no one expects the chinese illuminati

[kaigou]

I finally tracked down a copy of Legend, aka The Story of the First King's Four Gods, aka The Great King and the Four Guardians. It's got every button I want pushed: major themes, intricate relationships, major politics, a solid dose of the fantastical, a little bit of humor, continuous character development, and life and death on the line. With punk rockers. (No, really. There's fusion and then there's fusion.)

It also has Ming the Merciless!

When trying to find a copy (and subs, don't forget the subs), I came across a mention somewhere that this series was banned in the PRC. Something about it had the PRC completely bonkers-mad. After the first few episodes, my theory's that it's because the PRC's argument for taking over Tibet was on the basis of some vassalage treaty from four hundred years ago (which may be an extreme gloss, as it's been awhile since I've reviewed the details). To have Korea come out with a series that reminds all viewers that once upon a time (and we're talking like 400 CE, here, so think King Arthur and you're in the same kind of legendary status), Korea controlled not just its current peninsula (of North and South), but a massive stretch of territory reaching into Mongolia and Manchuria, and I think a chunk of what's currently the northern parts of China. In other words: China's basis per Tibet could easily be Korea's basis per China.

Or maybe it's just the annoying and stereotypical assumption that China = Ming the Merciless.

No, really. Here I thought the Hollywood Fu Manchu/M. Merciless farce was, well, just Hollywood. But I swear, the guy playing Fu Manchu the Hwachun Big Bad was lifted straight out of Saturday afternoon re-runs of 30's era Flash Gordon serials. The collar! The long coats with trains! The excessive and unrelenting use of red! The long mustache and the pointy goatee! The forked eyebrows! The hair pulled back in a long braid! (And in case you miss the 'long braid' distinction -- compared to the Korean characters who wear their hair half-down, half-pulled into a top knot, the braid is always pulled around to the front to rest on the actor's chest just so you know: look! braid! chinese! bad guy!) The hands always held like claws! (No, really: the actor never holds his hands in any other position.) The slow, deliberate moves that are supposed to look sinister! The constant glaring from under the bushy eyebrows! (After hour four, all I could think was: man, he's got to have the neck-ache from hell.)



Stills don't do the character's... uhm... badness -- and I don't mean 'bad' in the sense of "ooh, that character is a scary Big Bad", I mean in the sense of "omg, the suckage, it burnsssss usssss". It's not just Ming the Merciless. It's Ming the Merciless as portrayed by a wax museum animatronic display with dying batteries. You practically expect to hear the whirring sound as the actor gears up (pun intended) for his next, too-slow, way-too-deliberate move. Whirrrrrr, whirrrrrr, whirrrrr.

If the other characters had any genre-savvy about them, they'd be all: no way are we hanging with this guy! He's totally sinister! Obviously up to no good! This can only end in tears!

(Well, of course, since it is a kdrama. Kdramas can do tears and action, or tears and rhetoric, but it can't do action and rhetoric without the tears. Tears are mandatory.)

But then the plot would probably be pretty short. And very easily solved. Possibly, however, slightly more compelling though, for not having to waste screen time on a Ming the Merciless arthritic redux.

The final capper for me was when Ming the Merciless Fu Manchu Hwachun Big Bad declares that not only is the 'Later Yan' (a Chinese state) under Hwachun rule, but that the Baekje king is on the throne due to Hwachun interference, and various other names and places I didn't catch. It's all due to Hwachun pulling strings for two thousand years and poking fingers into every pie. Hwachun is everywhere, and it is always watching you.

Me: Holy crap! It's the Chinese Illuminati!

Comments

[aldanise]

You're watching Legend? Cool. And, yes, Hwachun Big Bad made me cringe every time he appeared onscreen. *cringe* Which is unfortunate because I liked every other major Hwachun and Hwachun-connected character, so I was basically trying to watching them through my fingers. :(

And thank you for putting your finger on one of the major things that bugged me. It's like the clever political moves (and there are a lot of them) are played for emotional stakes rather than political consequences, which I totally couldn't put a name to.

[kaigou]

It's like the clever political moves (and there are a lot of them) are played for emotional stakes rather than political consequences, which I totally couldn't put a name to.

