that world and it’s unthinkable not to seek revenge whatever your personal feelings (as the story with the Chinese Princess and Mongolian General’s son makes clear). And in addition, he has only 18 days to live unless he brings the old crone the heads of HR and GJ.
So yeah, complicated.
And despite it all, despite the fact that it’s chilling to see that the normally forthright YG can be so underhanded when he needs to (as he and XLN ride to the besieged city and he is all so sweet to GJ and HR but meanwhile plans to kill them, and gets GJ not to tell HR about weirdness as he knows she’ll figure it out), there is a deep ambivalence within YG.
He is shaken by GJ’s basic niceness. The scene where GJ invites him to share the room for the night and asks him to help take the armor off is tense and chilling and yet YG doesn’t go for his sword even when GJ is entangled in the armor. It takes him most of the night to nerve himself (and then GJ wakes up and YG does some fast talking to get out of trouble).
And then there is the scene on the walls where he sees GJ order not to shoot the decoy civilians no matter how the great the risk. And when GJ falls, you see YG hesitate for the longest time to help or not but then he does and saves GJ. True, part of it is because he wants to kill GJ for himself, but you can see by the internal struggle, that is not all.
And then there is XLN. I love that she is so unhesitating in support. Her OTP wants to ride into a heavily guarded city under siege and to kill the leaders (who brought him up) and go out with their heads? Fine with her, but she’ll be damned if she leave him alone on a mission.
You go, girlfriend. I wonder how much of it stems from her isolation and general detachment: Yang Guo is the only person she let past the barrier, into her heart.
I really love how comfortable they are with each other. Aside from giganto big gestures, it’s the little things that really show their connection. I love it when they are walking in the garden and she is worried about the time limit and they are being awesome together and then they spy Fu and her suitors and they crouch down to be not noticed and they overhear the petulant childishness and they look at each other so deeply amused (because they are grown up and Fu is really…not) and then YG starts cracking up too much and XLN puts his fingers on his face reprovingly but is cracking up herself. So awesome. He makes her human and she makes him grown up.
Quote of the Day (courtesy of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
meganbmoore (on ROCH):
TPTB...your lead actress looks like a porcelain goddess-pale skin, long, jet black hair, perfect, delicate features-and your male lead looks like a Chinese Adonis-all golds and browns and 100% masculine-we KNOW why they're practicing their kungfu naked in the flowers in slowmo with her chest carefully fuzzed out, the kungfu equivalent of technobabble REALLY isn't necessary...just keep the no-no bits fuzzed out and do your thing, it's ok.
One of the things I like the most about this drama is that there is a degree of moral ambivalence (within the confines of the genre of course).
Yang Guo, our hunky awesome protagonist, is someone who could very easily be the villain in another story. One of those ‘tragic past, good reason’ villains that the hero fights. Just think about it: son a villain, he believes his Dad was killed by the closest thing he has to parental figures. So he sets out to kill them, underhandedly. Oh, and he is also sick enough to break the major taboo of hooking up with your martial arts master. And one of the people who taught him is a former villain.
Yet, when you look at it the way it’s in the story, it is quite different, isn’t it? The villain teacher is a harmless old crackpot by the time YG meets him and all YG knows of him is that it’s a weird old man who is nice to him.
His love for XLN is pure and true and one of the most awesome things I’ve seen in dramas and they had no idea it was taboo when they fell in love.
And vengeance seems to be the creed in that world and it’s unthinkable not to seek revenge whatever your personal feelings (as the story with the Chinese Princess and Mongolian General’s son makes clear). And in addition, he has only 18 days to live unless he brings the old crone the heads of HR and GJ.
So yeah, complicated.
And despite it all, despite the fact that it’s chilling to see that the normally forthright YG can be so underhanded when he needs to (as he and XLN ride to the besieged city and he is all so sweet to GJ and HR but meanwhile plans to kill them, and gets GJ not to tell HR about weirdness as he knows she’ll figure it out), there is a deep ambivalence within YG.
He is shaken by GJ’s basic niceness. The scene where GJ invites him to share the room for the night and asks him to help take the armor off is tense and chilling and yet YG doesn’t go for his sword even when GJ is entangled in the armor. It takes him most of the night to nerve himself (and then GJ wakes up and YG does some fast talking to get out of trouble).
