cdrama: Strange Hero Yi Zhi Mei/Vigilantes in Masks eps 1-13

[meganbmoore]

Strange Hero Yi Zhi Mei or Vigilantes in Masks (I prefer the former version myself) is something of a wuxia version of Robin Hood, but actually reminds my a lot of Leverage. The main character, Le Ge Xiao, is a former government official who Tragically Lost A Loved One because of his employers and is now a drunken bum. A Super Upstanding Dude Worried About the Little People asks him to undertake a Very Important mission to save…uhm…I think it was flood victims? Anyway, to save people! To do so, LGX recruits Totally Not Evil Shady People from his past (and who he’s encountered in his drunken bum phase) to help him, but whoops! Super Upstanding Dude Worried About the Little People is actually Evil and frames them for crimes. And then they go around the country helping people and hatching elaborate schemes that involve subterfuge and fake identities. Oh, and the heroine, San Niang, is on a one woman mission to save LGX from his self-destructive tendencies (boy does he have them) and potential liver poisoning.

See? Leverage.

I like it a lot, but there are too few women in the main cast (only San Niang) and it’s way too fond of reminding me that LGX’s wife was fridged for two men’s angst without giving her much characterization beyond the Beautiful and Perfect pedestal they have her on in flashbacks. Give her something to do already show. You are a Guo Li series, and so I know you can do much better on this front.

Anyway, the last few episodes are my favorite so far, as they’ve been all about San Niang’s past and her fraught relationship with her shifu/mother-but-she-claims-not-to-be-but-they-know-better (I’m fairly certain San Niang’s father is going to be revealed to be the main villain.)

Also, for a show that technically has no romance in the main plot, the writers ship San Niang/LGX to a ridiculous and shameless degree. We’ve already had two fake marriage plots and I’m losing track of the excuses they’re coming up with for San Niang to hold/cradle LGX’s bloody, half dead body, or just holding each other in general. We’ve even had hijinks in the dry ice fog that I think were supposed to be it’s-CPR-no-really despite not even pretending to look like CPR and having to apparent reason for it. (It actually played out more like the “you stay here, Delicate Damsel, while I go save the day” with LGX as the Delicate Damsel. For various It Only Happens In Wuxia reasons, he is blind and poisoned.)

Just look at the extending ending credits!

I haven’t seen wuxia credits that devoted to shipping since Return of the Condor Heroes. (I like them because it’s the fun kind of shamelessness, and because LGX seems to think she’s some kind of superwoman who can handle anything and everything and has to have it pointed out to him that even super awesome people have their limits.)

Sadly, the remaining 17 episodes don't have subtitles yet.

Comments

[royalarchivist]

Wow. Those ending credits are beautiful and make me want to watch the show. ^_^

(Although it looks like she gets captured and rescued by him twice just in the ending credits, which is Less Cool, but I imagine if it were indicative of the show in general you would have mentioned it.)

[meganbmoore]

I haven't seen the one where she's suspended over something and he bursts in, but I have seen the one where her hair is loose and he grabs the sword. That's actually right after her saving him a bunch (and completely rejecting the idea of women being self-sacrificing to save their men) and the person she's fighting is her EXTREMELY estranged mother who, at that point, refuses to acknowledge San Niang as her daughter. Her mother isn't trying to kill her, but to stop her from leaving, and what he's actually doing is trying to stop the situation from getting worse. There is an element of "saving" in there, but a person of one gender throwing hirself between two people of the other gender at the risk of bodily harm/death to stop their relationship from being irrevocably ruined is SO gendered as women endangering themselves to save men's relationships thast I forgive any problems there.

I'd say she's actually saved/rescued him more, though I can't actually think of a time when he's had to rescue her. (He actually seems to think she's suprememly competent and can handle any task ever, which is flattering, but also potentially dangerous for her as she's still a single person, not an army.)

Which is not to say it's perfect re: gender. There's the fridging, where the dead wife literally exists only is the male gaze that places her on a pedestal, and the third arc has the person they're helping treats his wifer terribly-at the most generous, it borders on both physical and mental abuse-but we're supposed to root for them to work things out because they do love each other, and he's acting like that because of stress. And while I do think their problems were exacerbated by the other things going on, I get the feeling that he didn't appreciate her at all and was still mean to her before, and even so, it was very much putting his needs before hers in the narrative. (EVERYONE hates this guy, as near as I can tell. But he probably will be better now.)

[royalarchivist]

I'm glad that I misinterpreted what was going on and that they get many things right. Fridging and other getting-things-wrong you mentioned is unfortunate, tho. :\