Romance of the Red Dust, ep. 01-05
(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.
I am also not sure I can contribute anything that has not already been said by Rachel, Mely, or Sophia Jirafe, but I have been told that I should post anyway.
Also, unlike most dramas I post about, this one is available on Netflix. That was my not-so-subtle hint to people to rent it and watch it and cackle with glee.
Setting:
LATE SUI DYNASTY and possibly EARLY TANG DYNASTY CHINA (600s CE)
CHANG'AN, the capital city, mainly in a DARK DANK DUNGEON infested with SCORPIONS and an odd dragon-like statue with an EVIL SMILEY FACE
ASSORTED VILLAGES, doomed to be slaughtered
The Cast of Characters:
HONG FU, always dressed in red (except when she's in orange, but everyone still seems to think she is dressed in red), a FEMALE ASSASSIN who has been raised in the DARK DANK DUNGEON.
Her first love is DU GU CHENG, aka STONE-FACED GUY, who canonically has had no expressions ever since his TRAGIC BACKSTORY. However, as he sent her to YANG SU, aka EVIL COUNCILOR, who subsequently had her "physically examined" (read: stripped naked and thighs pried apart by a skanky old man), she seems to have given up on her love for STONE-FACED GUY, though she still exhibits traits of Stockholm Syndrome.
EVIL COUNCILOR also has an IDIOT SON whose name I did not catch.
The other TECHNICOLOR FEMALE ASSASSINS include YELLOW, whose name I also did not catch but is secretly a budding artist, and BAO QIN, aka BLUE, who either loves STONE-FACED GUY or has a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome, or both.
Eventually, HONG FU is ordered to kill LI JING, aka the INGENUE, a young scholar from the backwaters of China. He is very attached to his HORSE, named SIMPLETON. He seems to be able to do magical things with FENG SHUI.
The plot largely consists of HONG FU and LI JING running around together, attempting to avoid assassination, while HONG FU broods about her BLOODSTAINED HANDS OF ANGST (usually figurative, but occasionally literal) and LI JING comes up with the STUPIDEST SCHEMES EVER (he and IDIOT SON seem to be competing for the Angel School of Stupid Plans award, though I have to say, both of them have Angel beat hands down).
Spoilers (but you know you want to read!)
Hong Fu starts out as very cool, as she kills the general who squickily fondles her face. The other Technicolor Assassins miraculously convert their musical instruments to swords while we are not looking (or there are continuity issues, but I like my explanation better), and there is much slo-mo fighting, complete with weighted sleeves and needle kung fu.
When she returns, she is ordered to attend to Evil Councilor in bed, which makes Stone-Faced Guy jealous and angry. We can tell he is jealous and angry not because he has facial expressions, but because the bells tied to his belt ring ominously. They ring ominously because she gave them to him after a touching session in which he trains her to kill people, and therefore symbolize his unspoken yet very great affection for someone whose parents he has killed. When jingling bells is not enough to express his deeply sublimated emotions, he destroys furniture with his brain.
Li Jing eventually shows up in the capital. We can tell he is a good guy because he talks to his horse and lectures Evil Councilor on good rulership. Even though Evil Councilor is evil, he is impressed by Li Jing's Confucian critique of the government, which means Evil Councilor cannot be entirely evil. In case you think I am making this up, I swear, it is a trope dating back to the formation of the Dragon Boat Festival or to Sima Qian the historian.
Hong Fu is eventually asked to assassinate the Li Jing, because Evil Councilor wasn't that impressed, but she is won over by how Li Jing compares her to a female general who won the kingdom for an emperor (why was I not taught about this in Chinese history class? Unless it was taught during one of the many times I was drawing instead of listening, which means the universe should pause any time there is talk of cool female generals and let me know that it is time to pay attention).
While I generally do not like it when female assassins give in to their gentler side, I feel a comparison to a noted female general would melt my icy exterior as well.
