cdrama: Men and Legends, eps. 1-4

Set in the 1920s, this is about Yan and Fhe Zeng, the disciples of Wong Fei Hung (who has had scads and scads of things made about him) and Huo Juanjia who become friends when Wong Fei Hung sends Yan to study with his old friend. When the two masters attempt to strengthen China against Japan, Huo Juanjia is poisoned as part of a Japanese conspiracy, and the two young men are forced to flee and separate when framed for his death.

I haven’t seen this setting in a series before, and the fights, while still containing some wire fu, are much more down-to-earth martial arts than most of the Chinese historicals I’ve seen. While I can’t quite follow everything about the Japanese plots, the overall plotline is pretty interesting.

Unfortunately, while Dylan Kuo (Yan) and Peter Ho (Fhe Zeng) are both pretty competent and appealing individually, neither really has the presence to carry off this kind of series as the lead. They also somewhat feel like the characters started as two different pitches for the same character, right down to both being in love with the daughters of the respective heads of their schools. They’re also both rather dim, though at least Yan tends to think before he acts. Fhe Zeng’s only hope for survival is holding on to the intelligent woman he was smart enough to fall in love with. (She is a very sensible reporter who thinks fast on her feet. I love her. She’s probably doomed.)

Still, pretty entertaining so far, and I like the characters and plotline. This is also one of the very few Asian dramas that is not only legally available in the U.S. with English subtitles, but is also available on Netflix. Though, I had the first disc at #1 in my queue for almost 3 weeks before it was shipped to me.

Anthology: Lace and Blade

This is a fantasy anthology that combines swords and sorcery with things like swashbuckling and highwaymen. It is, obviously, something I was meant to have.

My favorite stories-Madeleine Robins’s “Virtue and the Archangel” and Sherwood Smith’s “The Rule of Engagement”-are the first and last stories respectively. Robins’s story is very reminiscent of her Miss Tolerance books, in which a somewhat silly Lady loses a valuable jewel during a tryst, and asks a woman she went to school with to find it for her, while Smith’s is a take on the “abducted bride” trope that ends in a far from conventional way. I’m also exceptionally fond of Mary Rosenblum’s “Night Wind,”where a young man with a cursed family adds a highwayman to his troubles, and “Lace-Maker, Blade-Taker, Grave-Breaker, Priest,” in which two men who want to kill each other are shipwrecked on an island, but can’t get to the killing thanks to the other survivors. It’s notable, though, that they contain the same twist.

I liked most of the rest of the stories, save for Diana L. Paxson (European man finds himself in the self-actualization sense in ever-so-exotic Peru!), Catherine Asaro (thought it was basically as rather silly romance), and Chaz Bentley’s (relied on my already being attached to the characters from the books, and already understanding their relationship) stories.

I’m thinking I should probably check out more of Norilana’s anthologies.