绝代双骄
I've been watching 绝代双骄 (Juedai Shuangjiao) to make me feel like a kid again and to amuse myself. So far it's been pretty good. There were some lulls where they were at some dude's palace for about a million years and no one did anything but angst over their respective love triangles but thank God we've gone away from that for a little while. I like moody angst over lost love to a degree but not all the time and not weird montages of people staring into space longingly.
That's more the fault of the show directors than anything else. I'm sure the book is less cheesy although I can't read Chinese that well so it'd take me a few years to get through it.
Juedai Shuangjiao or The Legendary Twins according to wikipedia is about a man who falls in love with the servant of an evil kungfu sect. They try and run away but are hunted down and killed. The leader of the sect is a bitter bitter lady who was spurned by the man's sworn brother. She takes his twin children and plots to have them kill each other out of revenge t omake her ex miserable. The twins are raised apart from each other and bred to one day seek each other out and kill each other.
Yeah. I know. She is one crazy bitch. And you'll know how fucking crazy if you watch the show.
I'd forgotten how hilarious some of the directing in these shows are. They were done in the late 90s so the special affects aren't great and the weird camera angles and staging makes me laugh out loud. Like how if you're being followed the person tailing you will be maybe a few yards away with their head poking out of a bush but they'll never know you were there. Or you'll just stand blatantly behind them but they'll only go, "hmmm... I feel like I'm being followed." Or whenever someone is sad they start getting crazy weepy or they'll stare quiveringly at the camera with their sad wet eyes and pine away for eons.
I'd also forgotten how "I like you" meant "I love you" in these shows. It's like the 8th grade all over again. "I like you but I don't like like you." Everything is so chaste and polite. A woman traveling with a man she wasn't married to could be misconstrued as her being a total whore. A guy could shame himself just as much as a girl for having sex with random people. And if two people kissed they were totally going to have sex. Or held hands. Hand holding even more so. If you held someone's hand you were pretty much asking them to marry you.
I can't believe that as a kid I didn't start panicking whenever a boy touched me thinking, "omg we're having sex he's going to make me pregnant." Because in these shows essentially what happens is they kiss and then they fall down and then it cuts to the next day when they're in their underclothes (pretty much normal fall clothes for us) and are either shocked by their conduct or snuggling sweetly. It's sort of sweet if you think about it now since movies are so chock full of sex and ass and tatas and female exploitation and there's hardly a male gaze to the camera at all. Mostly close-ups of the face.
Also fart jokes. And jokes about pooping. One character in particular, just about threatens or actually pees on someone's face every other episode. Or pees in something and makes someone else drink it. He's awful. But the funniest thing about this show.
I'd be curious to see what modern day interpretations are like. Will there be more ass? More sex? More objectifying and better production value? Maybe I'll look into it.
That's more the fault of the show directors than anything else. I'm sure the book is less cheesy although I can't read Chinese that well so it'd take me a few years to get through it.
Juedai Shuangjiao or The Legendary Twins according to wikipedia is about a man who falls in love with the servant of an evil kungfu sect. They try and run away but are hunted down and killed. The leader of the sect is a bitter bitter lady who was spurned by the man's sworn brother. She takes his twin children and plots to have them kill each other out of revenge t omake her ex miserable. The twins are raised apart from each other and bred to one day seek each other out and kill each other.
Yeah. I know. She is one crazy bitch. And you'll know how fucking crazy if you watch the show.
I'd forgotten how hilarious some of the directing in these shows are. They were done in the late 90s so the special affects aren't great and the weird camera angles and staging makes me laugh out loud. Like how if you're being followed the person tailing you will be maybe a few yards away with their head poking out of a bush but they'll never know you were there. Or you'll just stand blatantly behind them but they'll only go, "hmmm... I feel like I'm being followed." Or whenever someone is sad they start getting crazy weepy or they'll stare quiveringly at the camera with their sad wet eyes and pine away for eons.
I'd also forgotten how "I like you" meant "I love you" in these shows. It's like the 8th grade all over again. "I like you but I don't like like you." Everything is so chaste and polite. A woman traveling with a man she wasn't married to could be misconstrued as her being a total whore. A guy could shame himself just as much as a girl for having sex with random people. And if two people kissed they were totally going to have sex. Or held hands. Hand holding even more so. If you held someone's hand you were pretty much asking them to marry you.
I can't believe that as a kid I didn't start panicking whenever a boy touched me thinking, "omg we're having sex he's going to make me pregnant." Because in these shows essentially what happens is they kiss and then they fall down and then it cuts to the next day when they're in their underclothes (pretty much normal fall clothes for us) and are either shocked by their conduct or snuggling sweetly. It's sort of sweet if you think about it now since movies are so chock full of sex and ass and tatas and female exploitation and there's hardly a male gaze to the camera at all. Mostly close-ups of the face.
Also fart jokes. And jokes about pooping. One character in particular, just about threatens or actually pees on someone's face every other episode. Or pees in something and makes someone else drink it. He's awful. But the funniest thing about this show.
I'd be curious to see what modern day interpretations are like. Will there be more ass? More sex? More objectifying and better production value? Maybe I'll look into it.