#also this scene was so heartwrenching in the movie 'red cliff' if you want to go check it out!

[huigusu]

WANG YIBO as ZHAO YUN 赵云 in the BATTLE OF CHANGBAN 长坂坡

A classic from the Beijing opera repertoire, the Battle of Changban is adapted from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. When Liu Bei is forced to flee from Cao Cao’s forces and leaves his family behind, Zhao Yun single-handedly enters Cao Cao’s camp to rescue Liu Bei’s wife and child.

[cerinamroths]

Nirvana in Fire 2 Thoughts

The strongest quality of NIF2 is the emotional resonance it gives to the audience as it focuses more on the characters/family and less about the intricacies of the schemes and politics. Whereas I didn’t feel as much in NIF until its ending, I felt and cried so much throughout NIF2. Also “The Wind Blows in Changlin”?? More like a fucking tornado storms through Changlin!!!

Let’s start with how the one sentence google summary of NIF2 is a terrible spoiler! The description basically summarizes eps. 1-37! It states “Xiao Pingjing finally succumbs to the grief caused by the death of his brother and his father, and he leaves the capital to return to Langya Pavilion.” 

This kind of ruined it for me, bc I expected their deaths from the first few episodes & then I just waited for them to die... and then every happy scene of them just made me sadder knowing what’s to come... It’s like reading about Game of Thrones with a description “The remaining Stark family learns to play the game as the oldest son & father perishes...” LIKE WHAT EVEN

The OST is beautifully heartwrenching! My favorite one so far - I’ve been listening to it between watching and driving to/from work.

The OTP of this series IS Pingzhang and Qianxue. Sure, Lin Xi & Pingjing are fated and cute, but we didn’t get enough moments between them. You see PZ & QX teasing each other, supporting each other, respectively doing their duties, going to battle together, being intimate as much as one can be in a cdrama, etc. I’m sad they had to end but at least she did have a son and we got a happy ending through Lin Xi & Pingjing.

Speaking of that ending, I am so happy for Pingjing. When it comes to responsibilities, especially in that time period, one cannot be so lucky... but to have those military achievements and honor of defending His Majesty and then being free of responsibilities & duties to go live out the rest of your life with your love is the best gift one could ask for. It kind of makes you thankful that Minister Xun succeeded in dismantling the Changlin army...

In asian culture where one has to be successful, especially if there is a family legacy, I really admired Tingsheng for imparting that final advice to Pingjing - saying he doesn’t need to continue with Changlin or to be what PZ and TS was in the past... but to live his own life. 

Maybe it makes for a better story, but I was utterly pissed off at Minister Xun & The Empress! I rather have someone with committed evil intentions (like Marquis Xie & Yuanqui) than someone with misguided intentions. The only reason why they dismantled the Changlin family was to thwart them from possible evil future crimes!!! URGH. I do understand though, and the show makes sure to highlight it throughout, especially at the end in the last conversation between General Yue and Pingjing.

I really hated Puyang Ying... but that just shows how much of a threat he was! If he had grander plans than just taking revenge for the plague, he could have been as calculating as Mei Changsu. I really feel bad for his disciples not knowing he stole his king’s seal & tricking everyone to commit evil actions. And Yuanqi... I clearly see why he did what he did, but those moments in the earlier episodes when you see Yuanqi contemplate his morals... URGH he could have been so good! Poor fucking Anru! ): I’m surprised Marquis Mozi didn’t make appear at the end but that’s most definitely a future problem.

I can’t believe they used the actress for Xia Dong in NIF to be Madam Qi from Donghai in NIF2!!! Also holy fucking shit when Yuanqi burned her alive!!!

Pingzhang was the best male character of the series - he was the embodiment of a powerful warrior, intelligent mind, responsible-but-can-have-fun personality... the love for his family especially finding out he was adopted & saving his brother’s life was just so amazing!!!! 

Feizhan was the second best male character. He has such an unbreakable moral foundation. Now that is an example you can pit against Yuanqi... he will still make the right choices even if his family is in the wrong. Poor him for being in love with Qianxue! Bc in that life and in any other reincarnated life, it’s going to be PZ & QX buddy... unless AU OT3?! But anyways, how can you not admire his steadfast and resolute moral outlook!?

Pingjing grew on me throughout the drama. I understand that main characters must have flaws to overcome in a story, but he was really annoying in the beginning. Smart, but stupid with Lin Xi! He was so impulsive with court matters, that I wanted to facepalm & cringe so hard. But when he really had to grow up... man the change! ): 

My favorite moment is when the disbanded Changlin army reunites and is ready to go to battle for Pingjing to save His Majesty.