Unfortunately, Li Jing when sober seems to have completely forgotten this, as he believes he is an excellent strategist and ignores Hong Fu's advice, despite the fact that he is a country bumpkin scholar who talks to his horse and that she is an assassin who can kill with leaves (really. We get a flashback to the Technicolor Assassin Squad practicing killing targets with leaves).
Meanwhile, Idiot Son has been trying to get his father to kill the emperor, completely unaware that a) most people going around conspiring to kill the emperor do not talk about such plans in public and choose instead to conspire in dark, dank dungeons, b) that he has a dark, dank dungeon to conspire in, and c) that conspirators tend to get killed anyway. His father, though evil, is at least smart, and chews his son out. Idiot Son pouts and says his father loves Stone-Faced Guy better. His father agrees, noting that Stone-Faced Guy does not go around asking to be killed by imperial troops.
Ok, Evil Councilor does not actually say that, but I am certain that's what he's thinking.
Evil Councilor then attempts to keep his Idiot Son occupied by bringing him a variety of foreign plants and animals:
YELLOW ASSASSIN: I bring you foreign plants and animals!
IDIOT SON: Uh, why?
YELLOW: Your father told me to, and I do everything he asks because I am part of his Technicolor Assassin Squad and he will molest me if I don't.
IDIOT: I do not want to play with foreign plants and animals!
[IDIOT SON takes a PERSIAN CAT from one of the trays the attendants are bearing and flings it at YELLOW!]
YELLOW: ... I think I will go now. I have encountered many things in my life as an assassin raised by skanky old men and scorpions, but having cats flung at me is not one of them.
Later on, Yellow comes across Idiot Son, who is stumbling around drunk. He nearly vomits on her, then collapses in her arms and calls her "Mother." Clearly Yellow has been brainwashed by scorpions, as she does not knee him in the balls and instead tenderly cradles him. Afterward, Idiot Son comes across Yellow painting scenery and says something that Yellow reads as approval. She pours her hopes and dreams of painting out to him, which is met by mockery. I, for one, would not tell a technicolor assassin that her dreams of being an artist are stupid, much less taunt her and rip her painting to shreds, but I suppose that's why he's the Idiot Son. Hopefully this breaks Yellow's brainwashing, though we have yet to see evidence of the fact.
One of Evil Councilor's hanger-ons (so say the subtitles) attaches himself, leechlike, to Idiot Son and encourages Idiot Son to think grander! He should not place his father on the throne, but rather have the emperor kill his father for him and then take over the throne! All the Mariposans decide the hanger-on in a plant (not literally. In this drama, such things need to be specified). Idiot Son is not so bright. The plan is revealed as "There's a siskin behind the praying mantis," which actually makes sense once you figure out that a siskin is a praying-mantis-eating bird and that it is figurative.
Unfortunately, though the subtitlers seem to know what a siskin is, they do not seem to know the difference between "You want to screw her face?" and "You want to screw up her face?"
This is getting entirely too long and I have not even covered half of it, so I will leave you with my two favorite scenes so far:
Stone-Faced Guy sekritly was in love with a princess and/or concubine and/or empress of the emperor. As such loves go, it is doomed. They are discovered and the princess is executed. In his grief, he preserves her body and entombs it in the dark, dank dungeon, and he has never had an expression since then. As one does.
Blue, unlike Red, has not been disillusioned by Stone-Faced Guy's propensity to shoehorn women he loves into death, prostitution, careers as assassins, and other such angst, and she longs for Stone-Faced Guy's love, despite the fact that his heart has been given to a dead princess and an AWOL assassin. She is so enamored of Stone-Faced Guy that she forbids him to kill Hong Fu, as killing Hong Fu will only make him love Hong Fu more.
I feel if this is your loved one's response to killing his loved one, you need a new loved one.
