yunsound

[yunsound]

I personally think that 香蜜 (Ashes of Love) is bad, one of the things that make me dislike it is that the former flower goddess, Zifen's subordinates stopped flowers from blooming for 10 years to mourn her. Won't that cause a terrible famine in human realm because plantations can't pollinate or something? They are just making enemies for their former master and themselves.

And that is just one of things, 香蜜 just convinces me that immortals and gods really should keep romance out of their decision making, because the consequences are disastrous.

I could NOT get through 香蜜 just because of how... 狗屎 the plot was. The acting was bad, the styling was really mid (they really did Yang Zi dirty) and I think the writers were insane. Generally, I don't think c-dramas do romance very well lmao

[yunsound]

C-novels: Xianxia, Wuxia, Cultivation and Jianghu Terminology

Aside from the simplified danmei depictions of cultivation, xianxia/wuxia and cultivation novels make up the majority of Chinese webnovel/casual writing culture. Think Legend of the Condor Heroes, a lot of danmei novels (MDZS, SVSSS etc) and pretty much every piece of media that makes reference to ancient China will speak of the jianghu, cultivators, etc…

What the fuck is a wuxia? What the fuck is a xianxia? What the fuck is a jianghu? How does cultivation work? That’s what I’m here for!

As always, a quick disclaimer: what I say is obviously not gospel. I’m not an expert and I’ve never written a full webnovel on any Chinese websites (I do read a lot of them though LMAO), I’m just Chinese. Different people will have different experiences than me, and a lot of my explanations will vary depending on the author or the readers’ personal preferences.

Do your own research! This is just ONE post. I will also be tackling the jianghu, xianxia and wuxia EXCLUSIVELY AS MODERN POP CULTURE DEPICTS IT. I will not be talking about the earliest wave of authentic old novels. This is how most young people interact with xianxia/wuxia. 

LET'S BEGIN!

Okay. The big overarching core to any novel set in ancient China is the jianghu 江湖, which literally means rivers and lakes. The jianghu basically means cultivator society and the land. It refers to a complex system of social hierarchies, laws and honour rules (like how pirates refer to their territories as the “open seas” and have their own “pirate code”: that’s the jianghu). 

The jianghu is associated with martial arts and cultivation. It can and does involve normal everyday people, but when people talk about making a big name for themselves in the jianghu, they’re talking about their reputation among various martial arts masters (in a non-fantasy setting) or cultivators (in a fantasy setting). Again, think pirates!

The jianghu is the setting of all wuxia and xianxia novels. What’s wuxia and xianxia? Wuxia 武侠 means martial arts and heroics. It refers to a type of low-fantasy setting in which different xiake 侠客 (“heroes”) characters interact and fight for righteousness. The low fantasy I’m talking about involves mystical forms of training manuals (like the whatever five step palm strike thing in Kill Bill) that grant the user incredible powers, but the absence or presence of ghosts and demons are up to the author. 

Wuxia and jianghu take CHIVALRY and HONOUR very seriously. Think Zuko in ATLA. Thus, if you make a promise to someone, you follow through even if it kills you. If someone hurts your friends or family, you take revenge even if it kills you. Wuxia characters often follow very recognisable tropes: a poor orphan underdog, taken in by a great teacher, grows up to be incredibly strong and roams the jianghu fighting for justice and gets an equally-strong and beautiful girlfriend in the process etc etc.

How is xianxia 仙侠 different from wuxia? You may notice the wu replaced by a xian. Wu means martial arts, and xian means… immortal? Technically it means fairy. Xian doesn’t mean fairy the way we think of fairies as little pixies or flying pretty ladies, it means someone who’s ascended from morality to immortality and is exceedingly powerful. So xian can be humans (male and female) and gods and exceptionally powerful animals who’ve lived a long time, or even very old plants and trees. 

Wuxia is low fantasy, and xianxia is high fantasy. Think Harry Potter/Game of Thrones vs Lord of the Rings. Whereas wuxia is focused on martial arts and honour and battle and gritty strong main characters, xianxia is where you’ll find your elegant cultivators with long flowing hair and poetic names and cultivation sects and blah blah blah.

Xianxia tends to be more popular among younger people (my parents’ generation, for example, grew up with and LOVE Jin Yong’s famous wuxia novels, but xianxia doesn’t appeal to them as much) because it seems more elegant and beautiful.

Your favourite danmei novels all take place in xianxia because it’s less sexy for your top and bottom to be tussling it in the dirt rather than on a distant misty mountain. Even the non-danmei media like 三生三世十里桃花 (Eternal Love) and the more modern c-dramas all take place in xianxia. Wuxia is… decidedly less appealing for people who want to see long flowy robes and elegant romance and pining and gorgeous actors. 

Xianxia is often very inspired by mythology. Since it’s high fantasy, there are lots of mythical beasts, immortality, supernatural powers, etc. Xianxia involves ghosts and demons and gods. I’ll explain these categories in more depth later on.

So what is cultivation? Cultivation 修炼 (xiulian: literally “practice and cultivate”) refers to the Taoist concept in which people (and various animals and plants sometimes) may become powerful and gain supernatural powers through practicing martial arts, meditating, and growing their qi.

I’m sure many people have heard of qi (or chi, as it's phonetically pronounced), but it basically means vitality or energy. Qi flows through your body like blood through spiritual meridians, and if it has a smooth and unimpeded flow, you’re healthy. Qi can become blocked by stress, illness or bad thoughts like greed, and that impedes cultivation.

People whose qi flows freely and smoothly do so through constant meditation and seclusion to allow for peace of body and mind. This is how you form a golden core- your qi flows so nicely through your body that eventually it’ll become a core in your lower stomach- this core theoretically keeps you sustained forever and grants you powers.

The exact details of qi vary from novel to novel- sometimes, everyone naturally has qi and it’s just a matter of cultivation that differs your MCs from normal people, and sometimes you have to be born with it to be able to cultivate.

Cultivation thus takes place through meditation, using your qi (martial arts and battle), and sometimes doing good deeds with your powerful qi can also help you ascend faster. Often the goal is to cultivate to a level of immortality and become a xian. 

Xianxia novels and wuxia novels are very popular because it’s quite a romantic and beautiful concept and setting. Cultivators often gather in sects on secluded mountains (to avoid the rest of society for better qi meditation) to teach their particular methods of cultivation. These sects are headed by very powerful cultivators who become teachers and mentors to everyone else in the sect. 

Let’s explain some jianghu, xianxia and wuxia terminology!

Shifu/shizun 师傅/师尊: The word shi means teacher. Shi-fu basically means your mentor- they can be a mentor in all sorts of things, whether it be cooking, cultivation, etc. In modern society shifu is a term we still use- taxi drivers, master chefs, teachers of traditional arts like kung fu, calligraphy, dance, ancient instruments are all called shifu. IDK why taxi drivers are called shifu. Maybe they are the shifu of the taxi. Shifu are your direct teachers. 

Shi-zun means something very different. The suffix zun means “honoured” or “respected”. Sort of like -sama or -dono in Japanese. For those of you who watch a lot of anime, you can think of shizun as your sensei with a -sama at the end (yes, I know sensei is also a suffix, but just ignore that okay).

Your shizun is someone who is very, very high-ranking and is usually also famous or very respected in the entire jianghu. We don’t say shizun anymore. If you go to your calligraphy teacher and call them shizun they’ll think you’re crazy.

Shizun are probably not your direct teachers. Your shifu’s shifu may be your shizun, or they may be the shifu of someone higher-ranking than you. In some cases, if you yourself are already very high-ranked, you can call your direct teacher shizun. 

BTW! Even though zun is a suffix, you cannot attach just zun to someone’s given name. If someone’s name is Bob, you can’t call them Bob-zun the way you could say Bob-sama or Bob-dono or Bob-sensei. You can say Bob-shifu, but you can’t say Bob-zhizun. (If Bob’s last name is Smith, you could say Smith-shizun, but you still can’t just say Smith-zun). The suffix zun has to be attached to shi to make shizun, or you could attach it directly to a title.

Let’s take MDZS as an example since I know it’s very popular. Some of the famous titles in MDZS are Lianfang-zun (Jin Guangyao) and Chifeng-zun (Nie Mingjue). Lianfang-zun and Chifeng-zun are both titles given to them by cultivation society. You cannot call them Jin-zun or Jin Guangyao-zun. -zun as a suffix can ONLY be attached to titles. There are MANY suffixes you can attach to titles and names in Chinese novels- I will only cover a few in this post.

师姐/师兄/师弟/师妹 Sect relationships: shijie, shixiong, shidi, shimei:

Within cultivation sects, people that are not your teachers (shifu/shizun) are called your sect siblings. No, it doesn’t mean you’re literally siblings, Chinese people just like to call each other siblings for fun. It also doesn’t mean you’re adopted- it just means that the sect is supposed to support and respect each other like a family. A female disciple older than you is a shijie, a female disciple younger than you is a shimei, a male disciple older than you is a shixiong, a male disciple younger than you is a shidi.

Jie: older sister

Xiong: brother

Di: younger brother

Mei: little sister

Why is an older male disciple called shixiong and not shige? Ge means older brother in Chinese (pronouned guh, not gee), but it is fairly informal. Xiong means brother as well, but in a more formal sense. Xiong can also be a suffix to attach at the end of someone’s name as a friendly nickname (for example, if Bob Smith and Jake Brown are friends, they call each other Bob-xiong and Jake-xiong or Smith-xiong and Brown-xiong).

In a sect, your relationship with your sect siblings can be pretty formal, especially with someone older, so you’d refer to them as shixiong and not shige out of respect. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the term shige, though maybe it does exist and I haven’t noticed it anywhere.

Xiong is a formal term for brother, but there aren’t formal terms for older/younger sister or younger brother. That’s why the others remain the same as casual terms. Xiong and xiongdi are very NUANCED terms, so I may do a whole post on why if you see people as sworn brothers or xiongdi, it doesn’t mean they’re actually adopted brothers.

In xianxia, there are 3 realms: the human realm (the mortal realm), the immortal realm (for gods and immortal xian), and the demon realm (for monsters, demons and dead people). The mortal realm is where we, and most characters, live! It’s characterised by being full of chaos and emotion, both good and bad, and both tragedy and joy.

You’ll often see cultivators speak of “worldly dust” or 红尘 (red dust): this refers to the tumultuous “vibes” of the mortal realm, and basically means chaos or imbalance. This “dust” is what cultivators try to avoid- chaos is not good for qi flow, which requires a peaceful mind and body. This is why cultivators secede to distant mountains and avoid the rest of society. 

The immortal realm or the xian realm is where gods and immortals live. It might be up in the sky or it might be slightly outside the fabric of reality as we know it. It could also just be up a really, really tall mountain- it depends on the setting of the particular novel. It’s full of beauty, tranquility, peace and magic. Everyone wants to ascend and come live here! 

The demon realm is like… Du-at in Egyptian mythology. It’s not inherently bad (like Hades’ hell), but it IS home to a lot of suffering. Monsters and demons (animals or plants that become violent and tainted through bad energy, as well as human spirits who died wrongfully and are now vengeful) live here. They often escape up to the mortal realm to cause trouble for humans, which is when cultivators come in to vanquish them and quell their anger to appease their spirits.

There may also be other realms depending on how the novel presents its settings: monsters/demons may be split up into different realms, and human spirits might go into another realm, and gods and immortals may be split up into separate realms- authors will often clarify through dialogue. 

Cultivator sects’ structure: Usually the sect master is very old, very powerful and VERY secluded. They almost NEVER make an appearance and are almost ALWAYS already immortal. They opened their sect to teach disciples, but they do not teach directly- THEIR disciples teach more disciples, and so on and so on. 

There may be a sect leader, who is usually a direct disciple of the sect master (sometimes a second/third generation disciple). They are not usually THAT old but they are usually also immortal. Then there might be a sect head who’s a disciple of the sect leader.

The main characters usually will only interact with the sect’s head disciple or sect leader etc. Head disciple is the highest-ranking disciple: they are usually a direct student of the sect leader and are usually not immortal (but almost there). 

Then there will be inner disciples and outer disciples. Outer disciples are ordinary people who go to learn. Don’t misunderstand- to be an outer disciple of a great sect is already a huge honour! Inner disciples are high-ranked, very talented disciples. They may start out as outer disciples, but rise through the ranks because of their skills.

Then we have direct disciples. Direct disciples are, as the name suggests, direct students of the high-ranking sect members. They can be inner disciples selected carefully through tests, but a lot of them get in through nepotism or are just born with hacks. (e.g: their family knows one of the high-ranking disciples etc. Ne Zha is a direct disciple of the Chan Sect through the nepotism of his shifu Taiyi Zhenren). Being nepo babies doesn’t mean they’re weak- nepotism has standards! If they’re just inherently BORN genius, then that can also merit a spot as a direct disciple.

Often, a common trope is that a wandering sect leader finds an orphan on the street looking pitiful and takes them in as a direct disciple. 

The main rules of being in a cultivation sect: LISTEN TO YOUR ELDERS (your shifu, your shizun, your shixiong/shijie-s, etc), be righteous and kind, help the common people, follow the rules of Taoism, meditate and have a calm mind, drive away greed and pride, etc. Cultivation sects often have secret methods of cultivation they only teach to the closest disciples. The sect will send its disciples out to capture demons, on night-hunts, and to help the common people.

Sometimes, sects can be corrupt. Historically this was never seen in ancient novels, but in more and more webnovels and movie adaptations, big powerful sects can be breeding grounds for corruption, evildoing and greed (see Chan Sect in Ne Zha, Yuding Zhenren in New Gods: Yang Jian, Wen Sect in MDZS etc). This is just a plot point. 

Sects are literally always on distant mountains. As I said, this is mainly to avoid the chaos and dust of the mortal realm, but also because 灵气 or 灵力 (spiritual power) tends to gather on top of mountains, close to the sky and to the heavens and thus the immortal realm. Misty tall mountains are beautiful and peaceful and tranquil, so naturally they’re good places to cultivate qi.

TYPES OF MONSTERS/DEMONS/GHOSTS: This is fairly important and hard to translate. Chinese novels make a distinction between 妖魔鬼怪(yao/mo/gui/guai) and human spirits.

I will translate yao/mo/gui/guai as monsters, demons, ghosts and beasts, although the English translations are not direct and require a lot of nuance and explanation.

OKAY! Yao or yaoguai are the most common “enemies” your cultivator characters will experience. I translated yao as monsters. Yao is a very broad term: anything (human, animal, plant, even inanimate objects like hairpins and swords) may become yao. 

Yao usually do not start off as yao. They may be normal people, normal animals etc. If a human dies and was wronged (i.e: murdered, a wife who got cheated on, betrayed etc), their desire for revenge may turn their spirit into a yao who lingers where they died.

Very long-lived animals and plants may become tainted with resentful energy through human yao or human emotions (sometimes if the animal died a painful or wrongful death they might become yao) will also become yao. A hairpin or umbrella might become a yao if, for example, it was used as a murder weapon in a vengeful and violent murder.

Mo is translated as demons- they are born as demons. They are the culmination of vengeance and bad thoughts. Yao are living beings TURNED into monsters, but mo are the MANIFESTATION of those bad thoughts itself.

For example, if there is a mass grave somewhere caused by the murder of a whole family, the dead family members will turn into yao but their collective resentment may manifest as a demonic mo. Mo are manifested, but they can also be CREATED through ghosts (more on this later).

A distinction: regular people who die (i.e: old age, an accident not caused by human hands) will not become yao or manifest any mo. Only wrongful deaths will create yao or mo. Rich cultivators, even if they die wrongfully, also usually don’t become yao or mo because they go through ceremonies to prevent this when they’re alive.

Sometimes, mo CAN be yao (it depends on the author) like when a yao goes from plain resentful and harmful to FULL-ON EVIL. It depends! 

Gui are ghosts. Not much else to it. You can envision them as Harry Potter ghosts. These wandering spirits have some sort of regret (they weren’t able to protect their family, they weren’t able to finish something, etc) but they usually aren’t resentful, they just can’t move on for whatever reason. For example, this can be a dead parent watching over their living child.

Ghosts can BECOME resentful and become mo. When ghosts become resentful, they don’t turn into yao (yao are created from living things or just-deceased bodies) since they’re just spirits and yao require a physical vessel. If a dead mother saw her child being abused or mistreated, she may become resentful and turn into a demonic mo. 

Guai are beasts. They may be evil or resentful, but they often aren’t. Guai just means “weird”: a guai can be a really fucking big tiger, but it can also be a mutated rat. 

Yao-mo-gui-guai is a phrase that means “terrible weird wicked things” and we still use it today, not only to refer to ghosts and demons, but just general bad shit or people. For example, if you start hanging out with delinquents, your mom might say, “don’t just hang out with any yao-mo-gui-guai!”

What do cultivators do? They conquer yao and mo, and appease gui and guai to help the common people. Basically, they’re exorcists. They use spiritual weapons (most commonly a long, slim sword, but they may also use spears, whips, greatswords, musical instruments, or any random tool) to channel qi into supernatural powers. They may also use talismans enchanted with protective sigils. 

Most cultivators have a sword. They might cultivate with other stuff (powerful cultivators will have MANY spiritual tools) but they almost always have a sword. The primary method of travel in xianxia is 御剑 or riding on a sword. They stand on the sword and fly around like a magic carpet. Kinda cool, right?

Some of the most famous spiritual tools are Sun Wukong’s Ruyi Jingu Bang (a size-changing golden staff), the Magical Lotus Lantern (a lantern that functions as an impenetrable shield), the Painting of Mountains and Rivers (traps anything that touches it inside the painting), the Gold Calabash (sucks things into it), etc.

In modern webnovels, you’ll see the MCs using fancy and elegant spiritual tools such as magical fans, magical flutes/instruments, magical bracelets and rings and necklaces etc. Umbrellas are often commonly used as shields. 

OKAY! Time for some famous wuxia/xianxia media!

Famous wuxia media:

Novels-

Jin Yong’s works. 

