#dylan wang media

[dylanwangmedia]

Dylan’s Sina Tv translations [12.8.22]

[mezbeleyer]

____ Dongfang Qıngcang’s sea of emotions

[dingyuxi]

[djappleblush]

I remember when he had these gorgeous, creative posters as countdown for the drama, having little to no knowledge how these images would weigh heavily on the show as a whole. I wish I could erase this drama from my head so I could watch it again like the first time.

[arctic-pop]

GAY ALERT: WEEWOO WEEWOO

Changheng, thats not who you think it is

[moonsorchid]

Watching Love Between Fairy and Devil should come with multiple warnings.

I recently finished watching the series and it’s my duty to warn you.

Side effects may include:

Putting your life (family, friends, work, paying bills) on hold to watch all episodes in 3 days

Feeling alone because no one you know has watched it and you only want to talk about the masterpiece that this series is

Obsessing over Dongfang Qingcang and subsequently over Dylan Wang

Wondering why men you know don’t have long, sleek, butt-length hair and wear majestic robes

Daydreaming about all the times Dongfang Qingcang pulled Xiao Lanhua close to him to kiss her

Searching all social media for BTS, interviews, Dylan and Esther singing and being cute together

Re-watching all the scenes where Dongfang Qingcang rolls his eyes, tilts his head, uses hellfire and has blue eyes because he is simply irresistible

Crying. Lots and lots of crying. And then when you think you are done crying, you’ll cry some more

Binging Meteor Garden pretending this is one of Dongfang Qingcang’s tribulations in modern world

Craving to write fanfiction with all the juicy details of their relationship, even if you have never written one before

Creating a dedicated Tumblr account with a silly name (like I don’t know, Moon’s Orchid?) though you watched it almost a year and a half after it was released and the fandom has half died. But you swear you’ll keep reposting all the awesome gif posts hoping for a miracle

Having no option but to re-watch over and over again fully aware your heart will bloom, break and then be destroyed repeatedly

Proceed at your own risk

[mirageofadesert]

C-Drama Review: Only For Love

Broadcast: Hunan TV, Mango TV, 2023, 36 Episodes Genre: Romance

My Rating 4.5/10

A drama that stays a bit too true to its source material, ultimately failing to translate the charm of the web novel into a TV adaption.

Acting: 6/10 World-building: 3/10 Production: 5/10 Storytelling: 4/10 Pacing: 4/10 Re-watch Value: 3/10 

Summary with minor spoilers

Zheng Shuyi (played by Bai Lu) is an ambitious reporter for a financial newspaper. In order to write another cover story, she wants to interview the well-known entrepreneur Shi Yan (played by Dylan Wang). The only distraction in her ambition comes in from of her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, who is cheating on her with another woman. Zheng Shuyi vows revenge by focussing even more on her career - and seducing the rich uncle of her ex's new girlfriend. A series of misunderstandings lead to her inadvertently mistaking Shi Yan for him. And then there's Shi Yan's real niece Qin Shi Yue (played by Shen Yu Jie), who soon starts working as an intern at Zheng Shuyi newspaper under a secret identity. Follow their tangled love story through 36 episodes of misunderstandings, awkward car rides and boring business talk.

My review - spoilers ahead!

While I never have high expectations for modern cdramas, the combination of Bai Lu and Dylan Wang made me excited. There were quite a few scenes that made me giggle like a teenage girl, and some of the tension arced made me come back to the show every day. However, there are a lot of things wrong with this show.

The main problem is the failed attempt to transfer the charm ad humor of the web novel directly to the drama, without making adaption based on the different type of media. There were many scenes that had the typical web novel/manga elements - frozen characters, puppy eyes, awkward silence. As drawings, these are usually expressed with additional text or symbols. Since those kinds of edits are only done in variety shows, all we got were the character staring at each other or making awkward facial expressions. The show also failed to make use of music to deliver the meaning of these scenes.

This left us with a drama, that lacked chemistry between the leads ad made the acting feel wooden and boring. And that in a drama with the queen of chemistry!

On top of that, the show failed to have an interesting secondary plot. Nearly all the exciting scenes and awaited reveals were linked to the niece, who became my favorite character. The work-related scenes were incredible badly written. At times, it felt like they had just used place-holder lines instead of writing actual dialogue.

