Romance of the Red Dust, ep. 01-05

[oyceter]

(aka, Technicolor Female Assassin Squad!)

I was going to post screencaps, because this drama is absolutely gorgeous (except when it has plastic horses flying through the air or random black spandex screens), but I forgot and returned the Netflix DVD already.

But! shewhohashope has pictures in her post on eps. 1-3

Comments

[tonapah]

Is this dubbed or subtitled? This looks great, but dubbing drives me insane.

[oyceter]

Subtitled!

[tonapah]

Yay! I must add this to my queue.

[rydra_wong]

That was my not-so-subtle hint to people to rent it and watch it and cackle with glee.

I'm afraid I'm now vowing never to watch it, because I don't think it could possibly live up to the glory of these recaps.

[oyceter]

See, but the best thing is, all the recaps so far haven't even covered everything!

[meganbmoore]

IT CAN!!! I HAVE SEEN IT ALL!!! IT CAN!!!

(And they haven't even made it to the best part yet.)

[coffeeandink]

Oh, it can. I swear it can.

[meganbmoore]

Man...I love the way these posts are just feeding each other. THEY WILL NEVER STOP!!!

"I should probably post something about gender, as the series starts out interesting by having the woman as the stone-cold assassin and the man as the dumb ingenue, but unfortunately, the series seems to be intent on having Hong Fu stand aside while the men in her life enact stupid plans characterized by black spandex screens and the women fight each other over men."

Yeah, I had this problem too. It started out an almost complete gender reversal, and there are several subjects it handles a lot more frankly than most wuxia does, but by the end, it really was just Hong Fu in the Damsel in Distress role. I do think it really tried, but the wuxia format and tradition seems to pretty much demand that wuxia ultimately be the hero's coming of age story. Still, it has lots of good things, and some amazing crack.

[rachelmanija]

Maybe wuxia movies can be more about the heroine than TV series? I've seen several which are really about the woman.

[meganbmoore]

Yeah, the movies tend to do better that way. I think it's because the series are based on the famous legends and more recent novels, and those tend to be adventure stories with romances. There tend to be a lot of good female characters and strong ones, but ultimately, it's about the guy's journey. (Just like shounen manga

[marzipan_pig]

Man...I love the way these posts are just feeding each other. THEY WILL NEVER STOP!!!

Oh I know, I've read 3 of these and each of them is better than the other two, no matter which one I am reading. Who else has seen this, can I read theirs too?

I totally must watch this one myself, and then I CAN POST TOO!!11!!!@#

[rachelmanija]

One might think one would get tired of reading accounts of this, but no! In fact, it gets funnier every time!

We all forgot to mention that there was a councilor who knelt outside all night to prove his sincerity to the emerperor, froze solid, and toppled over with a CLUNK.

Also, Li Jing threatened a rabbit with a sharp stick while a treacly C-pop ballad played.

[oyceter]

OMG I cannot believe we forgot the frozen councilor!

[meganbmoore]

I am amazed that no one came to the same conclusion as I did at one point, which was that Li Jing just HAD to be in love with Simpleton, the way he was talking to him(Her? I forget...)

Actually, I think that's the scene where I started liking the series instead of just being entertained enough by it to keep watching.

[oyceter]

Hi, thanks! I hope it's available in the UK too, since more people need to watch this!