Jin Yong wrote mainly in the 60s and 70s and his works are some of the most influential in Chinese culture today. He set the standard for much of what we see wuxia as today. His most famous works are 笑傲江湖

(literally: smile proud among the jianghu, translated on Wikipedia as The Smiling Proud Wanderer),

射雕英雄传

(Legend of the Condor Heroes), and 神雕侠侣 (Return of the Condor Heroes), even though all his novels are very famous.

The Smiling Proud Wanderer and the Condor Heroes series produced China’s most iconic wuxia characters. 东方不败 Dongfang Bubai (literally: Undefeated in the East or Invincible East) is literally the most iconic wuxia character you can ever think of. I won’t spoil Smiling Proud Wanderer, but basically he used to be a famous disciple before discovering a secret cultivation manual that granted him endless powers but required him to castrate himself, so he did and gave up his masculinity.

You can sort of think of Dongfang Bubai as trans or genderfluid? Though DFBB is neither female nor nonbinary. Just DFBB. Also DFBB is a villain, but a very COOL villain. Everyone loves DFBB.

DFBB is often depicted as a trans woman in a lot of TV/movie adaptations, or sometimes just female. China has a reputation for being very conservative about LGBTQ topics (which is true), but there are a lot of legends about various gay or trans characters, as well as several openly LGBTQ celebrities. I may make a post about LGBTQ Chinese pop culture.

The Smiling Proud Wanderer is a VERY popular movie series as well. Go watch it, it’s really, really good! You’ll fall in love with the movie DFBB. I certainly did as a child.

I don’t really like Legend of the Condor Heroes because I personally think it’s a little cringe, but my family all loves it, it’s totally up to personal preference (my favorite Jin Yong work is still Smiling Proud Wanderer). If you read NO OTHER JIN YONG work, read The Smiling Proud Wanderer.

Condor Heroes is probably second on the list. Jin Yong has a lot of novels and they’re all distantly connected (the same way A Song of Ice and Fire is connected to Fire and Blood- they all take place in the same universe, and the characters are related to each other). 

Chu Liuxiang series

The Legend of Chu Liuxiang is also a very famous wuxia series. Chu Liuxiang is a little bit like a Robin Hood figure- he’s righteous and steals from the rich to help the poor. He uses a fan as his spiritual tool and he’s very pretty and moral (he doesn’t kill people, even bad people). He’s also very smart, calm and collected.

I’m NGL, although Chu Liuxiang is traditionally the handsome, distant husband archetype, recently I’ve been seeing people pairing him as the bottom of a BL couple. Won’t spoil who his ships are, but… yum.

I haven’t read the Chu Liuxiang novels, but I grew up on movie and TV adaptations. Looking back, since they’re all pretty old, none of the story/plot/actors/styling choices appeal to me now, but I LOVED CLX as a kid. It’s hard not to, the same way everyone loves Robin Hood as a kid! He’s really cool.

Wuxia films

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is wuxia! This might be the most famous wuxia media that Westerners know of.

The old Chinese guy in Kill Bill also technically makes that portion of the film wuxia. TBH, Kill Bill overall FEELS very wuxia- the MC taking revenge for people who wronged her, there’s a whole training arc, she has a shifu, etc. I love Kill Bill! Maybe this is why. The Kill Bill movies (and a lot of Tarantino films) take inspiration from Chinese/Hong Kong cinema and wuxia films such as those by Stephen Chow and Zhang Yimou.

Well, I suppose Kung Fu Panda is also wuxia. I personally really like Kung Fu Panda. It gives you a good idea of the ideals and values of wuxia, hmm?

Joy of Life 庆余年 is a very good wuxia novel/TV show. It doesn’t focus a lot on wuxia, but there’s wuxia elements to it!

Famous xianxia media:

Danmei

I think a lot of people are familiar with xianxia danmei (danmei is Chinese BL). In fact, the explosive popularity of danmei webnovels like MDZS, TGCF and 2HA is what introduced xianxia to a lot of overseas people. You’ll recognise many of the terms I outlined above in MXTX and Meatbun’s works. (Quick note: MDZS is a very untraditional cultivation setting)

Xianxia is a very popular setting for danmei because, well, it’s very romantic imagery for your top and bottom to be dressed in beautiful clothing. Xianxia is also a good setting for both sexy times and tragic plotlines.

Popular danmei xianxia:

MXTX works (MDZS, TGCF, SVSSS)

Meatbun works (2HA, Remnants of Filth)

Priest works (Word of Honour, Liu Yao etc)

C-dramas

A LOT of c-dramas are set in xianxia. Xianxia gives potential for beautiful clothes/hair and makeup while also letting your antagonists be freely evil for understandable reasons (having someone hate just for haters’ sake is easier to stomach in xianxia than in a modern setting where you need a JOB LMAO). 

Some of the most popular non-danmei xianxia c-dramas are:

三生三世十里桃花 Eternal Love (terrible name: it’s more like 3 Lives, 3 Realms and 10 Miles of Peach Blossoms). It’s VERY popular in China, but I thought it was just mid. A lot of people really like it though!

琅琊榜 Nirvana in Fire (the plot is good if you can get past the TERRIBLE STYLING)

苍兰诀 Love Between Fairy and Devil (I thought it was mid. Fairly popular though)

斗罗大陆 Douluo Continent (I hated the show LMAO. The show was bad, but the IP itself is very popular)

香蜜沉沉烬如霜 Ashes of Love (yet another terrible name) I personally hate this show but a lot of people love it LMAO

长歌行 The Long Ballad (This one was actually pretty good! I recommend it)

Novels/webnovels

Novels and webnovels are where xianxia shines! Most xianxia danmei are webnovels, and most xianxia c-dramas are adapted from webnovels too. 

Popular xianxia novels/webnovels include:

凡人修仙传: A Mortal Cultivating to Immortality

Exactly as it sounds- a record of some dude cultivating to immortality. It’s very famous and VERY popular, but it’s really long. I never finished it LMAO. It has like, 8 million words. For context, the ENTIRE HARRY POTTER BOOK SERIES COMBINED is only about 1 million words. 

修真聊天群: Cultivation Group Chat

A webnovel in which a regular person gets added to a group chat of cultivators (he assumes they’re fantasy roleplayers). It’s pretty funny and is basically a parody of common xianxia novels.

蛊真人: Reverend Insanity

Gu is an important concept in Chinese “sorcery” for anyone reading this novel, which you can Google, but Reverend Insanity is about a villain sent 500 years back in time with his gu and he’s a ruthless cruel dude who stops at nothing to achieve his goals and takes out anyone who opposes him. I really like the MC Fang Yuan, but the novel can be somewhat “dark” for people who prefer righteous honest main characters.

Maybe I’ll make a post on Gu or Chinese sorcery in general.

This list was taken from Wikipedia (because I assume Wikipedia will only include the ones semi-famous abroad) and is in NO WAY exhaustive. Most Chinese webnovels are xianxia, so there’s literally hundreds of famous webnovels. My personal favourites are 2HA, Candle in the Tomb (not xianxia- it’s about tomb raiding) and Global Examination (it’s danmei but not xianxia).

Personally, I like xianxia but not enough that I exclusively read it (like some of my friends). Xianxia itself is not appealing enough for me to read a webnovel purely because it’s xianxia. Actually I tend to prefer novels set in reality, IDK why. 

[yunsound]

I mainly hate Ruyi (mainly the film/novel) because it was literally created by Liu Lianzi, due to her hatred with Ling Fei from New My Fair Princess (2011). On her Weibo account, LLZ said that Ling Fei (Liu Xiaoye) is a wicked woman while Step Empress (Sheren Tang) is actually a good person.

I just dislike Liu Lianzi in general. The original novel of Zhen Huan Zhuan is also terrible- it's a rare instance in which the TV show adaptation is WAY better than the book. Ruyi Zhuan is slightly better than the show (not that that's a high bar to cross) but it's also terrible.

Liu Lianzi is just not a good author. Zhen Huan Zhuan set my expectations way too high for Ruyi Zhuan, but even with the shadow of its predecessor aside the entire show just makes zero sense at all.

[yunsound]

Why I Hate Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace (And You Should Too) Part 2:

Part 1 here:

In Ruyi Zhuan, there are also multiple close-up shots of Ruyi’s hands. But instead of her hands being slim, slender and delicate…

Look. You decide for yourself.

Okay, it’s insane to expect everyone to have slim and slender and delicate fingers! That’s fair! I myself have hands nowhere NEAR as pretty as the actresses in ZHZ. It’s unfair to expect Zhou Xun to just have pretty hands. 

THEN DON’T DO THE CLOSE-UP SHOTS!!! What’s the point of giving close-up shots especially on her hands if she doesn’t have pretty hands? Hand-centered close-up shots 手部特写 are a common part of film in China, the same way American films will often have a female character wink flirtatiously at the camera.

This is like if your actress can’t wink so she just ends up squinting. It’s fine if she can’t wink, but THEN DON’T INCLUDE THE SHOT?

They could’ve even used a hand model. They didn’t. WHY?

Hujia (the nail covers) are meant to not only protect the nails but to encourage the women wearing them to be elegant and dignified in their hand movements. See the ZHZ actresses wearing hujia:

Then look at Ruyi wearing hujia.

CRAB CLAWS OR WHAT?

She doesn’t have to wear hujia! It was common, but not every concubine wore hujia! They were expensive and a show of status, but Ruyi’s whole personality is supposed to be subtle, she doesn’t like showing off. So it would’ve been more fitting if she never wore hujia. But she does. She wears so many. 

Also, the hujia she wears doesn’t fit. The production team sourced real historical hujia (they also made one-to-one replicas of real historical hujia) but those replicas and historical artifacts don’t fit Zhou Xun, because she has thicker fingers.

JUST MAKE NEW ONES THAT FIT HER INSTEAD OF FORCING THE WHOLE “authentic, accurate” THING! IT LOOKS TERRIBLE!

I’ve already said Ruyi’s styling is terrible. Here is a comparison of the styling done prior to the changes made by Zhou Xun’s team and the final style:

They did Zhou Xun so, so dirty. She still doesn’t look under 20 in the first photo, but at most she looks 25-30. IN THE SECOND PHOTO SHE LOOKS 45. Remember, Ruyi is very young!

The first photo is so pretty! She looks great! WHY DID THEY CHANGE IT.

Her clothes are also all tacky and ostentatious. They look like something my grandma would wear. 

Oh it’s ancient China, everyone wore clothes like that!

The other concubines have perfectly pretty clothes! Why is Ruyi the only one who dresses like a street grandma???

It’s still mainly the makeup’s fault. Look, in this photo:

The dress is still pretty ugly, I’m not going to lie. The pale yellow is not appealing. But overall, it looks okay!

WHAT IS WITH THIS MAKEUP. 

WHAT IS WITH THIS HAIR.

I watched this show because I was skeptical of all the bad reviews. I figured it was just people being mean.

Jesus Christ. Every time I saw Ruyi I just got a strong feeling of utter dislike. I hate Ruyi so much. 

How did anyone like this show??? WHY???? I saw people on like Western sites recommending it! It was on TikTok and people were like “it’s my favourite c-drama” PLEASE watch a show that’s actually good! Ruyi Zhuan has terrible styling, terrible casting, terrible acting, the plot makes no sense, everyone has gone utterly insane!

In conclusion: don’t watch this terrible show. Every review that says it’s good is lying to you.

[yunsound]

Why I Hate Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace (And You Should Too)

OKAY.

A few years ago, I began seeing people recommend a drama called Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace to people looking to get into c-dramas. At the time, I knew of this show (Ruyi Zhuan, or the Tale of Ruyi in Chinese) but I had not watched it. I only knew that in China it had very bad ratings, but I didn’t know why.

Actually I remember very clearly that I was a bit miffed that people within China were hating the show. Surely it can’t be that bad, I thought. What’s the point of hating on a show? Get a job.

I had seen Empresses in the Palace (Zhen Huan Zhuan) before, obviously. It’s the most iconic harem intrigue or palace show in China. It’s very, very good and has glowing reviews, and I agree. I love that show. Go watch it. It takes place in the court of the Yongzheng Emperor, and ends with the main character Zhen Huan

Spoilers!

Becoming the Empress Dowager when Yongzheng dies. 

After Yongzheng died, his son the Fourth Prince Hongli ascended the throne and became the Qianlong Emperor. Liu Lianzi, the author of the novel that inspired Zhen Huan Zhuan wrote another book, called Ruyi Zhuan, about the court of the Qianlong Emperor.

Let’s just say there’s a reason people love the show Zhen Huan Zhuan and don’t like the book. The book is… not great, let’s just say. 

Moving on. Liu Lianzi’s book gets adapted into another show called Ruyi Zhuan (Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace). When it was announced, it was highly-anticipated because people believed it would be just as good as Zhen Huan Zhuan. 

Even as it came out, the reviews were mixed- not great, not bad. People were very underwhelmed because it was confusing. It did very well commercially (partially because of Zhen Huan Zhuan’s popularity). 

Then someone started asking questions. Hey, why does Ruyi do this? I’m confused. Is this allowed? Why does this make no sense?

Now I'm going to rant about why I (and most Chinese people) hate Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace. SPOILERS! Obviously.

First off- let's talk about the plotline. It makes absolutely zero sense.

The main character, Ruyi (she's born with the namer Qingying) is apparently the Fourth Prince's favoured girl before he ascends to Emperor, but he can't marry her for various reasons (not highly ranked, her aunt the former Empress lost against Zhen Huan, etc). However, as her life in the palace goes on, she remains the Emperor (the former Fourth Prince)'s true love.

This makes ZERO SENSE. Historically, the Empress Fuca (NOT RUYI) was Qianlong Emperor's true love.

Even if Empress Fuca wasn't loved, WHY RUYI??? Historically she's literally the most unimportant character in Qianlong Emperor's harem. She wasn't particularly favoured or important, nor did she have powerful children. She ascended to Empress on technicalities.

Minor spoiler: I suppose the reason why she's the main character is because she dramatically cut the tips of her hair (basically means divorce or whatever since tying your hair with your husband means marriage) and as a result Qianlong Emperor destroyed all her portraits.

Okay, whatever. So Ruyi is the main character, sure.

Qianlong Emperor was never supposed to be a kind or nice or benevolent guy. Not only is he the Emperor, he’s also established to be a little bit of a dickbag since day one (since we know from history that Step-Empress Ula-Nara will eventually cut her hair). However, his dickishness is actually so extreme.

Yongzheng Emperor in Zhen Huan Zhuan was also a dickbag. However, he was well-written. He does everything for the state, and he is a smart, collected and scheming man. He’s the Emperor, after all- even when he gets angry, he holds an air of absolute authority, and you can’t help but be intimidated by him even if he’s not a handsome guy.

See what I mean? He's not meant to be attractive.

He was never visibly angry (as in, he very rarely screamed or yelled) but his quiet displeasure is made very obvious through good writing and good acting (Chen Jianbin, who plays Yongzheng, is a seasoned veteran actor).

Qianlong Emperor in Ruyi Zhuan is terribly-written and not well-acted either. For one, he has absolutely none of the quiet authority, dignity or presence an Emperor is expected to have.

When he gets angry, he screams and shouts like he’s throwing a fucking tantrum. Despite being young and handsome (much more handsome than Yongzheng’s actor was), you can’t help but feel slightly repulsed by him.

You’re left thinking, how did this guy become the Emperor! He has 绝对性缩力, or absolute un-sexiness. Like, he’s handsome and tall, but he’s just so unlikeable. 

Fine. What does it matter if the Emperor isn’t attractive? He’s an asshole, we shouldn’t be attracted to him anyway. I understand that. 

NO ONE IN THIS FUCKING SHOW HAS ANY MANNERS AND IT’S INFURIATING.

Harem shows and shows set in ancient China are a little hard to film because every character has to act with such dignity and manners. Especially in the palace- every word and action you make must be calculated, or you could die!

Those were the days where if your name even sounded similar to the Emperor’s name, you could get your fucking head chopped off, and if you offended the Emperor or an official in the court, nine fucking generations of your family would be murdered.

In Zhen Huan Zhuan, every single consort, even when they hate each other and plot against each other, is very polite and well-mannered in their speech. When they insult each other, they do it in hidden barbs and machinations.

The rare occasions when someone hits someone, it’s either a master hitting a servant or someone very high-ranked hitting someone very low-ranked. They bow and they are appropriately deferential. The people that are rude or ill-mannered…die. Die very badly.

In Ruyi Zhuan, shit hits the fucking fan. Everyone throws dignity out the window. In one scene, an Attendant hits a Noble Lady. 

皇帝 Emperor 

太后 Dowager Empress 

皇后 Empress

皇贵妃 Imperial Noble Consort

贵妃 Noble Consort

妃 Consort

嫔 Concubine

贵人 Noble One (or Noble Lady)

常在 Attendant

答应 Answerable 

官女子 Palace Lady

This is the list of rankings. You may notice, ATTENDANTS ARE RANKED LOWER THAN NOBLE LADIES. That is a crime you could literally be executed for! And nothing even happens!!!

The Noble Lady is like, "how can you be so disrespectful" and THAT'S IT.

This is the equivalent of walking up to your boss and punching him in the dick, and then you carry on as if nothing happened. 

They try to justify it by saying the Emperor really likes the Attendant and doesn’t like the Noble Lady, so he doesn’t care. Sure, but that’s STILL NOT ALLOWED! Every Emperor was encouraged to be fair and judicious in his harem so that no concubine would grow overly proud and full of herself.

If Qianlong had literally any fucking brains, he’d execute that Attendant or at least banish her from the palace!

Okay. There’s more.

Ruyi’s best friend and ally is named Hailan, who is a timid and meek Noble Lady (she’s the one that got hit by an Attendant). Throughout the show, they constantly make Ruyi out to be an amazing friend. Hailan always goes to her for help, and even the Emperor says Ruyi is kind and generous to Hailan.

KIND AND GENEROUS WHERE???

She’s so kind and generous that when Hailan comes to visit her in her palace, she doesn’t even offer her a chair or somewhere to sit. Hailan just stands there the whole time.

When Hailan goes to her for help after being bullied, Ruyi doesn’t offer her any proper advice, she just says “you need to get stronger” LIKE OH WOW THANKS YOU’RE PRACTICALLY SUN TZU!

