Return of the Condor Heroes: Lengthy Meta part I
Do you know what is awesome? Having a five hour flight and spending most of it marathonning Return of the Condor Heroes which got good sometime between eps 4-6 and amazing after that. You know what is even better? I ended up sitting next to an elderly Chinese woman and when she saw what I was watching she gave a HUGE doubletake, and then took out her glasses and ended up watching with me (it had Chinese subs) and since the story is so famous, she’d have automatic reactions to when certain characters first appeared, and when the lovers reunited or what not, and disapproving noises etc etc. It was awesome.
I am so incredibly in love with Return of the Condor Heroes (2006). You can tell of the fact because I have finished episode 20 (and I only started it what, Thursday?). And you can tell because it’s the SOLE thing I am watching right now. No other dramas, no other movies, no other shows, nothing.
It’s interesting, because it’s a very different kind of love that I normally get. While I care for the characters, it’s not an instinctive, deeply emotional reaction bond to them that I get in something like Tree of Heaven or My Girl or Mars. I think the difference is because ROCH is a heroic fantasy so the connection is by definition less intimate. But my crazy love for it stems from the fact that it’s an ur-story, really.
If I were younger and even more obsessive than I am now, half my year would be eaten by this: it has every little thing one could want: heroic fights and inglorious defeats. Fantastical worlds, beautiful women (Crystal Liu is probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen) and incredibly dashing men (Yang Guo is, to quote seven-trees ‘awesome awesome awesome’), gorgeous scenery, complicated plots, betrayals and tangled family.
It has everything, it’s bursting at the seams with the world of perfect heroic fantasy, and it keeps striking all these mythic themes. The world of ROCH is a grim/soaring fairytale, half frightening, half rapture
In a way it’s a world of deceptive appearances, of mirrors: you never know what villains or horrors await you. Beautiful flowers can cause slow agonizing death and the kind master of an idyllic valley can turn out to be a heartless monster. Yet a woman in an ugly mask can be kind or a hideous old crone mean salvation. Monks are cruel and vain and driven by passions (they torture the kid Yang Guo, one of them rapes XL) and someone who appears a devil may care possesses the deepest and truest love in the world or someone who seems a lunatic be quite wise. And of course YG finds out that it’s the heroes Huang Rong and her husband that are responsible for the death of his father, and they were someone he regarded as family and fought to the death to protect.
I wonder if this goes with the theme of the world as a distraction/illusion for Yang Guo and XL. They lived in state of perfect happiness/innocence/harmony in their (literal) cave, and it’s the intrusion of the ‘world’ that started the trouble (the monk and his violation of XL) and it’s once they came down from the mountain that all their miseries, separations and angst started. Their purity cannot exist in the normal world because they are unequipped for it. It’s Yang Guo liking for outside world and XL’s wanting him t have it that brings one of their angsty break-ups (as neither realizes that the other would be totally fine in the cave if they could only have the lover). I wonder if the whole drive of the story will be the ultimate renunciation of the world and its confusions?
Because they are both incredibly ill-equipped for the outside. XL has not stepped foot outside the cave until she and YG came down, and while YG had a much more rough and tumble life, he’s been living in the cave since he was 13. Add to it the fact that he is by nature incredibly straightforward, and you have a problem.
I keep thinking of the scene where they admit their love to the crowd which is horrified, as she is his Master and he is her Apprentice and it is totally forbidden. And what strikes me about that scene is that neither of them can comprehend the reaction. It’s a purely societal one, of course, and since they grew up by themselves, they do not have it. Huang Rong tries to explain as she does to a small child (later) but even then XL cannot understand. Her view is simple: I love him, he loves me, why can’t we be married just because I taught him martial arts? In fact, the only reason she breaks up with YG and leaves is because Huang Rong succeeds in explaining that if they stay, Yang Guo would be harmed and everyone would look down on him. They are outside society’s rules and rules do not work for them.
I love Yang Guo. I really really adore him. When he is not being focused on kicking his opponent into oblivion or searching for XL, he is actually pretty laid back, a bit of a flirt, and sort of a goof-ball. Heh. But I do think that in part that is a mask he uses to hide a lot of his true thoughts and issues (no wonder Huang Rong, who might be the smartest character in the story, could see through it).
