Of Swords and Parasols

 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.

Just finished(a week after I planned to watch) the Donnie Yen HK movie Seven Swords.  Normally, I'd post a picspam, but dangermousiedid back when she watched it, and as almost all the pics I'd use are in her picspam, just click here.

(incidentally, to avoid confusion, I'm only using movie names, as many are different.  Most are close enough to be understood, but...)

As for the movie itself...on it's own, it's actually pretty good.  Even without having seen the series, you could pretty much tell that it was "part one" as opposed to the entire story(incidentally, poking around, I read that they're making a second movie...there are 3 major storyarcs in the series, and the movie pretty thoroughly covers the first, aside from changes to keep all 7 involved in the Fire-Wind plot, which was almost exclusive to Chu in the series) Most of the changes didn't bother me(oddly, it barely registered that Jinyuan went from a not-overly-bright male sweetheart to a fairly clever and witty female)

Short version of the plot is that it's about a former executioner who becomes entangled in the affairs of the martial village, who oppose an imperial edixt that outlaws all use of martial arts-and is also really mean and oppressive-and along with two youths from the village-Han and Jinyuan-he sets out for Mount Tian to ask a former enemy-who helped him to see the error of his ways-to help them.  He's rejected, but the former enemy does send his four disciples to help and then seven become the chief warriors in the rebellion.

All the things I read saying this was the visuals and special effects version and the series the story version weren't kidding, but that's ok.  I mean, they had 2 1/2 hours to tell what the series had 13(IIRC-may be off a coupla eps) episodes to tell, and it had to add bits from later.  I liked it and only two changes stood out for me...one good, the other not so much.

Parents' keyboard=EVIL.  I have to literally pound on the keys to get anything out of them(yet, I'm still updating)

Does anyone find it weird to visit their parents and sleep in a different bed in what used to be their room?  Maybe it's because the bed there(mine went to the apt. with me) used to be my grandparent's guest bed(and used to be covered in inhuman amounts of lace)  Granted, I've been told I can sleep in my parents' bed, but...it's my parents' bed.

Also, why is it that I can spend 22 years out in the country and insect night sounds don't even register, but thjen I live in town for a year and they're the loudest things ever?(OTOH, cars at any time of night no longer bother me)

Another thing of import:  some of my manga has FINALLY shown up at Waldenbooks(the ones people on my flist would care about are Vampire Knight, Death Note and possibly Skip-Beat)

Also, after  dangermousie's post earlier, I saw the HK movie Legend of Speed at Hastings for $7 and got it on a whim...they also had the first(of 4) volumes of the cdrama Laughing in the Wind.  Sounds promising, we'll see.  i've also decided that Nicholas Tse fighting blindfolded in the rain after angsting at a grave is likely one of the top 5 hottest things in a dorama *says possibly because there vould be hotter things she's hasn't seen yet*  Not that I've all but memorized the opening credits or anything(angsty guy w/ swords winning against what should be absolutely impossible odds=major kink)  I don't like the grave part though, mostly because I rather like the 2 people who are the prime options for being in the grave...

My Handsome Siblings DVDs also have a trailer for Return of the Conder Hero and...uhm...yeah, glad it was in the order I placed this week.

Also, since Seven Swordsmen and Chinese Paladin have both come up in several places lately(I guess all my dorama loving friends view me as their main resource...not that I mind, though I really have seen comparatively fewer than people seem to think) I've been poking around youtube for vids.  Now, Seven Swordsmen...well, the only thing I love with fewer vids there is Musashi(which has none, which depresses me to no end) even Trick has(slightly) more.  Chinese Paladin, however, has TONS.  I watched one video that was almost 6 minutes long and completely avoided angst until the last minute, yet I was blubbering 10 seconds into it when I recognized the scene it was, even though there were no subs.  The scene is the 6 leads making a friendship promise that no matter what, they'll all return to that spot in 10 years, even if their lives take them on wildly different paths.  The rest, up until the last minute, is bits of their friendship and almost completely angstless, and then the last minute is the events that kept them from keeping the promise(with one exception, it's non-explicit enough that you won't be spoiled as to their various fates...there'll likely be a Chinese Paladin vid spam soon) and it made me realize that, while Seven Swordsmen is my favorite cdrama, I'm actually more emotionally invested in the characters in Chinese Paladin(and really, my preference for one over the over is marginal...make Xiao Yao less bratty the first half and Ling'er less whiny and self-centered in the middle chunk, and they'd likely be reversed)  The same is true of my two favorite doramas, Musashi and Damo, where I'm more invested in Chae-Ohk, Hwangbo Yoon and Jang Sung-Baek than I am in Takezo, Otsu and Kojiro.  In both cases, I think the difference is that I'm more invested in the story as a whole in Musashi and Seven Swordsmen than in Damo and Chinese Paladin(though all investment for Damo outweighs Seven Swordsmen) and in the end, the overall investment(plot, setting-in these cases, historical context-etc.) outweighs the character investment for me.

Ok I THINK I started out with more to say on the matter when I sat down to do this, but I left midway through to do something and it's after 3 am and I'm too tired to be bothered to try to remember.  Maybe tomorrow, maybe it's gone forever.  NIGHT!

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So, I'm going to watch the HK movie Seven Swords either tonight or tomorrow(want more Donnie Yen?  Me?).  It's based on the same novels as my favorite(and first) cdrama, Seven Swordsmen, which I posted about here, and I decided to post some MVs of the series.

Only 3 vids, as the movie has a lot more attention.


ETA: Looking at my older comments now, some of my opinions have changed.  Nothing really big though, aside from my opinion of Chu Chaonan going up(in that I appreciate where the character comes from now, though he could still stand to be smacked upside the head with his "blindly trust me" act)