Bloody Romance 媚者无疆

Bloody Romance (媚者无疆) is about a pretty but dirt poor girl who was sold to a brothel but ended up becoming the leader of a government-sanctioned assassin organization. Every person she met along the way was mentally twisted. The difference was the degree: From psychopath Cha Luo who found torturing and killing to be mood enhancers, to sociopath Gong Zi aka. Prince of Ning who engineered a deadly plague to loosen his enemy’s control over a territory. To maneuver between those murderous, demented people required her blood, bones, and most importantly, her big brain.

I’m in love with Gong Zi. It’s so wrong but I can’t help that he is gorgeous! His eyes will hook your soul away.

Gong Zi is a complicated man and Wan Mei is right to fear him. If they compare who had the crappier life, Gong Zi wins it hands down. The saying goes, “You don’t miss what you never have.” Wan Mei never had anything growing up, so anything she has now is an improvement. Gong Zi, on the other hand, was a child prodigy, the invincible young prince general on the battlefield. People idolized him. Then, he overexerted himself and damaged his heart. Adding salt to injury, his own mother blinded him so he wouldn’t be a threat to the crown prince. He was cut down at his prime and tucked away in the corner of Guihua City expecting to live out the rest of his life as an invalid. Even then, enemies still wouldn’t let him be. His birth father repeatedly tried to get the crown prince (now the Emperor) to kill him.

Of course, the man does not take a beating lying down. Gong Zi spent next few years laying the ground work for his come back. He used everything and everyone to accomplish his revenge quest. Even Wan Mei, who has a special place in his heart.

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Tomb of the Sea 沙海 Part 2

In second part of Tomb of the Sea, Li Cu seems to have grown up overnight and is well on his way to become a man. Not a man child, but a real man who you can trust with your life. I thought he wasn’t strong enough to pull out Dr. Liang Wan when she got dragged into the sand by the snake tree, then he proved me me wrong by lifting her up like pulling a carrot out of the ground.

I gave him two thumbs up for how he comforted her afterwards. You can see from that woman’s face that her mind was about to shatter into pieces. Dr. Liang (aka. Wan-jie/Big sister Wan) was prepared for the hazards of desert crossing: Dehydration, heatstroke, bury alive by sandstorms. You know, the normal stuffs that kill people. She did not sign up to be eaten by a killer snake tree. Li Cu helped her cope with her mind-blowing first encounter with unbelievable creature, and he did it with such tact that I didn’t think he was capable of.

Li Cu: Go ahead and cry if you want. I want to cry myself. But ladies first.

Then again, he did learn from the best. He isn’t quite at Wu Xie’s level of dependability, his inflated ego often gets in his way, but he is steadily moving toward that direction.

Desert turns a boy into a man and a woman into a girl ~ Wu Xie

Tomb of the Sea 沙海 Part 1

Have you heard? Zu Yi Long will be playing Wu Xie in The Lost Tomb 3 (重启之极海听雷). Him playing another main character from my fav novels, holy guacamole! I do think he’ll do well in that role too, just as he did as Shen Wei in Guardian. But right now, I am loving Qin Hao’s Wu Xie in Tomb of the Sea (沙海). His appearance may not fit the Wu Xie I pictured but he has his mannerism to the T. So far, he is the only actor who is able to bring that character to life.

Wu Xie was never a bright eyed and bushy tailed, simple-minded tag along in the “Grave Robbers’ Chronicles” series, but neither was he shrewd like his 3rd uncle or murderous like the companies they keep. In LT, he was too clever, too curious, too softhearted for his own good. In ToS, he is 10+ years older and 10+ years wiser. While he is not as calculating as his 3rd uncle, he is not far off. He has numerous dangerous adventures under his belt and the experiences have taught him to observe more and weight his words. He may seem more intimidating but he is still the same old compassionate Wu Xie inside. He is always ready to lend a hand to help others even when he knows they will just turn around and slit his throat.

Honestly, I didn’t expect Tomb of the Sea to be as good as it is. The drama surprises me by how close it matches the author’s storytelling style, which reignites my hope for the next installments of the “Grave Robbers’ Chronicles” franchise.

The first episode hits the ground running with awesome visual effect. I know they can’t keep up the movie quality CGI for all 50 episodes, so I’m glad they are using it where it counts the most. I can feel Li Cu’s adrenaline pumping as he hopelessly tries to outrun a carnivorous snake tree (vine?) appearing in the middle of a desert.

However good their visual may be, it is their content that won me over. What ToS did better than its predecessors is humor. Not the frivolous haha funny. But the morbid black comedy funny. In one scene Wu Xie smiles at Li Cu as he explains to the insolent boy, “We’ll starve to death if we don’t find more food. If you don’t want to help, that’s fine. You can be one of our food reserve”. Yum, yum, Li Cu jerky, delicious!

Caught in the Heartbeat 青春警事

The first 10 episodes of Caught in the Heartbeat (青春警事) had me thinking it’s a brain-dead police drama that solve cases with kisses. However, I persevered and was rewarded with a humorous, intelligent, engaging detective drama where I could join in on the case solving with our team. Since the story is told from their perspective, I get the same clues as them, no more and no less, no earlier and no later. Which makes watching this drama whole lot of fun.

Just to note, the drama’s premise may sound similar to Memory Lost (美人为馅) in which a female cop lost her memory and a male cop was the key to getting it back. But that is where their similarity ends. ML is a romance drama trying to play cop. This drama, however, is a cop drama trying to do romance. The relationship between Tang Yixiu and Gu Jing is much more relatable. I can picture my friends behaving the same ways they do.