I think a huge part of the reason he puts up this façade is the result of his completely crazy, wandering, no-one-cares upbringing. Because it’s clear he does have a lot of issues about it (I really wish the first three eps explained everything better. As it is, we learn most pertinent stuff through flashback much later. I know it’s a famous novel so it’s not an issue for its intended audience but it is for a novice like me). He had a father who was killed and a mother who wanted to make him promise on her deathbed that he won’t seek vengeance but he refused (btw, how awesome is it that the protagonist of this is the villain’s from the previous book’s son?) He literally wandered around with no one to take care of him for who knows how long (and he was still a kid). Condor heroes took him in but it seems he had a miserable time of it, because Huang Rong didn’t want to teach him marital arts (because of his father) and because Huang Rong and Guo Jing’s spoiled daughter made his life a misery, and then Guo Jing dumped him at the monks who were horrible to him and mistreated him.
No wonder he gloms onto XL like a limpet: she is the first person who has, long term, cared for him. In fact, I think in some ways, for XL having YG’s devotion is like being an owner of a huge, powerful puppy who could totally mangle someone who dares to look funny at his owner.
He is very very affectionate by nature it seems, and there has never been much outlet for it, except XL. (Dude, is this a wuxia version of Tree of Heaven? :D)
Actually one of the things I find most interesting about the story is not even the love story (though I love it) but the interplay of family. Because of lack of care, YG seems to be remarkably tolerant/accepting of anyone who cares for him. His ‘adoptive father’ (in reality a villain gone crazy who pops up occasionally to teach him some random martial arts) is a complete lunatic who leaves him for huge swathes of time but he is devoted. And then there are Guo Jing and Huang Rong.
Yang Guo has deep issues/resentment over their treatment of him, because of the fact that HR didn’t teach him and GJ dumped him at the monks’, but he also cares for them deeply as it’s the most family he has outside of XL. I really love the scene where he shows up at the hero tournament for the reunion and GJ is so glad to see him and there is this huge confrontation with the monks where YG’s bitterness at the monks finally spills over. (He is a very shrewd judge of character btw. I love it when the head monk is trying to save face and publicly offers YG his sword to kill him in expiation and YG points out it’s an empty gesture because if the monk really felt sorry he would have done so in private).
And Huang Rong tells him she knows he hates her and he says that it’s different, as despite everything, she did teach him to read and write, and the monks did nothing, just mistreat him. But the thing is, he wants a family. I love the scene with Huang Rong later (btw, I love her. She is clever and heroic and totally rules her husband. This is a very feminist story in a lot of ways, but about that later). Where she apologizes and tells him he is family etc etc and he sort of breaks down. He loves being accepted. And of course he almost gets killed trying to protect pregnant Huang Rong from a baddie, he begs the bad guy to not harm her (what he gets in thanks is the spoiled daughter picking up unconscious HR and going away ditching him there. Gosh, I hate the spoiled brat. It’s totally hilarious how she is doing everything to get attention of YG because he IS gorgeous, but his visceral reaction to her is to remember her ordering him badly beaten when they were small kids. Be kind to stray children, they may grow into heroic hunks?)
And yet a part of him is mistrustful and never easy with anyone but XL. He finds out that its GJ and HR that killed his father and he joins together with the Mongolian defense minister (Mongols are invading) to kill GJ (he is very simple in some ways. He tells Minister he is not helping invasion, he just wants to off GJ, but killing a great hero? Is certainly helping invasion). And the thing is? Of course he wants to avenge his Dad. But another reason he turns is because he has never truly accepted they care for him, they left him at the battlefield after he fought almost to death to protect HR (he doesn’t know it’s just the spoiled brat daughter) and they had come between him and XL and caused him to lose her. It’s a lashing out reaction.
Did I mention he rescued an abused horse and now it’s his awesome steed? Yeah.
Btw, before I go onto the love story part, I want to talk about the spoiled daughter and also feminism in the drama (yeah, they are somewhat connected).
I find it so real that HR’s daughter will be so spoiled. Unlike YG who went to the school of hard knocks, she is a daughter of two well-off, celebrated heroes. Only child actually. And they are kind parents, they indulge her, etc. She has never in her spoiled, pampered little life not have what she wanted, what she even thought she wanted. Which is why she fixates on YG I think. Yeah, he is jaw-droppingly gorgeous, but it’s also that he treats her as if she is a wall. If he was polite to a wall, that is (and also, how true to bullying/bullied: he flashes back to her treatment of him when he sees her the first few times, but she doesn’t even remember).
Re: feminism. This is very feminist, I think. Yeah, there is a spoiled girl and one of the villains (Mochou Li) is female, but there are male cowards and male villains and the story is full of strong capable women and men who aren’t afraid of that. YG is in love with XL who is his master and is as strong as he is, there is Huang Rong, clearly the boss of the family, there is the woman in the mask who saves YG, there is the daughter of the Master of Heartless Vale (MHV) who helps the lovers (isn’t it so like a myth: an ogre’s stronghold but a kind guide?) not just because YG is hot but because she is touched by the lovers’ bond.
