Review China

This is my review of Chinese TV Show The Wind Blows From Longxi (风起陇西), which aired between 27 April to 7 May 2022 on CCTV/iQiyi.

About

The Shu defeated the Wei using their specific crossbow design. Wei sent numerous spies into the Shu kingdom to steal the plans. Chen Gong and Xun Xu are Shu spies who go their separate ways to stop the plan.

Actually, there is more to the story than this, it’s quite complex, but I would just watch the series.

Cast

Chen Kun (陳坤) plays Chen Gong
I didn’t realise until after the show had finished but he played Ning Yi in Netflix’s The Rise of Phoenixes.
He is an actor, singer and also a very successful writer. He has won numerous awards for his acting. He is also on China’s Writers Rich List. He has one child, he isn’t married and hasn’t revealed the name of the Mother.
Instagram

Bai Yu (白宇) plays Xun Xu
A very popular actor who we’ve seen in a number of productions. He has won multiple awards, be voted the most handsome guy in China, and so on.

I recognized a couple of other cast members who had support roles in other dramas we’ve watched.

Review

The series was 24 episodes long, if it was something like 70 it would have been too tough to watch it all.

The storyline was quite complex and parts of the show, the text that appeared on the screen, weren’t translated by the production company, so parts of it were completely lost on me at first. I started to understand what was going on after the 5th episode. The final few episodes were the best, not just because it was coming to an end, but I had started to appreciate the story.

I would say this drama had a more realistic “look and feel” than many Chinese dramas we’ve seen. The sets were basic, with no fancy decor, just basic wooden houses or shacks may be to reflect the hard time they were going through. Even the short scene of the Emperor showed how un-fancy they were. No fancy tea or dinner service. The homes were dark with very little lighting. The costumes were the same way, very basic cloth and not posh at all. It was kind of refreshing to see this.

The drama had a serious tone, there wasn’t a lot of humour at all. There was romance and this shaped what one of the characters had become about halfway through the show. This isn’t necessarily an action-orientated show, although it did have some. I took it as a focus on the politics and relationships of war.

The acting was good. Much of what was said was done in whispers, very quietly spoken roles. This was the first show I’ve seen where Bai Yu hasn’t joked around or hardly smiled come to that, although there were times when that cheeky smile came across.

In the first few episodes there was this humorous person at the end, about 30 seconds, the summarize what had just happened. This, sadly, didn’t continue throughout the series. Maybe the production company realized what a complex story it was and decided to throw that in to help people like me out.

There wasn’t a lot of incidental music but the opening theme, with the drums, was awesome. The closing theme didn’t fit in with the drama at all but it wasn’t too bad.

The downsides of this show were the lack of female characters and the screenwriting should have been adapted to pull me into the show more, at least a the beginning.

Links

• Internet Movie DataBase
• The Wind Rises in Longxi by Ma Bo Yong, the novel the series was based on, is available on Amazon.

Where Can I Watch

The show is available on YouTube, with great subtitles, and Viki.

Making Of…

My review of the movie Restart The Earth (重启地球) which was released in China on 3rd September 2021.

About

Humans developed drugs that promote accelerated growth of plants, however, it all goes horribly wrong as they become sentient and take over the planet bringing the human race closer to its demise.

A global task force to take back the planet is initiated and this is the story of the challenges China faces.

Cast

The following are the two central figures.

Mickey He (何晟銘) plays the lead character Yang Hao.
He is an actor and singer and has a long list of TV productions dating back to 2008 with a handful of films.
A lot of his music can be found on YouTube.

Zhang Ming Can (张明灿) as Yuan Yuan
She is a child actress and one of the best performances in the movie!

Review

Ugh. Where do I start?!

This film reminded me of the Lost In Space episode “The Great Vegetable Rebellion”. The city backdrop looked as though it was from the computer graphic-generated show “Swallowed Star”.

Some of the special effects were quite decent, some just seemed to have been done in a rush all on green screen. I would say the majority of them were ok. The angry vegetables/plants looked like half dragon half snake.

The acting, well, I think the actors did their best with an awful script. There will obviously be many who enjoyed the film, a bit of escapism, so they have to do their best for them.