My theory is that this is related to the fact that the underlying driver in everything is heaven-directed or heaven-ordained. It makes a lot of the end-result pretty much predestined, to a great degree: if heaven is truly powerful, then it'll find a way to make its heaven-chosen this or that be what heaven chooses. I'd consider it a subset of "man vs. nature", except it's more like "man vs the entire freaking bureaucracy of heaven". All the best-laid plans of mice and men, y'know, so there's not really any suspense about whether the end result will be X or Y. (Not that there's any major suspense when it's a significant legend, anyway, especially one with historical roots: you pretty much know A is gonna be the winner, and B is going to disappear into history.)

Overall, I find the story a great deal less compelling than, say, Hong Gil Dong, which had certain aspects going for it that make it almost the opposite twin of a story like Four Gods -- in that the protagonist is not at the top of the heap, but must fight not just to have his good ideas heard, but to be heard in the first place. A king, pre-ordained not just by right of birth but by heaven (with fancy lightshows!) does not have to fight to be heard, so if the conflict isn't in gaining his audience, it's in finding his voice -- and because Damduek has a pretty even voice from the very beginning, he's not truly challenged on a political or ethical level, only on an emotional level (can he keep going, can he handle being betrayed, etc). The conflicts between Gildong and Changhwe were far more fascinating, because both the protagonist and the secondary protagonist had equally good points and views of most of their conflicts -- but the scriptwriters for Four Gods couldn't or wouldn't grant the same balance to Damdeuk's antagonists, so there isn't really much substance to their conflicts other than "I don't like you" and "once we were friends" and the ever-ridiculous "you killed my mother!" blather. There's no justifiable depth to the disagreement, and that makes any conclusion foregone -- because Hogae brings nothing to the table.

So, yeah. A lot of emotion, but even then, it could've been considerably heightened emotion, for all that, if only the actress playing the major female antagonist (Kiha) had been able to emote more than two emotions. Or at the very least, if she'd just had more than one expression. I just roll my eyes when it comes to Ming's appearance (although by the time I got to ep22 or so, all I could think was: OMG now he's got ANIME HAIR! I should take a screenshot for everyone's amusement) but when it comes to Kiha, I just disconnect. She's not poker-faced; she's just... there.

[aldanise]

...the underlying driver in everything is heaven-directed or heaven-ordained.

The thing is that part of the story is supposed to be defiance of heaven, at least in the sense of choosing free choice over heaven's will and destiny. So one would think they'd do a bit more to emphasize the importance of those choices. It's as if the emotional level is the one locus of challenging the gods, because emotions are somehow more human (thinking of the first episode definitely, as well as a few much later ones), but it's kind of frustrating to see the tensions of human state-building (is this trade idea really going to work?) flattened to only emotion. The one issue that's given any dimensional treatment at all is that of the Black Phoenix, where it really is in question whether Damdeok was doing the right thing (and I don't think we ever get confirmed that he was doing it for the right reasons), but the Black Phoenix is a primarily emotional issue, with a moral sidenote.

(I need to go watch Hong Gil Dong. Sometime soon.)

it could've been considerably heightened emotion, for all that, if only the actress playing the major female antagonist (Kiha) had been able to emote more than two emotions.

I imprinted on young!Kiha, who was an awesome child-actress, so I think I read everything adult!Kiha did through that, which means I may have read more emoting into it than there was. *shrug*

[kaigou]

I really would like to do a post comparing that heaven-ordained vs human-freedom theme, in Legend vs Hong Gil Dong -- but the shorter version is that if you liked the question raised in the former, you'll probably adore it in HGD. (Plus, HGD really shows off the lead protagonist's acting chops, in ways that Legend -- for all its other remarkable aspects -- really doesn't push quite so much. On the other hand, given how many injuries the cast sustained filming Legend, it's probably unfair to expect them to also dial it up to eleven on the emotional depth when many of them were acting despite broken fingers, torn ligaments, back injuries, and who knows what else. Cripes!)