I am so incredibly in love with Return of the Condor Heroes (2006). You can tell of the fact because I have finished episode 20 (and I only started it what, Thursday?). And you can tell because it’s the SOLE thing I am watching right now. No other dramas, no other movies, no other shows, nothing.
It’s interesting, because it’s a very different kind of love that I normally get. While I care for the characters, it’s not an instinctive, deeply emotional reaction bond to them that I get in something like Tree of Heaven or My Girl or Mars. I think the difference is because ROCH is a heroic fantasy so the connection is by definition less intimate. But my crazy love for it stems from the fact that it’s an ur-story, really.
If I were younger and even more obsessive than I am now, half my year would be eaten by this: it has every little thing one could want: heroic fights and inglorious defeats. Fantastical worlds, beautiful women (Crystal Liu is probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen) and incredibly dashing men (Yang Guo is, to quote seven-trees ‘awesome awesome awesome’), gorgeous scenery, complicated plots, betrayals and tangled family.
It has everything, it’s bursting at the seams with the world of perfect heroic fantasy, and it keeps striking all these mythic themes. The world of ROCH is a grim/soaring fairytale, half frightening, half rapture
In a way it’s a world of deceptive appearances, of mirrors: you never know what villains or horrors await you. Beautiful flowers can cause slow agonizing death and the kind master of an idyllic valley can turn out to be a heartless monster. Yet a woman in an ugly mask can be kind or a hideous old crone mean salvation. Monks are cruel and vain and driven by passions (they torture the kid Yang Guo, one of them rapes XL) and someone who appears a devil may care possesses the deepest and truest love in the world or someone who seems a lunatic be quite wise. And of course YG finds out that it’s the heroes Huang Rong and her husband that are responsible for the death of his father, and they were someone he regarded as family and fought to the death to protect.
I wonder if this goes with the theme of the world as a distraction/illusion for Yang Guo and XL. They lived in state of perfect happiness/innocence/harmony in their (literal) cave, and it’s the intrusion of the ‘world’ that started the trouble (the monk and his violation of XL) and it’s once they came down from the mountain that all their miseries, separations and angst started. Their purity cannot exist in the normal world because they are unequipped for it. It’s Yang Guo liking for outside world and XL’s wanting him t have it that brings one of their angsty break-ups (as neither realizes that the other would be totally fine in the cave if they could only have the lover). I wonder if the whole drive of the story will be the ultimate renunciation of the world and its confusions?
Because they are both incredibly ill-equipped for the outside. XL has not stepped foot outside the cave until she and YG came down, and while YG had a much more rough and tumble life, he’s been living in the cave since he was 13. Add to it the fact that he is by nature incredibly straightforward, and you have a problem.
I keep thinking of the scene where they admit their love to the crowd which is horrified, as she is his Master and he is her Apprentice and it is totally forbidden. And what strikes me about that scene is that neither of them can comprehend the reaction. It’s a purely societal one, of course, and since they grew up by themselves, they do not have it. Huang Rong tries to explain as she does to a small child (later) but even then XL cannot understand. Her view is simple: I love him, he loves me, why can’t we be married just because I taught him martial arts? In fact, the only reason she breaks up with YG and leaves is because Huang Rong succeeds in explaining that if they stay, Yang Guo would be harmed and everyone would look down on him. They are outside society’s rules and rules do not work for them.
I love Yang Guo. I really really adore him. When he is not being focused on kicking his opponent into oblivion or searching for XL, he is actually pretty laid back, a bit of a flirt, and sort of a goof-ball. Heh. But I do think that in part that is a mask he uses to hide a lot of his true thoughts and issues (no wonder Huang Rong, who might be the smartest character in the story, could see through it).
I think a huge part of the reason he puts up this façade is the result of his completely crazy, wandering, no-one-cares upbringing. Because it’s clear he does have a lot of issues about it (I really wish the first three eps explained everything better. As it is, we learn most pertinent stuff through flashback much later. I know it’s a famous novel so it’s not an issue for its intended audience but it is for a novice like me). He had a father who was killed and a mother who wanted to make him promise on her deathbed that he won’t seek vengeance but he refused (btw, how awesome is it that the protagonist of this is the villain’s from the previous book’s son?) He literally wandered around with no one to take care of him for who knows how long (and he was still a kid). Condor heroes took him in but it seems he had a miserable time of it, because Huang Rong didn’t want to teach him marital arts (because of his father) and because Huang Rong and Guo Jing’s spoiled daughter made his life a misery, and then Guo Jing dumped him at the monks who were horrible to him and mistreated him.