Also, Ruyi is a FUCKING IDIOT!

Zhen Huan was very smart and practical- she knew that even if people were seemingly deferential to her, they would be plotting to remove her behind her back. She took every precaution and even tested the people closest to her (after they proved their loyalty, she treated them very well, unlike Ruyi, who hates chairs I suppose). 

Spoiler for Zhen Huan Zhuan:

In one of the most famous scenes, another concubine accuses Zhen Huan of having an affair and claims her children are not the Emperor’s children. Although this is an extremely serious crime and accusation and there is seemingly a mountain of evidence against her, Zhen Huan reacts quickly and cleverly diffuses the situation, turning the problem onto the accuser and proving her innocence. 

Ruyi was framed for poisoning and killing someone else’s child. She didn’t do it, obviously, but when she’s asked to defend herself she literally says “I know you don’t believe me, but I didn’t do it.” HUHHHH?? SAY SOMETHING! DON’T JUST SIT THERE!

Then she goes “You’re framing me. I do not know what to say.”

BRO IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY, WHO DOES??? ARE YOU EXPECTING ME, THE AUDIENCE, TO LEAP INTO THE SCREEN AND HELP YOU???

The lines:

Ruyi: "I know an explanation will be useless, I can only hope Your Majesty will be fair. I want to say- I didn't do any of this."

Qianlong: "I know. I believe you wouldn't do this."

WHAT KIND OF LOW-ASS SHIT QUALITY DIALOGUE IS THIS?

Why, exactly, does Ruyi have to be smart? Because she’s the main character! This is a harem intrigue story! The whole point of a show like this is to use clever plots and planning to gain power! She’s so stupid it’s insane!

Shows set in ancient China that have female leads are delicate topics. Because ancient China was so misogynistic and oppressive, the female leads have to be witty and internally strong and resilient in order to succeed.

Zhen Huan is an example of this. You can see through her speech that she’s a product of her time- she constantly refers to women in general as emotional or inferior, but her actions are just the opposite.

She’s strong, capable, resilient and ambitious. Spoiler: upon realising the Yongzheng Emperor is suspicious of her, she literally fucking kills him and instates her own adopted son as Qianlong Emperor. Not only that, she’s also kind and caring without being overly perfect.

Everyone she calls a friend, she treats well (I’m talking very well, she helps them get promoted, she gifts them expensive things, she even personally goes to the torture chamber to look after her servant who’s been accused of a crime! She, a consort, is going to personally take care of her servant, because her servant Jinxi is her good friend and is also a smart and capable person.) 

We can also see this in Minglan, in The Story of Minglan. Minglan is smart and ambitious, but she knows that due to the social constructs of the time she must hide her true abilities, so she does, and manages to become powerful and happy.

Ruyi. Ruyi is an idiot. Not only is she an idiot, but she's a product of thinly-veiled misogyny. 

Harem intrigue at its core revolves around women putting each other down for the attention of a man, which seems incredibly misogynistic but was unavoidable at a time when the Emperor’s word was law.

Zhen Huan targets only those who hurt her, and she takes good care of the people she likes (her allies in the harem are given promotions, favour and good futures for their children).

She forms a strong sisterhood with others, and protects her sisters and family against the whims of the Emperor- she can even abandon her high pride to beg for mercy, even when she’s angry at Yongzheng.

Every plot Zhen Huan makes towards other women, she does so in a way that targets only their personality. She is never doing it because she’s jealous, or she thinks they’re a threat to her relationship with the Emperor. Undoubtedly she gets jealous sometimes, but she never manifests it in her actions.

If Zhen Huan insults someone, she insults a valid flaw in their circumstances- Consort Hua is too dominant and cocky because her family is powerful. An Lingrong is too insecure because her background is lowly. Empress Yixiu is too ruthless because she was born of a concubine and not a wife.

Ruyi, on the other hand, seems to fucking hate women. Every time she talks to Qianlong she’s putting someone down: that concubine is a shameless seductress, that concubine is too ambitious, that concubine is rude. 

Women (like me) like watching harem intrigue even though a bunch of beautiful ladies fighting over an old man is not appealing. Why do we like harem intrigue? Because harem intrigue always has an interesting, intelligent and independent female main character, who is ambitious and strong.  They HAVE to have all of these characteristics to survive in ancient China.

So how does Ruyi survive even three episodes? I guarantee she’d be killed two minutes into Zhen Huan Zhuan for being rude to someone or saying the wrong thing. The only reason she has any power is because the Emperor likes her a lot.

She doesn’t gain her position through her own strength. Zhen Huan, even though Yongzheng really liked her as well, faced constant opposition- she battled every step of the way to cement her power within the harem. The love and favour she receives from Yongzheng is due to her careful planning and manipulation. She gaslights him into loving and liking her a lot.

Ruyi gains power solely through Qianlong Emperor’s lingering affection for her when they were younger. Earlier, despite having so much evidence against her, she only says "I don't know what to say" and Qianlong blindly believes her out of affection.

Whenever she makes plans to take down someone else or to gain Qianlong’s affections, she either doesn’t succeed or it’s the dumbest plan ever. When she gets into trouble, she doesn’t think her way out of the problem- Qianlong is the one who takes pity on her and helps her. The one time she ever thought about a problem was when she was stuck in the Cold Palace and poisoned herself to get out.

This is the world’s dumbest plan. It somehow works. WHAT??? What self-respecting concubine is poisoning a forgettable lady stuck in the Cold Palace? What’s the point??? Why?? How does this work? How does Qianlong ever believe her?

Ruyi is a product of her time the same way Zhen Huan is. However, Zhen Huan sees the unfairness of her situation (she hates the Emperor for being ruthless and cold and says that for women like her to survive, they must be smart and resilient). Ruyi fully believes in the oppression and misogyny of ancient China.

For example: there is a scene in Zhen Huan Zhuan where Zhen Huan comforts the sad child Fourth Prince (that’s who will become Qianlong Emperor eventually). The Fourth Prince is very young, like not even 10, but he was born when Yongzheng got drunk and forced himself on a very ugly palace maid.

Because his mother disgusted Yongzheng (see what I mean when I say he’s a dickbag) and died during childbirth, Fourth Prince is not favoured at all. 

Zhen Huan bends down and says to him kindly:

If you want others to respect you, you must respect yourself. I do not know if your mother was lowly or high-born, but a parent will inherently love their child. Don’t pay attention to what others say to discriminate against you. The most important thing is that you must never begin to think of yourself as truly lower than them. If you respect yourself and become someone worthy of admiration, then no one will discriminate against you regardless of how you were born.

What a great message. Want to know what Ruyi says to a child?

She says to the First Prince:

In the palace, the status of a child is determined by the status of their mother. Your mother and adoptive mother are both just concubines, ranked below the Empress. Because of this, your position is also below the Second Prince. 

What the fuck? Who says that to a child? If you’re trying to be realistic and tell him to be pragmatic and polite, at least encourage him that if he’s smart and resilient he can raise his rank through his own hard work (like winning political battles or being academically excellent).

Not only is Ruyi a terrible mother, Hailan also sucks. Her son is worried that Ruyi (the Empress at this point) won’t be as caring to him as before since Ruyi just gave birth to another son.

Hailan literally tells her own son: You are not the oldest Prince, nor a Prince born to the first Empress. The only reason you are highly-ranked now is because your Imperial Mother (Ruyi) has been helping you. I won’t allow you to think such blasphemous things. 

BRUH???

Okay. There’s a whole lot more wrong with the characters. Lower ranked concubines like noble ladies and attendants constantly insult noble consorts and consorts to their face, and aside from getting pissy they’re never actually punished. The Emperor is a toddler with a hammer instead of a proper leader. Ruyi is an idiot. 

But what else is bad about the show? THE STYLING AND CASTING.

I’ve already said that the Qianlong Emperor is not portrayed well. He is played by Wallace Huo, who is a good actor. It’s just that his lines and reactions are so out-of-pocket. Chinese Emperors had to engage in a fierce political battle with their brothers in order to be able to ascend- Qianlong is by all means supposed to be a clever, calm and collected individual. Nope. He throws tantrums and treats his harem unfairly. 

Qing Dynasty clothing can be either very beautiful or very ugly. I’m going to be honest here. A lot of the clothing in Zhen Huan Zhuan is very beautiful

and a lot of the clothes in other Qing-era dramas (like The Story of Yanxi Palace)

are pretty too. How come, though, they had to pick such ugly fucking clothes for Ruyi Zhuan?

C’mon. Really? These accessories look so cheap, especially that jade bangle. The gold bracelet is just ugly (at least it looks like gold) but that hairpin??? It look like something they made in kindergarden arts and crafts class.

The clothing is bulky and puffy. The hair ornaments are misfit, and the hand ornaments (like rings and hujia) are either too big or too small. Everything screams dirty and old. 

A big part of Ruyi’s character is that she’s supposed to be a very quiet, withdrawn and subtle person. She doesn’t like to fight with people, she’s kind and keeps to herself, and she doesn’t like ostentatious or luxurious or flashy things. 

Why, then, is she always wearing the flashiest, most ostentatious, most luxurious, UGLIEST outfits???

She’s wearing like ten thousand rings and necklaces in every shot. For context, Qing Dynasty noblewomen wore long hujia (nail covers) to protect their natural nails. Ruyi’s hujia are enormous and tacky and UGLY. 

Zhou Xun, who was 44 at the time of the release of the show (so like, 42 while filming) was cast to play a fucking teenager. That is ridiculous. She was originally asked to play Zhen Huan in Zhen Huan Zhuan in 2011 (she would’ve been around 35-37) but refused because she didn’t think the show would be successful and she was too busy. When Zhen Huan Zhuan blew up, in part because of Sun Li’s excellent acting, Zhou Xun jumped at the opportunity to play Ruyi.

Zhou Xun was way too fucking old to be Ruyi. Tell me, in what world does she look like she’s 14-15 in these shots? 

I’m all for the industry not abandoning female stars as they get older, but it is ridiculous to cast a 42 year old as a 15 year old. Ridiculous. Also, she brought in her own makeup team, made arbitrary changes to the script so Ruyi could have more lines and screen time, and changed her styling choices so many times she eventually replaced the stylist she was given with her own stylist.

Okay, that’s fine if your stylist is really good. Annoying, but fine.

NO! HER STYLIST WAS SHIT!

It’s said she chose all her makeup/clothes herself (I’m not sure about this rumour, I only saw it in a XHS post) so if she did, she has terrible taste, but if she didn’t, does her team just hate her?

What’s with these eyebrows? What’s with the pasty eye makeup that makes her eyes look super small and fishy? What’s with the lack of contour? What’s with the fucking cakey foundation that makes it seem like she’s dead??? THE LIP FILLERS! God, the lip fillers are so bad. She’s literally pouting her lips the whole time she talks.

Zhou Xun is a beautiful woman even today. It’s not her age or her face that makes Ruyi so ugly. They did her so dirty. Or if she truly did make her own styling choices, she did herself so dirty, man. 

In Zhen Huan Zhuan, there were multiple close-up shots of the actresses’ hands, because they all had slender, long fingers, which are a major beauty standard in Asia (and I suspect everywhere). Sun Li even said that every actress all went to get hand massages and get their nails done and trimmed so their hands would truly appear like the hands of spoiled palace ladies.

OKAY. This post is getting too long. Click here for part 2.

[yunsound]

C-drama Recommendations

I tend to like watching TV shows more than movies since I get more content to watch, so here we go!

Keep in mind the following dramas aren’t really made with the same limitations of being “understandable for a Western audience” as the movie rec list I made. Thus, some of these dramas may be utterly incomprehensible even with English subtitles. Watch at your own risk, I guess. 

This post is very long. I recommend you read the whole thing, but if you're too bored, to, I will give you right here the top 5 ranking I think you should watch these shows in.

Empresses in the Palace (Zhen Huan Zhuan), the Tale of Zhen Huan (available on YouTube with English subtitles)

Nirvana in Fire (available on YouTube with English subtitles)

The Bad Kids (available on YouTube with English subtitles)

Joy of Life (available on YouTube with English subtitles)

The Story of Minglan (available on YouTube with English subtitles)

All the other dramas on this list are also worth watching! You'll just have to read through my yapping. Sorry.

I WILL PREFACE BY SAYING.

In recent years, I have seen people recommending a drama called 如懿传, or Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace.

DO NOT FUCKING WATCH THIS SHOW. IT IS SHIT.

If you liked it, I have no words. You do you, I guess. Just... why???

This isn't even just my opinion either. It's widely known across literally every Chinese social media site that this show is terrible. I have ZERO IDEA why people overseas recommend it. It's the "sequel" to Empresses in the Palace, Zhen Huan Zhuan (which is arguably the most iconic historic TV show in Chinese history) in that it tells the story of what happens after Empresses in the Palace, and the novel si written by the same author.

I will elaborate on why you shouldn't watch Ruyi in a different post, which I will link here once it's up.

Let's begin. Sorry for that rant.

甄嬛传 Empresses in the Palace (or The Tale of Zhen Huan), 2011

Starring Sun Li, Ada Choi and Chen Jianbing

This is widely-regarded as the most popular c-drama. It’s also my personal favourite c-drama, I’ve rewatched it ENDLESS times and I think I can recite the lines and mannerisms from memory. 

It’s a palace harem intrigue story, set in the late Qing Dynasty in the court of the Yongzheng Emperor. His harem of concubines (yes, Chinese emperors had harems) frequently fought and battled with each other for favour or political strength.

The titular character is named Zhen Huan, who is a young girl selected into the harem. She is beautiful, smart and looks very similar to the Emperor’s deceased first wife, Empress Chunyuan.

Zhen Huan (we affectionately call her Huanhuan) quickly rises through the ranks of the harem with her wits. She is politically and socially savvy- a true girlboss. Along the way, though, she encounters much opposition, from other jealous concubines (most notably Consort Hua, who is the haughty, beautiful and favoured younger sister of a grand general named Nian Gengyao). 

The reason why Empresses in the Palace is so good is because not only is Zhen Huan almost the perfect MC (she’s incredibly smart but she has practically no plot armour- her failings and success are entirely her own merit), but the other characters are all written very well. 

None of them are truly evil, per se, but despite their petty and often cruel actions, you want to sympathise with them even if they do bad things. 

Also, the set and costumes and props and actresses are all super pretty! 

Like, look at these costumes and accessories!

It's such a visually-stunning show, and Sun Li is so beautiful and likeable as Huanhuan.

The whole show is on YouTube with English subtitles. I don’t know how I feel about the English translations, but they’re not bad per se. 

Prior to watching, I’ll include a list of the rankings of people in the palace in case you get confused. From highest to lowest:

皇帝 Emperor = 太后 Dowager Empress (even the Emperor has to listen to her sometimes, even though the Emperor is technically higher ranked)

皇后 Empress

皇贵妃 Imperial Noble Consort

贵妃 Noble Consort

妃 Consort

嫔 Concubine

贵人 Noble One (or Noble Lady)

常在 Attendant

答应 Answerable 

官女子 Palace Lady

Being granted a title rather than using your surname (for example, Consort Butterfly is higher-ranked than Consort Smith) is a great honour.

GO WATCH THIS SHOW! It’s so good! The original novel is like, kind of shit. This is the only time the book has ever been worse than the adaptation. It’s very long (like, 70 episodes) but I swear it’s worth it!

琅琊榜 Nirvana in Fire, 2015

Starring Hu Ge and Liu Tao

It has been a LONG time since I’ve watched Nirvana in Fire and I’ve basically forgotten everything about it (I watched it when I was younger and was not paying attention). Regardless.

At its core, it’s a political thriller about the rise of an underdog politician in the warring states period. What makes this drama so good is the chemistry between Hu Ge (the main actor, playing Mei Changsu) and literally everybody else.

The plotting, the scheming, the subterfuge and espionage and battle and justice-pursuing epic machinations: I really liked this drama even if I’ve forgotten literally everything.

You can consider it a little bit like Game of Thrones? If not nearly as huge a mythological universe, the overall themes are somewhat similar. 

This show is just generally very popular even without me advertising it, but go watch it if you haven’t! 

知否知否应是绿肥红瘦 The Story of Minglan 2018

Starring Zhao Liying, Feng Shaofeng, Zhu Yilong

Okay, the translation for the title of this drama is really bad, but I suppose it is hard to translate it. 知否知否应是红肥绿瘦 is a very famous line from a Song dynasty poem (by a very famous female poet). Translated directly:

You know, you know? This should be green fat, red skinny.

The actual meaning: Did you know, did you know? This should be a time for green shrubs to blossom, and red flowers to wither. 

The main character, Minglan, is the daughter of a high-ranking government official and his concubine (ancient times, noblemen had multiple wives). Since she was not born of the primary wife (and thus is considered an inherently lesser person), Minglan is often mistreated. She is extremely clever and strong-willed, but learns to hide her smarts and personality behind a seemingly-weak and dim-witted mask. 

Minglan’s family all battle for their own self-interests. She has many siblings (there are lots of wives and concubines). As Minglan grows up and comes-of-age, she learns to subtly manipulate people, fend off her enemies and experience romance. 

Minglan, just like Zhen Huan, is smart and accomplished. She has her wits about her and isn’t blindly in love with anyone, nor does she tolerate people who try to hurt her. However, she’s kind and generous, not cruel, and isn’t annoying or loud. It’s just very satisfying to see her go about her life and live well for herself. 

隐秘的角落 The Bad Kids, 2020

Starring Rong Zishan, Shi Pengyuan and Wang Shengdi

The Bad Kids was released as part of a series of TV shows including The Long Night (the next one on this list). The main character, 15 year old Zhu Chaoyang, is the young son of divorced parents. His stepfather and half-sister Zhu Jingjing often do not treat him well, and although he excels academically, he has a cold and unfriendly personality.

Chaoyang’s primary school friend Yan Liang escaped from their orphanage with another little girl, Pupu (a nickname, I don’t remember her actual name). Chaoyang, Yan Liang and Pupu enjoy their time together playing and goofing off and doing slightly-illegal activities (nothing bad! Pupu and Yan Liang are technically missing runaway children, so they’re being pursued by well-meaning police officers trying to return them to the orphanage, and Chaoyang is letting them stay unlawfully at his house without letting his mom know). 