The script is just awful. The movie did move along, it got stuck on certain things, but did come to a decent conclusion with the time allowed. It was full of cliches and one-liners that can just be dug out of a book like politicians do. I’m not sure what the screenwriter, Lin Zhen Zhao (林珍釗), was thinking with this movie, he actually won an award before, maybe he just needed to churn something out quickly, hope he got paid well.

I really want to be as generous as I can in rating the movie but I can only give it a 1 out of 5.

Where To Watch

You don’t have to pay to watch this, they just put it on YouTube and TubiTV. TubiTV has their copy dubbed in English which sounded really bad.

Trailer

For A Few Bullets (快手枪手快枪手) is a Chinese movie that was released on 16th July 2016.

About

The official short summary of the movie:

“A professional thief must team up with a special agent to stop the Japanese military from stealing a national treasure.”

IMDB describes it as “A con man and a Chinese government agent each has their own reasons for trying to recover a historical artefact from agents of Japan.”

I guess that is pretty much it.

Cast

Lin Geng Xin (林更新) as Xiaozhuang
This actor is ranked on the Forbes China Celebrity 100 list It appears he has appeared in quite a few TV shows, dramas and movies.

Zhang Jing Chu (张静初) as Li Ruoyun
Another famous actress was named one of “Asia’s Heroes” by Time Magazine in 2005. Numerous forthcoming movies and TV shows are in the works. She looks busy.

Review

Other websites had reviewed the movie with relatively low scores, such as 5.3 on IMDB. Some reviewers went from “rubbish” to “brilliant”.

From start to end there was always something going on in the movie. It was very much action orientated. The comedy blended in well even though it was an “expected” incident rather than come as a surprise.

They really tried to put in everything. Train, boat, aeroplane, desert, city, hallucination inducing murderous steampunk phantom, the dead boyfriend comes to life and some rude Carry On movie-style antics. People are right, it was like an Indiana Jones or a movie that was making fun of it.

The thing that stood out for me was the cinematography, it was beautifully filmed, especially the desert sequences.

I will give it an 8.5 out of 10. I think I enjoyed it more than others.

Where Can I Watch

It is available on Asian Crush and Tubi.

Trailer

Royal Feast (尚食) is a Chinese TV series that ran from 22 February to 26 March 2022, broadcasting 6 days a week on Hunan TV and Mango TV.

About

A young girl named Zijin enters the palace to become a maid in the food bureau. Through her excellent cooking skills, she works her way up the ranks. However, she has trained to become a Concubine, learning a lot to be able to become entertaining to the future Emperor.

Cast

Xu Kai (许凯) plays the future emperor.
He has numerous awards, first known for print ad modelling. He has starred in a couple of films and numerous TV shows. As I write this, he has been earmarked to be seen in three other TV dramas.

Wu Jin Yan (吴谨言) plays Zijin.
She studied in Ballet and joined the National Ballet of China where unfortunately suffered from a number of fractures to her feet. Unable to continue with her Ballet career she joined the Beijing Film Academy to study as an actor. She has been in numerous TV dramas and films. Her politics…hmmm.

Wang Yi Zhe (王一哲) plays You Yi Fan.
He studied broadcasting and acting but as a result of starring in the “King of Pop” reality show, he started acting in TV shows.

He Rui Xian (何瑞贤) as Yi Zi Ping.
Probably the best and most comical character. Right after Royal Feast aired she starred in another food orientated drama, “Delicacies Destiny”, the set for which looked very familiar.

Review

If it wasn’t for the food I may have dropped this how. In many of the episodes, they cooked marvellous meals. I don’t know if any of them are really traditional Chinese dishes or if they just made them up. A small number of them I had actually heard of. I wish there was a cookbook that would accompany the series, it would probably sell well, even if few people wanted to cook the meals.

The story could have been completed in less than 40 episodes, it did drag on. It wasn’t complex. Some of the characters were annoying, quickly switching from being a buffoon to something else, others were miserable throughout the series. He Rui Xian had the best role, at least her role was quite amusing now and again. The last two episodes were the best, not just because I was pleased to see the end of it, but they did wrap things up nicely, some of which were unexpected.