All of this contributed to a disappointing performance of every actor in the cast. I personally don't think that Dylan Wang's dubbing was an issue because of his higher voice, but I think the line delivery from the whole cast was not well done. It took away the little emotions the story allowed in the first place.

The first couple of episodes, I was waiting for the drama to switch tone, based on Bai Lu's usually choice in scripts. However, Only For Love stayed true to its storytelling style from the start to the unremarkable finish. It had its cute and funny moments, but overall it's the weakest drama I have seen Bai Lu star in so far. Maybe after all the angst, it was time for something light! I would recommend watching this Only For your Love for the actors!

[connectkrp]

➠ the following users have disconnected:

lee junho nakamoto yuta yang bingyi minatozaki sana choi beomgyu jung sooyeon (jessica) kim minju dylan wang

to reserve the muses above in the first 48 hours of their removal, please attach your active form of social media in your reservation that you'll later use in your application. 🩵

[lbfadandaudience]

The Multiple Relationships between Love Between Fairy And Devil and Its Related Events and the Audience 

The analysis of each image/group is located below them. Some images have been edited out of the list of netizens, leaving important parts that have been studied. There are twelve images in total after editing and stitching. All materials in Chinese have been translated into English.

For this purpose artefact has created a tag：#lbfadandaudience

Love Between Fairy And Devil is a romance, fantasy, and immortal TV series starring Dylan Wang and Shuxin Yu in the lead roles. It began airing in August 2022 on the Chinese online video platform iQIYI. The series was released globally through Netflix in September of the same year, and It has attracted a huge global audience and swept the media. This episode tells the story of Xiao Lan Hua, a fairy in the heavenly realm, and Dongfang Qingcang, the leader of the Moon Clan, who have to live and die together after being accidentally struck by the Tong Xin spell, and then fall in love with each other as they have to spend time together. It's a wonderful story that is loved by today's youth and conveys a positive spirit.

The great reason for the popularity of the Canglan trick is not least that its content has a positive output and appeals to the audience in terms of outlook on life and values. The relationship between the male and female protagonists is reversed when they fall under the spell of living and dying together. The male protagonist, who is the strong one, is controlled, guided and then enlightened by the female protagonist, who is the weak one, to recover her ability to love and tolerate as a human being, while the female protagonist awakens from a humble spirit to become a goddess because she always upholds her pure and kind nature and compassionate heart to love all things. The gender consciousness in Love Between Fairy And Devil is more advanced than in most of the series on the market, which are still set in a hierarchical and patriarchal core, and there is a great contrast between their disparate identities, their individual abilities and the equal mode of dealing with each other with mutual respect and trust in their emotional relationships. These positive perceptual orientations are age- and gender-neutral.

As one of the most diverse and wide-ranging Chinese-created IPs of 2022, Love Between Fairy And Devil has developed a successful co-branding with a creative tea brand, Nesher's Tea, which focuses on young women aged 20 to 35. Together they launched a pomegranate drink with the name of the Love Between Fairy And Devil’s Male protagonist, Dongfang Qing Cang in their name, and in doing so created a new hashtag about the TV series, #Even the wedding tea is ready for the Love Between Fairy And Devil#. they encourage audiences who have already become fans to create and carry relevant topic tags on this IP, using the audience to increase their influence and promotional ability. Obviously, the fan base of the TV series' audience showed their buying power and created a second take on this IP, echoing and participating in the co-branding campaign to keep the series' buzz going. The consumers behind Love Between Fairy And Devil are trying to attract the audience into the market and make them their consumers.

The audience membership system for the TV series Love Between Fairy And Devil on the iQIYI platform is that on the first day of the series, VIP members can watch six episodes and those without VIP membership can watch two episodes for free. After that, members can watch two episodes each from Sunday to Tuesday at 8 pm, and non-members can switch to one free episode each from Sunday to Thursday at 8 pm. It is up to the audience to choose whether to have an early viewing membership or not, but all the same, they will eventually be able to watch the entire episode.

Any audience who has seen the main series of Love Between Fairy And Devil and met the viewing hours is eligible to rate the episodes. The act of scoring Love Between Fairy And Devil can be done not only on the Akiyo platform, where it is exclusively broadcast but also on Douban, China's largest and most authoritative one-stop experience for books, music and movies in its entirety. The iQIYI platform will determine whether Love Between Fairy And Devil can stay on the platform's recommendation page based on the public's rating level and public voices.

