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nnozomiHasn’t it ever been a week. Very tentatively rejoicing now, though. My husband was quoting someone to the effect that it’s amazing how America has had this electoral system since the Edo period; I said that’s ridiculous, it’s not that old, and then I thought about it and realized it is. I mean, Japan has totally revamped its political system twice in that time (albeit with the aid of a bloody civil war and a bloodier world war, so, you know, not recommended, but still).
Anyway—my friend A-Pei said “Don’t you feel we are breathing in new air, with big HOPE letters flowing around? Really refreshing,” and I thought that put it best.
On grounds of both escapism and joy, I just finished watching the Lost Tomb Reboot thing (good timing me). I have many rambling self-indulgent thoughts about it below, including spoilers, way too many parentheses, and some images.
I picked it up completely for Zhu Yilong and I could not have asked for more than we got; he looks heart-stoppingly beautiful the whole way through (I feel bad about appreciating his half-starved cheekbones, but Wu Xie’s general style is low-key dazzling), gets whumped sixteen ways from Sunday (never mind h/c bingo, I think you could make a whole Wu Xie Whump alphabet from Asphyxiated to Zombie-Attacked with everything in between), and acts brilliantly, making Wu Xie real and affecting over a huge emotive and contextual range from silly domestic sparring with Pangzi to drama of mythological scope. Also it’s new and delightful to see him get a satisfying happy ending!
Unlike Guardian, I’m not much afflicted with shippiness in this show—there are very few romances, on-screen or otherwise, that get to me. (I have nothing against Wu Xie/Xiaoge—I can see it—but Xiaoge gets so little screen time and so few lines, and poor doing-his-best Huang Junjie’s stage presence is so lightweight compared to the other two, that it doesn’t feel like an emotional anchor in the show as a whole.) (In unrelated news, between Pangzi and MenyouPing, I’m never going to be able to listen to Turandot again without thinking of the three ministers as an elderly Iron Triangle.)
On the other hand, the friendships are amazing and moving and make the show. Wu Xie and Pangzi are the best of friends—they know each other inside out, trust each other completely, have any number of ridiculous in-jokes, would each die for the other without a moment’s hesitation (Huo Daofu saying “His liver isn’t great either” over an unconscious Wu Xie, to which Pangzi blinks and says 有, in a word “Well…I’ve got one he can have”), though it’s not a romantic/sexual thing at all. (If they ran into a fuck-or-die type situation, they would pull it off and probably have a surprisingly good time, and then tease the hell out of each other about it for the next decade.)
I feel as if what holds the show together emotionally is this friendship, and to a slightly lesser extent Wu Xie and Xiao Bai’s…whatever you call it when they troll each other relentlessly and trust each other in spite of themselves, she has a crush on him that she doesn’t seem to expect to be reciprocated, and he sees her as half little sister and half second self? Whatever it is it works.
While God knows the show is terrible about women otherwise, they let Xiao Bai scream and cry and have a crush and get rescued while still establishing herself as brave, capable, resilient and more than a bit of a troll. Also nice work ZYL and Mao Xiaotong, just the same age, for pulling off a theoretical 20-year age difference. She’s also very good—like Chen Minghao, she makes a potentially annoying character immensely likable and admirable. Superb acting on the part of all three of them. (Among other notable performances there is Liu Sang, who deserves a whole show all to himself and is played by the sweet-natured, versatile, off-beat beautiful, try-anything-once Liu Chang.)
Overall there’s one reason I’m almost surprised the censors let it be shown at all in 2020: the pervasive themes of illness and disability. Wu Xie’s illness, including how he and the people around him cope with it (practically and emotionally), is of course one of the dominant themes; then there’s Chuchu and the Yabacun/village of the mute people, Hei Xiazi (whom we see blind without his sunglasses twice—once when Chuchu is falling for him and once in his final showdown with Jiao-laoban), the Iron Triangle’s temporary blindness in the Nanhaiwang’s tomb, Xiao Mei’s illness, two separate poisoning/epidemic incidents at Warehouse 11, what Er Jing does to Wu Erbai (both the injury and the caregiving—I find this whole thread the most disturbing thing in the whole show), Er Jing’s hand, and even Liu Sang’s hyperability and its effects on him. I’m not saying one bit that the show is a thoughtful meditation on any of these things, because no, but after a while you start to wonder.