The battle at the Northern Border with the solar eclipse was also epic!!! I haven’t watched many Chinese Movies/Dramas, but it felt semi-reminiscent of Red Cliff and it made me yearn for more battle scenes.

From ep. 38 and on, I really like the plot they give to the side characters of Pei-er, General Yue, and his subordinate Tan Heng.

Little Emperor - ngl, my favorite moment was when he ordered to kill Yuanqi! Like YES, DIE YUANQI. But also I really enjoyed his relationship with Pingjing. That ending quote though took my heart:

“Older brother Pingjing, no matter where you will be from now on, do not forget your old friend here in Jinling. You must frequently write him back." 

I love the callbacks to NIF and those scenes made me so emotional especially when Tingsheng reminisced about Mei Changsu & his father Jingyan! Also wtf happened to Fei Liu! I’m annoyed that Commander Meng didn’t spend as much time teaching Qianxue & focused on the boys instead... especially when fucking Princess Nihuang led the entire Mu army and protected the southern border. It was nice to have Pingjing & His Majesty escape through the tunnel between Changlin Manor (aka Prince Jing’s Manor) and Sir Su’s residence!!!

There are barely any fics for NIF2!!! I really with for a time travel fic where maybe the NIF2 characters meet NIF1... or NIF1 characters come to the future and help Changlin Manor and let the world know what’s up (imagine Mei Changsu scoffing at Minister Xun & The Empress). Or even PJ going back to the start of the drama, showing how much he’s grown to his father and elder brother. Some fluff between PZ & QX and PJ & LX. 

Also with both NIF & NIF2, thank goodness Langya Court isn’t evil lol... because they are certainly biased!

Ending with a shot of Ce’er waving goodbye (so cute!). Hoping to start The Legend of Fuyao or The Rise of Phoenixes next. 

[threephasebird]

TLJ musings, Spoilers and Opinions ahead

It’s been one and a half day since I’ve seen the movie and I feel like trying to put my thoughts on it into somewhat coherent words now. In my immediate reaction to it, I’ve said that there were more things that I liked than things that I didn’t like -- which still holds and I’ll probably list some below -- but that I couldn’t really say yet whether I liked the movie or not. This is still true as well -- I feel like I need to rewatch it at some point to see how I feel about it then, but overall I’d say that I’ll probably be “alright” with it in the long term, as in, I don’t actively dislike it, but I doubt it’ll be a movie that I’ll rewatch a lot.

Which is fine!

After leaving the cinema on Thursday, my main feeling about the movie could be summed up by saying “this was a lot”. Now that I’ve mulled over it for a while, I’d say that my main qualm with TLJ is that to my personal liking, it focused too much on being surprising and subverting Star Wars tropes. Apparently, for other people the exact same thing is the dealbreaker to why they loved the movie, which is also fine of course (and also interesting to think about), but to me personally, it just didn’t really work. That’s not to say that I wasn’t on edge for the whole span of the movie and that the surprises and twists didn’t get me, because they did! Every single time! So I’m not complaining at all about how they were executed. The thing is more that now after having seen all of it, I feel like I’m left somewhat clueless about what kind of story the movie actually wanted to tell. 

Don’t get me wrong -- I don’t think a movie necessarily needs to have a Clear and Obvious and Stringent Message to be a good movie, and it can be interesting (and it was at some points in TLJ) if a movie questions its own narrative. I thought it was intriguing how the movie started out subverting the Star Wars Hero trope (and I enjoyed Leia’s role in it) and then went ahead to tease us with a typical, wild Star Wars Hero Plot Line in Poe’s, Finn’s, and Rose’s arc nevertheless. But then the trope was subverted again (the scheme failed, the heroes are caught) and again (General Holdo actually had a plan and the heroes weren’t needed after all) and again (her plan is betrayed) and again (she who was set up in contrast to self-sacrificing heroes sacrifices herself for the cause) and again (the First Order comes after the rebels nevertheless) and again (in a mirror image of Poe’s first appearance, Finn has to sacrifice himself to hold them off) and again (no, he doesn’t, Rose saves him) and again (the only way for the rebellion to be kept alive is for Luke to face Kylo Ren alone) and again (but wait, he isn’t actually here) and --

-- well, and all together I felt like the overall plot as well as the characters and their arcs were somewhat subordinated to making these twists and turns happen. Take Holdo for example: I thought she was interesting when she made her first appearance, but in the end it felt to me as if her character was solely introduced for the audience to have a moment of shock when we realize we did her injustice. It didn’t really make sense to me in-universe why she wouldn’t just explain her plan! Or Rey -- to me, it felt like her arc in the second half of the movie was merely a set-up for having the audience be shocked that even though she seems to mirror Luke in ROTJ and seemingly, just for a moment, brings Kylo back to the light side, but behold! No! Just as you thought this was how it was going to happen, he does the Anakin instead and wants to rule the galaxy with her! 

