(no subject)
Nov. 19th, 2014 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
issenlloBlind Spot, Hiccup/Astrid, How to Train Your Dragon, by ArtemisRae
***
More Heyer reads: Black Sheep, The Nonesuch, Sprig Muslin and Lady of Quality (last few chapters). Reading a bunch of Heyer within a few days really brings up the similarity of plot devices and the amount of variation that can go into stock character types. Also, Bath. Okay, I think I've got it mostly out of my system for now.
Probably because I have been have also been alarmingly distracted by the 2013 TV version of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, aka The Swordsman. The novel is by Louis Cha, though much of the story in this TV version has been greatly changed in the adaptation, which I have mixed feelings about. I was never the greatest fan of the novel itself, probably because (1) I read it after the watching The East is Red where the so-called evil Dongfang Bubai was played by Lin Ching-hsia and I spent half the time looking for this character while reading (in the novels this character only appears for a chapter or so); (2) the hero of the novel Linghu Chong is arrghhh, stupidly loyal to his teacher when people have tried throughout the novel to tell him that his teacher is a dishonourable hypocrite bastard. On the other hand, it does make Yue Buqun (the teacher) a really great villain, almost Iago-ian in his manipulativeness. (Although I adored the music they created for the Sam Hui movie version.)
Anyway. In this rather AU-ish version, Dongfang Bubai is actually a girl who joins the Sun Moon sect (cult?) in the guise of a man, and begins a vicious power-climb to the top. While later he(she) weirds out his subordinates with a seeming transformation into a trans-gendered form and takes to wearing women's clothing, apparently in jianghu this is unremarkable if you are known to be a practitioner of some seriously powerful and possibly 'evil' martial arts, such as the Sunflower Manual.
In the original novel Dongfang Bubai was a man who castrated himself - as directed by the instructions in the Sunflower Manual - in order to practice the martial skills in it. He becomes extremely powerful ("Bubai" means "invincible") but the self-surgery apparently did drastic things to him, causing him to become effeminate in dress and behaviour. (I know.) The most well-known, and commonly accepted as the best adaptation of Dongfang Bubai, is that played by veteran actress Lin Chinghsia in Tsui Hark's Swordsman II and Swordsman III. Prior to Lin, Dongfang Bubai was a minor character, but I believe such was the charisma of Lin's portrayal that the script for the 2013 version turned her (him) into a major character.
Except that, hm, to write Dongfang Bubai as an acceptable romantic partner for the hero, Linghu Chong, she became a (merely) a crossdresser and was really biologically a woman. The backstory shows that the character decides to dress as a man solely for the sake of power and not out of any ambivalence about her gender identity, so when she 'reverts', it's just like any other Chinese plotline of 'woman dresses as man' in jianghu.
In a way, it's a pity.
Before I came across the backstory, I was thinking that it would have been extremely interesting to consider Dongfang Bubai's identity politics. A man who castrated himself to learn some ass-kicking martial skills, 'turns' into a woman (okaaay), and who then romances the hero of the series. There is precedent for this: Jet Li as Linghu Chong fell in love with Dongfang Bubai in Swordsman II. Here, Dongfang Bubai is shown to be sincerely returning Linghu Chong's interest, and vice versa. Prurient thoughts aside, I wondered if Dongfang Bubai was self-identifying as a man, a woman, or as a man-turned-woman, or something in between. Was Linghu Chong's mindset, who thinks he's falling in love with a woman, such that he could accept the revelation of Dongfang Bubai's real identity?
Well, likely due to the fact that this is family fare, the TV series went for the tamer version of a plotpoint that would have been hackneyed if Dongfang Bubai had not also been the leader of the Sun Moon sect. Crossdressing women are de rigueur in wuxia. As it was, the Dongfang Bubai with scarily powerful martial arts and who is also the leader of the feared Sun Moon sect - these add a lot more verve to the series, to the point where the original plotpoints involving the Bixie Swordplay seem almost boring.
I have to admit that it was only the performance of Joe Chen Qiaoen as Dongfang Bubai that grabbed my attention. Take her character out, and the series gets pretty tedious. And don't even get me started on Ren Yingying, originally Linghu Chong's true love in the novel but here, she just seems like some interloper yet Linghu Chong inexplicably falls in love with her after having romanced Dongfang Bubai and then recoils when he finds out about Dongfang Bubai's identity as sect leader and all-round killer of innocents.
I don't buy that rejection in the least. Morality is relative in wuxia, especially in the universe Louis Cha has set out in this novel. You can put yourself on the side of good if you belong to an apparent 'orthodox' sect and if you only kill people you think deserve killing, or people who are known to be baddies. By that standard, Linghu Chong is a hero and Dongfang Bubai is a villain. Um, no. They're all murderers. Even if you argue that Dongfang Bubai has definitely killed in cold blood to get more power, and reacted with utmost prejudice to any attempts to harm her (or Linghu Chong), that doesn't let Linghu Chong off. But trying to argue absolute morality in wuxia is futile.
