Wuxia dramas

[Shonokin]

Never been too crazy about the Wuxia style Chinese action/dramas. But started watching Return of Condor Hero on the local asian public TV and it's pretty interesting. Nice mix of drama, comedy and modern wirework/sfx.

That got me sort of interested in looking at some other Wuxia stuff, like the movie Curse of the Golden Flower, which I think I would have more fun driving nails into my toes than watching again. There'd be like 3 minutes of super cool action and then what seemed like hours of talking heads churning out mindless Shakespearianly tragic exposition and then another 3 minutes of cool action. My special note to any movie director who wants to make action movies: use action to tell your story even if it's not ACTION scenes. Talking heads spewing exposition is mind-numbingly boring. Especially when talking about hopelessly complicated and overly contrived soap opera bs.

Then I saw Tsui Hark's SEVEN SWORDS which is really interesting. The premise is (not surprizingly) fairly similar to Seven Samurai except on a more epic scale, and with the swords having certain powers. The movie was really low on back story on the main characters, enough to where it's pretty distracting and weird, but the overall movie showed some promise, if there was more to come. And there is because Tsui Hark also produced a 39 episode tv drama from the same story, but with 39 eps I'm hoping it'll actually flesh out the main characters a bit more.

It takes me a while to get through any tv series where I just start watching the whole thing fresh out of the box but I'll let you know what I think once I'm done.

[Xenorama ™]

excellent. i like some of them, but my main style is the gung fu films. i like the wild variety of weapons and less epic stuff, i guess.

still, i look forward to your reviews!

[Shonokin]

I guess I should start with Return of Condor Hero (2006) since that's what I'm watching right now. I'm on ep 13. So here's a very brief rundown of the first quarter of this series.

This series is the middle story of a trilogy:
Legend of Condor Hero
Return of Condor Hero
Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre

All (including Return) have been adapted to TV before, along with several spinoffs based on secondary characters, and also a series in the 70s produced by the SHAW BROS and a Japanese anime and a couple of PC games. It's been around.

So the newest series which I'm watching is sort of a remake, or more likely considered a more contemporary adaptation of the book. I'm not completely clear on this but I think that THIS year, 2007, they are remaking LAST year's series, with big name Chinese stars, since the 2006 series was so popular. Don't ask me.

So the series centers around Yang Guo, an unruly and cantacerous urchin raised by his adopted Aunt and Uncle Guo, who are the head of a major martial arts clan (The Beggars Clan). Their primary purpose is defending China's frontier regions from attack.

Yang Guo is sent to a monestary to learn Quan Zhen Sect's martial arts, but he is greatly abused there so he runs away. Guo is chased to an ancient and vast tomb where he meets Xiaolongnu a woman who's lived her life in the tomb studying the "Ancient Tomb Sect" martial arts (we'll call her Ms. Long). She becomes his teacher, and later his wife. The wife part leads to trouble and I'll get to that in a bit.

There are (so far) two main antagonists:
Li Mochou (known at the Dragon Fairy or something like that) she is an elder member of Ancient Tomb Sect, but had been kicked out years before for loving a man. He betrayed her so she got kicked out for nuthin'. Which whized her off and makes her a generally mean and chaotic force in the series that just kinda shows up now and then to cause trouble.

Then there's Mongolia's Defense Master Jinlun Guoshi who is pretty much the constant villain. He first shows up in order to try and take over the Beggars Clan by forcing Aunt and Uncle Guo into a competition. It looks like Guoshi will win but Guo shows up and kicks butt, sending the Mongolians packing.

Here are a couple of clips from ep 11, where the Mongolians are trying to take over the Beggars Clan. I think this shows the mix of action and humor very well. (note: Gugu is a familiar name that Guo uses for Ms Long)
BRUSH VS FAN
GUO VS FAN AND TUBBY

While celebrating the victory, Guo announces to Aunt and Uncle that he and Ms Long are getting married. This becomes a major issue because teacher and student are forbidden to have intimate relations. She's lived her whole life in the tomb and knows nothing of the world and Guo has always been chased out of polite society and doesn't know much more than Ms Long. So they are surprized and disheartened to learn this, but it doesn't keep them from their plans, so they leave Beggar's Clan to return to the tomb.

On the way back to the tomb they run across the Mongols hunting down his Aunt, her daughter and some retainers. Even though the Beggars Clan family have rejected Guo and Ms Long, he again saves them. So Aunty talks them into returning to Beggars Clan for a while. There Aunty makes Ms Long realize that the marriage would wreck Guo's life. So while Guo is sleeping she slips off to return to the tomb alone.

In the morning Guo realizes Ms Long is gone and he rides out in search of her. And AGAIN! he comes across the Mongols attacking Aunty and her daughter. Guo is unsuccessful at defending this time and is severely injured during the fight but is saved by a mysterious woman in a mask.