Audiences can post any comments, opinions and suggestions related to the show in the comments section. Any real-time experience of watching the drama online can be posted on the bullet screen, and all viewers will be able to see what they have posted and what others have posted. Both comments and pop-ups can be liked or stomped on or reply to the content of their comments. Statements with a high number of likes and replies will be marked with a special label that can easily be seen by more people.

The audience's feedback and opinions on Love Between Fairy And Devil are open and transparent. The TV drama official can choose to adopt or not, but the audience can always say what they want to say. And the audience can also communicate with each other.

The audience for the official Love Between Fairy And Devil activities on Weibo is not only those who have followed the TV series from the beginning but anyone who wants to win an autographed photo of the cast or an iQIYI monthly card may be attracted to this. There are a variety of official competitions and events, so audience with drawing skills, writing skills, calligraphy skills or a good understanding of the characters in the series as well as analytical skills, and a high level of attention to understanding the flora and fauna that appear in the series can come along and try their hand at it. Even if they have not watched the show at all, those events have five days for that group to learn about and participate in the creation of Love Between Fairy And Devil. At the same time, the rules stipulate that the audience participating in the competition or event must carry the designated tag of Canglan Tips in the content they post, which will attract more passers-by to click on the relevant content.

The meaning of the different readings of the text is always questioned by the audience (Livingstone, 2008).

Chinese netizens found statements made by the actress Yueyi Wang, who plays the Dan Yin fairy in the Love Between Fairy And Devil cast, back in 2016 and 2017 and intercepted them and posted them on various platforms, with the most widely spread on Weibo. It topped the Weibo search at the time. Just because she posted a tweet lamenting the poor air in Beijing when she first got off the plane after a trip to Japan when she was still a vegetarian, more of her comments, such as that the homogenization of the Chinese education system for students may cause them to grow up and still not be brave enough to be themselves, were taken as evidence of her political mistakes.

As a result, the negative comments made about her by Chinese netizens were largely biased and are not much on display here. The official cast of Love Between Fairy And Devil deleted all publicity about her across the platform and the other actors within the cast have never interacted with her again. Although some Chinese netizens have sensibly expressed their views on the incident, they believe that her casual blog posting is not offensive and does not mean that she is a spiritual Japanese who hates her motherland, and there is no more turn of this event.

But the fact remains, as Livingstone(2008) concludes, that we “cannot claim that any kind of interpretive activity involves resistance, opposition or subversion if there is no standard clear test to prove whether a diffuse reading of a text is subversive or normative, whether it comes primarily from the text or from the audience, whether it is influenced by social factors as well as personal ideologies, and how this supposedly resistant reading actually makes a difference politically”.

#lbfadandaudience

[workinprogress2023]

Speaker Bios

Keynote Speaker:

Jackie Wang is a poet, scholar, multimedia artist, and Assistant Professor of American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, where she researches race, surveillance technology, and the political economy of prisons and police. She is the author of Carceral Capitalism (Semiotext(e), 2018), the poetry collection The Sunflower Cast A Spell To Save Us From The Void (Nightboat Books, 2021, National Book Award Finalist), and the forthcoming experimental essay collection Alien Daughters Walk Into the Sun (Semiotext(e), 2023).

Graduate Students:

Mo Brouwer is a grad student in the English department studying early modern representations of rural labour.

Boz Deseo Garden (they/them/it/its) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice works within the semiotic, cinematic, and psychoanalytical impasses articulated by Afropessimist thought. Through video, sculpture, photography, and writing Garden’s work studies the Slave as the unthought heuristic for signification, mattering, and the drive of the Subject.

Jameson Austin Leopold (they/them/he/him) is a PhD student in Culture and Theory studying psychoanalysis, sexual violence, and the limits of representation. They are a neurotic Freudian, a rhetorician of power, and a walking, talking scandal.

Anannya Mukherjee is a 6th year PhD candidate in the UCI Department of Comparative Literature. Her scholarly interests include popular entertainment, cross-platform internet culture, fandom, folklore and folk epistemology, unreality, and the production of the self and the other in narrative.

Mell Rivera Díaz is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at the University of California, Irvine. His academic work explores the development of the ideology of mestizaje from the early XXth century to the present through a focus on Puerto Rican poetry––written on the island and the diaspora–– in Spanish, English, and Spanglish. You can find some of his work in Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies and Diálogos: Revista del Departamento de Filosofía de la Universidad de Puerto Rico. He is the author of a book of poetry titled de ir sé que vine.