And that’s really not to say I didn’t like the path they went down with Kylo Ren in this movie. I was mostly indifferent to him after TFA and thought he was a lot more interesting here. (I also want to say that apart from everything elese, I would have enjoyed the moment mentioned above for the sole reason that as a person who genuinely likes the PT I felt catered towards in this moment. Thank you, TLJ.) It’s just...I feel somewhat similar about TLJ how I would feel about a show that focuses solely on surprising the audience over and over again at the end of each episode by going But Wait, This Is Not Going Down The Way You Thought It Would Be. I enjoy plot twists, and as I said in the beginning, they did work for me, but all in all, it somewhat felt to me like the story wanted to be surprising and clever over anything else. And it’s just a personal preference that two days later, I feel a bit disappointed by that -- or that maybe due to it, there’s not a whole lot that stayed with me after having seen the movie.

Because if I break it down, A Lot Happened, but not a lot happened that brought the story forward. The only revelation was who Rey’s parents were, but after seeing TLJ it genuinely wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out it wasn’t the truth after all. Snoke was killed, but we still have no idea what his deal was in the first place -- if he’s so powerful, why did he need Kylo? Where did he come from? How did he manage to corrupt Kylo without being in his vicinity or social circle? Since it seems like he has been around for a while, where was he when the Empire was still a thing? Poe did get his plotline and seems to have been established as the new rebel leader, but Finn’s whole arc seemed to be centered around finding Rey. Except for the fact that the rebels were diminished and are even more out of luck and allies now, we seem to be at roughly the same point where we were after TLJ. And I’m not really, heavily disappointed because there are still a lot of ways to wrap the story up in the third movie! But I’m still, well, disappointed.

To wrap this up, here’s a list of things that I liked:

Luke throwing his lightsaber off the cliff at the beginning. I support him. He deserves a break.

In general, I thought the comic relief worked most of the times

I thought the Force bond scenes were really well edited and managed not to be cheesy (Also correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Force bonds were a canonical thing before this movie?? Hoo boy someone has been reading fanfic)

Poe getting his own arc and not being supposedly dead for the majority of the movie

Rose as a new character

Yoda making an appearance (and Force ghosts being mentioned, even with an explanation as to why they were absent before) and his conversation with Luke

The fact that Luke finding out about Han’s death was given a (heartwrenching) scene

Actual literal dinosaurs with uncanny human faces stampeding through a Very Loud Metaphor For Capitalism?? Amazing

There was a dramatic disrobe! And a lightsaber sqirmish!

Kinky red guardsmen? Is Snoke a Palpatine fanboy after all? (Probably don’t) find out in the next episode of Star Wars!

Luke’s death scene -- for a moment, when he lowered his lightsaber, I thought he’d Do The Obi-Wan and I was really happy (read: sad) how it happened instead

Luke and Leia’s reunion

Leia being shown to be strong in the Force (even though the way it was executed was a bit questionable in my opinion)

Finn learning how there are people who profit from the war (even though I didn’t particularly care about the code cracker and even though I hope the story doesn’t go down a “the rebels are just as bad” route)

The “there’s no real Good or Bad side, it’s a person’s decisions that matter” line the story seems to go down with respect to the Jedi (even though I hope that doesn’t mean Rey Has To Learn Forgiveness in the next movie)

I thought that it was in general interesting to see how Luke wasn’t the right person to make changes to the ~Jedi Way~ because he clings too much to it or even defines himself over it, but then in a way overcomes it by saying that he’s not the last Jedi?

Leia’s character

And what I didn’t like is:

Finn’s character is so interesting but I feel like we didn’t get to see much of it at all in this one -- no mention of his past, he only ever seemed to interact with Rose and all his actions seemed to be motivated by saving Rey 

A possible love triangle/quadruple in episode 9? (softly) don’t

Rose sacrificing herself for her celebrity crush

I liked Luke being critical about the Jedi, but I was salty about his “it was a Jedi who trained Darth Vader” line

BB8 (I’m sorry)