a bunch of wuxia movies
Oct. 26th, 2006 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreDoing this off the top of my head, so names will likely be avoided a lot, and I might miss something. Not quite doing this in my normal alphabetical order.
The only Japanese movie I watched was Shinobi: Heart Under Blade. It’s based off the same book as the Basilisk anime and manga. I think it ruined the manga for me, not in a "I know how it ends so what’s the point?" way(never really had a problem with that) but because it ditches the parts of the manga that annoyed me(the more extreme characters, the nudity, and the shuffling of the main characters and story to the side) while focusing on the parts that work(the plotline, the more interesting characters, and using the main characters like they should be used.) Essentially, it’s about 2 ninja clans who’ve been at peace for a while who are told to go to war, with each side representing one of the shogun’s heirs, and the victor deciding the succession. Problem is, the heirs to the clans(who, naturally, soon become the leaders) are in love. It’s not going to go down as one of my favorite movies ever, but it’s pretty good and wonderfully shot. Only complaint is that Odagiri Joe, who plays the main guy, is a little too much "I am pretty and my character is honorable and noble" and not much else. He also plays Saito in the Shinsengumi dorama, which doesn’t fill me with a lot of confidence, but I’ll hold out hope.
Then we have the Korean ones.
Bichunmoo, as I understand it, was the first real attempt from Korea at one of these movies, and I’ll give it credit for trying. But, if Hero is the height of the absurdity of wirefu for me, then Bichunmoo is the height of absurd amounts of melodramatic angst just for the sake of melodramatic angst. As far as the plot goes, think "The Count of Monte Cristo" done as a wuxia…childhood friends turned lovers separated by jealous, greedy men, one of whom marries her after he’s believed dead, only to have the guy show up many years later for revenge…and to use and bond with her son, conveniently aged to be born within a year of the guy’s death. My post the other day was a pretty good hint of what it’s like. Still, for a first attempt at this kind of movie for Korea, it was pretty decent.
The director(or was it producer?) followed up with it a few years later with The Shadowless Sword, which was a vast improvement. Basically, a group of rebel assassins are wiping out the royal family, and the only one left is a prince who’s been in exile for a decade or so. A female soldier with a past connection to the prince (he saved her from being killed in battle when she was a kid, and arranged for her to be raised by a commander)is sent to save him and bring him back, but he objects. She insists. They never really get into why he was exiled, but at fifteen he was basically regarded as a war god at fifteen, and was already clearly starting to be disillusioned with war, so I’m thinking that he spoke out about that at the wrong time and got in trouble. Anyway, it was quite good overall, and the wirefu stuff was at about the same level as Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon…lots of leaping, impossible traction and balance, etc., but nothing near the extremes of House of Flying Daggers, much less Hero.
The Duelist is an even more recent one, and actually the first of the movies in this post that I watched(aside from Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, unless you go by just this viewing of it) Basically about a policewoman who’s chasing after an assassin working for a court official trying to overthrow the king. It reminded me a fair bit of Damo(which is an extremely high compliment from me) largely because it had the same actress in a similar(but also very different) role and both dealt with a counterfeiting plot being the surface of a rebel conspiracy. It’s a largely visual movie, but highly enjoyable, I liked it all the way through, but got majorly into it the last twenty minutes or so. Also of note is the both it and Shadowless Sword do a pretty good job of displaying the social and political climate of their periods.
I’d probably put The Duelist and Shadowless Sword as being about even with Musa in my order of preference, which goes: Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers, and then Iron Monkey (which also doesn’t fit the genre due to the humor and happy ending, but I count it as part of the genre) slightly edging out Musa.
Moving onto the Chinese ones…
Saving the best for last, it’s time for Warriors of Heaven and Earth. I first heard of it when it was compared favorably with Musa, which immediately put it on my list. It’s not as good as Musa, but I liked it a fair bit. It’s essentially about a Japanese soldier who’s been stuck in China for over twenty years finally getting the chance to go home once he accomplishes two tasks. The first is to escort a dead commander’s daughter across the desert and back to civilization, the second is to apprehend a rebel who led a mutiny several years earlier when he was ordered to execute innocents. After a few encounters, the two come to a truce so while they jointly escort their charges-the girl and a young Buddhist priest carrying a scared artifact—to safety. That’s the point where it picked up for me. Pretty good all in all, I’m not sold on the supernatural elements, but they were handled well. It’s also the closest to a happy ending in these movies outside of Iron Monkey.