So she goes off on her own to kill Hong Fu, only she ends up killing a poor villager and a horse with her sleeve instead. The killing with the sleeve, by the way, is not figurative. She also sics a ton of drunken men from a teahouse (the wuxia equivalent of drunken cowboys in a bar) on Hong Fu.
Stone-Faced Guy eventually finds out about this, and clearly on some level, he does not want Blue to kill Hong Fu, as that will mean Blue will fall in love with Hong Fu instead of him.
... possibly that was my own reading.
To punish her, Stone-Faced Guy scars Blue's cheek, only she treasures the scar and begins wearing a half-veil across her face to accentuate it (I would say "hide," except it is diaphanous and hides nothing). Skanky old guy ends up healing her face, saying that he thought all women just wanted to be pretty. Blue screams at him, then picks up a dagger and uses its point to caress her face in a manner that is not at all insane nor phallic. Yellow eyes Blue, unconvinced about the "not insane or phallic." In my head, she volunteers to scar Blue's face, thereby showing that the two share a pure and true love, but on screen, she does not.
Yellow then convinces Blue to dress up as the dead princess, which Blue then does. Stone-Faced Guy's bells ring dramatically, and he hugs her. Then, possibly noting that he is hallucinating, he flings her away, but something has gotten to him, for he creeps into her bedroom at night to caress her no-longer scarred cheek and to smell her hair. After he leaves, Blue caresses her own cheek and smells her own hair, convinced that he loves her. As one does!
My other favorite scene:
Li Jing and Hong Fu are hiding away in Li Jing's village, which is clearly a recipe for disaster. Even though several villagers have been killed by Blue's marauding drunkards and havoc has been wreaked by Stone-Faced Guy's needle-shooting-bell-weapon, Li Jing decides he has a brilliant plan that involves complex military maneuvers that must be pulled off by the elders and children of the village. Hong Fu goes off with the villagers to help out. Li Jing, in a scene with touching music, lets his beloved horse Simpleton go to be free of man and his killing ways.
Simpleton refuses to go at first, as Li Jing has not bothered to unsaddle him, but after Li Jing throws rocks at him, the horse wisely decides to take his chances elsewhere.
Meanwhile, we discover that Li Jing sent them off for their own safety, despite Hong Fu having the ability to kill 46 different ways, including with her hair. Instead of getting help from the handy assassin protecting him, he has decided to sit in the middle of an open field surrounded by candles.
I feel sitting in the middle of tall grass surrounded by candles is not the best plan.
Stone-Faced Guy appears and proceeds to kick his ass, as all of us except Li Jing have anticipated. Instead of fleeing for his life, like any other sane person would do, Li Jing instead enacts Phase Two of his master plan!
Alas, Phase Two involves him pressing his face again a black spandex screen.
EVERYONE: WTF?! Is that a really bad special effect indicating that he has teleported to another dimension and is threatening Stone-Faced Guy with an imprint of his face as all ghosts from other dimensions do?
But no! We see Stone-Faced Guy disappear, and not to another dimension, as Li Jing has cleverly set up a maze of black spandex screens in the middle of an open field with candles!
EVERYONE [falling off couch laughing]: His secret weapon is black spandex screens!
Stone-Faced Guy lacks emotions, but is still not as dumb as Li Jing, and he escapes the (tiny and uncomplicated) maze of black spandex screens and throws candles on them, setting them on fire as Li Jing is still lost inside!
LI JING: OMG! He is burning up my black spandex screens with the candles I so thoughtfully provided! I never anticipated this!
[EVERYONE continue to fall off the couch laughing and those of us who knit attempt to not stab ourselves with our needles]
As Stone-Faced Guy threatens Li Jing, Li Jing's noble steed Simpleton comes galloping back, presumably because he still has not found someone to remove his saddle. Stone-Faced Guy is so overcome with disgust at Li Jing's stupidity that he flings Simpleton through the air with his brain!
EVERYONE: Black spandex screens and a plastic horse flipping around! AWESOME!
In conclusion: flinging Persian cats and black spandex screens for the win!