One day, while playing in a park across from a mountain, they take a video of themselves singing a popular children’s song. Later, they realise the video contains evidence of a murder.

The murderer is a teacher whose wife wants a divorce, his name is Dongsheng. Dongsheng is a terrifying character. He seems so normal (he’s even quite handsome) but everything he does is just… subtly off. He feels so wrong even though there’s nothing outwardly out of place. 

The three kids are terrified at the news and want to turn the video over to the police, but they realise that means Yan Liang and Pupu would be sent back to the orphanage. 

Dongsheng and the kids engage in a game of desperate cat and mouse to get the video, get money, and get an alibi in place. However, as the story goes on, you can’t truly like or hate any of the characters. The plot is written very well. 

Chaoyuan, who seems like an innocent kid, reveals he has some darkness in him as well. Dongsheng, who is a coldblooded murderer, develops an attachment to the kids and begins to bond with them. 

The entire drama is incredibly tense. The three child actors do a terrific job. Literally every actor does a terrific job. Not only is the plot well-done, the acting and pacing is great too. A very good drama!

沉默的真相 The Long Night, 2020

Starring Bai Yu, Liao Fan

This is the other drama that went viral in 2020 with The Bad Kids- it’s part of the same universe.

Yan Liang, now grown-up and a detective, investigates a mysterious murder case.

The killer was caught by police when trying to get past subway security with a suspicious suitcase- it’s revealed the suitcase included a dead body. He confesses to the crime and pleads guilty, but on the day of the highly-publicized trial, he reveals that he has a perfect alibi for when the murder occured.

The victim was once a prosecutor who dedicated his entire life to solving a particular crime. He was sentenced to two years in prison for corruption and bribery. As the story progresses, you begin to wonder who exactly is a murderer, and who exactly is the detective. Who is the victim? Was it the person who died? Was it the person who killed them?

Regardless, the entire drama is incredibly tense. Your brain has to work overtime to keep up with their deductions, but it’s done brilliantly where you want to know and figure out what’s happening with them, instead of getting bored or confused. Every new discovery opens the web of conspiracies up!

In the end, the entire murder case seems like an incredibly long play. You’re left not knowing if any of it was worth it, or if you (and the characters) have wasted away your time, youth and energy on something that was always inevitably a tragedy. The epitome of doomed by the narrative. 

This is a very good show. All I can say is, don’t watch it if you want to be in a good mood, but it’s thrilling and gripping and very well-done. 

长安十二时辰 The Longest Day in Chang’an, 2019

Starring Jackson Yee, Lei Jiayin

A former army soldier is given 24 hours (or twelve shichen, hence the Chinese name of the show, Twelve Shichen in Chang’an) to uncover and dissolve a terrorist plot against the capital of the empire, Chang’an. If he manages to solve the problem within 24 hours, he will be released from prison (he killed important people) and if he does not, he gets executed. 

The terrorist plot is to take place during the Lantern Festival (not CNY, but similar) which is the biggest holiday. As such, the stakes are pretty high.

I never finished this drama, it’s pretty long. I remember the plot being pretty good, though the costuming and some of the action wasn’t amazing. Jackson Yee is a great actor, though! 

Again, this is a very tense thriller show. My main complaint is that it’s too long and not fast-paced enough. If you can watch it to the end, I think you’ll like it- I certainly enjoyed it well enough.

庆余年 Joy of Life, 2019

Starring Zhang Ruoyun, Li Qin, Chen Daoming

Based on a popular novel, a transmigrator from the 21st century is born as Fan Xian in ancient China in the fictional Qing (a different Qing than the other Qing Dynasty, this one is 庆, but there is a 清, which is the Manchu Dynasty and the one in Empresses in the Palace) Dynasty. 

He is raised as the bastard son of the assistant minister of finance, Fan Jian. Fan Xian’s mother, Ye Qingmei, was a genius inventor who created the Inner Department (a treasury of production of surprisingly-modern goods like soap, etc) and the Overwatch Bureau, basically the CIA. 

After Fan Xian experiences an assassination attempt, he heads from the rural manor he was raised in to the capital to find out who tried to kill him. 

While he is originally a carefree person who thinks himself unimportant, Fan Xian eventually finds himself involved in many conspiracies and political battles for power, particularly between the princes of the empire, who vie for ultimate control and to one day succeed the throne. He also discovers some choice facts about himself and his mother. 

Fan Xian is an excellent main character. He’s humorous and light-hearted, but also very smart, righteous and kind. The story involves many conspiracies and plots, and you never know just what anyone is planning. 

The seemingly-lackadaisical Qing Emperor is also a very charming character. He’s a complete bastard, is what I’ll say, a bit of an asshole, but not in the I-do-bad-things-way. He just fucks with you. A gremlin. 

He does do bad things, though, and is pretty ruthless, but he’s an emperor, so…

If by the end you also fall in love with the Second Prince, consider yourself part of the club, everyone loves him even if he's a bitch.

鬼吹灯之精绝古城 Candle in the Tomb: The Lost City of Jingjue, 2016

Starring Jin Dong, Chen Qiao’en, Zhao Da

An adaptation of an incredibly popular series of tomb-raiding novels (like Lara Croft), Candle in the Tomb tells the story of Hu Bayi, a former soldier from a line of tomb raiders. He and his friend Wang Kaixuan (nicknamed Chubby) are hired by the mysterious wealthy Chinese-American daughter of a dead Wall Street businessman Shirley Yang to go on an expedition to find the mythical ancient lost city of Jingjue.

Hu Bayi and Chubby, secretly tomb raiders, want to find some treasures and sell them on the black market, but their expedition team is full of government archaeologists.

The city of Jingjue is said to be in the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang. They first stop at the icy Kunlun Mountain Range to try and retrieve a notebook from an archaeological team that is said to have already gone there, but seemingly died on the way.

Along the way, they encounter multiple dangers and ancient treasures, and the lost city of Jingjue becomes even more mysterious. As the team faces many perils first in the icy mountain range then in the harsh desert, they finally make it to the lost city, only to encounter a place so mysterious they wonder if they are hallucinating.

Jingjue City is so strange that by the end you don’t even know if they were truly there or if the whole thing was almost like a dream. If it was a dream, then when did they begin dreaming? 

This show is pretty good! My family really likes Candle in the Tomb, so we’ve watched all the adaptations, but the Lost City of Jingjue is still my favourite. The acting is good and the characters are charismatic and likeable. Chubby is annoying, brash and is prone to having offensive biases, but he's good at heart even if you don’t like him. 

繁花 Blossoms Shanghai, 2023

Starring Hu Ge, Ma Yili, Tang Yan, Xin Zhilei

I will start by saying Blossoms Shanghai is not… a show that I would think is understandable to a wider audience. It was filmed entirely in Shanghainese. It is very heavily steeped in Shanghainese culture (very distinct) and Shanghainese nostalgia, so even other Chinese people don’t get it. My mom loved it and I liked it as well, but we are both Shanghainese, so even if you’re Chinese you might not understand most of the references it makes.

Still, it’s very good.

It takes place in the 1990s in Shanghai, an era of unprecedented economic growth. People could get insanely rich overnight, but also lose everything just as quickly. Exports and stocks were beginning to grow in the Chinese market, and the main character, A-Bao, rises from a nobody to the wealthy and respected Mr. Bao (宝总- literally, Boss Bao. “Boss” or 总 zong is added to the end of a businessman/businesswoman’s name to signify their rank) through both his wit and the mentorship of the elderly and mysterious Uncle Grandfather (I know the name is a little weird- you can refer to him as Uncle Ye). 

Mr. Bao deals in both stock trading and exports. In that era in Shanghai, most business deals were conducted over a fancy dinner in a restaurant on one road in particular, Huanghe Road (Yellow River Road). As such, the owners of restaurants on Huanghe Road were considered middlemen and business brokers as well. 

Mr. Bao’s companions include his old friend, the hot-tempered but pragmatic Ling Zi, who manages a small restaurant owned by Mr. Bao called Tokyo by Night (she studied in Tokyo), as well as Miss Wang, a respected exports broker at the official government exports office. (Back then, in order to deal in exports, you needed a government official to make the deal for you and ensure you weren’t doing anything shady- this is no longer the case)

Mr. Bao’s business faces ups and downs, but he is always able to navigate the market with ease due to his smarts and Uncle Ye’s guidance, as well as the assistance of Miss Wang. However, a new restaurant opens on Huanghe Road, owned by a mysterious woman named Li Li- her intentions, origins and business practices are unknown. 

The plot centers around Mr. Bao’s various business practices, which sounds boring but is really quite exciting. Business is shady and high-stakes, so it’s almost like an espionage film. Every character is very well-written and true to life. 

With that, I conclude my c-drama rec list. Obviously there's more shows I like, but these are my personal favourites. I know there are much more shows that are MUCH MORE popular (honestly I think Empresses in the Palace and Nirvana in Fire are the only ones on this list I would deem "top five best/most popular shows".

[yunsound]

My Personal Favourite Chinese Movies (non animated)

This list will include both films made in mainland China and films made in Hong Kong/Taiwan. No, this is not intended as a political message or anything- my beliefs do NOT matter. The reason for this is because Hong Kong/Taiwan had a golden age of cinema from the 1980s-late 1990s which produced a barrage of excellent films that gained a lot of notice in the mainland, and which are regarded as part of the Chinese cultural sentience. 

These are not ranked in any particular order, just the order that I remembered/thought of them in. This does not mean I think no.1 is the best movie or no.10 is the worst movie on this list- things like recency, scale and subconscious bias also factor in. Regardless- these are all personal favourites of mine that I think are worthy of excellent visuals/cinematography, excellent storytelling, excellent message (or morals), and excellent reception. 

These are also all movies that I think Westerners can watch. The movies that Westerners can’t watch (whether for reasons that political views may clash or because you simply can’t get the references even with the best possible English subtitles) will regrettably not be mentioned.

This is also in NO WAY AT ALL a comprehensive (or even CLOSE to comprehensive) list of the objectively best Chinese movies. Most made in China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan in Chinese are meant for a Chinese audience, or a Sino-cultural audience at the very least. The following are some that can be translated into English and retain at least a smidge of their original cultural significance.

There are some movies here that require research or a smidge of understanding and open-mindedness, but are included because they reveal some very intrinsic parts of Chinese culture and the Chinese mindset.

我不是药神 Dying to Survive

2018, Director Wen Muye

Possibly the best movie made in China in the last decade. It tells the story of a sham medicine seller struggling to make money who begins to smuggle cheap Indian fakes of an expensive European cancer medicine into China. 

This movie is based on a true story, and is anti-capitalistic in a way that rings as authentic instead of propagandist. How does it achieve this? The stories are of real people. There’s nothing in this movie that tries to make you emotional or tries to invoke any sort of feeling in you- it’s just simply so authentic and so there that you can’t help but connect with it.

It hits very, very hard, with all the force of a missile, and leaves you in moderate despair at how unfair society and healthcare can be in the face of profit.

After the recent events concerning a certain Italian man with the initials LM, I’m sure this movie is even more impactful. Why this movie is so critically and publicly acclaimed in China is because everyone can relate.

Medicine is expensive, but it’s worth everything. Healthcare bills kill people. I won’t spoil the entire movie, but it’s heartbreaking, made even more so by the realisation that these are real events and real people.

This movie is understandable by a Western audience because the circumstances the characters face aren’t just Chinese. To quote one of the characters: everyone gets sick, and everyone has to pay for it.

2. 霸王别姬 Farewell, My Concubine

1993, Director Chen Kaige

This film, I would say, is not understandable by a Western audience without some damn good subtitles and some prior research. It’s set in a period of time in China where political tensions were high, and is based on Peking opera. 

There are probably blog posts out there detailing the basics of Peking opera, so please read one of those before watching this movie. Farewell, My Concubine (translated directly as The King Bids Farewell to His Concubine, which is a poetic line in Chinese) involves an almost Inception-like blur between reality and stage, and makes you question whether we are the actors or the audience. 

The King Bids Farewell to his Concubine is a famous play in Peking opera. A note on Peking opera- male performers often play female characters. This movie is about the lives of two young boys who grow up to be Peking opera performers, one who plays dan 丹(female characters) and the other who plays jing 净(male characters). As I said, men playing dan (female characters) is common- they are referred to as male dan or 男丹.

As the two boys go through multiple hardships as they grow up, their lives begin to mirror the events of the play unknowingly. As such, the movie is a performance within a performance, a play within a play- by the end, we no longer know if the two main characters are the king and the concubine, or if they are simply themselves. 

It’s a masterclass in storytelling. This movie is beautiful- though you’d have to know the basics of Peking opera. The Wikipedia page is probably enough.

3. 你好，李焕英 Hi, Mom

2021, Director Jia Ling

This film is more aptly translated as Hello, Li Huanying (where Li Huanying is the name of the main character, and the director's mother). The director, Jia Ling, is a very famous comedy actor in China- Hi, Mom is her directorial debut.

The film is semi-biographical (the MC is named Jia Xiao-ling, so we all know it’s just Jia Ling herself) and tells the story of how Jia Xiaoling inadvertently finds herself transported back in time to when her mother was a teenage girl.

In order to give her mother a better life/better husband/better child, she tries to set her up with the wealthy son of a local factory owner. The film speaks heavily on themes of filial piety and motherhood, and takes place in 1980s China, a period of rapid economic/social development.

As such, it’s very nostalgic for many Chinese people, but may not connect as strongly with a different audience. 

For me and many others, it was a bit of a tearjerker. We all love our moms, I guess. Maybe I’m being presumptuous, but I also assume that feeling that our mothers might have had a better life if she hadn’t married/had children is also a common idea. 

4. 唐探/唐人街探案系列 Detective Chinatown series

2015/2018/2021, Director Chen Sicheng

Chen Sicheng is a very famous comedy film director, and Detective Chinatown are his biggest movies. These are more slapstick comedies than Oscar-winning cinema, but the jokes are very funny in a very Chinese way. Often, characters will have funny accents or funny mannerisms which may not be fully understandable to an audience that doesn’t know Chinese, but they’re still entertaining anyway.

The stories follow Qin Feng, a young failed detective applicant. He has extremely high deductive ability but is a tiny bit twisted in the mind (he got kicked out of police school because he said the reason for wanting to be a detective is to commit the perfect crime). He is, however, naive yet clever and quite a funny person.

His distant uncle (表舅, which Google Translate says means maternal uncle but is really more like uncle-once-removed), Tang Ren, is a perverted and cocky idiot, but is very funny and is reliable when you need him the most.

Tang Ren and Qin Feng get swept up in multiple confusing murder cases organised by a mysterious someone named Q on an app called Crimaster (a little like Citizen Sleuths), uncovering secrets and making jokes along the way.

The recent prequel Detective Chinatown 1900 was really mid, but I like all three other movies, especially the Tokyo one. Detective Chinatown, the series, is strongly associated with Chinese New Year cheer and festivity. 

5. 大话西游系列 A Chinese Odyssey series

Jan 1995, Feb 1995, Director Jeffrey Lau (with Stephen Chow)

Probably the most famous and widely-seen Chinese movie series. Technically it was made as Hong Kong cinema, but HK cinema from that era was (and still is) very much seen as Chinese cinema by both the actors and the audience (maybe not a HK audience? IDK, I don’t want to say too much). The movies are based very loosely around Journey to the West, and involve the resurrection of the Monkey King Sun Wukong in a human male.

A Chinese Odyssey might be a really good translation, or a really bad translation. It gets the idea across. The more literal translation is like, Tales of the Westward Journey (doesn’t feel as grand, right?) 

Movie 1: 月光宝盒 or Pandora’s Box (really more like the Magical Moonlight Box, but I like the translation into a popular myth in Western audiences) is the beginning of the story.

Monkey King falls in love with a (won’t spoil, I’ll call her random lady even though she’s famous and very much not random) Random Lady we’ll call her RL, but through a whole bunch of plot is forced to use the Moonlight Box (or Pandora’s Box) to activate a spell that will somehow (no spoilers) help him try to fix a big problem.

Movie 2: 仙履奇缘 Cinderella 

The guy that Sun Wukong reincarnated into accepts his fate and becomes the Monkey King once again (I hope this doesn’t count as a spoiler?).

These movies are part of my childhood! Looking back they’re a little dramatic and a little cringe, but I remember them very, very fondly. Random Lady (OK I’ll spoil her name is Lady Zixia) becomes a very famous figure in Chinese culture, even though she’s a movie character. Think of her as being… Scarlett O’Hara? Not in personality or story, of course, but like an iconic figure. 

6. 大红灯笼高高挂 Raise the Red Lantern

1991, Director Zhang Yimou

This movie isn’t exactly a lighthearted comedy like Detective Chinatown or A Chinese Odyssey. Zhang Yimou is like the Alfred Hitchcock of China (I know this seems disrespectful to Hitchcock, who is obviously much more widely-renowned, but I’m just trying to say Zhang Yimou is famous okay). He is incredibly well-known and well-respected. Raise the Red Lantern is probably one of his most famous films. Film fans might have seen it already.

It incorporates much of what call uniquely Chinese horror 中式恐怖. The dim lighting, the muted colours, the framing- the entire film gives off a faintly eerie sense, like you’re not quite in our dimension, and is very, very claustrophobic. Chinese horror films often incorporate themes of marriage and family, because these are very suffocating cultural norms. 

Like, is this not absolutely horrifying.

The story centers around Songlian, an educated young woman whose family was once rich but is now bankrupt (as the 1920s were full of political and economic turmoil), forcing her to become the 4th wife (concubine) of an old wealthy lord. No matter how you feel about the current political climate in China, all I can say is I’m glad taking concubines is no longer allowed.

Songlian is originally haughty and favoured, but as she begins to experience the suffocating and dangerous life of a concubine in a lord’s house, she begins to slowly go insane. We as the audience feel like we are being choked by the oppressive atmosphere of the whole film, and by the end I felt like I was going crazy with her. 