And then there is the scene on the walls where he sees GJ order not to shoot the decoy civilians no matter how the great the risk. And when GJ falls, you see YG hesitate for the longest time to help or not but then he does and saves GJ. True, part of it is because he wants to kill GJ for himself, but you can see by the internal struggle, that is not all.
And then there is XLN. I love that she is so unhesitating in support. Her OTP wants to ride into a heavily guarded city under siege and to kill the leaders (who brought him up) and go out with their heads? Fine with her, but she’ll be damned if she leave him alone on a mission.
You go, girlfriend. I wonder how much of it stems from her isolation and general detachment: Yang Guo is the only person she let past the barrier, into her heart.
I really love how comfortable they are with each other. Aside from giganto big gestures, it’s the little things that really show their connection. I love it when they are walking in the garden and she is worried about the time limit and they are being awesome together and then they spy Fu and her suitors and they crouch down to be not noticed and they overhear the petulant childishness and they look at each other so deeply amused (because they are grown up and Fu is really…not) and then YG starts cracking up too much and XLN puts his fingers on his face reprovingly but is cracking up herself. So awesome. He makes her human and she makes him grown up.
Quote of the Day (courtesy of
meganbmoore (on ROCH):TPTB...your lead actress looks like a porcelain goddess-pale skin, long, jet black hair, perfect, delicate features-and your male lead looks like a Chinese Adonis-all golds and browns and 100% masculine-we KNOW why they're practicing their kungfu naked in the flowers in slowmo with her chest carefully fuzzed out, the kungfu equivalent of technobabble REALLY isn't necessary...just keep the no-no bits fuzzed out and do your thing, it's ok.
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-01 10:16 pm (UTC)Well, it kind of is. The wuxia genre is mainly concerned with kungfu and chivalry, in that order. Condor Heroes focuses on romance the most among all Jin Yong novels, but it's still a work of wuxia. Most people read the book/watch the series for the kungfu.
In essence Condor Heroes is YG's coming-of-age story; XLN's character isn't fleshed out nearly as much (more on this once you've finished the series). Jin Yong has made it clear that Guo Jin is the ideal wuxia hero ('xia') in his mind*. Throughout Condor Heroes, GJ's attitude toward YG never changes - always the strict fatherly figure, often disappointed by the wayward kid. YG has to work through his myriad issues and eventually becomes a xia worthy to stand beside GJ.
The TV series stays remarkably true to the novel while focusing on the romance a teensy bit more. There is little TPTB could do to flesh out XLN's character, as the novel doesn't give them much to work with. The audience usually have to assume XLN's motives based on her background. Another problem (or feature) of the character is her style of kungfu, which discourages emotion.
* GJ and Huang Rong are the stars of the trilogy's first book.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-01 10:25 pm (UTC)And then there is me. I like the fights a LOT but I am into this one for romance ;)
Seriously though, I know why the nekkid kungfu thing is necessary: it sets up in motion the chain of XLN wounding/healing and the 'shaming' thing where the monks assume they are up to no good which has reprecussions throughout, but it still felt a bit gratuitous in the explanation. In a good way but still :) I couldn't get rid of the thought that the main thought process was 'hotties, sans clothes'
Re: XLN. I actually quite like you (though I agree, she isn't as fleshed out as YG) probably despite or even because of her detachment. It's not often in Western stories (and for all I know, Eastern ones) where the guy is the emotional, romantically-dependent one, and the girl the one who is reserved and 'iced.'
I really really like GJ and HR and am very tempted to get the earlier version of the adaptation of LOCH, though I want to wait for the Ariel Lin/Hu Ge one. GJ is really wonderful: kind and caring without being cloying or boring about it, but the one I keep going back to is Huang Rong who is simply one of the most awesome female characters I've seen, and all in a secondary character capacity so she has to be even better as the lead.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-01 11:41 pm (UTC)Huang Rong was a girl in the first book, quite different from the woman she is here. The brilliant brat grew up for her man. There's much similarity between girl!HR and boy!YG; in fact that may be one of the reasons why she doesn't like/trust him at first (the major reason of course being she killed his father).
GJ doesn't change at all. He was and is quite slow on the uptake, but in the end he pwns them all. Heh.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-02 05:04 pm (UTC)