No wonder he gloms onto XL like a limpet: she is the first person who has, long term, cared for him. In fact, I think in some ways, for XL having YG’s devotion is like being an owner of a huge, powerful puppy who could totally mangle someone who dares to look funny at his owner.
He is very very affectionate by nature it seems, and there has never been much outlet for it, except XL. (Dude, is this a wuxia version of Tree of Heaven? :D)
Actually one of the things I find most interesting about the story is not even the love story (though I love it) but the interplay of family. Because of lack of care, YG seems to be remarkably tolerant/accepting of anyone who cares for him. His ‘adoptive father’ (in reality a villain gone crazy who pops up occasionally to teach him some random martial arts) is a complete lunatic who leaves him for huge swathes of time but he is devoted. And then there are Guo Jing and Huang Rong.
Yang Guo has deep issues/resentment over their treatment of him, because of the fact that HR didn’t teach him and GJ dumped him at the monks’, but he also cares for them deeply as it’s the most family he has outside of XL. I really love the scene where he shows up at the hero tournament for the reunion and GJ is so glad to see him and there is this huge confrontation with the monks where YG’s bitterness at the monks finally spills over. (He is a very shrewd judge of character btw. I love it when the head monk is trying to save face and publicly offers YG his sword to kill him in expiation and YG points out it’s an empty gesture because if the monk really felt sorry he would have done so in private).
And Huang Rong tells him she knows he hates her and he says that it’s different, as despite everything, she did teach him to read and write, and the monks did nothing, just mistreat him. But the thing is, he wants a family. I love the scene with Huang Rong later (btw, I love her. She is clever and heroic and totally rules her husband. This is a very feminist story in a lot of ways, but about that later). Where she apologizes and tells him he is family etc etc and he sort of breaks down. He loves being accepted. And of course he almost gets killed trying to protect pregnant Huang Rong from a baddie, he begs the bad guy to not harm her (what he gets in thanks is the spoiled daughter picking up unconscious HR and going away ditching him there. Gosh, I hate the spoiled brat. It’s totally hilarious how she is doing everything to get attention of YG because he IS gorgeous, but his visceral reaction to her is to remember her ordering him badly beaten when they were small kids. Be kind to stray children, they may grow into heroic hunks?)
And yet a part of him is mistrustful and never easy with anyone but XL. He finds out that its GJ and HR that killed his father and he joins together with the Mongolian defense minister (Mongols are invading) to kill GJ (he is very simple in some ways. He tells Minister he is not helping invasion, he just wants to off GJ, but killing a great hero? Is certainly helping invasion). And the thing is? Of course he wants to avenge his Dad. But another reason he turns is because he has never truly accepted they care for him, they left him at the battlefield after he fought almost to death to protect HR (he doesn’t know it’s just the spoiled brat daughter) and they had come between him and XL and caused him to lose her. It’s a lashing out reaction.
Did I mention he rescued an abused horse and now it’s his awesome steed? Yeah.
Btw, before I go onto the love story part, I want to talk about the spoiled daughter and also feminism in the drama (yeah, they are somewhat connected).
I find it so real that HR’s daughter will be so spoiled. Unlike YG who went to the school of hard knocks, she is a daughter of two well-off, celebrated heroes. Only child actually. And they are kind parents, they indulge her, etc. She has never in her spoiled, pampered little life not have what she wanted, what she even thought she wanted. Which is why she fixates on YG I think. Yeah, he is jaw-droppingly gorgeous, but it’s also that he treats her as if she is a wall. If he was polite to a wall, that is (and also, how true to bullying/bullied: he flashes back to her treatment of him when he sees her the first few times, but she doesn’t even remember).
Re: feminism. This is very feminist, I think. Yeah, there is a spoiled girl and one of the villains (Mochou Li) is female, but there are male cowards and male villains and the story is full of strong capable women and men who aren’t afraid of that. YG is in love with XL who is his master and is as strong as he is, there is Huang Rong, clearly the boss of the family, there is the woman in the mask who saves YG, there is the daughter of the Master of Heartless Vale (MHV) who helps the lovers (isn’t it so like a myth: an ogre’s stronghold but a kind guide?) not just because YG is hot but because she is touched by the lovers’ bond.