Post-canon spinoffs (or fic) I want: a) Liu Sang/happy ending of some kind, one that still allows him to be prickly and snarky and brilliant and vulnerable, but doesn’t demand so much cool-headed bravery in such awful circumstances from him; b) Bai Haotian/Huo Daofu! They would be so much fun to watch learning to be together, especially from a Wu Xie & Pangzi outsider POV, and unstoppable thereafter as a trollish ultra-competent couple.
Music: The associated songs are surprisingly excellent. The Iron Triangle song is pure testosterone and a lot of fun, and 往下跳 is tear-inducing without being over-sentimental. (Liu Sang’s character song also absolutely nails his image in words and music, and Liu Chang knocks it out of the park.) The “Reboot” song itself is warm and hopeful and wistful. There’s a BTS video somewhere (almost certainly courtesy of Wenella like everything is) of Zhu Yilong recording the song, stopping halfway through to wail 好難呀! this is so hard!. The slow introduction requires big-time breath control (you can hear a couple of places where the musical director obviously said “Long-ge, just sneak in a breath in the middle of the line”), and the verse is a lot of words to spit out at once, plus a surprisingly complicated combination of steps and skips. However, this is Zhu “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing exquisitely” Yilong, and so the end result is lovely.
Finally, have a handful of screencatches from moments I like, slightly out of order:
S1-19: Big hug for Pangzi, emerging from his shipping box. Wu Xie’s look of relief…
S1-25: Wu Xie and Xiao Bai, studying warehouse celestial mechanics. (I love their slightly twisted training montage.)
S1-26: Wu Xie and fireflies. (There are so many good moments in episode 1-26 I kind of just picked one at random.)
S2-11: Xiao Bai has just konked the ill-fated Jiang Zisuan, who’s twice her size, over the head: look at Huo Daofu’s delighted little grin (also featuring poor Jia Kezi in the foreground).
S2-19: Liu Sang, already in bad shape, risks his hearing to map Leicheng for them, and Wu Xie, ill himself, grips his shoulders through it.
S2-18: Pangzi and Xiaoge are just offscreen; Wu Xie is sitting there in the middle of the night wrapped in their love.
Be safe and well.
Anyway—my friend A-Pei said “Don’t you feel we are breathing in new air, with big HOPE letters flowing around? Really refreshing,” and I thought that put it best.
On grounds of both escapism and joy, I just finished watching the Lost Tomb Reboot thing (good timing me). I have many rambling self-indulgent thoughts about it below, including spoilers, way too many parentheses, and some images.
I picked it up completely for Zhu Yilong and I could not have asked for more than we got; he looks heart-stoppingly beautiful the whole way through (I feel bad about appreciating his half-starved cheekbones, but Wu Xie’s general style is low-key dazzling), gets whumped sixteen ways from Sunday (never mind h/c bingo, I think you could make a whole Wu Xie Whump alphabet from Asphyxiated to Zombie-Attacked with everything in between), and acts brilliantly, making Wu Xie real and affecting over a huge emotive and contextual range from silly domestic sparring with Pangzi to drama of mythological scope. Also it’s new and delightful to see him get a satisfying happy ending!
Unlike Guardian, I’m not much afflicted with shippiness in this show—there are very few romances, on-screen or otherwise, that get to me. (I have nothing against Wu Xie/Xiaoge—I can see it—but Xiaoge gets so little screen time and so few lines, and poor doing-his-best Huang Junjie’s stage presence is so lightweight compared to the other two, that it doesn’t feel like an emotional anchor in the show as a whole.) (In unrelated news, between Pangzi and MenyouPing, I’m never going to be able to listen to Turandot again without thinking of the three ministers as an elderly Iron Triangle.)
On the other hand, the friendships are amazing and moving and make the show. Wu Xie and Pangzi are the best of friends—they know each other inside out, trust each other completely, have any number of ridiculous in-jokes, would each die for the other without a moment’s hesitation (Huo Daofu saying “His liver isn’t great either” over an unconscious Wu Xie, to which Pangzi blinks and says 有, in a word “Well…I’ve got one he can have”), though it’s not a romantic/sexual thing at all. (If they ran into a fuck-or-die type situation, they would pull it off and probably have a surprisingly good time, and then tease the hell out of each other about it for the next decade.)