What got me about the Black Phoenix is that it's never really addressed. It's almost a red herring, in that it's raised again and again as this terrible thing, but then by never re-appearing, it's never tested. That is, it becomes almost a repetition of the old "female power is inherently destructive" because we never see the phoenix providing any kind of power that isn't massively destructive. It certainly doesn't help when you consider that the major female players who are also mothers are shown to be wildly destructive and overly ambitious as soon as they become mothers -- Hogae's mother is one example, in that ambition for her son to become king seems to bring out a viciousness, and the same with Kiha, who doesn't really start to move forward until she gets pregnant, and then it's no-holds-barred. Even Seoh (in the backstory) seems relatively gentle (if a fierce warrior) until her child's threatened and then it's all destroy-everything scorched-earth policy. The notion that it requires a man to bring her back in line (or, in the main story, men to undo the damage wrought by overly-ambitious mothers) is... well, I doubt any of it's intentional -- I doubt the writers said, "hey, let's also have a message that mothers are freaky-scary and will kill, maim, and burn down the earth on behalf of a son and it takes a god really strong man to keep them in line!" -- but still, I could see that reading in there.

Young!Kiha was still pretty stone-faced, though the story's outline did call for that. A vibrant young!kiha would've gone against the horror of her situation, so I didn't have major issues with that... But still, it eventually wore on me the number of times I noticed adult!kiha's response to be literally rolling her eyes. It was just a little... odd, and too one-note, in terms of her reactions. Then again, a lot of her major scenes were opposite Ming the Merciless, and he was the kind of overacting fool who makes others look worse, not better. (As opposed to the kind of marvelous non-fool like Kang, in HGD, who does the opposite.)

I think in some ways, the addition of the fantastical sort of undermined the potential power of the actual historical itself. It put so much burden on the heaven vs human aspect that its resolution had to therefore also pivot on the same (fantastical) level, rather than the material/temporal level (whether such a great nation built on trade, not war, could be successful). If there'd been more of a focus on the latter, then I would've expected at least two more episodes with more attention on the politics and growing merchant trade, where the final message is not some ambiguous did-he-or-didn't-he but "look at all he achieved and be proud of this". If the goal was to create a story that's mixing fantasy with history, that's one thing, but if the goal was to inspire viewers with a truly awe-inspiring historical figure... then it was only a mediocre success, because the achievements were treated as little more than a footnote on the way to a big fantastical battle of good vs evil and heaven vs human. Storytelling-wise, I think they were trying to do too much at once -- or trying to do the former but wanting to justify a lot of that via the weight of the historical value -- and that makes the last five or six episodes a little shallow. Or maybe it's just that the fantastical, alone, isn't enough to satisfy me anymore. It feels too... transitory, whereas showing long-term achievement and long-term temporal impact has more substance, for me, of demonstrating a long-ago historical figure's impact/influence.

Also, what is the deal with having Great Heroes who don't really die but just kind of disappear (and almost always implied that the disappearance is into some alternate place, dimension, land, etc). I'm thinking of King Arthur's legend being that he doesn't die, just gets in a boat and sails off, or Merlin not dying but being put to sleep in a tree-trunk, and here we have Damdeok's story ending not with death but him walking forward into a bright light. Yes, the actual legend seems to be that he died -- from what I can find, which in English is going to be pretty paltry except where dedicated fans have taken the time to translate additional texts -- and I'm quite sure that if there was a historical Arthur or Merlin, they're both dead, too. But the representation of "how things end" are designed to leave it all open-ended, which is also how HGD ends -- the implication being that these heroes could return at any point, if truly needed by their countries. I'm finding that kind of end-but-not-end attached to many, many heroes across many cultures, enough that it makes me wonder if that's one element in the hero's story that is near-universal: that readers don't want heroes to die, but want them to just step back for a bit, and be ready to step forward again when needed.

[aldanise]

What got me about the Black Phoenix is that it's never really addressed. It's almost a red herring, in that it's raised again and again as this terrible thing, but then by never re-appearing, it's never tested.

Really? I thought it did reappear in the last episode? In the 'all power goes dark when used without control' form. Which, admittedly, doesn't particularly help with the female power issues you pointed out, but I suppose I was willing to accept it because Damdeok was literally the only person with supernatural power in that entire series who didn't do evil with it. (Which doesn't help with Lady Yeon, though, since she did evil just fine with human scheming alone.)

Also, what is the deal with having Great Heroes who don't really die but just kind of disappear (and almost always implied that the disappearance is into some alternate place, dimension, land, etc).