***
More Heyer reads: Black Sheep, The Nonesuch, Sprig Muslin and Lady of Quality (last few chapters). Reading a bunch of Heyer within a few days really brings up the similarity of plot devices and the amount of variation that can go into stock character types. Also, Bath. Okay, I think I've got it mostly out of my system for now.
Probably because I have been have also been alarmingly distracted by the 2013 TV version of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, aka The Swordsman. The novel is by Louis Cha, though much of the story in this TV version has been greatly changed in the adaptation, which I have mixed feelings about. I was never the greatest fan of the novel itself, probably because (1) I read it after the watching The East is Red where the so-called evil Dongfang Bubai was played by Lin Ching-hsia and I spent half the time looking for this character while reading (in the novels this character only appears for a chapter or so); (2) the hero of the novel Linghu Chong is arrghhh, stupidly loyal to his teacher when people have tried throughout the novel to tell him that his teacher is a dishonourable hypocrite bastard. On the other hand, it does make Yue Buqun (the teacher) a really great villain, almost Iago-ian in his manipulativeness. (Although I adored the music they created for the Sam Hui movie version.)
Anyway. In this rather AU-ish version, Dongfang Bubai is actually a girl who joins the Sun Moon sect (cult?) in the guise of a man, and begins a vicious power-climb to the top. While later he(she) weirds out his subordinates with a seeming transformation into a trans-gendered form and takes to wearing women's clothing, apparently in jianghu this is unremarkable if you are known to be a practitioner of some seriously powerful and possibly 'evil' martial arts, such as the Sunflower Manual.
In the original novel Dongfang Bubai was a man who castrated himself - as directed by the instructions in the Sunflower Manual - in order to practice the martial skills in it. He becomes extremely powerful ("Bubai" means "invincible") but the self-surgery apparently did drastic things to him, causing him to become effeminate in dress and behaviour. (I know.) The most well-known, and commonly accepted as the best adaptation of Dongfang Bubai, is that played by veteran actress Lin Chinghsia in Tsui Hark's Swordsman II and Swordsman III. Prior to Lin, Dongfang Bubai was a minor character, but I believe such was the charisma of Lin's portrayal that the script for the 2013 version turned her (him) into a major character.
Except that, hm, to write Dongfang Bubai as an acceptable romantic partner for the hero, Linghu Chong, she became a (merely) a crossdresser and was really biologically a woman. The backstory shows that the character decides to dress as a man solely for the sake of power and not out of any ambivalence about her gender identity, so when she 'reverts', it's just like any other Chinese plotline of 'woman dresses as man' in jianghu.
In a way, it's a pity.
Before I came across the backstory, I was thinking that it would have been extremely interesting to consider Dongfang Bubai's identity politics. A man who castrated himself to learn some ass-kicking martial skills, 'turns' into a woman (okaaay), and who then romances the hero of the series. There is precedent for this: Jet Li as Linghu Chong fell in love with Dongfang Bubai in Swordsman II. Here, Dongfang Bubai is shown to be sincerely returning Linghu Chong's interest, and vice versa. Prurient thoughts aside, I wondered if Dongfang Bubai was self-identifying as a man, a woman, or as a man-turned-woman, or something in between. Was Linghu Chong's mindset, who thinks he's falling in love with a woman, such that he could accept the revelation of Dongfang Bubai's real identity?
Well, likely due to the fact that this is family fare, the TV series went for the tamer version of a plotpoint that would have been hackneyed if Dongfang Bubai had not also been the leader of the Sun Moon sect. Crossdressing women are de rigueur in wuxia. As it was, the Dongfang Bubai with scarily powerful martial arts and who is also the leader of the feared Sun Moon sect - these add a lot more verve to the series, to the point where the original plotpoints involving the Bixie Swordplay seem almost boring.
I have to admit that it was only the performance of Joe Chen Qiaoen as Dongfang Bubai that grabbed my attention. Take her character out, and the series gets pretty tedious. And don't even get me started on Ren Yingying, originally Linghu Chong's true love in the novel but here, she just seems like some interloper yet Linghu Chong inexplicably falls in love with her after having romanced Dongfang Bubai and then recoils when he finds out about Dongfang Bubai's identity as sect leader and all-round killer of innocents.
I don't buy that rejection in the least. Morality is relative in wuxia, especially in the universe Louis Cha has set out in this novel. You can put yourself on the side of good if you belong to an apparent 'orthodox' sect and if you only kill people you think deserve killing, or people who are known to be baddies. By that standard, Linghu Chong is a hero and Dongfang Bubai is a villain. Um, no. They're all murderers. Even if you argue that Dongfang Bubai has definitely killed in cold blood to get more power, and reacted with utmost prejudice to any attempts to harm her (or Linghu Chong), that doesn't let Linghu Chong off. But trying to argue absolute morality in wuxia is futile.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-21 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-22 03:00 am (UTC)