The scene where Gu Jing tests how Yixiu trigger her lost memory has me laughing so hard my stomach hurts. Good news is that she has narrowed it down to their heartbeats. Bad news is that she hasn’t figure out what it is about their heartbeats that trigger her memory.

One woman’s memory recall technique is another man’s workplace harassment.

Guardian 镇魂 Part 5

This article is a rambling of a novel fan. Guardian is the only show I would ever recommend that you watch the BTS clips or fan made videos and skip the actual drama. If you must watch the show no matter what I tell you, please strictly follow this order:

1) Watch Guardian-the-drama (DG)
⇓
2) Watch fan-made vidoes
⇓
3) Read Guardian-the-novel (NG)

If you reversed the order and read the novel first… You have my condolences.
Weibo tag #diss镇魂编剧# (dissing Guardian screenwriters) shares your pain.

Source: https://m.weibo.cn/status/4263321382720153

I survived the train wreck that was DG because of the talented meme creators/commentators on weibo’s #剧版镇魂#. Whenever DG got me down, they had me laughing like a hyena. I believe you can still find some DG memes at #镇魂沙雕表情包#.

[Update 08/07/2018: It appears Almighty-CC is doing another round of crack down on Guardian. This time is more comprehensive than the last one. I can’t find any contents from aggregated search results. And the drama is removed from the Douban listing.]
[Update 08/17/2018: The ban is lifted! Weibo tags are functioning again.]

Guardian 镇魂 Part 4

This article is a rambling of a novel fan. If you have not read the novel, please don’t let my criticism turn you against the drama Guardian.

Ep31 is a good episode. With no embarrassing acting to distract me, I watched the entire episode without fast forwarding even once. Which makes me wonder why Guardian-the-drama (DG) couldn’t be like this for every episode?

I’ve been complaining about how bad DG was but I missed the mark by couple inches. One viewer actually hit the nail on the head. DG sucked because it failed the logic test. It discarded Guardian-the-novel (NG) worldview without replacing it with something equally comprehensive to explain the characters’ motivation and why they did what they did. DG might seem logical at bird’s-eye view, it failed spectacularly at street level. And the detail is what makes and breaks a web drama.

The Stake of Mountain and River segment has the most logic offenders (which explains why I didn’t like those episodes). One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing a heart-shape love sign in a period drama. First of all, the heart-shape sign didn’t become common practice until after 1910. So I’m pretty sure a secluded Asian tribe in the 1700s, such as Hanga, would not have seen or chosen the heart-shape to display their love. Eye rolling in progress.

Then there is Sang Zan’s speech impediment. In the flash back, he spoke fluent Chinese. After he got out of the rock, he stuttered like a stroke patient. What happened to him? NG has the logic. Back in the days, Sang Zan and Wang Zheng spoke Hanga (the language). After they parted ways, Wang Zheng left for the outside world and was immersed in the Chinese language for the next couple hundred years. Sang Zan, on the other hand, was stuck in the rock and never heard of Chinese, never mind speaking it. He had to learn the language like a foreigner, stuttering over each word and getting the tone wrong.

And what’s up with the “Guo Changcheng electrocuting Chief Zhao” incident? NG, again, has the logic. Changcheng is a scaredy cat. Every little thing makes him jump. He also suffers from low self-esteem with debilitating social anxiety. He gets panic attacks just from looking people in the eyes. Prior to the incident, he was already shaking like a leaf after Zhao Yunlan berated him for buying a cheap sex doll to house Wang Zheng (the spirit) for their trip. He didn’t get his equilibrium back before they entered a dark, menacing cave. Group dynamic dictated Yunlan walk the front to scout for dangers, Chu Shuzi cover the back, and him, the useless new guy, walk in between them. Since everyone had their weapons out, it made sense that Changcheng’s stun gun would be pointed toward the front with his eyesight falling naturally on Yunlan’s back. It was a tense situation for everyone, doubly so for him. His racing mind imagined all kinds of monsters and critters crawling in the darkness. Once his overactive imagination reached its terrifying peak, the supercharged stun gun shot out an electrical beam, toward the front, at Yunlan. See? A perfectly logical explanation for electrocuting one’s boss.

Since it’s rare to see a good episode (or segment), I’m devoting this post to what I like in DG.

Possible spoilers ahead, read at your own risk.

Guardian 镇魂 Part 3

This article is a rambling of a novel fan. If you have not read the novel, please don’t let my criticism turn you against the drama Guardian (镇魂).

Ok. I have watched enough episodes on the third holy object to know Guardian-the-drama (DG) has given it a face change. The object exists only in name.

As I watched, an overwhelming urge to strangle somebody washed over me.

Every minute, I wanted to walk away and never look back.

When I finally sat through ep27, I wanted to scream. And, keep screaming.

If you didn’t know already, DG is a special show. Without the worldview of Guardian-the-novel (NG), all the cases in the drama fall flat with their one dimensional storytelling. It’s a show I would’ve dropped by ep3 if it weren’t based on my fav novel. Because the adaptation is lackluster at best, it makes you notice how good the characters themselves are. If you extract all the scenes with the two leading men in it and make a separate video, it would be a great trailer because their performance is that good. And for those moments of greatness, you keep watching. The show is very lucky to have them.

So what is NG worldview?

Novel spoilers ahead, read at your own risk.