Oh, yes, I know. I just finished a long class half on the myths surrounding Saigo Takamori, and apparently there was a major set of stories in circulation at the time he died that he'd actually gone to some other land to return to Japan in its time of need. I mean, I guess in a way they're disappearing into the mists of time, and their stories do come back to us (/are brought back and retold) in times of need, but it does feel kind of odd after a while.

[kaigou]

I couldn't tell if the black phoenix really appeared in that last episode -- it seemed more to me like it was the power of all four+blood, and... I have no idea. (I mean, assuming the king's bow hadn't been broken, what would've happened? Kiha would've just hung there in a ball of flame for eternity? Or what?) By red herring, though, I mean that the symbol hadn't appeared on Kiha's forehead, but on Sujini's -- so there was always this open question of "when the day came" that she'd lose control and go haywire. The one time she supposedly loses control, she doesn't -- not in any truly phenomenal way, like, oh, if she'd burnt down the temple while she was at it, or something -- and then she runs away, for fear of ever really losing it. That part, okay, I could accept that she'd spent her whole life being warned away from fire so she'd not have any perspective between "only sort of losing it" versus "total destruction of everything on the planet"... but then we never get to see Sujini face that again. She runs, she's brought back, and then it's all taken away (or resolved, for a less cynical wording), and... that, to me, is highly unsatisfactory. It leaves this crucial part of her story -- that had been such a big factor for her path -- and doesn't resolve it at all, really. It just makes it all go away. I would've been much happier if Sujini had repeated history and lost it in defense of her nephew, if only to allow her the chance to not repeat history of her own accord, or a less-okay (but still better than nothing) version to have her and Damdeok combined help her to control it. Instead, we get "woman suspended in ball of flame" and Sujini just stood there doing nothing.

In a feminist vein, though, I shouldn't be surprised (but can still be disappointed in) the message that it's men who get innocent courage, dark fury, and... whatever the other one was -- but it's a woman who's the avatar of passion. (Not to mention, how is passion supposed to defend one? I would've liked to see the phoenix's power illustrated in an offensive-but-constructive manner, the way the turtle-snake, dragon, and tiger get illustrated.) It just felt like, oh, yeah, here we go again: if it's passion, or expansive love, or whatever, then it must be a woman. It doesn't help that the most passionate characters are women, and their passion is usually destructive (the whole mother-issue, that is). Damdeok is rather dispassionate, most of the time. The closest to a passionate male character might be Hogae, and look what happened to him (well, one could say he was pretty much the pawn of one woman or another from the get-go, or made an easy pawn of men due to his susceptibility thanks to his mother).

There were elements I found intriguing but still, kinda... not-followed-through: like the fact that Cheoh (dragon) can feel the king "calling" him, something none of the rest ever express (including the teacher, who's been an avatar of the turtle-snake all along, and known it -- wouldn't he have felt the same pull, somewhere in there? and wouldn't that pull be part of the calling? The fact that only the dragon ever expresses it makes it stand out, like it's something only the dragon can feel, which seems off-balance (with my storytelling-hat on). Not to mention it's not clear -- whether b/c of script skipping it or bad direction for Sujini, in that the actress wasn't told or didn't think to express any double-meaning in her nonchalance -- whether Sujini feels the same. In terms of the guardianship roles, at least, that strange dichotomy in that near-to-the-end ep made me feel like the actual triangle was more like Cheoh --> Damdeok --> Kiha, given that Cheoh can feel the king, and the king is busy feeling a long-distance rapport with Kiha! It felt almost like the other supposedly-pivotal character, Sujini, was entirely out of the picture. That scene left me quite, hmm, not baffled, so much as "did you scriptwriters mean for me to be getting this impression?"

(And I don't even mean that I was twigging on yaoi -- or whatever the korean version would be -- I just mean in the simple dynamics of what's been emphasized: Cheoh's affinity for the king comes on the tails of, and then is followed by, scenes emphasizing the king's affinity for Kiha. It sets up a very strange dynamic, is all.)

I mean, I guess in a way they're disappearing into the mists of time, and their stories do come back to us (/are brought back and retold) in times of need, but it does feel kind of odd after a while.

If I ever rewrite Campbell (or at least seriously rebut him, though I hope someone already has), one element I'd list that is, actually, similar across many cultures would be "hero sails away/walks into light/suddenly disappears" as a major theme for heroic stories. Aaaaand that might be just about the only major cross-cultural element that I can think of.