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.
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.
I am also not sure I can contribute anything that has not already been said by Rachel, Mely, or Sophia Jirafe, but I have been told that I should post anyway.
Also, unlike most dramas I post about, this one is available on Netflix. That was my not-so-subtle hint to people to rent it and watch it and cackle with glee.
Setting:
LATE SUI DYNASTY and possibly EARLY TANG DYNASTY CHINA (600s CE)
CHANG'AN, the capital city, mainly in a DARK DANK DUNGEON infested with SCORPIONS and an odd dragon-like statue with an EVIL SMILEY FACE
ASSORTED VILLAGES, doomed to be slaughtered
The Cast of Characters:
HONG FU, always dressed in red (except when she's in orange, but everyone still seems to think she is dressed in red), a FEMALE ASSASSIN who has been raised in the DARK DANK DUNGEON.
Her first love is DU GU CHENG, aka STONE-FACED GUY, who canonically has had no expressions ever since his TRAGIC BACKSTORY. However, as he sent her to YANG SU, aka EVIL COUNCILOR, who subsequently had her "physically examined" (read: stripped naked and thighs pried apart by a skanky old man), she seems to have given up on her love for STONE-FACED GUY, though she still exhibits traits of Stockholm Syndrome.
EVIL COUNCILOR also has an IDIOT SON whose name I did not catch.
The other TECHNICOLOR FEMALE ASSASSINS include YELLOW, whose name I also did not catch but is secretly a budding artist, and BAO QIN, aka BLUE, who either loves STONE-FACED GUY or has a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome, or both.
Eventually, HONG FU is ordered to kill LI JING, aka the INGENUE, a young scholar from the backwaters of China. He is very attached to his HORSE, named SIMPLETON. He seems to be able to do magical things with FENG SHUI.
The plot largely consists of HONG FU and LI JING running around together, attempting to avoid assassination, while HONG FU broods about her BLOODSTAINED HANDS OF ANGST (usually figurative, but occasionally literal) and LI JING comes up with the STUPIDEST SCHEMES EVER (he and IDIOT SON seem to be competing for the Angel School of Stupid Plans award, though I have to say, both of them have Angel beat hands down).
Spoilers (but you know you want to read!)
Hong Fu starts out as very cool, as she kills the general who squickily fondles her face. The other Technicolor Assassins miraculously convert their musical instruments to swords while we are not looking (or there are continuity issues, but I like my explanation better), and there is much slo-mo fighting, complete with weighted sleeves and needle kung fu.
When she returns, she is ordered to attend to Evil Councilor in bed, which makes Stone-Faced Guy jealous and angry. We can tell he is jealous and angry not because he has facial expressions, but because the bells tied to his belt ring ominously. They ring ominously because she gave them to him after a touching session in which he trains her to kill people, and therefore symbolize his unspoken yet very great affection for someone whose parents he has killed. When jingling bells is not enough to express his deeply sublimated emotions, he destroys furniture with his brain.
Li Jing eventually shows up in the capital. We can tell he is a good guy because he talks to his horse and lectures Evil Councilor on good rulership. Even though Evil Councilor is evil, he is impressed by Li Jing's Confucian critique of the government, which means Evil Councilor cannot be entirely evil. In case you think I am making this up, I swear, it is a trope dating back to the formation of the Dragon Boat Festival or to Sima Qian the historian.
Hong Fu is eventually asked to assassinate the Li Jing, because Evil Councilor wasn't that impressed, but she is won over by how Li Jing compares her to a female general who won the kingdom for an emperor (why was I not taught about this in Chinese history class? Unless it was taught during one of the many times I was drawing instead of listening, which means the universe should pause any time there is talk of cool female generals and let me know that it is time to pay attention).
While I generally do not like it when female assassins give in to their gentler side, I feel a comparison to a noted female general would melt my icy exterior as well.
