dangermousie | Do you like your lovers star-crossed and with swords? I do!

Because I have been in a wuxia type mood lately, my latest 'random push of the day' is my favorite wuxia drama ever, Return of the Condor Heroes (2006).

Why is it such a favorite? Well, to start on a shallow end, it is one of the most beautiful dramas I've seen and I don't just mean that it stars the most beautiful woman I've ever seen: Li Yu Fei, and one of the most gorgeous men I have ever seen: Huang Xiaoming. The cinematography, the colors and the costumes are beyond gorgeous.

Even more so, ROCH reminds me of nothing else as much as a romantic, violent fairy tale for grownups, with doomed forbidden epic love, many battles, poisons, armies, magic etc. All that and a happy ending!

So yes, the romance. The crux of the story is the forbidden love between our hero, Yang Guo (who ends up being super-amazing warrior) and his martial arts teacher, Xiao Long Nu (who starts out as super-competent and never lets up). Apparently the martial arts world views the teacher-student relationship akin to a parent-child one, so they are as keen on it as they would be on a mother hooking up with her child, even if the difference in age between XLN and YG is only a few years, and even if they had no idea about having literally grown up together in a cave. There is all the angst you can want, near-death experiences by the dozen, huge sacrifices for the sake of loved one etc etc.

I love both the main characters so. Yang Guo stars the story as an incredibly annoying child (if you watch, do yourself a favor and skip the first three eps) but he gradually grows up into this awesome guy: laid-back in some ways, even goof-ball (well, until the angst gets into critical overload) but absolutely dedicated to his OTP and scary good with a sword. And XLN is just as awesome. And not just because her thought process goes, when necessary, 'if my boyfriend wants to ride into a heavily fortified fortress in order to kill its leaders who have brought him up, OK...when do we start?'

The drama is chock-full of awesome women btw.

Oh, and did I mention the pretty?

Check out this MV:

Awesomeness:

Opening credits:

I posted a lot of thoughts and caps here, in case you want to check out more.