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cdrama: Lotus Lantern
Nov. 17th, 2012 12:12 amLotus Lantern (2007 version) is a fantasy wuxia drama that I enjoyed quite a bit but have little to say about, given that it's 35 episodes long. It's based on a legend about the son of a goddess and a mortal. When the hero, Chen Xiang, learns who his mother is and that she's been imprisoned by her brother, Er Lang Shen, since Chen Xiang was an infant, he sets out on a quest to rescue her. It's probably the most shounen-like drama that I've seen (beating out Warrior Baek Dong Soo, with epic speeches about friendship and nakama (not that "nakama" is actually used), lifelong friendships after a couple fights, improbably noble motivations for villainous actions, a couple forbidden romances and unrequitted crushes, and multiple literal power-ups, complete with costume redesigns at times.
It starts a bit slow (the first few episodes, while entertaining enough, are largely worth watching if you enjoy looking an Vincent Jiao and boggling at his ability to have chemistry with anyone and anything, even when it's inappropriate) but gets going when Chen Xiang starts adventuring and meeting people, but doesn't really get going until Chen Xiang gets a little older and more interesting. (The series spans somewhere between five and ten years for the characters.) towards the end I started fearing that it was going to screw over the characters (especially the female characters) and audience on a similar level as Chinese Paladin, but it mostly pulls itself back from that cliff (I dislike how the last 3rd handled Ding Xiang, one of my two favorite characters. It tried to redeem itself at the end but didn't quite).Then again, we don't really need another series in which only one character is left alive and human and he has major PTSD and is now wandering a severely depopulated fantasy ancient China with a newborn and everyone else he knows is dead, except maybe an aunt who they forgot about after 3 or so episodes. I'm not sure I buy the explanation for Er Lang Shen's actions (even though it was what I had initially thought) in the context of everything that he did, but I can go with it.
I'm not familiar with the legend it's based on and can't find out much about it online, so I'm not sure how it compares. I recognized more from Journey to the West-which features heavily (the main female character, Xiao Yu, is actually the daughter of a pair of villains from that one)-than anything else. I'd be interested in feedback from people who have seen the series and are familar with the legend.
The series has been released in the US by TaiSeng and is available for DVD rental through netflix should you have that option. I should warn, though, that it's apparently an earlier TaiSeng release (at least, I'm pretty sure the others with bad subs have been earlier? Some of their releases have very good subs.) and the subtitles, while easy to follow, are riddled with errors.
It starts a bit slow (the first few episodes, while entertaining enough, are largely worth watching if you enjoy looking an Vincent Jiao and boggling at his ability to have chemistry with anyone and anything, even when it's inappropriate) but gets going when Chen Xiang starts adventuring and meeting people, but doesn't really get going until Chen Xiang gets a little older and more interesting. (The series spans somewhere between five and ten years for the characters.) towards the end I started fearing that it was going to screw over the characters (especially the female characters) and audience on a similar level as Chinese Paladin, but it mostly pulls itself back from that cliff (I dislike how the last 3rd handled Ding Xiang, one of my two favorite characters. It tried to redeem itself at the end but didn't quite).
I'm not familiar with the legend it's based on and can't find out much about it online, so I'm not sure how it compares. I recognized more from Journey to the West-which features heavily (the main female character, Xiao Yu, is actually the daughter of a pair of villains from that one)-than anything else. I'd be interested in feedback from people who have seen the series and are familar with the legend.
The series has been released in the US by TaiSeng and is available for DVD rental through netflix should you have that option. I should warn, though, that it's apparently an earlier TaiSeng release (at least, I'm pretty sure the others with bad subs have been earlier? Some of their releases have very good subs.) and the subtitles, while easy to follow, are riddled with errors.