I feel as if what holds the show together emotionally is this friendship, and to a slightly lesser extent Wu Xie and Xiao Bai’s…whatever you call it when they troll each other relentlessly and trust each other in spite of themselves, she has a crush on him that she doesn’t seem to expect to be reciprocated, and he sees her as half little sister and half second self? Whatever it is it works.
While God knows the show is terrible about women otherwise, they let Xiao Bai scream and cry and have a crush and get rescued while still establishing herself as brave, capable, resilient and more than a bit of a troll. Also nice work ZYL and Mao Xiaotong, just the same age, for pulling off a theoretical 20-year age difference. She’s also very good—like Chen Minghao, she makes a potentially annoying character immensely likable and admirable. Superb acting on the part of all three of them. (Among other notable performances there is Liu Sang, who deserves a whole show all to himself and is played by the sweet-natured, versatile, off-beat beautiful, try-anything-once Liu Chang.)
Overall there’s one reason I’m almost surprised the censors let it be shown at all in 2020: the pervasive themes of illness and disability. Wu Xie’s illness, including how he and the people around him cope with it (practically and emotionally), is of course one of the dominant themes; then there’s Chuchu and the Yabacun/village of the mute people, Hei Xiazi (whom we see blind without his sunglasses twice—once when Chuchu is falling for him and once in his final showdown with Jiao-laoban), the Iron Triangle’s temporary blindness in the Nanhaiwang’s tomb, Xiao Mei’s illness, two separate poisoning/epidemic incidents at Warehouse 11, what Er Jing does to Wu Erbai (both the injury and the caregiving—I find this whole thread the most disturbing thing in the whole show), Er Jing’s hand, and even Liu Sang’s hyperability and its effects on him. I’m not saying one bit that the show is a thoughtful meditation on any of these things, because no, but after a while you start to wonder.
Post-canon spinoffs (or fic) I want: a) Liu Sang/happy ending of some kind, one that still allows him to be prickly and snarky and brilliant and vulnerable, but doesn’t demand so much cool-headed bravery in such awful circumstances from him; b) Bai Haotian/Huo Daofu! They would be so much fun to watch learning to be together, especially from a Wu Xie & Pangzi outsider POV, and unstoppable thereafter as a trollish ultra-competent couple.
Music: The associated songs are surprisingly excellent. The Iron Triangle song is pure testosterone and a lot of fun, and 往下跳 is tear-inducing without being over-sentimental. (Liu Sang’s character song also absolutely nails his image in words and music, and Liu Chang knocks it out of the park.) The “Reboot” song itself is warm and hopeful and wistful. There’s a BTS video somewhere (almost certainly courtesy of Wenella like everything is) of Zhu Yilong recording the song, stopping halfway through to wail 好難呀! this is so hard!. The slow introduction requires big-time breath control (you can hear a couple of places where the musical director obviously said “Long-ge, just sneak in a breath in the middle of the line”), and the verse is a lot of words to spit out at once, plus a surprisingly complicated combination of steps and skips. However, this is Zhu “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing exquisitely” Yilong, and so the end result is lovely.
Finally, have a handful of screencatches from moments I like, slightly out of order:
S1-19: Big hug for Pangzi, emerging from his shipping box. Wu Xie’s look of relief…
S1-25: Wu Xie and Xiao Bai, studying warehouse celestial mechanics. (I love their slightly twisted training montage.)
S1-26: Wu Xie and fireflies. (There are so many good moments in episode 1-26 I kind of just picked one at random.)
S2-11: Xiao Bai has just konked the ill-fated Jiang Zisuan, who’s twice her size, over the head: look at Huo Daofu’s delighted little grin (also featuring poor Jia Kezi in the foreground).
S2-19: Liu Sang, already in bad shape, risks his hearing to map Leicheng for them, and Wu Xie, ill himself, grips his shoulders through it.
S2-18: Pangzi and Xiaoge are just offscreen; Wu Xie is sitting there in the middle of the night wrapped in their love.