FIGHT WHERE GUO IS INJURED (note: His aunty calls him Guo'er, a familiar name)

She nurses him back to health and realizes she is someone he had saved her and her cousin from Li Mochou the Dragon Fairy when he was a kid. Her cousin has stolen "THE BOOK OF FIVE POISENS" from Li Mochou and she has been on their trail ever since. As he is recovering at the cousin's house Li Mochou shows up in order to fight them.

That's where I'm at right now, covering the first 13 eps.

[Shonokin]

Return of Condor Hero, part 2

So the cousins spring a trap for Li Mochou allowing them all to get away.

Ms Long has gone off to commit suicide because she doesn't want to live without Guo. She is found by the "Master of Passionless Valley" who seems to be a nice guy at first but is really a major jerk. He sweet talks her into marrying him so that she will forget about Guo.

While recuperating with the cousins Yang Guo finds out that his Aunt and Uncle, the heads of the Beggar Clan, killed his father. He swears revenge and hooks up with the Mongolian Jinlun Guoshi so they can conspire together to kill Aunt and Uncle.

Guo, Jinlun Guoshi and a troop of other superpowered martial artists head out and stumble arcoss Passionless Valley where Ms Long is about to marry the jerk. Guo of course puts a stop to this and much dueling ensues. Guo and Ms Long wind up getting poisoned but only Long gets an antidote. The jerk's first wife shows up and scares the jerk away. She promises an antidote if Guo brings back his Aunt and Uncles heads to her, because they apparently killed her brother in the past.

He has 18 days before the poison kills him.

They find out that aunt and uncle have gone to a major frontier city to help repell the invading Mongol army. Though Guo gets Uncle in his sights to kill him, he realizes that Uncle had only selfless thoughts of keeping the country safe when Guo's father was killed, which was an accident anyway. So instead of killing him, he saves Uncle from a sneak attack by the Mongols.

Nice full scale battle scene, really gets started around the 5 minute mark.

Yang Guo saves his Uncle (Hero Guo) from the Mongolian marital arts superdudes and Jinlun Guoshi.

There are some pretty grand scale battle sequences here that are really impressive for any tv production anywhere. Sort of a cross between Dragonball crazy wuxia action and Braveheart in scale of battle.

In the meantime Aunty has given birth to twins, but just as that's happening Jinlun Guoshi shows up to cause trouble and tries to steal one of the babies. Dragon Fairy lady, Li Mochou shows up in the middle of a fight between Guo and Jinlun and she steals a baby, because she thinks it is Ms Long and Guo's child and wants to raise it herself away from the corruption of Guo and Long's indiscretions.

Li Mochou takes off with the baby with Guo and Jinlun Guoshi giving chase. Li Mochou and Guo have to team up to fend off Jinlun. Li Mochou later gets away with the baby and Guo heads back to the under seige city. On the way he meets up with the Condor, which is a man-sized, poorly rendered CGI bird. They bond and become friends.

Also he meets up with two brothers who have been veying for the affections of Auny and Uncle's daughter since they were kids. Finally they can't take it anymore and have a duel. Guo is able to talk them out of killing each other by saying that the daughter really wants him and says and does all sorts of stuff to prove it. They back down. But even though it's a bunch of lies, in true THREE'S COMPANY style, Ms Long happened to be around and heard the story and believes it. So she is broken hearted again.

Li Mochou shows up again and shoots poison darts at the two veying brothers. They are poisoned and knowing he will die soon from his first poisoning anyway, Guo sucks the poison out to save them. Guo falls unconscious.

As it happens the poison that Li Mochou uses counteracts the poison from Passionless Valley. Happy days!

Now, Aunt and Uncle have a spoiled rotten daughter who has been a very minor irritant off and on during the series, but things get serious as she finds Guo to be the source of all of her own problems. In a fit of rage she confronts Guo about all sorts of stuff while he is convelescing in bed and inadvertantly chops off his arm.

In a delirium he stumbles away, off into the woods where the condor saves him.

In the meantime, Ms Long has found out that one of the monks from Quanzen Sect raped her while she was incompasitated in one of the first episodes. She had always thought it was Guo who had done it. So now in a deep and dark but quiet rage, she is stalking those monks. Scared poopless the monks take refuge with the Mongolians.

That takes us up to ep 26... more to come

My own take on this series so far: The way it is written and directed, it is hard to stop watching this series. I can watch five 45 minute episodes in a row and not get bored at all. The plot twists are very soap opera and the complications really are almost directly out of sitcoms like THREES COMPANY where tragedy comes from simple innocent mistakes and overhearing the wrong things at the wrong time. But that is a part of the fun. Also the budget on this show must've been huge, as the effects are mostly not bad and there is an epic scale to the massive battle scenes. Plus it seems to be mostly shot on location, with great cinematography. Haven't been this engrossed in a series since Kamen Rider Faiz.