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kaigouI 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 playingFu 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 whenMing 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!
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
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
Me: Holy crap! It's the Chinese Illuminati!
no subject
Date: 3 Nov 2010 06:07 am (UTC)And it doesn't help that names don't stay the same, different historians/scribes are going to write the version that makes them look best, and in the end... it's a mess!
Although I have trouble with that kind of long long long memory on things, at least in the front of my brain, since I'm born/raised in a culture that's... well, I try to keep the perspective of when I went to my father's wedding in Sweden and came back to work and my coworkers all asked me about it. I said, "and the wedding was in one of the oldest stone churches in Sweden! It's over a thousand years old!" My chinese coworkers were politely congratulatory about that realization, that kind of "oh, that's cute, but we're not snarking, we just think it's cute that you're so impressed", while my indian coworkers just smiled, and one finally said, "a thousand years? so it's pretty new, then?" Well, sure it'd be "new" to any culture four thousand years old, which xtianity in Sweden is so very NOT. (And then I came home and immediately flew to Arizona for an event and met someone who was excited about meeting someone from Washington DC, because "there are all sorts of Really OLD Places in DC!" ... but then, if your town was incorporated in 1887, then a college founded in the 1640s would be pretty old, I suppose.)
Which is a long way to say: I get the idea that even "things that happened long ago" can be of major importance in terms of a national identity, but on an everyday-level, I just can't grasp going into a major governmental giant flouncy fit (great phrase, btw) about something that's going on almost fifteen hundred years ago. I think the North American culture (and I include Canada in this, since it seems to have a similar kind of cultural "nothing before X" mindset) seems to "start" with settlers/white-people, so in general we just don't have the same constant reminder of way-back-when as points of contention. (ETA: I'm not saying that this "nothing before X" attitude is okay -- I think it's damaging in many ways, and the general USian inability to relate to the identity-issues of ancient-but-ongoing cultures is among the least of those damages. Yes, I do think "American History" should start with prehistoric indigenous peoples and work its way up to "and then outsiders showed up" rather than starting with the freaking pilgrims, but I'm adding that not because it's relevant to this comment but just to head off any possible mis-interpretations of a seemingly glib comment.)
Anyway, that shortened-history is probably a big part of any USian bias I have, but it's also the reason I'm quietly fascinated when any nation/culture does go into a giant flouncy fit. I keep wanting to make popcorn, because the entire process is so unfamiliar to me, thus constantly amusing and intriguing. Even if it really is nothing more than a big intercultural conniption, when the dust finally settles.