Gu gu!!!
Now that I'm slightly caught up at work, let me relax a little by talking about Return of the Condor Heroes (2006 version) that we finished before our vacation.
We settled for this version of the drama after Romance of the Condor Heroes was just too grating on our eyeballs, eardrums, and brains. In general, I don't like the story of ROCH (people fall in love, are apart because they're stupidly self-sacrificing for no good reason/misunderstandings) so I don't think there could be a good version for me. That said, this version was at least a lot less offensive than Romance of the Condor Heroes.
Cast and Characters and Plot
Main characters and icky couple Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu are played by Huang Xiaoming (The Guillotines) and Liu Yifei (Chinese Paladin) respectively.
Huang Xiaoming is married to Angelababy in real life. It's irrational, but that makes me dislike him by association and I don't even dislike Angelababy for any real reason.
Not at the same wedding.
People seem very fond of this paring but it's just icky to me. There's around a 10-year age gap between the couple and, when they met, Xiaolongnu was supposed to be Yang Guo's teacher and caretaker since he was around nine or ten years old. People go, "but it's so romantic how they buck convention and fall in love". Realistically, if their genders and roles were reversed, people would call Yang Guo a big old pedophile that took advantage of Xiaolongnu. But because Xiaolongnu is female and she plays the teacher that's hot for her student, it's romantic. Alrighty, then!
The long list of characters that try to keep Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu apart are:
From left: Huang Rong, Guo Fu, and Guo Jing.
Huang Rong and Guo Jing played by Kong Lin and Wang Luoyong respectively. Huang Rong and Guo Jing used to be the cool kids in town in Legend of the Condor Hero. But several years later after popping out a kid or two, they've become old fuddy-duddies that want everyone to go by convention. When tasked with caring for annoying pre-teen Yang Guo, they mess up hardcore and ships him off to olden-time boarding school.
Guo Fu (played by Chen Zihan - Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber (2003), Swords of Legends, Romance of the Condor Heroes), the annoying daughter of Huang Rong and Guo Jing. She's annoying and I wanted to reach through the screen and slap her around. But honestly, that's how she's written as a character and therefore actually portrayed correctly.
Li Mochou (played by Jessey Meng), the cooler disciple of the Jade Maiden Sect and Xiaolongnu's martial sister. Though I guess she didn't really try to keep them apart as just give them a hard time because she's cooler and better than them. I also like her because she's my hair twin.
And other people. I got tired of talking about these damn people.
The only character trying to get the two main couple together is Guo Xiang (played by Yang Mi - 3310, Swords of Legends, Chinese Paladin 3), the "nicer" daughter of Huang Rong and Guo Jing. But here, portrayed by Yang Mi, she's probably just dim in the head or a eight-year-old trapped in a sixteen-year-old's body (ie. annoying as hell).
Those above people go through the process of preaching at Yang Guo until he and Xiaolongnu decides to just do their own thing and save China from Mongolia (I think...it's been awhile and I forgot if the aggressors were the Jins or the Mongolians), thereby allowing Yang Guo to redeem his family's honor or some crap (this is after his father, Yang Kang, lost it in Legend of the Condor Heroes).
Pros and Cons
Pro: That's So Punk
I can get behind the general characterization Jin Yong was trying to go for when he wrote the source material. Yang Guo is supposed to be an unconventional hero that does things his way regardless of what other people thinks about him or his romance with his sifu, Xiaolongnu. That's very punk and I like that spirit.
Con: Age Reversed
That said, I think they should have cast accordingly. Part of why Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu's romance is unconventional is because she's his teacher and has roughly a 10-year age gap between them with her being older (he calls her his "aunt"). In real life, there's a 10-year age gap between Huang Xiaoming and Liu Yifei with him being older.
While I'm not a great judge of Asian actors and their ages (not our fault that we age so well!), Huang Xiaoming looks too old (even for an Asian) to be acting like a teenager, especially next to actual teenager (at the time) Liu Yifei.
Mid-20s Huang Xiaoming acting like a teenager acting like a little smarmy-ass kid makes me want to kick him in the face.
Con: Dubbing
Obviously, dubbing is bad. But it's made worse in dramas where the storyline requires characters to be carefree or fun-having. The dubbing makes it so forced. And obviously, any time there's a "young" woman on screen, her voice is pitched annoyingly high.
Apparently, Huang Xiaoming dubbed himself. Therefore, it's a double whammy of him just being terrible at portraying someone "young" and him also not sounding young enough.
Neutral: Fight choreography
Sometimes, the fight choreography is pretty good. Liu Yifei has dance training and it shows because she poses really well.
When Xiaolongnu fights with Yang Guo, their styles are pleasing to the eyeballs.
Other times, the fight choreography rely too much on ugly CGI, slow motion, and close ups.
Pro: General story
Like the punk characters, the general story (minus the romance) is pretty good. It's about a guy that has to deal with a lot of baggage because of the poor life decisions his father made. Despite life and society bringing him down, he manages to show them that he's awesome. That's a really great story/message.
Con: CGI
Just...why?
So in general, I would say this drama is pretty bad. The source material is slightly better, but only because there's no such thing as miscasting and horrible dubbing when you're reading a book. It is better than Romance of the Condor Heroes, which focuses too much on the romance of the ROCH plot and enough on the the punk aspects. But it doesn't make me want to watch the ROCH 2019 remake.