See the oppressive atmosphere, even though red (in Chinese culture) is a sign of vitality and cheerfulness? Colour theory, I guess.

Raise the Red Lantern is the highest standard of Chinese horror. It’s much more terrifying than jumpscares or ghosts, and hits even harder for a female audience. 

7. 无名 Hidden Blade

2023, Director Cheng Er

Maybe I’m biased because the two stars of this movie (Wang Yibo and Tong Leung) are both some of my favourite actors, but this movie is a masterpiece in cinematography. Every single shot has meaning behind it.

The actual plot of the movie is fine (not amazing, but pretty good) but the acting, set design and the feeling of art behind every single frame is what makes me like this movie. This is a personal favourite, not an objective favourite. Sorry.

Each shot conveys so much meaning, even if it only appears onscreen for a split second. It's a very artistic film, and this is just Cheng Er's style.

Hidden Blade takes part during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria (don’t watch if this is a sensitive topic for you) at a time when the Wang Jingwei (a puppet leader) regime (which worked with Chiang Kai-Shek’s Guomindang or Kuomintang to eliminate Communists) worked entirely for the Japanese. 

The political message of the film is strong, obviously. Again, don’t watch it if you are sensitive to that. I found that the politics of the characters didn’t matter as much as the characters’ personal charm to me.

It takes place in Shanghai, a cutthroat political battlefield filled with espionage (on both sides). The Second Sino-Japanese war was a period of time of tension comparable to the Cold War. Espionage was at an all-time peak. The entire film is tense and makes you wonder what’s going to happen next. Still, I found myself wanting to screenshot literally every frame, take it home, and analyse it closely. I might still do that.

8. 流浪地球 Wandering Earth

2019, Director Guo Fan

Wandering Earth got a lot of hype at the time of its release. I watched it in theatres and loved it, but when I rewatched it I found it mid. Still, it’s definitely worth watching as a big-budget sci-fi film. The visuals alone will probably make you at least a little astounded. I wouldn’t say it’s as good as Dune Part 2, but it’s maybe almost as good as or equal to Dune Part 1.

Wandering Earth takes place in 2095, I think? Not nearly distant enough for my liking. The sun is about to expand and engulf the Earth, so the governments decide they’re going to install giant rocks on the surface of the Earth and move the whole planet away to a new solar system over tens of thousands of years. However, as Earth is just leaving our solar system and passing Jupiter, a huge gravitational spike caused by an unexpected storm means Earth is being pulled towards Jupiter and at risk of exploding into a fiery ball of… death.

The characters are torn between trying to spend their last moments with their loved ones or trying to find a solution to the problem. The science makes zero sense. Don’t think too much about it. The movie is good, though. It’s one of those films that’s much better in theatres. 

9. 美人鱼 The Mermaid

2016, Director Stephen Chow

This movie… all I can say is it’s… a fever dream. It’s hilarious in Chinese but it doesn’t hit the same in English. Regardless, it’s funny as all hell just because of how utterly ridiculous it is.

It centers around a young mermaid, Shan, who is sent by her tribe to seduce and kill the rich playboy who’s purchased the land near their tribe’s home and intends to wreck it with capitalistic ventures. Instead, a whole bunch of wacky shenanigans and misunderstandings occur. 

I don’t want to spoil more than that, but the playboy, Xuan, thinks Shan is a hired escort or prostitute (because she’s really bad at the whole seduction and killing thing) and tries to use her to make his rich ex-girlfriend jealous. In the end, there’s a happy ending, but you’re left in disbelief like “what the actual fuck” the whole time. 

That’s the genius of Stephen Chow, I guess. Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle were equally ridiculous and hilarious. I haven’t included Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle because I figure they’re famous enough, but if you haven’t, go watch Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle. And all of Stephen Chow’s movies. 

10. 误杀系列 Manslaughter series: Sheep Without a Shepherd/Fireflies in the Sun

2019, 2021, Producer Chen Sicheng

IDK the directors of these two movies, but they’re known as Chen Sicheng films. Technically the names Sheep Without a Shepherd and Fireflies in the Sun are pulled out of someone’s ass. The movies are called 误杀 1/2 or Manslaughter 1 and 2. The first and second movies do not occur with the same characters, but are probably in the same universe, and they both star the same actor, Xiao Yang.

(Xiao Yang, by the way, is one half of one of China’s biggest comedy groups, the Chopstick Brothers. They wrote and sang Little Apple, China’s unofficial national anthem. Now Xiao Yang has transitioned to acting full-time, he’s actually very, very good!)

Remember, manslaughter refers to accidental or unintended killing.

The 1st movie (Sheep Without a Shepherd) is centered around a dude and his family who live in Thailand (they’re Chinese, though). A privileged son of a mayor and police chief sexually assaults and blackmails the MC’s daughter, and the daughter accidentally kills him instead. 

The family, including MC (who loves crime movies) come up with a seemingly airtight plan to cover the murder up, and establish perfect fake alibis for themselves. However, as the son was very high-ranking, they are soon suspected of murder and begin to try and exonerate themselves.

The 2nd movie (Fireflies in the Sun) is not quite as good as the first one, but isn’t bad. A father of a child with heart problems and who has been on the waitlist for a transplant for a long time takes people at the hospital hostage for seemingly no reason. The plot later reveals his motivations and failings in the healthcare system. 

Both movies lament capitalism and people in power who oppress the poor and take advantage of those with less resources. The plot is very tense and exciting.

The above list consists of only the first ten or so movies that came to mind. Even as I wrote this out I could think of like, thirty more really good movies.

C-drama recs coming soon. Stay tuned! (I like the dramas on that list, on average, much more than I like the movies on this list lmao)

[yunsound]

Ne Zha 2 Breaks More Records

I think I'm at least a week late but I checked the Wikipedia page because I was bored and what.

When did this happen??? I swear just yesterday it was 7th or 8th.

Congrats Zha-er and Bingbing! You are both 百亿影帝 (billion-dollar movie stars). I think this is the epitome of "the Chinese kid better than you". In what world do 3-year-olds become billion-dollar actors???

Mythological world, I guess.

I don't really expect it to pass Titanic for 4th-highest grossing, since that's another 100million USD away (which, hell, 100million USD is more than most movies make) and also 4 is a really unlucky number, so we'll either stop at 5 or be forced to go to 3 (WHICH IS 200 MILLION AWAY).

Then again, that's what I thought about Ne Zha making it from 11th to 10th, then from 10th to 8th, then from 8th to anything higher, so who knows?

Recent updates (source, the movie's Douyin official account) that Ne Zha 2 is going to keep airing in China until 4.30, which means it'll edge into the May 1st movie market.

CNY is the biggest movie season in China, with May 1st being the second, since May 1st is Labour Day and people get a few days off work and school. The summer explosion is probably bigger than May 1, but that's like 3 months long, so it doesn't count.

I haven't posted in a while, but I'm pretty busy at the moment. Current drafts include:

1. Oubing through the ages (mythological interpretations of Oubing, Ne Zha commissioning artists and storytellers for 5 millenia to make him and Ao Bing's story into a love story and they never seemed to get it until Jiaozi)

2. Ne Zha's evolution through history (from Indian deity to... punk rock iPad kid on HotWheels)

3. My favourite Chinese movies that Westerners can watch (I can probably post this soon? It's nearly done)

4. C-drama recs (I don't really like watching most recent K/J/C-dramas because the makeup and aesthetics are so obviously just trying to make money and make the actors go viral, but some of the earlier C-dramas are VERY GOOD)

5. The Legend of the White Snake

6. Background on China, Chinese film industry, Chinese culture (warning, there will be a smidge of politics included since art is political, but my PERSONAL views will not be there since ultimately what I think doesn't matter, you should make your own opinions)

7. The Classic of Mountains and Seas

8. What it's like living in Shanghai (where I'm from!)

9. Vacation guide for people trying to visit China for the first time

10. The Four Great Beauties of Ancient China

11. Xianxia novel, cultivation and jianghu terminology

12. My thoughts on how Chinese are portrayed in Hollywood

That's it for now. Please feel free to make requests or ask questions, I love yapping. Even if I don't manage to make a full post I'll respond to any questions because I love explaining shit.

Congratulations for Jiaozi, everyone at Enlight Media (the sponsor company) and Chengdu Coco Animation (Jiaozi's animation studio) and all the talented people involved in making history! I look forward to Ne Zha 3! (No pressure but totally pressure.)

[yunsound]

Chinese Mythology: Chang'e and Hou Yi

I’m fairly sure many cultures have myths surrounding the sun and the moon, for several reasons.

Big

Round

Shiny (oooh)

Glows!

Right fucking there

China is no different! We have many myths surrounding the sun and the moon. Most famous, probably, are the two stories of Chang’e and Hou Yi.

Let’s start with Hou Yi. His story is titled Hou Yi Shoots the Suns 后羿射日, and it’s… quite literally what it sounds like.

Back in the ages before dynasties, in the times of ancient people like Great Yu (see this post for who Great Yu is) and Emperor Yao (before the Qin Dynasty started by Qin Shi Huang), there were 10 suns in the sky. These 10 suns were either 10 brother-deities or the 10 grandsons of the Jade Emperor, the head honcho up in heaven. 

Man, the Jade Emperor’s family really likes to cause trouble, hmm? Just look at the Weaver Girl and Erlang Shen. No wonder the Heaven Haters boyband hates him.

The 10 suns scorched the earth, causing crops to die and the people to ask for help. Obviously having ten fucking suns shining down at you isn’t exactly great for civilisation (even the world’s best SPF can’t help you there), so Emperor Yao asks a great archer named Hou Yi to do something about it.

Hou Yi goes outside (presumably with a pair of very nice sunglasses and some top-notch sunscreen) to yell at the suns. First, he tries the diplomatic route. Basically:

Hou Yi: What the fuck are you doing? Stop scorching everyone and go home!

10 Suns: Go fuck yourself!

Hou Yi: …

Hou Yi is like, okay, well if diplomacy won’t do, I’ll just be efficient. He gets his big bow and arrow and aims up in the sky and starts to shoot every single sun out of the sky. Remember- they’re living deities, not just great balls of fire, so they can be killed. Still don’t know how a guy (even a guy as amazing as Hou Yi) manages to shoot the fucking suns out of the sky, but it’s mythology- don’t think too much about it.

Eventually he gets to the ninth sun and everyone is like “WOAH! You can stop there! We need at least one of them!”. Hou Yi is like, “do I haveeee to” and the Jade Emperor/Emperor Yao are like “YES YOU HAVE TO!”

So he leaves one of them alive, reluctantly. The last remaining sun is thoroughly terrified and resolves to stay hanging up there in the sky like a good little lamp and not make Hou Yi angry enough to shoot him down too.

That’s why the sun is in the sky. Hou Yi scares him. Everybody say thank you Hou Yi.

Hou Yi’s wife, Chang’e, is the central character in the myth behind the moon. Her myth is titled 嫦娥奔月, or Chang’e Rises to the Moon. 

After Hou Yi shoots down all the suns, he’s regarded as a great hero by the people. He is rewarded with a pill of immortality or an elixir of immortality. He’s a good husband, so he decides he’s not going to drink it and leave his wife Chang’e behind, so he leaves it at home for safekeeping while he does more good deeds to hopefully get another elixir for Chang’e. Hou Yi takes in some disciples, who hope to learn his great archery skills.

One day, Hou Yi goes out hunting. One of his disciples, Feng Meng, is a big dickhead, and he resolves to steal the elixir for himself while the defenseless Chang’e is home alone without Hou Yi to protect her. He sneaks into the house and attempts to steal it. Just as he’s about to get it, Chang’e swallows it herself to protect the elixir from Feng Meng. Now immortal, she ascends up to the moon. 

Chang’e is really lonely up on the moon- her only companion is the jade rabbit, or the moon rabbit. You know how Westerners see a man on the moon? Well, ancient Chinese people saw a rabbit instead- that’s the moon rabbit, now the pet of Chang'e. After Hou Yi comes back and realises what happened, he mourns Chang’e, because even though she’s immortal, the two of them can no longer be together.

He might also have killed himself, IDK exactly.

See the rabbit? I personally think it's a better theory than the man on the moon, but whatever.

In some other versions of the tale, Hou Yi is crowned king after he shoots down the suns. He becomes a brutal tyrant, and in order to prevent his total oppression of the people, Chang’e steals the elixir from him so he won’t live forever. I like to believe in the first version.

China’s space probes on the moon are called Chang’e in her honour.

This is Chang'e 5, the latest version.

The little robots that the space probes deploy are called Jade Rabbit as a nod to the myth.

This is Yutu (Jade Rabbit) moon rover!

Many of the creations of the Chinese space agency are named after myths, including the Magpie Bridge relay satellite (which you might recognise from the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl!)

Also Chang’e is the inspiration behind Sailor Moon. That’s why she’s called Usagi (Rabbit).

The Mid-Autumn Moon Festival 中秋节 is one of China’s most important holidays, to celebrate the full moon and the time of the harvest. The festival honours Chang’e as we eat tangyuan (big white round sweet boiled glutinous rice balls, which look like the moon) and moon cakes (decorative round sweet cakes filled with a variety of fillings). It is said that the jade rabbit on the moon produces moon cakes to honor Chang’e. The Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is what inspired Tsukimi (Japan) and Chuseok (Korea). 

[yunsound]

Chinese Mythology: The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl

Romeo and Juliet? Guinevere and Lancelot? Honestly, even Shrek and Fiona?

Forbidden romance always captures the hearts and minds of the people. Love deemed unsightly or unnatural by powerful natural forces often develops into folklore legends and famous tales of romance. 

We see this in the tale of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. Probably China’s most famous love story, it’s the inspiration behind the Qixi Festival (Chinese Valentine’s Day), which is celebrated as Tanabata in Japan and Chilseok in Korea. 

Qixi is celebrated on the 7th day of the 7th lunisolar month (NOT the lunar calendar, in the same way that Chinese New Year is NOT Lunar New Year). The tale is derived from a famous Song Dynasty poem and also from celestial phenomena. 

^ A picture of the Chinese lunisolar calendar (I might make a post explicitly on this calendar)

Maybe you’ve heard of the Summer Triangle, a phenomena in which three stars (Vega, Altair and Deneb) glow especially bright during the summer and form a beautiful triangle in the night sky. Qixi/ The Cowherd and Weaver Girl came about from the appearance of Vega and Altair as well as the Milky Way. Many Chinese legends are born of creating romantic/whimsical stories out of natural phenomena, such as the sun and the moon (Chang’e and Hou Yi, coming soon- stay tuned).

You can see in this picture that the Milky Way is in-between Altair and Vega!

The Weaver Girl is Vega, and the Cowherd is Altair. Every year in the summer these stars glow brighter, and seem to “outshine” the Milky Way- ancient Chinese people wrote poems about a possible legend behind why this is the case.

This is also the mythological explanation behind why there is a Milky Way in the sky- it appears like a river of stars, and ancient people obviously didn’t know what a galaxy was, so they interpreted it as a literal silver river of stars in the sky. (This is why the Milky Way Galaxy is called the Silver River Galaxy in Chinese today). 

Doesn't this look a little like a river, seperating two lovers?

The story goes like this: The Weaver Girl, either a granddaughter of the Jade Emperor or a seamstress (thus, weaver girl) immortal in the Heavenly Court, is bathing in a spring with several other ladies of the Court. A human cowherd, wandering the lands with his cow, sees her and is entranced by her beauty. The two fall in love and marry (with some versions of the story involving the cowherd stealing the weaver girl’s silk clothes, which symbolise her profession as a weaver in heaven and thus making her human). 

Fun fact: heavenly seamstresses/weaver girls aren’t normal seamstresses/weaver girls. They don’t make actual silk clothes- they make silk clothes out of the clouds and the stars. Perhaps this is just a metaphor for how beautiful the heavenly officials’ clothes are, but this is also sometimes attributed as the reason behind nebulas and constellations, as well as the light-scattering effect around bright stars which sometimes looks like clouds up in outer space- it’s these stars’ fancy silk robes!

See that brownish-green light-scattering effect?

Modern interpretations dismiss the “steal her silk clothes” part of the myth as made-up because it’s distasteful and implies a certain lack of consent. The Cowherd and Weaver Girl are the epitome of a loving couple- their tale should not involve a hint of unwillingness.

As such, we can ignore the “steal her clothes” part- it’s not the most popular interpretation of the tale anyway, I just thought I should mention it to emphasize that the two of them are very much in love- there is no forcing. 

There are other versions of the tale: sometimes, the weaver girl is entranced by the cowherd singing/playing music and the two begin a clandestine romance, and sometimes they meet while simply taking a walk. Regardless- the origin of their romance isn’t as important as the nature of it.

As with many other stories (see Erlang Shen’s backstory), an immortal and a human mortal marrying is very strictly against the rules of the Heavenly Court. The Jade Emperor banishes the weaver girl and the cowherd to opposing sides of the galaxy.

Either he sends officials to capture the weaver girl back to the Court, or he imprisons them in the sky very far away from each other. Either way- they don’t get to see each other anymore.

The cowherd’s cow (which is somehow magical now: either the weaver girl infused some of her powers into it, or some other gods took pity on the young couple and made the cow magical) tells the cowherd that its skin can be made as a tool to fly to see the weaver girl.

The cowherd sheds tears for his friend the cow, who has been with him all this time, but the cow reassures him that it’s just another animal, and that his love is important. Thus, the cowherd sadly kills the cow and uses its skin to try to see the weaver girl.

Wow. Talk about dedication. The details about this part of the tale (whether the cow actually dies, whether the cow was magical at all, whether the cowherd even flew up, whether it was the weaver girl who came to see him and not the other way around) are very iffy, so before you go blaming the cowherd for being an asshole to his friend the cow, just remember that it’s not necessarily the original tale, just one version of it.

Essentially, the cowherd and weaver girl wish to meet, so they try to sneak across the sky to see each other, but the Queen Mother of the West (a high-ranking deity in the Court) draws the Silver River (the Chinese name for the Milky Way) across the sky in order to separate them.

Being unable to cross the river, the two are sadly separated. In some interpretations it’s the Jade Emperor himself who draws the Silver River, in some interpretations it’s the weaver girl’s mother- either way, that’s how the Milky Way was created.