Unfortunately, Li Jing when sober seems to have completely forgotten this, as he believes he is an excellent strategist and ignores Hong Fu's advice, despite the fact that he is a country bumpkin scholar who talks to his horse and that she is an assassin who can kill with leaves (really. We get a flashback to the Technicolor Assassin Squad practicing killing targets with leaves).
Meanwhile, Idiot Son has been trying to get his father to kill the emperor, completely unaware that a) most people going around conspiring to kill the emperor do not talk about such plans in public and choose instead to conspire in dark, dank dungeons, b) that he has a dark, dank dungeon to conspire in, and c) that conspirators tend to get killed anyway. His father, though evil, is at least smart, and chews his son out. Idiot Son pouts and says his father loves Stone-Faced Guy better. His father agrees, noting that Stone-Faced Guy does not go around asking to be killed by imperial troops.
Ok, Evil Councilor does not actually say that, but I am certain that's what he's thinking.
Evil Councilor then attempts to keep his Idiot Son occupied by bringing him a variety of foreign plants and animals:
YELLOW ASSASSIN: I bring you foreign plants and animals!
IDIOT SON: Uh, why?
YELLOW: Your father told me to, and I do everything he asks because I am part of his Technicolor Assassin Squad and he will molest me if I don't.
IDIOT: I do not want to play with foreign plants and animals!
[IDIOT SON takes a PERSIAN CAT from one of the trays the attendants are bearing and flings it at YELLOW!]
YELLOW: ... I think I will go now. I have encountered many things in my life as an assassin raised by skanky old men and scorpions, but having cats flung at me is not one of them.
Later on, Yellow comes across Idiot Son, who is stumbling around drunk. He nearly vomits on her, then collapses in her arms and calls her "Mother." Clearly Yellow has been brainwashed by scorpions, as she does not knee him in the balls and instead tenderly cradles him. Afterward, Idiot Son comes across Yellow painting scenery and says something that Yellow reads as approval. She pours her hopes and dreams of painting out to him, which is met by mockery. I, for one, would not tell a technicolor assassin that her dreams of being an artist are stupid, much less taunt her and rip her painting to shreds, but I suppose that's why he's the Idiot Son. Hopefully this breaks Yellow's brainwashing, though we have yet to see evidence of the fact.
One of Evil Councilor's hanger-ons (so say the subtitles) attaches himself, leechlike, to Idiot Son and encourages Idiot Son to think grander! He should not place his father on the throne, but rather have the emperor kill his father for him and then take over the throne! All the Mariposans decide the hanger-on in a plant (not literally. In this drama, such things need to be specified). Idiot Son is not so bright. The plan is revealed as "There's a siskin behind the praying mantis," which actually makes sense once you figure out that a siskin is a praying-mantis-eating bird and that it is figurative.
Unfortunately, though the subtitlers seem to know what a siskin is, they do not seem to know the difference between "You want to screw her face?" and "You want to screw up her face?"
This is getting entirely too long and I have not even covered half of it, so I will leave you with my two favorite scenes so far:
Stone-Faced Guy sekritly was in love with a princess and/or concubine and/or empress of the emperor. As such loves go, it is doomed. They are discovered and the princess is executed. In his grief, he preserves her body and entombs it in the dark, dank dungeon, and he has never had an expression since then. As one does.
Blue, unlike Red, has not been disillusioned by Stone-Faced Guy's propensity to shoehorn women he loves into death, prostitution, careers as assassins, and other such angst, and she longs for Stone-Faced Guy's love, despite the fact that his heart has been given to a dead princess and an AWOL assassin. She is so enamored of Stone-Faced Guy that she forbids him to kill Hong Fu, as killing Hong Fu will only make him love Hong Fu more.
I feel if this is your loved one's response to killing his loved one, you need a new loved one.
So she goes off on her own to kill Hong Fu, only she ends up killing a poor villager and a horse with her sleeve instead. The killing with the sleeve, by the way, is not figurative. She also sics a ton of drunken men from a teahouse (the wuxia equivalent of drunken cowboys in a bar) on Hong Fu.