Be safe and well.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-09 07:44 am (UTC)I do think you would enjoy watching the show, but it's not mandatory ;) When you have the time, you could check with me or trobadora or someone about whether there's something that would really bother you, if that would help.
(Oh also, I don't even know what language you are writing your thesis in, but if it's in English and you need an extra proofreading eye, feel free to hit me up; I do that for old friends from grad school a lot anyway. Ignore if not needed, either way good luck!)
no subject
Date: 2020-11-09 02:21 pm (UTC)Actually, I might just ask now :) (I know I said I have to be out of the thesis hell, but I also need something nice to look forward to at the end of the day, you know? TLTR would be a very nice treat for making progress.)
So, uh, I am slowly getting over it with time, but I still prefer to avoid cancer themes and related grief. I have watched the first two episodes and it was...uncomfortable but provided it doesn't get into it deeper than that I should be okay? But does it get more focus? And realistic medical procedures?
Then there's blindness, which isn't a trigger for me so much as something I really don't want in my fun entertainment, especially the loss of sight angle. So again, does it feature prominently? (You say the main chars go blind for a bit--is it a longer bit than ZYL in Guardian? I can deal with Guardian, though my watching partner was subjected to my extensive complaining ;)).
And finally, I read naye's content notes, and there seem to be A Lot of bugs. I'm very arachnophobic. I'm also very well-trained at turning away from the screen when it's necessary, but it kinda defeats the purpose if I'd have to avoid half of the show...?
(Oh also, I don't even know what language you are writing your thesis in, but if it's in English and you need an extra proofreading eye, feel free to hit me up; I do that for old friends from grad school a lot anyway. Ignore if not needed, either way good luck!)
Aw, thank you, that's a lovely offer! I write in English, yes, and I would definitely ask for help, except I'm not sure how close to the deadline I'll finish D:
no subject
Date: 2020-11-09 11:26 pm (UTC)Caveat that I really don't mean to sound like you MUST watch this show, you can always just say "sounds great, but not for me".
Wu Xie's illness is definitely more opera-style consumption than realistic lung cancer etc.; there are no realistic medical procedures (one brief and very unrealistic one around, I think, S2-8?). He coughs and spits up blood at strategic intervals. There is related grief before the fact, especially in S1-16; in the end he gets unambiguously magically healed. (There's also a little girl who is sick, with no onscreen symptoms except for a nosebleed; she also gets cured through normal medical intervention, not shown onscreen or described in detail.)
I think you would be okay with the Iron Triangle's temporary blindness if you can deal with Zhao Yunlan's in Guardian; it is fairly short (I think less than one episode) and wears off on its own, and they pretty much take it in stride as yet another weird tomb-raiding thing, there's less emotional punch than in Zhao Yunlan's case.
With regard to the bugs, I got nothing; naye's content notes remember the details better than I do and you want to consult those. I wouldn't say half the show, but there definitely are occasional bugs...
I would definitely ask for help, except I'm not sure how close to the deadline I'll finish D:
Ha! Been there done that, on both sides. My old grad school professor sometimes sends me long papers for translation, with a note saying "Phew, I finally finished writing it! Um, the conference deadline is in two days...".
no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 12:19 am (UTC)Wu Xie's illness is definitely more opera-style consumption than realistic lung cancer etc.; (...) in the end he gets unambiguously magically healed
That is GREAT to hear.
He coughs and spits up blood at strategic intervals.
And that is always good to see, with Zhu Yilong.
I will give it a shot and if I end up having feels, it's on you ;)
Ha! Been there done that, on both sides. My old grad school professor sometimes sends me long papers for translation, with a note saying "Phew, I finally finished writing it! Um, the conference deadline is in two days...".
I'm sorry, that made me laugh. Must've been less funny in the moment! I'll ask if you have time, if I finish with time to spare to begin with, if that's okay?
no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 01:02 am (UTC)Poor Zhu Yilong, he does it so well he's going to end up with blood-spitting roles forever ;)
I will give it a shot and if I end up having feels, it's on you ;)
Sounds good; do what works best for you regardless!
I'll ask if you have time, if I finish with time to spare to begin with, if that's okay?
Perfect, no problem either way. (I now also laugh at my professor's antics, we all do, because you have to cope somehow...).