Source: Lin Lin

Vega and Altair are on opposite sides of the Milky Way, just as the cowherd and weaver girl are trapped on opposite sides of the Silver River. 

I'm sorry if you're getting tired of the Vega-Altair pics, but you can see where this myth came from, yeah?

However, their romance moves the hearts of many earthly and heavenly creatures. Once every year, when the Queen Mother of the West/the Jade Emperor aren’t looking, millions of magpies fly up to the sky and use their bodies to form a bridge across the Silver River (across the Milky Way) in order to allow the cowherd and weaver girl to meet for just one day.

This is the explanation behind the Summer Triangle- every summer, the two stars shine especially bright. (The triangle that Vega and Altair form with Deneb isn’t important, just the fact that these two stars are able to “meet”).

This day is the 7th day of the 7th lunisolar month, and is the day of Qixi. As I’ve mentioned, Qixi is Chinese Valentine’s Day, the day that couples celebrate by making grand romantic gestures to prove their love is as everlasting as the cowherd and weaver girls’.

Young girls also tend to pray to the weaver girl (to the star Vega) on this day to wish for a love like hers. I didn’t do this as a kid since I was a bit of a little shit and thought that was stupid, but a lot of my friends did! 

If we do take the cow dying and the clothes-stealing parts literally, the story becomes much less attractive and romantic to us modern people (the same way that Romeo and Juliet becomes much less romantic when you find out that Juliet is 13 and Romeo is around 18). These unsavoury aspects of the tale are also gaining more and more attention among young people.

However, we must remember this was written thousands of years ago when the idea of stealing someone’s clothes wasn’t really seen as problematic the way it is today. Ignoring the less-appealing parts of the tale to appeal to the spirit of the romance is not a problem considering that the cowherd and the weaver girl aren’t real.

Also, poor cow. 

Regardless. Their story is basically seen as the epitome of romance. Before Shakespeare came up with the term star-crossed lovers, they were the original star-crossed lovers, LITERALLY crossing stars to see each other. If your boyfriend/girlfriend is Chinese, consider doing something sweet for them on Qixi (August 19 this year, from what Google says). 

Another version of *Chinese Valentine’s Day* is May 20th, which is the date 5/20. This is because 520 is pronounced as wu-er-ling in Chinese, which sounds like wo-ai-ni (I love you). As such, May 20 is also celebrated as a romantic day, although not one with nearly as much cultural history behind it as Qixi. 520 is a romantic number, as is 1314 (yi-san-yi-si, which sounds like yi-shen-yi-shi, meaning “forever” or “eternal love”). 

[yunsound]

My honest review of New Gods Reborn: Yang Jian

Okay!

So I know I made a post on Erlang Shen (Yang Jian is Erlang Shen's real name) and also a post on Chinese animation in general, but prior to both those posts getting made I'd never watched this movie. It was released August 2022 and is a "sequel" (not really, just set in the same cinematic universe) as New Gods Reborn: Ne Zha (which is NOT a good movie).

I mentioned in both the Erlang Shen and Chinese animation posts that the New Gods Reborn: Yang Jian movie is kind of mid. This was not an opinion I held, but rather an opinion I saw on a lot of review sites.

I finally caved and watched it.

Holy shit. It's so good.

Okay!!! Firstly, I see why people call it mid. For people who aren't Chinese (or Chinese people living abroad, or diaspora, or even Hong Kong/Taiwan people), the plot is very, very confusing. It requires a somewhat in-depth understanding of the myths of Erlang Shen and the Magical Lotus Lantern.

Luckily, I've made that post for you! Linked here. As long as you read this post you'll generally understand the movie.

There are some major characters that appear (this doesn't really count as spoilers I think? Since I won't tell you what they do or why) like the Four Heavenly Kings. I haven't made a post on this, but essentially they're important figures in Chinese Buddhism.

Without knowledge on these Kings (most Chinese will recognise them, they're very iconic figures), the audience will be confused as to why they're here and who they are.

I will probably make a post on them at some point. Stay tuned.

It also requires knowledge of some other scattered myths, most of which are widely accessible to people who grew up in China, but are utterly unfamiliar to everyone else. So for a wider international audience, it's not a good choice.

But for me, who does know all the references it's making (and consequrently, when someone in the movie is lying because I know the original myth), it's a very good movie.

First off: the animation is absolutely fucking gorgeous. Without spoiling too much, there's a scene in which the entire movie goes from 3d animation to 2d animation to reflect being within a painting.

(I don't think I mentioned this in my weapons post, or maybe I did, but the 山河社稷图 Divine Mountains and Rivers Painting or the 太极图 Taiji Painting is a mythical painting which can trap anyone inside it.)

It's absolutely breathtaking.

The most impactful parts of the movie involve Yang Jian (Erlang Shen) awakening his Heavenly Eye, or Tianyan. This may look just cool to outsiders, but in China, Erlang Shen is one of the most powerful deities of all time.

He's on a whole different level. He's incredibly OP, basically- maybe even stronger than Sun Wukong. What this means is that when he is at his full power, practically no one can stop him.

The plot is still kind of weird- I wouldn't call the story the main attraction. The story is a little all over the place, and the plot itself has some major flaws, but the beauty of this movie is undoubtedly the character design.

Not only are the models very well-done, but every single character is well-fleshed out. Everyone is sympathetic (except for the villains, I guess). Yang Jian is the main character, and his personality and motivations are not only likeable but understandable. But neither is he perfect all the time. He feels real.

Even for the side characters, their arcs feel very well-rounded. So the overall plot is kind of bad, but each character's journey feels well-done.

Regardless of these flaws, I'd recommend anyone who wants to get some insight into Chinese culture or mythology watch this movie. It was very, very impactful and also quite entertaining.

What I will applaud though, is the sheer spectacle, scale and beauty of this movie. First off, the models are very well-made. This movie wasn't exactly indie the same way Ne Zha 1 and 2 were since the studio behind them was big, but animation never quite reaches the same expectations.

I was honestly a little blown away by the quality of the animation. It's much, much better than I was expecting. I'm not saying it's Oscar-winning (although after watching Godzilla Minus One win the Oscar for best visual effects, I'm inclined to believe differently- those effects were terrible) but it's very, very good.

Most importantly, it feels unequivocally Chinese. The 2D ink-painting style that appears, the unapologetic references to Chinese mythology- it is very much a movie not at ALL made for international audiences. It expects you to know. It's only for the mainland Chinese.

Does this make the movie worse or better? I honestly don't know. In terms of pros, it doesn't waste time explaining the myths. In terms of cons, literally no one who's not Chinese can understand the full scale of this movie.

Is it as good as Ne Zha 2? Probably not- that movie is still so good, I've seen it multiple times in theatres. It's definitely as good as Ne Zha 1, if not better. It's WAY better than New Gods Reborn: Ne Zha. After enjoying Yang Jian more than I expected, I sat down and forced myself to watch New Gods Reborn: Ne Zha.

My goodness. Don't watch it, I'm being serious. The Yang Jian one is way better.

This movie, when it came out, was very big in China- not as big as Ne Zha 1/2 were, but big. Mainly because Yang Jian is HOT. Chenxiang (Yang Jian's nephew) is also hot, and the female main character (I won't spoil but you'll know) is ALSO HOT.

The main joke I see on DY and XHS is the scriptwriters should be carrying the animators and modellers to work everyday on a handheld sedan, because of how good the animation is and how mid the story is.

In essence- if you're Chinese or have a good understanding of Chinese mythology, this movie will be absolutely amazing IF and ONLY IF you manage to suspend disbelief for the entire time and pretend you have no critical brain. If you DO find yourself thinking critically, the plot will make 3/10 sense but it'll still be a good movie.

If you're not Chinese or have a very basic understanding of Chinese mythology, you can still watch this movie! Just follow these steps so you won't be confused ASF:

Read my Yang Jian/ Erlang Shen post (ehehe self promo). Seriously, though. If not my post, then at least read the Wikipedia page for the Magical Lotus Lantern and Erlang Shen. You'll be incredibly confused if not.

Read up on the Four Heavenly Kings. I don't have a post for this regrettably, and the Wikipedia page is unhelpful and I doubt linking a Chinese source will help. There are probably blog posts from other people on this, though- some Googling will probably be enough.

I've explained the Taiji Painting here and the Magical Lotus Lantern in the Erlang Shen post, but I recommend doing a bit more reading on the Magical Lotus Lantern anyway.

OKAY! Now onto my discussion of the plot itself. Beware: there are spoilers, so if you don't mind, read, but if you DO mind, you can come back after you've watched it. I'm not going to lie, spoilers don't really matter since there's no plot twists that are SUPER impactful, but be wary, I guess.

At the beginning of the film, the setting is in a pseudo-cyberpunk post-apocalyptic world, in which Yang Jian has had his heavenly eye sealed. I don't mind this at all- it's just that even without his heavenly eye, Yang Jian is still incredibly powerful.

It's not like he's weak in the movie- he does incredibly well, and is still an extremely talented fighter. But all the enemies he comes up against should still be easy pickings for him, to the point where he should just be smiting them with a flick of his finger. He shouldn't really be struggling at all, to be honest. For story purposes, though, this isn't that important.

They make up a backstory for Chenxiang and Yang Jian that makes Yang Jian not the cold ruthless warrior he is in the original myth. Instead of trapping his little sister (Chenxiang's mother) under the mountain for marrying a mortal man, instead their whole family is the victim of a generational bullshit curse where the mothers are forced to sacrifice themselves to seal off a mountain (in order to keep monsters and demons trapped underneath) and the sons are fated to split open the mountain to save their mother, thus releasing the monsters and dooming the next generation of women to sacrifice again.

It IS acknowledged in the movie that this curse is bullshit, and that it's simply the whims of powerful people sacrificing women (yes, the misogyny aspect is also acknowledged) to keep themselves safe. I like that they acknowledged this, and that everyone agrees this is bullshit.

I do also like that Yang Jian is much more relatable and agreeable in this film. However.

In the original myth, he is ruthless and cold-blooded- that's what makes him so well respected. In this version, he loses some of that gravitas. Don't get me wrong, he still has a lot of "aura", but... he loses some of what makes Erlang Shen so terrifying- that pseudo-sadistic, I don't give a shit attitude.

Also, during his time being trapped inside his painting, he's forced to go through a series of terrifying hallucinations. Not only do these hallucinations confuse HIM, they also confuse US, the audience.

Usually when this sort of stuff happens we're aware that he's the one hallucinating, but the animators leaned a little too heavily into it that I was just like "what the fuck" the whole time. I get that it's for immersion purposes, but they could've dialed the whole thing back just a little.

Also... Shen Gongbao's character is... strange, to say the least. He has literally nothing to do with Erlang Shen/Yang Jian or Chenxiang in the original myth, so him appearing out of nowhere is SO confusing. He could've just been replaced with someone else, like Sun Wukong (who's Chenxiang's teacher originally).

I get that they had to kill Shen Gongbao for plot reasons and Sun Wukong wouldn't have died so easily, but I feel like there's ways around that.

The villain's motivations also feel kind of weird. Like...what? None of what you're trying to do makes any sense.

MAJOR SPOILER:

Yuding Zhenren (Master Yuding, Yang Jian's teacher) being the big villain also makes no sense. Like, he can be the villain, sure, but he needs to have some proper motivations. Wuliang Xianwen (Master Wuliang in Ne Zha 2) being the villain wasn't a bad choice because his motivations were clear- make the Chan Sect more dominant.

But WTF is Yuding Zhenren trying to get at? I have no idea.

Additionally... there are parts of the movie that just don't need to be there. Like Yang Jian getting put in jail, for example. I know it's for cool purposes, but huh?? Their explanation of the Magical Lotus Lantern also felt very meh, like just "ignore the details and believe".

ALSO! I love their take on the Howling Celestial Dog (Xiaotian Quan 啸天犬). She's so cute and so funny and SO doglike without being gimmicky or weak! Additionally she also doesn't feel like "waifubait", which is somewhat important to me. (I'm not usually against waifubait, as a woman who loves women, but.... not sure Xiaotian Quan is the best option for that).

I like this movie a lot- it's definitely going on my "watch in the background while I do other things" list, which is a pretty high honour for me, at least. I do wish I'd seen it in theatres, but if it reran in theatres I probably wouldn't go watch it, just because the plot isn't that good.

In my opinion, one of the major flaws of Chinese animated movies is the storytelling. The animation is usually very good, but the story sometimes suffers. Even with my favourite Chinese animated movie, Ne Zha 2, there are noticeable plot points that I found myself wrinkling my brow at on my second/third watch.

I might outline that in a different post.

This was the case for New Gods Reborn: Yang Jian. It was also the problem with 30,000 Miles from Chang'an (which had a beautiful soundtrack and was very touching but the overarching story was meh) as well as Deep Sea, which again, had gorgeous animation and a touching story but the OVERALL plot is just okay (not bad! Just not amazing).

In my personal experience, Chinese animated movies (and Chinese movies in general) do either great visuals or great storytelling. Usually Chinese movies are GREAT at getting you to cry- the saddest movies I've EVER watched are Chinese- but once you've let a few days go by between the initial emotions and the initial hype you find yourself wondering "why"?

I will probably do a list of my favourite NON animated Chinese movies. In recent years, quite a few have been absolutely incredible, in terms of both plot and emotion. The Oscars are bullshit, we all know, and I've never expected any of these films to even get nominated, but if the Academy was fair I think each of these movies deserves at the VERY least a nomination. That's coming either today or tomorrow.

[yunsound]

Designed a set of Ne Zha-themed nails

If you're wondering why it's so fucking complicated, well, Chinese nail artists are a different breed.

Several details:

Left hand middle finger: the little bottle is the 玉液琼浆 (I believe it was translated as Elixir Reparo- it's the bottle of fancy white liquid they get from Yuxu Palace after passing all three trials) which Ne Zha and Master Taiyi use to repair the Sacred Lotus in order to make Ao Bing a new body.

Right hand index finger:the scales are meant to mimic the 万龙甲 (10,000 Dragon Scaled-Armor, IDK how the movie translated it) from the first movie, when Ao Guang and the rest of the dragon clan all tore off the hardest scale on their bodies to make an armoured coat for Ao Bing.

Right hand pinky finger: Why is that so detailed? Well, it's Ao Bing's hair piece. The dragon clan have some expert craftsmen, I guess.

A very kind lady actually did these nails on her friend, despite how complicated they are. She did change some things, though. I didn't draw this to be practical LMAO.

I'm in the process of designing a new set based on general Chinese mythology, stay tuned.

Draft 1!

Can you guess which myths each nail is supposed to be? There's one or two that are quite obvious. I've made posts on three out of five of these.

[yunsound]

Oh yay, a shoutout! Thanks for being so nice, OP!

Thankfully after ABZ sank (and boy, did it SINK) I got some comments from Dilong sisters (sisters is a common suffix to refer to shippers, since it's usually girls that like shipping in CN fandoms) defending me. In fact, even 2 Guangying fans (normal ones! Yay!) DMed me and apologised on behalf of their... brethren? I guess?

It felt nice!

Regardless, because of this I now have begun to see Dilong art on my TL. Not sure how to feel about that. Oh well.

When Feb 27 came around and ABZ drama was reaching its peak I felt the PTSD wash over me from the original 227 incident. If Lofter gets banned I'll actually cry, it's hard enough using AO3 in China, imagine having to go through all that BS to access Lofter...

I've never been into LuBao just because Shengong Bao is not my type (his waist though... my goodness god) but I can DEFINITELY see the appeal. The Lu Tong praise in every single mildly Ne Zha related post comment section is getting a bit much, but I participated as a joke (sent one comment that was like 10 words long) and did pretty good on an exam the day after...

Maybe the hype is real??? It doesn't hurt, so maybe I'll keep doing it...

The Writeup (Part 2!)

(From Jiaozi's Nezha doodle celebrating the 2.6 billion record on 2/2.) *In CN, it's common to say "my tendon pulled!" when you get a cramp in your limbs.

Translation:

Ao Bing: My leg cramped! [literal translation: My leg pulled (its) tendon!] Fish Demon: NEZHA PULLED OUT THE THIRD PRINCE'S TENDONS!!!!!!!!

Literally the day after I published this post, new developments cropped up in the Nezha 2 fandom :D I thought it best to wait and see if anything ELSE could happen before updating this. Thankfully, I waited because things did happen. They sure did happen! So I'm popping in out of retirement (again) for one (1) day (again) to update this before the first fandom writeup becomes completely out of date. I appreciate all the interest given to the previous writeup and I'd feel bad for leaving it outdated for everyone that supported it! So here's part 2 to catch you up on what's happening deep in Nezha 2 fandom.

4-5 weeks in, and we have already have new shipping lore, shipping stat updates, and new fuel for the Ao Guang discourse battles. And it's somehow just as long as writeup part 1 🤣

Guangying shippers have apologized to everyone they harassed, acknowledged the error of their ways, and now get along well with fans of other ships...NOT. Click below to see updates on fandom lore, Ao Guang discourse, doubling down, conspiracy theories, drama in the Nezha cosplay world, and a total lack of self reflection from guangying fans ft. more images and links than last time

Obligatory disclaimers again:

This is NOT about the people who happened to watch the movie, the people who are just interested in box office stats, the people who really enjoyed the movie, or the people who just really admire Nezha. This will be about the fandom fandom, the truly invested, the brainrot (affectionate) in its purest unfiltered form. This is a post about brainrot for those also suffering from brainrot.

This is a collection of patterns mainly from lofter, but also from douyin, weibo, bilibili, and xhs. I don't know how to warn for some of the things mentioned here, so just a blanket note of caution- if you read on, you are prepared to see anything and everything. If you are OK with all this, then- let’s go! 

PART 2 HERE WE GO:

Firstly, the general fandom is as creative as ever, and everything you can think of (and more!) has been written/drawn/discussed by somebody somewhere. I've seen Shiji Niang Niang bring Shen Xiaobao back to life, I've seen Ao Bing studying for the TOEFL, I've seen a Jane Eyre AU fanfic for Ao Guang/Shen Gongbao, I've seen Taiyi go on a diet, I've seen 1979 Nezha transmigrating into the 2019/2025 world, etc. etc.

