WOW.. the week passes by sooo fast.. its so fast its scary..
anyways.. today is one of the more slacker days.. and i actually managed to do some of my tutorials.. =)
speaking of saturdays, its gonna be The Duke of Mount Deer!!! its so nice to watch la.. i like the anti-hero feel of the main protagonist.. Wei Xiao Bao =)
for peeps who don't know the story, it follows the storyline of the novel by JinYong.. where the protagonist is a lazy bum, greedy, and a womanising anti-hero.. here comes the word anti-hero again sia... hahaha..
however, even if he is THAT good for nothing, he leads a double life, as a Qing official whose very good friend with the emperor, and as an anti-qing organisation (天地会) member.. but then he's a genuine and loyal friend indeed.. albeit abit unscrupulous.. hahaha
he actually managed to do merit along the way, whether it is killing aobai, stopping or weakening the rebellion of wu sangui, or destroying sacred dragon sect..
means that he had a high post as an official and also earned the respect of his fellow organisation members.. FURTHERMORE, he managed to get himself seven wives along the way.. how cool is that? lol..
note: pls keep in mind that it is a story, so don't try to argue that wxb will die young cos he need to keep his wives *cough* happy *cough*
yea so that's it la.. for the show.. honestly 50 episodes are not enough laa..
from wuxiasociety.org
the good and the not so good, but still pretty goodI finished watching this and here are some thoughts:
THE GOOD1. Epic. Really, really epic.The sets, scenery, and everything else are amazing.
I'm going to order the DVDs because watching this in high quality will be treat (just waiting to see if they'll release a directors cut of the DVDs first).
2. The actors are pretty good.Huang Xiao Ming is dead-on as WXB. That's definitely his role. I thought he was horrible as Yang Guo but as WXB he fits it like a glove.
Also, the wives are pretty cute. Much better on video than in the photos. Though I agree the voices are bit...annoying at times.
3. Brilliant move to use child actors.Having WXB and the Emperor be friends since childhood really adds a depth to their relationship. In that way, you can sense how deep the "betrayal" is because of how long they've known each other.
(One shocking scene though is when you see a young-WXB killing the eunuch who is also a kid
Hahahaha, I'm surprised that passed Chinese censors!)
THE NOT-SO-GOOD, BUT STILL PRETTY GOODHere are some slight complaints that I have about this series:
1. It suffers from editing issues that are similar to Return of Condor Heroes 2006.Basically some scenes move at a very fast pace and the abruptness hurts the continuity.
For example in the first episode,
MILD SPOILERS (highlight to see)
WXB's mom is pushed to the ground by a solider and so he goes to tend to her.
Then all of a sudden the next scene is him peeking into the room with Mao 18.
Then right after the fight scene it cuts to WXB's mom searching for him and yelling out his name.
Then the next scene is WXB following Mao 18 to Beijing! And all of this within 20 minutes 
# END SPOILERS
So if you don't really know the story, it might be hard to follow.
2. Too many episodes with them as kidsLike
LiarLiar mentioned, too much happens with the child actors. It's good you see how they bond, but for example, the
Ao Bai segment is done with the child actors and it does seem a bit awkward to have kids try and fight this guy!
Also you feel kinda sympathetic to Ao Bai's character. I mean, here you have this general who helped conquer China and yet he needs to listen to this young kid? Hahaha
3. Lack of character developmentIf this is the first time you've seen this series, you might be a bit confused by the motivations of the characters.
This was a similar flaw in
Return of Condor Heroes 2006 so I'm not sure if it's the screenwriters, the director, or the editing.
For example, you don't really get a sense of how bad
Ao Bai is. And
Zheng Ke Shuang isn't show to be a jerk until the end.
4. Muted of romance/flirtingThis probably has to do with the Chinese-censors, but in the previous versions WXB would outright say his intentions and call the girls his "wives."
In this version, he refers to them more as his "sisters" or "maid/servant girls." I remember reading that the Chinese censors wanted to tone down that part. Haha
So overall the dialogue doesn't seem as funny (when compared to the other DOMD productions).
Also some of the girls aren't given that much screen time with WXB so you in some cases it's hard to see how they would fall in love with him.
***
I know it might seem like I have a lot of complaints but overall I really liked this series. Perhaps some of it had to do with the epic-ness of it, but then again
Return of Condor Heroes 2006 was epic but I really disliked it.
I'm thinking that the censors probably got to it and that's why it was a bit disjointed. Hopefully they will release a directors cut or something.
Overall though I'll still get the DVDs to add to my collection.