There was mainly a strong cast of female actors, which is good to see. One of the issues it addressed was being born into a certain role and there is no way of escaping it.

The costumes were pretty different, more Thai looking than Chinese.

I wish we had fast-forwarded parts of the show to get to the cooking. I did drop off to sleep halfway through some episodes.

So, my score is 2.5 out of 5. I can’t give it anything more than that. Others seemed to enjoy it more than I did so it’s worth giving it a try.

Where Can I See It

The episodes can be found on YouTube, however, some of the subtitles are machine produced and confusing.

Trailer

Ice Fantasy [幻城] is a 62 episode TV series from China that was broadcast in 2016 on Hunan TV.

About

A fight for power between the Ice and Fire Tribes, the Fire being evil. Also, a challenge for power to be the King between Prince Ka Suo and his younger half-brother Yong Kong Shi. Ka Suo doesn’t want to be King but to live carefree with his love Li Luo.

Cast

Feng Shao Feng [冯绍峰] (or Feng Wei) plays Prince Ka Suo
A very popular actor with a very decent list of TV shows and movies. Evidently, he likes British crop circles!

Ma Tian Yu [马天宇] plays Prince Ying Hi
A mando-pop singer and actor. A long list of TV shows on his resume. His mother died when he was 5, his father left due to debts and was bought up by his grandparents.

There are a lot of characters of note but I have to make a special mention of:

Cheng Pei Pei [鄭佩佩] who plays Feng Tian (Grandma)
She lived in Hong Kong, trained with Shaw Brothers, best known in the movie Come Drink With Me. She moved to California to raise her children, attended business school at the University of California and taught Chinese dance. She starred in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and also had a Mandarin-speaking talk show on Los Angeles TV station KSCI. I think she is quite a catch for this TV show.

Review

The sets on this show were artistic which, for me, was the main draw. The Ice world was done the best, the Fire world was like hell but not so good.

The special effects are very similar to that on US daytime soaps,  similar technology.

So, there are some points about the sets and special effects. It was 62 episodes and must have been quite a struggle for the staff involved to keep the quality going, which they didn’t. Most of the work was done by green screen, the actors would move around but not in tandem with what was superimposed on the green screen. There were simply too many special effects so they seemed to get more amateur as the show progressed.

They obviously had a library of incidental music to use with the series, like a similar tune for the action sequences. Some of the music was exciting, some a little annoying, some just didn’t match the scene. They seemed to have reserved some original score for the last few episodes.

“Flame”, head of the Fire Tribe, actually looked like the lead character from Pirates of the Caribbean. Generally, the costume department did really well with the outfits.

Although there was one story throughout the series there were arc’s throughout. This cut this up into manageable chunks for the viewer. In parts, they would jump from one part of a story to the next without any explanation. The continuity was all over the place, something would happen and I would think “did I just miss something”?!

This was probably a difficult show for the actors as they had to use their acting skills but also work with so much green screen and position their bodies for the special effects. For 62 episodes this was probably quite exhausting for them. All the actors did quite a good job, I think the best performance was by Alina Zhang who played Princess Yan Da of the Fire Tribe.

SPOILER
The ending? Well, I didn’t expect everyone to be knocked off but 3 of them came back from the dead. I thought at that point it got a bit daft and pleased it was over.

There is a season two, called Ice Fantasy Destiny, which appears to be set in the future. It’s only 16 episodes so I might give that a go at some point.

Final Score

I would give it 2/5. It lost points on the script and struggle with the special effects. Reviewers gave it anywhere between 7.7 and 9.1 out of 10.

Where to Watch

Netflix had it for a while but it vanished from their library, for some reason. However, it’s currently on Viki. I notice Viki doesn’t have Ice Fantasy Destiny.

Trailer

Heroes (Fearless/Fearless Heroes or 大侠霍元甲) was a 45 episode Chinese drama that was broadcast between July and August 2020.

About

Most websites provide the following information about the show “The Refornment Movement of 1898 resulted in the “Six Heroes” dying. Huo Yuan Jia, who was filled with patriotic enthusiasm, had been eager to participate.”