The Lu Tong meme is also not even a meme anymore- lots of people seem to genuinely believe that randomly spamming any and all content featuring Lu Tong/He Tong with paragraphs of praise will result in them granting their wishes. So that's why you'll come across lots of comments with phrases like: "Lu Tong is the manliest of all men, the most powerful of all celestials, the strongest deer... please Master Lu Tong, grant me a raise from my boss."

Also, I didn't include these extremely cursed memes last time because I felt that they might cause people to die. BUT since everyone was strong enough to survive writeup part 1, I think you've proven yourselves strong enough to see these in writeup part 2--behold! Popular FAMILY GUY NEZHA edits:

These cursed images are popular enough that multiple people have made them their profile pics. That's not even the end of it...

Not only that, the fandom has also made "fusion" edits of the characters in the vein of the Nezha/Ao Bing fusion we saw in canon (as in, a Taiyi/Nezha fusion exists). If you wondered what things would be like if 1) Nezha possessed Ao Bing instead or 2) Shen Gongbao never stole the spirit pearl, wonder no further! Here is the answer:

Next, congratulations to lubao for completing the transformation from surprise crack ship to third most popular pairing in the fandom (4 and 5 probably go to Ao Guang/Shen Gongbao [longwangbao] or lutong/hetong [luhe] depending on the platform). Coincidentally, lubao is now no. 3 trending on weibo, beating out dilong. Professional cosplayers are also doing lubao cosplays for clout (to 10K+ likes on bilibili and even 100K+ likes across douyin, etc.). They even have their own animatics now. -> Every individual (main) character and ship has plenty of animatics; if you want to see them, just add the word "手书" (hand book) after whatever subject you're searching for. EX. For oubing animatics, just search for 藕饼手书, and many many will come up.

The lubao lore has also expanded since Feb.:

In Nezha 1, Shen Gongbao told Ao Bing he can teach him how to hide his horns in public. Lu Tong, as a deer, should also have antlers (as shown by his demon/animal form), but doesn't! This clearly means that Shen Gongbao taught Lu Tong how to hide his antlers with the same method he offered for Ao Bing.

Fans noticed that Lu Tong's eyes are brown in deer form, but as a human, his eyes are green- specifically, the exact same shade of green as Shen Gongbao's. They believe it means Lu Tong purposely turned them green because he took inspiration from Shen Gongbao's appearance.

They also noticed that in the post-credits, Wuliang and He Tong didn't seem to know where the underground prison was. Lu Tong guided them over. They believe this means Lu Tong was the one who brought Shen Gongbao into the prison and tied him up in the first place.

You can make the assumption that Shen Gongbao, Ao Bing, and Lu Tong all have the same hairstyle. Why? Because Shen Gongbao combed Ao Bing's hair (with the approval of Lu Tong's #2 enemy, Ao Guang), and he previously combed Lu Tong's hair. Out of love/obsession for him, Lu Tong has kept that same style. And now this is yet another thing Ao Bing STOLE from Lu Tong!

As of 3/9, Jiaozi put out this drawing of Shen Gongbao riding a leopard while acting as captain of the demon hunting team (to celebrate Nezha breaking the 14.6 billion record at the box office):

Since Lu Tong had that exact same pose, while also riding an animal from the same species, lubao fans took this to mean Lu Tong was again trying to copy everything Shen Gongbao did because he's just that obsessed with him.

As for fanon expansion, there is now a version of He Tong who is not only aware of Lu Tong's obsession, but also supports, abets, and contributes to his actions because she too felt abandoned by their shi shu. Now Shen Gongbao can never leave them again! Theirs forever! Too bad that pesky Ao Bing keeps getting in the way and doing annoying things like "saving his master" and "having morals."

And a little round of applause for Shen gonggong too for going from cartoon villain barely anyone cared about to earning the highest honor in fandom--becoming the resident whump angst pain machine. This was unofficial in the previous writeup, but now it's safe to call it official! You know his poor meow meow status is cemented when the average SGB-centric fsyy crossover is now, "Wuliang and his disciples torture the cultivation out of Shen Gongbao, seal his powers, and give him to King Zhou to do as he pleases. The royal court proceeds to treat him as some kind of party animal, all while using and abusing whatever's left of him-" (paragraph 1 of 100)

The average pre-canon story is also, "everyone except Taiyi tortures and mistreats Shen Gongbao at Yuxu Gong-" Someone said that they knew Shen gongong was doomed (by the fandom) the moment he showed up like That in the easter egg scene, and I think that person had the gift of prophecy.

Now for the main event! Dilong, Aobing Zhuan, and the reaction (or lack thereof) of Guangying shippers:

Yes, that's Jim from The Office. The above is a circulating meme made by disgruntled dilong shippers.

Translation:

If you look like this

("Nezha 2" Ao Guang) Your husband doesn't look like this

("The Sons of the Dragon" Ao Guang) Your husband looks like this

*The Sons of the Dragon is a nickname (derogatory) for Ao Bing Zhuan because detractors think it focuses on all of Ao Guang's sons except Ao Bing

I'm not too familiar with Aobing Zhuan itself, so if you or your loved ones know more about the storyline or drama, please feel free to tack onto this post with your own links, writeups, and/or input!

Dilong fans finally had Enough of the nonstop harassment and put together gigantic takedown posts on why Aobing Zhuan sucks, featuring citations, side by side images, and so on.

In addition to accusing the author of using Yinglong as a self insert, they also accused Yinglong of being a genderbent version of Ao Guang (as he used to be drawn in Dilong fanart back in 2019). They pointed out that the author modeled toddler Ao Bing after her own goddaughter instead of his image in the movie. Said author has also gone on record saying Ao Bing is the "least charming" of Ao Guang's sons. Aobing Zhuan gave Ao Bing a healthy number of friends as part of the supporting cast too; when readers asked how this is possible if his first and only friend is Nezha, the author said "The friends are dead, so they don't count!"

The receipts also tell us that even though Ao Guang (and his siblings) made Ao Bing's coat in canon, Aobing Zhuan credited that to Yinglong. His martial arts also came from Yinglong, even though everyone knows it came from Shen Gongbao. And it gets deeper-- as the story goes on, Ao Bing has less and less screentime and barely any "cool" moments. The story becomes completely about his older brothers (specifically his second eldest brother, Ao Yi), while all canon characters are ignored or shafted. It also goes wild with epic wars, battles, and subplots that the movie never even mentioned.

This leads to the fandom nicknaming Aobing Zhuan "OC Zhuan" (and yes, they are using OC the English way. This is not the Tale of Aobing, this is the Tale of Original Characters not even made by Jiaozi). Another nickname is "The Tale of Ying" not because Yinglong herself has that much screentime, but because ABZ fans have spent so long harassing literally everybody else in the fandom while using her as an icon and constantly saying "look, you've made yinglong sad" "how disgusting of you to split up such a loving couple" "you're not allowed to ship anything besides the canon couple" etc. etc.. while spamming fans of literally every other Ao Guang ship with pictures of Yinglong.

Even in non-shipping content involving Ao Guang and Ao Bing, they'll constantly talk about Ao Guang's wife and Ao Bing's mother and how totally important she is to them + the story. Guangying shippers have also constantly used a mother's day screenshot (of the official Nezha account wishing Yinglong happy mother's day with an image of her and Ao Bing in ABZ) as proof that she's officially married to Ao Guang, and you are therefore NOT allowed to ship him with anyone else, including yourself. It turns out that screenshot doesn't exist- the Nezha weibo never posted it. Guangying shippers faked the image.

Someone even asked deepseek (or baidu?) who Yinglong is and it said, "Yinglong is Ao Guang's father!" (incorrect btw, but this is proof that yinglong has no mythological connection to Ao Guang anyway). Fans also noticed that Aobing Zhuan- despite having a physical publication- wasn't featured at all in Nezha 2 merchandise. Instead, there's a cute picture book featuring parts of little Ao Bing's childhood (with NONE of ABZ's events).

The book is called "Memories of the Three Realms" 《哪吒·三界往事》and contains little stories about the entire cast before the events of the movies. This book was promoted as part of Nezha 2's merchandise, so it's safe to consider it a direct tie-in with the franchise. Noticeably, Ao Bing's family in the book consists of only himself, his father, his master, his aunt, and uncles. No brothers, no mother.

So TLDR, Aobing Zhuan "fell apart" in the fandom's eyes because:

It directly defies canon ideas and events

Guangying shippers faked screenshots to make it look like the Nezha team acknowledged ABZ more than it actually did

The art style is "ugly" (imho, it's less that it's ugly and more that it's very off model when it comes to canon characters and just doesn't fit Nezha's art style)

ABZ constantly puts down Ao Bing/Ao Guang/Shen Gongbao in order to elevate its OCs

Ao Guang doesn't like Ao Bing very much in ABZ

The author doesn't care about Ao Bing and was only using his name for clout; the author exclusively only loves Ao Yi

Yinglong is the author's self insert and arguably a plagiarized version of dilong!Ao Guang. Ao Yi has also been accused of being a plagiarized design of dilong!Ao Guang. (imo, not so sure about how valid these particular accusations are because all three designs are commonplace throughout all xianxia art)

Ao Yi, Ao Jia, and Yinglong (Ao Bing's brothers and mother) are fanmade OCs and might not even have those same names if they appear or come up in the movies

ABZ attempted to make a love interest for Ao Bing, but backtracked after backlash from oubing fans

The Nezha team seems to want nothing to do with it

The takedown was brutal. The rest of the fandom, specifically the confused people who had no idea why other fans were going on and on about Ao Guang's wife (who does not appear in the films) and closet dilong shippers, went, "Hey, ABZ does suck!" Why did it take so long for them to notice it sucked? General consensus is that because the comic was not very good in the first place so nobody talked about it or noticed it. Now they notice because 1) guangying shippers shoved it in everyone's face 2) guangying shippers/ABZ fans bullied literally Everybody else in the fandom

Then overnight, the fandom turned on ABZ and all its OCs. Now it's considered #cringe to like Yinglong, Ao Yi, and Ao Jia. People regretted paying for the comics, people tried get it refunded, and people apologized to dilong fans for hating on them based on falsely believing they were "splitting" a canon couple (and not because idk, harassing strangers over cartoons is rude??).

Regardless, everyone who secretly enjoyed dilong now came out to openly enjoy it. Dilong rose to #3 trending on several platforms, and dilong shippers rejoiced for finally being vindicated after literally 5 years of harassment. I mean pretty offensive and terrible harassment (CW terminally online fandom harassment methods): mass reporting, being accused of being degenerates, being accused of being uNpAtriOtIC, being accused of TrEAson, being told they should have died in their mothers' wombs, getting doxxed and suicide baited. Multiple dilong authors and artists were bullied into deactivating. The harassment got especially bad after Nezha 2 came out, so-

The tables turning on Guangying shippers can only be divine karma at work. Now in videos of people bashing dilong shippers, you can see comments saying, "hey op you dropped your clown nose!" and "get with the times, OC Zhuan fell from grace." Unfortunately, this drama has led to collateral damage in the form of-

Drama in the cosplay world:

However, there are lots of big name cosplayers doing Yinglong and Guangying cosplays. These people spent Big Money on their costumes. Now they're being told that ABZ has "fallen apart" and Yinglong was just somebody else's OC this entire time. Yinglong cosplayers feel personally victimized and don't know what to do with their costumes now.

To add fuel to the fire, fans have been insulting Yinglong cosplayers in the comment sections of their videos. Ao Yi cosplayers are facing a similar dilemma. Which leads to-

Yinglong fans react + Dilong fan conspiracies:

You'd think this would lead to some self reflection on the part of Guangying fans or an apology to their victims or maybe some attempt to be on better behavior. But why do that when it's easier to double down and play victim!

ABZ fans and Guangying shippers now believe themselves to be the biggest victims in the fandom. They feel that the takedown was made in bad faith and several points don't even line up-- Yinglong doesn't resemble dilong!Ao Guang that much, Yinglong is not the author's literal self insert, the spinoff is still canon, Ao Guang loves his son very much in ABZ too and those calling him a cold father in ABZ are pulling panels out of context, etc. They think they shouldn't be judged just for enjoying a comic and multiple people have called on Jiaozi to step in and acknowledge the Drama. Indeed, they shouldn't be judged or harassed for liking Yinglong or ABZ.

But I'd feel more sorry for them if they didn't spend the past month bullying and lying to literally everybody in the fandom, ranging from spamming all Ao Bing content with guangying comments to threatening Ao Guang x anyone else shippers with physical violence. Even on the notes of the last writeup, we have firsthand accounts of their cyberbullying:

^This is the kind of thing guangying fans do on a regular basis. (I'm so sorry they harassed you over something so stupid! All 6 of them owe you a kowtow and apology.)

The Drama continues:

According to dilong fans, ABZ and guangying fans have gone quiet but not gone away. They've changed tactics and can now be spotted on random Ao Guang content commenting, "I wonder who Ao Guang's wife is! I'm so curious!" and on Ao Bing content saying, "Oh I bet Ao Bing misses his mother and brothers so much." This is allegedly an attempt to get new fans to ask them about Ao Guang's wife and Ao Bing's mother/brothers + an attempt to do damage control for ABZ now that it's uncool to mention it publicly. Personally, I think the dilong fans are right about this theory. Makes perfect sense to me, especially given everything else ABZ fans have done so far.

Next, tying back to the cosplay drama, dilong fans believe the people attacking Yinglong cosplayers are guangying fans masquerading as dilong fans. These guangying fans are hoping to harass enough people for something major to happen (conveniently taking the heat off of ABZ). Then the wider media will report on cosplayers being harassed by dilong fans, resulting in the wider public going "Nezha fangirls are so scary!" resulting in cancellation of Nezha ships (specifically dilong) altogther in a complete repeat of 227 (the date in which Xiao Zhan fans mass reported AO3 over a real person fic, resulting in the AO3 ban in China and the ensuing backlash that caused the absolutely most nightmarish time of poor Xiao Zhan's life). Is this there truth to this theory? I have no idea, but wilder things have happened.

And lastly, no, Fei Wo Si Cun (established web novelist that published a dilong mpreg fanfic on main, as mentioned in the previous writeup) has not acknowledged the Ao Guang discourse drama at all. Jiaozi and the rest of the Nezha team have also not said a peep despite guangying shippers' desperate attempts to reach them.

And that's the end of the ride for now. Nezha 2 is still playing in theaters. Nobody knows what will happen once it hits STREAMING :D after all, 命由我不由天!

[yunsound]

老师之前的中国神话系列真的很棒！最近正好看到了一些关于“李老三约稿”的搞笑梗，也是第一次发现了藕饼有那么多的古早解读，而且很多都写得特别美特别悲伤😭请问能不能做一期关于哪吒形象演变的总结（比如哪吒和那吒俱伐罗之间传说的异同）？或者总结一下新挖出来的那些藕饼相关的古代近代小说作品呀？anyway特别喜欢您的帖子，科普了好多本地人都不知道的神话细节，definitely please keep it going!

我正好前两天刚刷到李哪吒在线约稿，笑死我了！吒儿从唐朝约稿约到现在终于等到饺子导演愿意给他出纯爱番，看到1979年上美出抽龙筋这情节急的骑着风火轮转圈圈，当场申请未成年退款哈哈哈，中坛元帅太苦了

古人也是真会嗑，能让吒儿说小龙你真可爱这句话！真要被甜死（我朋友是地笼姐，跟我嚷嚷了半天说敖光就是神话版年世兰被天帝当爱妃宠着，我也是无语了，显得我们现代人好保守hhh）

哪吒历史形象的进化是个好主意，等我抽空直接发！

[yunsound]

All my posts: a masterlist

Movie-related, TV or animation things:

Translating the last line of Ne Zha 2

Director Jiaozi and the Chinese animation industry

Review of New Gods Reborn: Yang Jian

Ne Zha-themed nail design

My personal favourite non-animated Chinese films

C-drama recommendations

I Hate Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace (and so should you):

Part 1:

Part 2:

The Iterations of Oubing:

Yunbing

Shangmei Oubing

Myths:

Chang'e and Hou Yi

The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl

Ne Zha

Investiture of the Gods and the Heavenly Court

Erlang Shen

Great Yu Cures the Waters

The Four Dragon Kings

The Heaven Haters Boy Band

Legendary weapons

Ao Bing Zhuan Drama:

Part 1

Part 2

Update (from another kind user)

Other C-Pop Culture:

Xianxia, Wuxia and Jianghu Terminology

[yunsound]

Chinese Mythology: Legendary Weapons

Excalibur? Mjolnir? Durandal, Joyeuse, even Poseidon’s trident. All famous, cool weapons. I’m sure you’ve all got favourite characters with equally iconic weapons (yes, the Batmobile does indeed count). Sometimes, the weapon even becomes just as famous as the character itself- I’m sure Excalibur and King Arthur are equally popular. 

Often, the weapon becomes inseparable from the character themself. In Berserk, Guts’ huge greatsword, the Dragonslayer, is so iconic that he feels wrong without it.

This isn’t just the case for weapons, either. Characters will often have something with them that signifies who they are, so recognisable that even just one glance at that item will remind you of that character.

For Hamlet, it’s a skull (slightly misleading because that scene in the play doesn’t even correspond to the soliloquy it’s famous for). Sherlock Holmes and his deerstalker hat, Harry Potter and his lightning scar. These are all IP markers, like a Pokeball or Captain America’s Vibranium shield.

In Chinese mythology, we often see these “markers” apply to famous characters too. If you ever read or watched a Journey to the West adaptation, you’ll recognise Zhu Bajie (often translated as Pigsy) as a pig spirit wielding a rake- this rake has become synonymous with his character.

九齿钉耙- Jiuchi Dingpa, or Nine-toothed Rake.

I remember playfighting with my cousins as a child with garden rakes and my grandma calling me Zhu Bajie as a joke.

As such, I’ll be going through some of the most famous legendary weapons in Chinese mythology, literature and history. 

Ruyi Jingu Bang 如意金箍棒

This picture is from a comment section on XHS- not sure where it came from.