And now we get to Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon. This was my first exposure to Asian cinema...heck, asian entertainment and culture in general. That’s probably a part of why I count it as my favorite wuxia movie, but I think it still would be, anyway. There are two things about this movie that always jump out at me immediately that I manage to forget between rewatches(in this case, it’s been at least a year since the last time) The first is how incredibly young Ziyi Zhang looks in it…her character is 17 or 18, but she looks about 12 when she’s all dolled up, and 15~ otherwise. The other is that, ultimately, the men in the movie are almost irrelevant. This is not to say that Mi Bu Lai or Lo are bad characters, or unnecessary, but they’re relegated to the roles normally reserved for "the girl"…they are what the women want to be able to have, but can’t.
Instead of being about male warriors battling each other and/or evil forces it’s about two women who have lives that would seem to be lives that any other woman of their time would want, but those lives are what keep them from being truly happy. And, to a much lesser extent, it’s about a third woman, one who would be like them, but ultimately lacks the natural talent, despite being better than most men.
Shu Lien is a warrior. She runs her own business, goes on adventures, and has spent much of her life with her soulmate, Mi Bu Lai. She is strong, skilled, elegant and intelligent and is respected by all, with her skills highly sought after. However, she was once engaged to Mi Bu Lai’s best friend, who died. Because they are both warriors, Shu Lien and Mi Bu Lai were never able to act on their feelings as they fell in love, so while they have spent their lives together, they’ve never been allowed to actually be together. Had Shu Lien been a normal woman, it’s possible she and Mi Bu Lai could have been together, if only because the need to protect her would have been there. However, since Shu Lien lives in the same world as Mi Bu Lai and her fiance, she must also live by their rules, and Mi Bu Lai cannot separate the woman from the warrior, because doing so would disrespect all three. As a result, she has freedom, respect and power unlike that which most women of her time can know, but her status also traps her.
And then there’s Jen. Jen is the daughter of a governor. She is beautiful and pampered…any material thing she wants, she can have. Anywhere she goes she is fawned over and flattered. She is to marry into an affluent family that will strengthen her father’s status, and will never lack for anything. Except a fraction of the freedom Shu Lien has, and that Jen wants so desperately. Jen had a brief adventure a while back where she met and fell in love with a bandit named Lo. While she loves Lo, being with him would mean abandoning everything in her life, something she can’t bring herself to do until it’s too late. Jen is also a warrior. In fact, despite her youth and inexperience, she is the greatest fighter in the movie, and only her youth and inexperience holds her back. In Shu Lien’s world, she would become a legend, but in her world, she can never be more than a pretty face.
And, finally, there’s the Jade Fox. The Jade Fox is a greater fighter than any other man in the movie save Mi Bu Lai, but isn’t as good as Jen or Shu Lien. In her youth, she wanted to beome a disciple of Wudan, the same school where Mi Bu Lai studied. However, the master, thought a woman was only good enough to warm his bed, but not good enough to teach. So she killed him and stole the book containing Wudan’s secrets. Eventually, she became a maid to Jen, and trained the young girl, starting when she was eight. However, in time, Jen surpassed her, and understand the secrets of Wudan far better than Jade Fox ever could.
Jen, however, couldn’t bear to hurt her master and let her know that she’d surpassed her, so she kept her true skills a secret, until she was forced to reveal them to protect Jade Fox, almost shattering her. Jade Fox could live with one or two men being better than her, and Shu Lien likely being her equal, but for Jen, a child, one she trained, to surpass her, much less successfully hide her talent from Jade Fox, was too much, and the hatred unleashed by what she sees as Jen’s betrayal is what brings everything to a head. Jade Fox is the woman Shu Lien could have been had things gone differently, and the woman Jen was dangerously close to becoming, had she not met Shu Lien and Mi Bu Lai.
The movie is beautiful and elegant, and unlike most wuxia films which focus on a huge, sprawling, world changing epic, Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon is a small story about two women, Shu Lien and Jen, and far more character and plot driven than most wuxia. Which is the bulk of what makes it my favorite.
We will not, however, discuss the last minute. As far as I’m concerned, the movie ends when Jen and Lo are reunited at Wudan because…because…you have everything you’ve ever wanted, more than you ever expected, the chance for a life no other girl of your time or class could hope to have, and you…you…yes, movie ends when Jen gets to Wudan.
Thanks for sharing the reviews
Date: 2006-10-27 01:25 pm (UTC)My wuxia stuff if you're interested:
http://del.icio.us/andysb/wuxia
http://phanatique.blogspot.com