I would say it’s about the main character’s role in the invasion of westerners and Japanese into China, plus the problems with the Chinese who collaborated with them, and how he and his family find their place in that society to help the people.

Cast

Vincent Zhao (趙文卓) plays Huo Yuan Jia
He is a popular actor and director who has had martial arts training, he has been in numerous other similar productions where he uses that skillset. It is like this show was made for him or had him in mind. He is a good actor but not the best in this show.

Mao Lin Lin (毛林林) plays Wang Yun Ying
She plays Huo Yan Jia’s wife very well, she is underrated in this show. She is a very popular actress signed up to numerous other productions, I counted 5 TV shows.

Ashton Chen (释小龙) plays Chen Zhen
He was listed in the “main cast” but only appeared in half of the series. Like Vincent and some other actors he also has some martial arts experience, and it shows. He moved to the US and studied at the Professional Children’s School in New York City. He looks very short but in fact, is the same height as me.

There were other great actors in this show, too many to list here.

Summary

This was a really great underrated TV series but it did have its flaws.

There were some bumps in the script but overall it was written quite well with very good life events happening to the family; hardships and good times. Some of the “compromises” were written well, you will know what I mean when you get to them in the series. Some central characters got knocked off early on or halfway into the series, including two of my favourites so I was a bit upset about that.

The best parts:

• Martial arts scenes. This was definitely an action-orientated TV series and a lot of effort went into how they were choreographed, I don’t think I’ve seen so much of it in a Chinese drama before. The show is worth watching just because of these scenes.
• Female Characters. These evolved during the show but eventually, equality ruled which was really good. I would have liked some more female martial artists in the show.
• Production Quality. The cinematography, sets and directing was very well done. I had seen some of the sets before in other productions, such as the one used for Shanghai, but they were utilized well.

The worst parts:

• Voiceovers of the westerners. Often it is difficult to tell if any of the actors use voice-over artists but for the westerners, it was embarrassingly obvious. Some Caucasians spoke in two languages, such as French in Chinese, there was a different voice over artist for each of the languages, they didn’t even sound like each other. It was painful. Most of the westerners were very annoying.
• The students of the Master kept on crying when something went wrong. I just wanted to slap them.
• Master Huo Yuan Jia was quite flawed and kept making silly mistakes, his wife was more intelligent. Maybe they wrote it that way on purpose.

Overall:

As I said, it was very good and well worth giving it a go. I give it 4.5/5.

Where To Watch

The show is available to watch on YouTube, iQiyi and other online resources too.

Trailer

Age of The Legend (英雄年代之九龙密钥) is a Chinese movie that was released by iQiyi this year, 2021.

About

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, a group of heroes get together to prevent the British and Japanese invasion of Guangzhou City. They are presented with numerous obstacles on the way that challenges them to reach their goal.

I suspect this might have been a “made for TV” movie rather than one that was released through the cinema. I can’t really know for sure.

Cast

Never heard or seen any of them before, but from what I could see the main character is of Taiwanese origin.

Adan (aka Gu Han Yun or 阿丹), from Taiwan, played the main character, not sure what the name of that character is. Age of The Legend looks like his first film role, he got his first break as a support role on Spicy Teacher back in 2000.

Summary

If nothing else this movie is good for a laugh but would take it with a pinch of salt.

The first thing I noticed was the accent of the British, they sounded spookily familiar to Russians. Many Russians play Caucasians in Chinese movies. Their accents and acting were slightly painful to watch.

The script was daft but oddly well presented. The CGI wasn’t great, such as the British ships and guns in the mountains.

The monk character was acted really well and was hilarious. There was an effeminate guy and of course, the script included how awful that person was, although was a hero of sorts as well. The main Japanese female character really did act evil, she was a good actress, although had to meet her demise eventually.

The fight sequences/choreography were really well-done with quite impressive camera work.

Overall, not a bad film for entertainment value, quite a few amusing moments I will never forget. I give it 7/10 and recommend everyone seeing it.

Where to Watch

This can be found on iQiyi and YouTube.

Trailer