Of Swords and Parasols

Yes, I was too lazy to make a new Bourne-angst pic, so I'm recycling another. Maybe I shall do so later.

( Julia Stiles is finally more than a glorified extra )
Incidentally, to explain the song in the Wuxia Bourne vid(beyond it being a good epic wuxia song)( spoilery for Handsom Siblings )
Also, for an explanation of Wuxia Bourne, here is the Wuxia Bourne post. Cheers for anyone(who doesn't already know, and without looking at comments) if you can pick out the Handsome Siblings couple. Wuxia Bourne was actualy born in another post. I'd link to it, but it involves 50 or so comments between myself, calixa and lesbiassparrow. As is usual for us, we got rather carried away. It can be found under lesbiassparrow's "bourne" tag, though.

And finally, I bring evidence of Bourne's deepseated grudge against cars:




Uhm...I have no idea what I could possibly watch next to live up to this.

 I think I'm about to embark on a wuxia binge(sure, I only have 3 series waiting, but I could probably make that last a month)  As several people have friended me since I last watched wuxia(not that it's been that long) and some probably didn't know what I was talking about when I was posting, I have slapped together a wuxia guide-type post.

It ended up rather longer than planned, but is still much shorter than it could be. 

Here is wikipedia's entry on wuxia.



meganbmoore's much less informative but more succinct description:  Wuxia are coming of age adventure stories set in ancient and medieval China.  The heroes are (in my experience) usually young men raised in near or total seclusion, or who led simpler lives before starting on their adventures.  Most are motivated either by a need to fulfill a promise to a parent or master, or by revenge(or both.)  Though they don't always start out that way, they usually end up being one of the greatest fighter's of their time.  Romance always plays some role, but with varying importance to the plot.  Sometimes it will be a main focus, others, a more background thing.  Most heroes, though, have several girls in love with them throughout the series.  Some will love more than one girl(usually in succession, not simultaneously) and others (the good ones) will only love one girl throughout.  If a series has 2 major heroes, there will usually be at least one of each kind. Some wuxia are straight up fantasy, and others historical dramas.  Most, however, still have a touch of the fantastic, and all, even the most strictly historical, involve fantastical acrobatics, including impressive aerial feats(called "wire-fu.")

I'm not going to get into wuxia movies(except to say that Hero seems to be the most popular but, IMO, none come close to matching up to Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon) but most that have been released in the US in recent years-Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Curse of the Golden Flower, etc.-are of the straight historical drama with amazing acrobatics variety.

 20x Handsome Siblings
7x Seven Swords
10x Shadowless Sword
23x Full Metal Alchemist*

*#60 contains a manga spoiler for a chapter that hasn't been released yet in the US, which is why it's on the very last row of icons.

Teasers:

   

Ok, do DLs despise me or something?  Three out of five episodes of Liar Game haven't joined right for me...the other 2 eps were put on megaupload as hardsubs so I got those that way, but so far ep 5 is only available as a torrent...and I have NEVER had a torrent finish DLing.  Seriously...I left one going for a month once and it didn't finish.  The sucky part is that there was only about 5 minutes left in ep 5 when it died...maybe this is a sign that I just shouldn't bother DLing and wait for DVDs?

Anyway, I finished watching Handsome Siblings.  I don't always succeed, but I generally try to avoid really getting into the end of this type of show, so all that's really under the cut is babblings about that certain scene(the one that involved swords, blindfolds and rain-which includes spoilers for leading up to that) and the villain.

The short bersion of my overall thoughts is that I loved it for the most part.  It needed to be about 10 episodes shorter to be a favorite, but once my thoughts settle and I can ponder it, I think it'll still have one of my favorite doramas OTPs, and one of the best villains(in the "so evil you need to diediedie but man are you impressive" way.)

Ah bliss, I am back to loving Little Fish to death again.  Amazing the difference in character appreciation when the series is being approached the right way from when it's being approached the wrong way.  Course, now we have palace intrigue...and...urm...generally I like palace intrigue, but as I really only care about Little Fish's part in the intrigue(which is a blast)...yeah.  You know, cut this show back to 30 eps, cut out a lot of the palace intrigue and solo Little Fish stuff, and this show would be borderline perfect.

Hmm...what else before the main part?

Princess Moon:  If you weren't such a psychotically evil, jealous, over-possessive control freak, mean MIGHT stop leaving you for, you know, NICE girls...  And Yuyan?  Seriously, you're such a manipulative  wretch of a user that I'd hate you even if you weren't trying(and failing) to be the third person in a love triangle.  Honey, Flower wasn't interested when he was brainwashed into thinking he didn't love Orchid and tricked into thinking she cheated on him...dressing up like her and going "isn't this enough" REALLY isn't going to get you anywhere...



I have also made a few more icons.

Nothing to say on the last few eps, really.  The one problem that I have with this series(and likely the ONLY thing that will keep this from being really, really high on my favorites list) is that, while I love Little Fish, he's a character that really only works when he's playing off a lead of equal or higher import.  On his own, he's likable, but really can't carry the show on his own, so when it focuses on just him for three episodes straight(like now) I still enjoy it, but my attention starts to wander.  Unfortunately, Dicky Cheung's bigger star power or whatever won out over what's better for the show...

(it's a pity really, because if the two brothers had equal focus or it was slightly in Flower's favor, Little Fish would probably be my favorite character, but focusing on him just emphasizes that he's best suited as the secondary hero)

Anyway, I caved to my need to have Handsome Siblings icons for these posts.  10 here, more later(and these) in a proper icon post later on.


And I went looking for some more MVs...don't think I've posted these before.


*wanders off to start food and watch Seven Swords*

Reunions.  Rescues. Blindness. Death of True Love-real.  Death of True Love-believed(but very much not real according to many pics on my harddrive)  Unrequitted love.  Revenge.  Utter despair and devastation. 

Seriously, all I could think watching these two episodes was "dangermousieis going to be psychotic and screaming all through this."


Incidentally, I'm not deliberately favoring Nicholas Tse over Dicky Cheung in these posts, it's just that there are far fewer good pics of him that I've come across...most of the good ones I've found, I've posted.

First- Su Ying, the doctor-and Concubine Shu-Xian's sister-are completely awesome and aren't being used NEARLY enough.  But then, that's one thing I've noticed about these shows-no matter what the leads are like, you can count on having some awesome supporting to characters to take up any slack that might exist.

Up to...uhm...ep 15 or so in Handsome Siblings.  I'd do squeeing and such but don't quite feel like it, so instead, a bunch of pics, mostly only up to this point, with some commentary.  Some get bigger when you click on them.

I'm actually mildly annoyed with the last two eps.  If you've read my other posts, you know that I adore the character of Little Fish, but I like him as a part of the main story.  When it broke off for about an ep and a half for his backstory it was fine-the other characters can be explained pretty well with a few lines, but you need to SEE his upbringing to really get it.  However, any time the show has focused on one character over another so far, it's been him...a little more equality, please.  That said, using Chinese Paladin and Lost in the Chamber of Love and even The Gentle Crackdown as standards and based on the MVs I've seen and a few spoilers I've come across while trolling for pics,  they're piling on the humor now to compensate for piling on the angst later, and the focus does shift more to Flawless Flower later.

That said, the main reason I'm irritated with it is because he's SUPPOSED to be off getting this red...uhm...flower thing...that will save Orchid's life(Flawless Flower's masters objected to his falling in love) but instead he's sidetracked to make googly eyes at Xian.  I mean, priorities here...