We settled for this version of the drama after Romance of the Condor Heroes was just too grating on our eyeballs, eardrums, and brains. In general, I don't like the story of ROCH (people fall in love, are apart because they're stupidly self-sacrificing for no good reason/misunderstandings) so I don't think there could be a good version for me. That said, this version was at least a lot less offensive than Romance of the Condor Heroes.
Cast and Characters and Plot
Main characters and icky couple Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu are played by Huang Xiaoming (The Guillotines) and Liu Yifei (Chinese Paladin) respectively.
Huang Xiaoming is married to Angelababy in real life. It's irrational, but that makes me dislike him by association and I don't even dislike Angelababy for any real reason.
Not at the same wedding.
People seem very fond of this paring but it's just icky to me. There's around a 10-year age gap between the couple and, when they met, Xiaolongnu was supposed to be Yang Guo's teacher and caretaker since he was around nine or ten years old. People go, "but it's so romantic how they buck convention and fall in love". Realistically, if their genders and roles were reversed, people would call Yang Guo a big old pedophile that took advantage of Xiaolongnu. But because Xiaolongnu is female and she plays the teacher that's hot for her student, it's romantic. Alrighty, then!
The long list of characters that try to keep Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu apart are:
From left: Huang Rong, Guo Fu, and Guo Jing.
Huang Rong and Guo Jing played by Kong Lin and Wang Luoyong respectively. Huang Rong and Guo Jing used to be the cool kids in town in Legend of the Condor Hero. But several years later after popping out a kid or two, they've become old fuddy-duddies that want everyone to go by convention. When tasked with caring for annoying pre-teen Yang Guo, they mess up hardcore and ships him off to olden-time boarding school.
Guo Fu (played by Chen Zihan - Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber (2003), Swords of Legends, Romance of the Condor Heroes), the annoying daughter of Huang Rong and Guo Jing. She's annoying and I wanted to reach through the screen and slap her around. But honestly, that's how she's written as a character and therefore actually portrayed correctly.
Li Mochou (played by Jessey Meng), the cooler disciple of the Jade Maiden Sect and Xiaolongnu's martial sister. Though I guess she didn't really try to keep them apart as just give them a hard time because she's cooler and better than them. I also like her because she's my hair twin.
And other people. I got tired of talking about these damn people.
The only character trying to get the two main couple together is Guo Xiang (played by Yang Mi - 3310, Swords of Legends, Chinese Paladin 3), the "nicer" daughter of Huang Rong and Guo Jing. But here, portrayed by Yang Mi, she's probably just dim in the head or a eight-year-old trapped in a sixteen-year-old's body (ie. annoying as hell).
Those above people go through the process of preaching at Yang Guo until he and Xiaolongnu decides to just do their own thing and save China from Mongolia (I think...it's been awhile and I forgot if the aggressors were the Jins or the Mongolians), thereby allowing Yang Guo to redeem his family's honor or some crap (this is after his father, Yang Kang, lost it in Legend of the Condor Heroes).
Pros and Cons
Pro: That's So Punk
I can get behind the general characterization Jin Yong was trying to go for when he wrote the source material. Yang Guo is supposed to be an unconventional hero that does things his way regardless of what other people thinks about him or his romance with his sifu, Xiaolongnu. That's very punk and I like that spirit.
Con: Age Reversed
That said, I think they should have cast accordingly. Part of why Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu's romance is unconventional is because she's his teacher and has roughly a 10-year age gap between them with her being older (he calls her his "aunt"). In real life, there's a 10-year age gap between Huang Xiaoming and Liu Yifei with him being older.
While I'm not a great judge of Asian actors and their ages (not our fault that we age so well!), Huang Xiaoming looks too old (even for an Asian) to be acting like a teenager, especially next to actual teenager (at the time) Liu Yifei.
Mid-20s Huang Xiaoming acting like a teenager acting like a little smarmy-ass kid makes me want to kick him in the face.
Con: Dubbing
Obviously, dubbing is bad. But it's made worse in dramas where the storyline requires characters to be carefree or fun-having. The dubbing makes it so forced. And obviously, any time there's a "young" woman on screen, her voice is pitched annoyingly high.
Apparently, Huang Xiaoming dubbed himself. Therefore, it's a double whammy of him just being terrible at portraying someone "young" and him also not sounding young enough.
Neutral: Fight choreography
Sometimes, the fight choreography is pretty good. Liu Yifei has dance training and it shows because she poses really well.
When Xiaolongnu fights with Yang Guo, their styles are pleasing to the eyeballs.
Other times, the fight choreography rely too much on ugly CGI, slow motion, and close ups.
Pro: General story
Like the punk characters, the general story (minus the romance) is pretty good. It's about a guy that has to deal with a lot of baggage because of the poor life decisions his father made. Despite life and society bringing him down, he manages to show them that he's awesome. That's a really great story/message.
Con: CGI
Just...why?
So in general, I would say this drama is pretty bad. The source material is slightly better, but only because there's no such thing as miscasting and horrible dubbing when you're reading a book. It is better than Romance of the Condor Heroes, which focuses too much on the romance of the ROCH plot and enough on the the punk aspects. But it doesn't make me want to watch the ROCH 2019 remake.