Stone-Faced Guy eventually finds out about this, and clearly on some level, he does not want Blue to kill Hong Fu, as that will mean Blue will fall in love with Hong Fu instead of him.
... possibly that was my own reading.
To punish her, Stone-Faced Guy scars Blue's cheek, only she treasures the scar and begins wearing a half-veil across her face to accentuate it (I would say "hide," except it is diaphanous and hides nothing). Skanky old guy ends up healing her face, saying that he thought all women just wanted to be pretty. Blue screams at him, then picks up a dagger and uses its point to caress her face in a manner that is not at all insane nor phallic. Yellow eyes Blue, unconvinced about the "not insane or phallic." In my head, she volunteers to scar Blue's face, thereby showing that the two share a pure and true love, but on screen, she does not.
Yellow then convinces Blue to dress up as the dead princess, which Blue then does. Stone-Faced Guy's bells ring dramatically, and he hugs her. Then, possibly noting that he is hallucinating, he flings her away, but something has gotten to him, for he creeps into her bedroom at night to caress her no-longer scarred cheek and to smell her hair. After he leaves, Blue caresses her own cheek and smells her own hair, convinced that he loves her. As one does!
My other favorite scene:
Li Jing and Hong Fu are hiding away in Li Jing's village, which is clearly a recipe for disaster. Even though several villagers have been killed by Blue's marauding drunkards and havoc has been wreaked by Stone-Faced Guy's needle-shooting-bell-weapon, Li Jing decides he has a brilliant plan that involves complex military maneuvers that must be pulled off by the elders and children of the village. Hong Fu goes off with the villagers to help out. Li Jing, in a scene with touching music, lets his beloved horse Simpleton go to be free of man and his killing ways.
Simpleton refuses to go at first, as Li Jing has not bothered to unsaddle him, but after Li Jing throws rocks at him, the horse wisely decides to take his chances elsewhere.
Meanwhile, we discover that Li Jing sent them off for their own safety, despite Hong Fu having the ability to kill 46 different ways, including with her hair. Instead of getting help from the handy assassin protecting him, he has decided to sit in the middle of an open field surrounded by candles.
I feel sitting in the middle of tall grass surrounded by candles is not the best plan.
Stone-Faced Guy appears and proceeds to kick his ass, as all of us except Li Jing have anticipated. Instead of fleeing for his life, like any other sane person would do, Li Jing instead enacts Phase Two of his master plan!
Alas, Phase Two involves him pressing his face again a black spandex screen.
EVERYONE: WTF?! Is that a really bad special effect indicating that he has teleported to another dimension and is threatening Stone-Faced Guy with an imprint of his face as all ghosts from other dimensions do?
But no! We see Stone-Faced Guy disappear, and not to another dimension, as Li Jing has cleverly set up a maze of black spandex screens in the middle of an open field with candles!
EVERYONE [falling off couch laughing]: His secret weapon is black spandex screens!
Stone-Faced Guy lacks emotions, but is still not as dumb as Li Jing, and he escapes the (tiny and uncomplicated) maze of black spandex screens and throws candles on them, setting them on fire as Li Jing is still lost inside!
LI JING: OMG! He is burning up my black spandex screens with the candles I so thoughtfully provided! I never anticipated this!
[EVERYONE continue to fall off the couch laughing and those of us who knit attempt to not stab ourselves with our needles]
As Stone-Faced Guy threatens Li Jing, Li Jing's noble steed Simpleton comes galloping back, presumably because he still has not found someone to remove his saddle. Stone-Faced Guy is so overcome with disgust at Li Jing's stupidity that he flings Simpleton through the air with his brain!
EVERYONE: Black spandex screens and a plastic horse flipping around! AWESOME!
In conclusion: flinging Persian cats and black spandex screens for the win!
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.