By far the most famous item on this list, the mythological magical staff of Sun Wukong. Ruyi Jingu Bang means the Dutiful Gold-Banded Staff. The dutiful part means it can shrink or grow depending on the owner’s will, and it’s got gold all over it. It’s most commonly referred to as just the Jingu Bang, or the Jingu Staff.

In Journey to the West, Sun Wukong goes to Ao Guang (the Dragon King of the East China Sea, see this post) to look for a weapon. He goes through every single weapon in his inventory and is unsatisfied by all of them.

An exasperated and frustrated Ao Guang tells him to basically “use that random pillar in the corner if you want, I’m done here!”. (Technically it’s Ao Guang’s wife who gives him the idea). 

The “random pillar” was used by Yu the Great to measure the depths of the floods that used to plague China (see the myth here) and is called the 定海神针 Dinghai Shenzhen, or the Sea-Calming Divine Needle. The word needle is a little disingenuous- it weighs 18000 pounds and is a huge fucking iron pillar. 

Now, it’s a little useless since no one needs to calm the seas or measure floods anymore and Ao Guang is tired of it taking up space in the corner. Wukong takes him seriously and picks it up, all 18000 pounds of it (remember Wukong is OP). 

Now, 18000 pounds sounds like a lot (it is a lot) and it was an unfathomable weight back in ancient China, like three thousand years ago. Now it’s not even that bad- 18000 is about the weight of a fully-sized school bus. Still, imagine a monkey throwing a school bus at you. Not fun.

Wukong shrinks the Divine Needle down to the general size of a staff and it’s renamed the Ruyi Jingu Bang. When he doesn’t need it, he shrinks it to the size of a tuft of hair and keeps it behind/in his ear. 

This is a shot from the 2015 movie Monkey King- Hero is Back.

This scene is from Black Myth: Wukong.

You may remember in Ne Zha 2, there was a huge pillar keeping the abyssal monsters under the sea that Ao Guang spent his days on. That’s the same pillar Ao Bing and Ne Zha use to break the cauldron they’re trapped in- at the end of the movie, Ne Zha punches it accidentally and it falls over into the sea.

That was a scene lost on foreign viewers- this pillar is the Dinghai Shenzhen, the future Ruyi Jingu Bang that Sun Wukong will wield. A very hype scene for Chinese people- they didn’t even need to explain it.

That’s just how popular Sun Wukong is. Even just the appearance of the raw materials of his weapon hundreds of years before he’s even born is enough to be hype. 

Huntianling 混天绫

In Chinese mythology, people often use magical ropes, lassoes and sashes. The Huntianling is one of the most famous. I translated this as the Skyblinding Sash. It’s one of Ne Zha’s most iconic weapons, a long red sentient ribbon that follows him along. He uses it to bind, trap and generally torment random monsters while he beats them up. Think of this sash like Doctor Strange’s sentient red cape- it can act independently of Ne Zha, but he controls it. 

Huojian Qiang 火尖枪

Another one of Ne Zha’s weapons! He’s very famous and he has a LOT of weapons- I’m only covering the most famous ones. In all he has over ten famous weapons. The Huojian Qiang, or Fire-tipped Spear, is his most iconic weapon. It is basically a long golden spear that can shoot flames out of one end. 

Refer back to the picture at the beginning for Huntianling. I'm getting tired of finding various pics for Ne Zha.

Bajiao Shan 芭蕉扇

Artist: @画画的三哥

Bajiao Shan means Banana Leaf Fan. Yeah, the name itself isn’t very intimidating, but the weapon is. The most famous iteration of the Bajiao Shan is the one owned by Princess Iron Fan, the wife of the Bull Demon King and the mother of Red Child (translated as Red Boy sometimes and often confused with Ne Zha).

One flap of the Bajiao Shan can whip up whirlwinds and put out any fire. If you fan it at a guy he’ll be blasted ninety thousand miles away.

Fenghuolun 风火轮

Surprises, shocks, it’s Ne Zha again. The Fenghuolun or Wheels of Wind and Fire are Ne Zha’s main method of transportation. They’re two flaming golden wheels that he rides on like roller skates and allow him to fly at super high speeds. Literally mythological Hot Wheels. 

Qiankun Quan 乾坤圈

Can you guess who this belongs to? Three tries.

If you guessed Ne Zha you’re right. Why does he have so much stuff? I don’t know. That’s what his six arms are for, I guess. You really couldn’t hold all this stuff without six arms.

The Qiankun Quan, or Rings of Heaven and Earth (Qiankun is a fancy way of heaven and earth and basically refers to the universe, or reality in general) is a shape and size-changing golden ring. It can be small enough to wear as a bracelet or neck ring, or big as a hula hoop or a Ferris wheel. It’s also sometimes depicted as a set of rings, but I find that this interpretation always reminds me of the Olympic rings. 

The Qiankun Quan are used to strangle people, bash people’s heads in (poor Ao Guang) and generally be bad news for anyone on Ne Zha’s bad side. They’re also very pretty decorations!

Here you can see him with his most iconic weaponry- the wheels, the gold rings around his wrists, the spear and the sash.

Jiulong Shenhuo Zhao 九龙神火罩

Jiulong Shenhuo Zhao or the Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Cage is a trap owned by Taiyi Zhenren or Master Taiyi, Ne Zha’s master. Taiyi Zhenren has a LOT of treasures. It’s a cage made up of nine golden dragons which shoot fire. In the original myth of Ne Zha, Lady Stone Spirit (Lady Shiji) was burnt to death inside this cage by Taiyi Zhenren. 

Linglong Baota 玲珑宝塔

(this picture is an NFT. I do not care that it's an NFT.)

This is not a Ne Zha weapon though it has to do with Ne Zha. Linglong Baota, or the Delicate Treasure Pagoda (there’s a tower of the same name in the Beijing Olympic Village named after this pagoda) is the mythological weapon of the Pagoda Bearing Heavenly Lord, 托塔天王, Li Jing. Does the name Li Jing sound familiar?

Yup, it’s Ne Zha’s asshole dad.

Hey, although he’s a terrible father, he’s a good general at least. He was willing to sacrifice his own son to save his people. He’s just not very nice.

This pagoda was a gift from the Jade Emperor (who got it from the Buddha) to Li Jing in order to prevent Ne Zha from whooping Li Jing’s ass. It can trap any mortal, god or demon inside (yes, including Ne Zha). 

Edit: 林卿 on Xiaohongshu

All in all, if Li Jing’s pagoda ever left his side you can best believe Ne Zha would be on him in an instant.

Qinglong Yanyue Dao 青龙偃月刀

The Qinglong Yanyue Dao, or the Azure Dragon Crescent-Slaying Blade, is a famous blade that is technically real! Okay, well the actual blade probably didn’t exist, but the style of blade is real and there are recreations that are basically 100% accurate (the “real” blade is on display at a very famous temple, but I don’t actually know if it’s supposed to be legitimate since I’ve never been).

After all, it’s just a big fancy sword- it’s not magic like any of the other stuff we see above. I include it here because somehow Wikipedia figured it was important, so I thought why not?

Legends surrounding the blade depict it as very heavy (like 100 pounds heavy) and wielded by a famous general from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This legend is debatable, but the blade is still famous. 

_

If you're in awe at the sheer number of these that belong to Ne Zha- I'm not done. He has more.

Shenhuozhao (Divine Fire Trap), Jin Zhuan (Golden Brick), Fu Yao Suo (Demon Subjugation Rope), Kan Yao Dao (Demon Slaying Blade), Yin Yang Shuang Jian (Twin Yin-Yang Swords), Xiu Qiu (Embroidered Ball), Xiang Yao Chu (Devil's Bane Staff), Baopi Nang (Panther's Skin Pouch), Qiankun Gong (Bow of Heaven and Earth), Zhentian Jian (Sky-shaking Arrows)...

The list goes on.

His master Taiyi Zhenren is known for having a shit ton of... stuff, so he gave a lot of it to Ne Zha. At least that's my understanding.

The reason why Ne Zha features so prominently on this list isn't just that he's my favourite mythological character (he's actually not- my favourites are Erlang Shen, Wukong and Chang'e), it's because he just has a lot of stuff.

Most people have one or two or three key weapons or items. He just has... so much.

[yunsound]

Director Jiaozi and the Chinese Animation Industry

If you’re on my page it probably means you’ve seen my endless gushing about Ne Zha 1 and 2. I’ve always been a huge fan of domestic animation (domestic for me meaning China) as well as international Japanese and Western animation.

In particular, I admire big blockbuster animated films that managed to both convey cultural, artistic and spiritual messaging through a medium as notoriously finicky as animation.

Some of my favourite animated movies (I think this is an opinion held by every animation fan) are the Spiderverse series (despite not being a Spiderman fan) and the Ghibli movies of my youth. 

Being Chinese, though, I grew up with 2D animated TV shows that cemented their place in my upbringing. Shanghai Animation Studio movies such as Ne Zha Conquers the Sea 1979,

Havoc in Heaven 1961,

and even 1878’s Calabash Brothers (or Gourd Brothers? I guess?)

are all iconic parts of growing up as a Chinese.

Chinese animation has never been widely acclaimed on a global scale the way Japanese animation and sometimes Western animation have. The domestic animation industry is made entirely up of passion projects, which can seem great until you realise passion projects don’t typically tend to make money.

In a film industry as hyper-competitive and critical as China, most animation projects never tend to make it far. Art and music, while highly respected once you achieve success, have high barriers to entry. Chinese people are very critical of artistic work because of thousands of years of artistic development.

You may have heard of a recent animated film in China called A Mermaid Summer (or however it was translated). 2 people spent 7 years making it- the movie was bullied to oblivion.

A Mermaid Summer is, quite frankly, shit. It’s terrible. The animation is bad, the storytelling is bad, the voice acting is bad. It was, however, a passion project made by like 2 people on their own- people understand why it’s bad, and it’s not like we expected Oscar-worthy visuals.

Does this seem incredibly harsh to bully these two hardworking people? YES, it does! And it IS harsh and mean!

Understand that thousands of beautiful works (made meticulously and with great care) receive little to no attention in the domestic industry, made by equally small teams as A Mermaid Summer but with much higher quality.

The creators weren’t seasoned pros and definitely didn’t deserve to be bullied so much, but it would’ve honestly been much better if they had scrapped it. (They had actually considered starting over but decided to keep going, which I think wasn’t a good decision). 

Putting out a bad product is never better than taking your time, even if it takes you a lifetime.

I tell you about A Mermaid Summer to establish some baseline rules in the Chinese film industry and how Chinese people want films to be made (both animated and non-animated):

It does not matter how long it takes. The end product has to be good.

If the product is bad, NO MATTER how beloved the director/idea/IP/characters are, it’s going to flop.

In an animated movie: either the animation has to be great, or the plot has to be great. If you have one or the other, it’s meh. If you have both, yay! You cannot, however, get away with having both be mid.

If the product is bad, no one cares how much work you put in or how sad your circumstances are: there is going to be ZERO people complimenting or watching your work. Results speak, not effort.

Doesn’t this seem very strict? That’s because it is, but it’s the reality. Recently a movie came out based on the beloved novel series by Jin Yong, called Legend of the Condor Heroes. Condor Heroes is probably one of China’s biggest ever IPs. 

Its fans are everywhere. My parents love Jin Yong’s novels and so do 80% of China’s population. It’s as big as Harry Potter, basically, just for a different audience.

The actors in the movie are all popular too. Xiao Zhan, Leung Ka-fei, Ada Choi are all big-names.

However, Legend of the Condor Heroes completely flopped. The art direction and writing was bad and the acting was mid. The movie industry is not like the TV drama industry: if your movie is bad, NO ONE CARES if the actors are hot or if the IP is big, it will flop.

In this harsh environment, animated films especially struggle. We’ve seen a severe lack of good Chinese animated films. Is this critical culture to blame? Certainly part of the problem, but it’s also (somewhat sadly and ironically) what drives people to want to excel.

A very tough love solution. 

This is why it is especially shocking and especially impactful that Ne Zha 2 is doing so well.

Ne Zha 2’s director’s stage name is Jiaozi (which means dumpling). His real name is Yang Yu. I will call him Jiaozi, though. 

He graduated from med school in a fairly-prestigious university in Sichuan. Everyone knows how rigorous med school is. While he was studying, he spent every night holed up in his dorm figuring out the basics of animation. After graduation, he didn’t go to work- he spent three years living basically in his mother’s basement trying to make an animated film. 

A very, very classically doomed story. However, against all odds, he did it. He released a 16-minute animated short in 2008 called 打，打个大西瓜 (or See Through).

It’s available on YouTube and it has a total of 0 lines of dialogue. This short, however, went viral for its anti-war, anti-hate and anti-propaganda message. It won a lot of domestic and international awards. 

Through those three years he spent making See Through, he lived off his mother’s retirement fund of 200 dollars a month (1000 yuan), bought virtually nothing, and worked 14 hours a day.

See Through didn’t garner him instant success. After all, it was just an animated short. Within a year it wasn’t really mentioned anymore. He did, however, get his foot in the door.

Ne Zha is one of the biggest IPs in China. He has the most film/anime/comic/game adaptations after Sun Wukong (that’s including Dragon Ball and all the Dragon Ball spinoffs). 

Jiaozi basically made Ne Zha 1 on two cents and a dream. The movie was low-budget (I’m talking 22 million) and in interviews, he revealed he had no money to hire a motion capture expert or a voice acting coach, so he did all of this himself. He even voice-acted some of the characters to save on costs.

The entire cast was unknown VAs. The animation was done by newbies just entering the industry. This movie was the definition of cutting costs.

Against all odds, it succeeded. Ne Zha 1 won fans over with its humour, stellar character-building and refreshing message. It became the highest grossing film of that year and catapulted Jiaozi into fame. 

Almost as soon as Ne Zha 1 succeeded (within a year), Jiaozi began work on Ne Zha 2. 

If you compare pictures of Jiaozi before and after producing Ne Zha 2, you can notice he looks like he’s aged a lot more than 5 years.

Jiaozi has said he’s an extremely introverted person prone to anxiety, and that he’s a huge perfectionist to the point where it’s harmed both his professional and personal life.

He outsourced many of the more complicated scenes on Ne Zha 2 to top foreign production companies. You can see their names (Korean, Indian, Japanese, American etc) in the end credits of Ne Zha 2.

However, he said in an interview that because the project was coming from mainland China (which, as we’ve established, has a fairly weak animation industry), these foreign companies sent only their lowest-rate animators despite the high rates Jiaozi was paying them.

As such, Jiaozi had to redo most of these scenes from scratch with domestic groups.

Hundreds of animation studios in China joined to work on Ne Zha 2. Jiaozi invested almost all the money he made off the first movie back into the second one. These workers were young, passionate newcomers to the industry- they once again didn’t have the budget to hire seasoned pros despite the much looser spending constraints.

The studios that joined Jiaozi worked at low rates (sometimes not even breaking even on labour costs) to produce Ne Zha 2.

5 years later it happened. Ne Zha 2 is making an incredible amount of money. 

Most people are worried about the pressure the success of Ne Zha 2 is putting on Jiaozi- about a week ago he officially announced he’s stopping all interviews and publicity for Ne Zha 2 to go into “seclusion” to work on the 3rd movie, before 2 even finished airing. 

He’s been working extremely unhealthy hours for over a decade. However, the results have paid off. That’s all we can say, I guess.

The reason why many Chinese adore Ne Zha so much isn’t just because the movies are good- it’s because the movies are good enough that they basically became hope for the future of the domestic animation industry.

A *relatively* small company (not small anymore, considering how big they’re probably going to get in the future) managed to make 2 of the highest grossing films in Chinese history and one of the highest-grossing films of all time. Jiaozi has made more in box office sales with 2 full-length movies than most directors with over thirty or fourty.

It’s incredible that what seemed like such a doomed journey turned out so fantastically. Many young Chinese animators now dream of working with Jiaozi, or becoming like him.

Of course, Jiaozi isn’t perfect. He’s at the very least extremely talented, probably a “genius” (or however you define genius) and incredibly hardworking. 

His workers describe him as a nightmare director not because he’s rude but because he is incredibly nitpicky and has seemingly impossibly-high standards. He’s also a little bit of a douchebag (he made a short film called The Boss’s Woman that’s pretty misogynistic but it was never formally released). 

However. You can’t deny that Jiaozi has accomplished what decades of animators before him haven’t been able to. Ne Zha 2 is the greatest animated movie in history. That’s incredible for the Chinese animation industry, which before Ne Zha has never been able to get a stable footing.

Some other Chinese animated movies I recommend as well as some notes.

As a general rating marker: I rate 

Ne Zha 1: 7.5-8/10

Ne Zha 2: 9/10

The Shawshank Redemption: 9.5/10

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: 9/10

Decide from these rankings whether or not you think my opinions on movies are valid and if you want to keep reading.

大鱼海棠 Big Fish and Begonia 2016

7.5/10

Co-produced with Korean animation studio

Very touching, very tear-jerking

Animation is beautiful

长安三万里 30,000 Miles from Chang’An 2023

6.5/10

Ehhhh?

It’s definitely touching but not for everyone

Not understandable for a wide audience: you’d need to know some basic Chinese history and culture

It’s okay

People either love it or hate it

西游记之大圣归来 The Journey to the West: Hero is Back 2015

7.5/10

The animation is just okay, but the story is great

Very hype

One of the first domestic animated movies whose release I actively followed

Without background of JTTW it’s not very good, but if you know you know.

新神榜：杨戬 New Gods Reborn: Yang Jian 2022

6/10

The animation is good: more precisely, the models are good

The storyline is kind of a mess

Much better than the other New Gods Reborn movie, which we don’t talk about

Worth a quick watch

白蛇缘起 White Snake 2019

6.5/10

Not bad, the storyline was meh

It got some hype abroad but it’s mid

Worth a watch but it’s way overrated

深海 Deep Sea 2023

7.5/10

The animation is beautiful and the story is good!

Worth a watch! I recommend it

Very dreamcore, floaty feeling

Gives you a sense of being not quite in our reality in a similar way as some Ghibli movies