任是无情也动人

Henan TV has turned out some really well done holiday festival broadcasts this year. Even more incredible, most of it has been with a shoestring budget. The recent Autumn Festival show is the first time they actually got a commercial sponsor! And the only "star" among their programs, Zhou Shen (of course).

【若思念便思念】old link new link

The song is about the Hakka minority whose roots come from Henan. Also found this thread on douban with screencaps of comments from people of Hakka descent from all over Asia. And on zhihu, here's some analysis of all the historical elements that went into the MV.

Full 中秋奇妙游 gala here. Also their previous shows in the series: 唐宫夜宴 (春晚), 元宵 easter egg, 端午奇妙游, 七夕奇妙游.
New playlist link

My favorite performance from the previous shows is of course the famous underwater dance from the 端午 festival.

《祈》old link new link

Interesting analysis of the characters in BLD. I especially like some of the stuff in the comments.

Analysis comparing the two major roles played by my favorite actor... and the fiery rebuttals thereof. XD

Analysis... and flamewar? - ok, heated discussion, of the various 仙凡 couplings in BLD, focusing on 瑶姬

Article and discussion of Purity!Sues in BLD.

I dunno, maybe it's the hour, or maybe playing with muses on MUD had inspired me, but I wrote up a poem for the third account's profile. The poem is sort of based on the avatar image, of course, and partly on the name.



Arete Serenitas
by: me

When darkest before dawn
Pray of Eos to herald the end of the night
When in the tempest rage
Pray of Iris to herald the end of the blight.

When endless bloodshed flows
Pray of Irene's guidance to end the fight
When lost in unknown wilds
Pray of Luna and the stars' guiding light

Endless prayers through time are given wing
To which no god e'er descend their height
Yet unlooked for, the wonder within
The human virtues and human might

Of all the ills from Pandora's box
Was Hope gifted last of Man's birthright
Leaders, creators, peacemakers, all
Dream for mortal-kind wings to take flight

*****

Footnotes:

1. OK, it's kind of meh, but what do you expect at almost midnight while I'm on meds.

2. Only two items on that avatar costed over 3k. The staff was 7k and is actually a hand down from my main account. The wings is around 20k.

3. Also, I did a search for Chinese literary references to nightingales (for my main account). I came up with the two following by western authors:
The Nightingale by Hans Christian Andersen
The Chinese Nightingale by Vachel Lindsay
Would be nice to find some references from Chinese authors, although that would involve a lot of reading through Chinese sites. *sigh*

The first decent fics of the 杨戬/哪吒 genre that I could read through without getting the willies a paragraphs in. It helps that it's based on the "canonical" <封神演义> novel than on the various televised legends featuring the two of them.

Links are to a BBS. Login shouldn't be required to read the threads, I believe.

1. 金鸡岭
2. 汜水关
3. 穿云关
4. 渑池 1-3 渑池 4-6
5. 城下

Yoinked from various online sources. *waves cheerleader flag for 戬哥哥!*

link ( full text )

link ( full text )

I knew I was forgetting something. This is the last part. Previous two posts: 1 2

( Caution: Graphics Intensive )

The end.

Continued from previously

( Caution: Graphics intensive )

End part 2, tbc.

Go to part 3

Because I am totally heads-over-heels for the Yang Jian (杨戬) of this show and thus must share my screencaps (and probably not-so-witty commentary). Do note that he doesn't show up until halfway through the show and it's only that half I'm posting.

( Caution: graphics intensive )

OK that's probably enough for one post if I don't wanna kill people's bandwidth or something... Will continue in future posts.

Go to part 2

Yeah my mom bought me the complete set when she went back to China. I've been watching the DVD and I'm halfway through the sequel. It's not too bad. Granted it's not on par with the original, but the original was a classic in its own right, and I doubt anyone expected the sequel to surpass it. But it do an adequate job on its own.

The basic concept behind the sequel is that we start off with the group back at the Tang Imperial court and they mention a couple of interesting incidents while the emperor was looking at the sutras they brought back. The emperor asks them to tell him the story of what happened. And cue flashback sequence that lasts for the rest of the series.

The Good

- So far all the stories have come from the original book canon. They didn't just make up new adventures on the way to the West. There was the Sun Wukong and his doppleganger one and the one where the Jade Emperor was doing the petty vengeance thing which were pretty cool to see.

- Nice chemistry between the actors. A lot of Bajie/Wukong horsing around that really looked like *cough* another kind of playing around. Some Tangseng/Wukong & Tangseng/Bajie stuff to, which had me giggling even though it kinda reminds of Saiyuki and thus gives me creeps.

- The choreography was pretty good. While they needed to have wire-fu for midair and underwater fights, I was glad to see they didn't go the whole Matrix CGI-fu route or Ranmaesque CGI-chi-blast route (I'm looking at you, 神雕侠侣 retake #564). And they had a decent amount of ground fights.

- Bajie is kinda cute in his dumbness, and not just in the way he always picks on/get picked on by Wukong.

- Nezha! Wai! *coughahem* omgsuchagirlandbitchslapman *cackles*

- I think I'm in luv w/ the crown prince of the Dragon King of the East... ok I'll stop fangirling now.

The Bad

- The SFX was better than the original, which really can't say much, especially when I can look at the scenes and think - that looks like something a newbie to photoshop could do in 10 minutes. You'd think they'd improved a little more since the original series in the intervening years.

- The costumes. While better than the average cosplay reject, was still very fake. Heck, I think Star Trek TOS did a better job 40+ years ago with the makeup department. Then again, all that fake cheesiness does sorta grow on you... *headdesk*

The Ugly

- The songs/soundtrack. I mean... pop music? Even if you're not willing to reuse 敢问路在何方 or the opening theme, at least come up with a decent replacement that's within the same spirit as the original.

- OFC girls trying to marry or otherwise going after Tangseng (even if the concept itself is canonical). I guess the producers threw them in to attract the post-pubescent male demographic. But still...

- Sometimes, the dialogue is... well we know even the original version didn't lay it on thick with the (pseudo-)ancient Chinese talk (as opposed to ROTK), but some of those lines are way too modern, folks!