wuxia: Patriotic Knights
I have started watching(10 eps in) Patriotic Knights, a wuxia about Chen Long and Wallace Chung with swords.
Err...
About a young man named Jin Zhu Liu who is sent by his father(he and his parents have lived alone on an island for 20 years) to pay his respects to a woman his father used to know, and then meet a man named Li for a duel. Because of his tattered clothes and socially inept behavior, people think he's a vagrant and an idiot(actually, I'm not sure if he's a genius good at playing the idiot, or an idiot with flashes of genius...could be both.) Along the way he meets Sho Hong Ying, the younger sister of a villain who likes to sneak out and crossdress and thwart her brother's evil plans. He also meets Zhong Yan Yan and Qin, disciples of heroes, and through them, starts getting involved in the good guy/bad guy things. This also means he gets to keep running into Hong Ying, of which he highly approves.
The series is the sequel to Lofty Waters, Verdant Bow, but as I understand it, both this and the recent TVB series changed the ending of that one. It's also in the same series of Seven Swordsmen. So far at least, though, you don't have to know squat about either to follow along(I did, however, have a fangirl moment when I realized that Zhu Liu's sword was the 2 ended sword from Seven Swordsmen)
Our hero, Zhu Liu:
He of amazing but seemingly random kung fu skills, tattered clothes and odd behavior. Has an amazing sniffer that lets him follow girls to town through dozens of miles and smell out explosives in a crowded room. He's also a very sneaky matchmaker. He's also the only one not fooled for a second by Hong Ying's crossdressing. Because of her smell.
His lady love, Hong Ying:
The younger sister of one of the villains. Dresses as a boy and sneaks out to thwart his evil plans. Unfortunately, once people learn who she is, they tend to assume it's a trick and that she's up to no good. Except Zhu Liu, of course. Though his standing up for her tends to make them think HE'S up to no good. She is also currently engaged to another villain. Doesn't know it yet, though. I'm sure much angst will come of this.
As you can see, her attempts at convincing crossdressing are on a par with those of most wuxia heroines:
(actually, you can't tell as well...but seriously...it's on a par with being convinced by Eva Huang or Fan Bing Bing. Crystal Liu still wins the "most absurd and feminine attempt at crossdressing" award, though)
Here is Zhu Liu 2 seconds from seeing her face for the first time. As you can see, he's already half-smitten:
Here's Yan Yan, one of Zhu Liu's friends:
Her grandmother was the One True Love of the leader of the Beggar Band, but they weren't able to marry because of parental interference. He never stopped loving her, though, and eventually adopted Yan Yan. She has a hopeless crush on Zhu Liu. Sadly, he already had "Property of Hong Ying" written on his forehead by then and he treats her like a little sister...including flat out saying "you...you should be my sister" when she asks if they're friends. That and his tendency to rub her head like she was a kitten means it's a hopeless cause. I'd feel sorry for her, were it not for...
Li Nan Xing:
The man Zhu Liu will soon fight, a rather serious and scholarly man currently ensuring he doesn't have to take over an evil sect. He and Yan Yan will soon meet and get over their respective crushes on the other two. Also, after a no doubt long fight filled with manly wuxia stares, he and Zhu Liu will become BFF and sworn brothers. It is the wuxia way.
See?
Sadly, I have no pictures of Qin, who I love. He's a former vagrant and now a disciple of wudang. He and Zhu Liu become friends when Zhu Liu saves him from villains who have drugged him so they can masquerade as him and kill a reknown hero(the boys stop them, of course.) He is hopelessly(and mutually) in love with Chang, the daughter of the same villain who drugged him. Chang also has an Evil Suitor who I'm sure shall be trouble later.
In case you can't tell, there are a number of villains in this series. This can be annoying when they're sitting around plotting, but is really fun when things like almost everyone of them attacking a wedding feast in one way or another happens.
2of them(read: the only ones I have pictures of)
ShiSan Niang
Lover of Hong Ying's brother, wears the pants in that relationship. Also (secretly) living with one of his lieutenants. Wears the pants in that relationship, too. Is perfectly willing to sleep with other villains to steal from them. A very busy and very devious lady who's very good with her whip.
He DaNiang
Evil poison spider lady. I think it's a wuxia rule that the female leaders of evil poison sects have "He" as their surname. Is the principle character behind the "let's get Nan Xing to lead our evil sect" plot.
Moving on from the villains, here's Zhu Liu's father, Jin Shi Yi
He and Li Sheng Nan(who is either Nan Xing's mother or his aunt...I'm not 100% sure which) were lovers.
Apparently they were the kind of lovers who like to try to kill each other, because when she was dying, she made him promise to send his son to fight Nan Xing in 20 years, to finally settle the matter of which of them is better. Wuxia lovers are like that.
Of course, before she died, there was an amazingly dramatic rescue that involved falling off cliffs, long, long stares and creating whirlwinds by jumping in the air and spinning. And horseback riding.
Random favorite bits so far:
*The fact that Zhu Liu knew Hong Ying was a woman because she smelled like his mother. He also believes that "as beautiful as my mother"(who is, indeed, very attractive) is the highest compliment he can give a girl.
*And let's not forget his following her scent to town...
*Because he doesn't know what a brothel is, when Hong Ying tells him that he can find beautiful women at brothels, he thinks that means she lives there. Once he shakes off all the girls in the brothel, he goes into every single room in the place and everytime he's all "What kind of a place is this?" It shows his face EVERY TIME. Chen Long has great facial expressions, let me tell you.
*After Hong Jing attempts to warn Jiang, the hero whose daughter's wedding get getting interupted by villains, Qin asks what kind of man would ever want to marry her, and Zhu Liu (who has just been complaining about Hong Ying being unreasonable and always running off-because she tries to keep her extracurricular activities secret from her brother) immediately goes "ME! As long as she agrees, I will marry her!" And then sat back with a "what the heck did I just say?" expression on his face. This was immediately followed by Qin silently laughing his head off.
*Immediately after this, Yan Yan asked Qin for advice on how to win Zhu Liu over. That resulted in a quickly suppressed "run away! run away!" reflex.
*In his travels, Zhu Liu found a giant bell with the second of of a kung fu manual called the Book of Poisons inscribed on the inside. Knowing this was an evil kung fu, he sent the bell to the bottom of a lake, saying that no one would ever find it there. He does not know that his father was forced to study the first half 20 years ago to save his life, and must now study the second half within 6 months, or the resulting poisons will kill him.
*It's ok, though. A flunky of Hong Ying's brother saw him do it, so 5 minutes later HE had the bell, and had his flunkies working at deciphering the code.
I shall now watch an ep or two before bed.