Morgan Slade is a Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature with emphasis in Critical Theory.

Haley Suh is a PhD student in English at UC Irvine. Her current research focuses on Victorian literature and culture, novel theory and narrative theory, genre, and Marxist theory and Psychoanalysis.

Dylan J. Taylor is a PhD student in Comparative Literature at UC Irvine. His current research engages critical philosophy of race, aesthetics, deconstruction, and media archeology to interrogate the often violent and ironic conditions by which putatively world-representational technologies become codified and mobilized as such—and thus how the world itself comes, in turn, to be understood as that which is internally available to its own representation by determinable, phenomenal means.

Yeekwan “Vanessa” Wong is a PhD student in the East Asian Studies department at University of California, Irvine. Her research interests include feminist theory, gender studies, postcolonial studies, modern and contemporary Chinese literature and film.

Yue Xiaoyang is a second-year PhD student in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Irvine. His research interest is the selfhood in Japanese personal documentary and Japanese I-novel. He graduated from Waseda University with an MA degree in film studies. His master thesis focuses on how the exploration of self in Kawase Naomi’s personal documentaries undermine conventional notions of family, women’s roles and locality in Japanese society.

2023 conference organizers: Diya Mathur, Carolin Huang, Chenglin Lee

[gotta-get-back-to-hatchetfield]

Senior Year things to appreciate apart from Gilderoy (who I think we've been doing plenty of well deserved appreciating this week):

Brian Holden as Hagrid - so fucking funny, I remember squealing my absolute head off the first time I saw this bit. I completely understand why Darren is just creasing throughout the whole scene.

The way that learning about Voldemorts backstory isn't necessary to appreciate his plot in AVPM but when you know it it adds so many more layers. Starkid literally said Voldemort is like that because of homophobic parents and we were like fuck me up fam.

This has already been discussed at length but obviously the last scene. "I hope you find that swimming pool". Albus Scarfy Potter. Quirrelmort. Wang Mu. Okay is wonderful. All of it.

Tyler as McGonnagall - seriously what can't that man play?? He embodies her.

YOU GOTTA GO HOME, YOU GOTTA GO HOME - you know what I'm on about

Jeff Blim's vocals in Get in My Mouth. Also would recommend looking up Nick Strauss' cover from a Leaky Con in I think 2013. It's on YouTube and it's fucking incredible.

I Was and Tonight This School is Mine are both complete bangers and the fact that they're still audiably bangers even with the microphone issues says a lot. The fucking poetry in I was, and the fucking sass in ttsim

The many layers of Always Dance. The beautiful bit at the start with Dylan, then the fucking dance off between Voldemort and Lucius which is everything and finally the evil last verse when he's waltzing with Ginny

Sidekick.

Joey Richter's actual real ass human tears that he manages to squeeze out

Everything Ends continual ability to make me bawl like a baby. Goddam you Brosenthal why is your voice so good.

"I think we FOUND each other". It should be illegal for a line so funny to come in the middle of a scene so emotional. I distinctly remember when I watched it as a teenager having to pause to howl with laughter (tigerfucker and Santa Claus is going to high school are the only other scenes I remember having to do that for on first watch). Lilly divorcng James in heaven and remarrying Cedric is just an inspired concept

Evana Lynch smoking a fag - it was really cool that they became big enough to get an actual Harry potter actor in the show but just watching her smoking while washing blood off her hands made it so worth

The fact that AJs commitment to being in both the band and the cast means there are so many moments where the camera pans across and it's just oh look there's Gilderoy Lockhart just casually playing keyboard with Clark

The death day party scene - Ron and Lavenders date, Harry and Cho's date and then Seamus and Dean's double date with Ginny all 3 of them fucking hysterical. Also the bit with the ice sculpture and the roller skates

Brant Cox - he has like 5 lines in this play but they're the funniest 5 lines

All of the boo boos - most specifically 'fuck the tie' and 'a floating diary? Ah shit'

"sssssnake ssssnake I'm a snake where are my arms gone, only kidding I'm a ssssnake"

"sparkles, sparkles, I'm gay!" ~ Lord Voldemort

"I drew a majestic owl" - watching the SK10 livestreams and apparantly this comes from when they were doing a 24 hour story writing thing (a Hackathon for humanities students??) and Jim got bored really early on so spent most of the time drawing a realistic owl

And finally that it actually happened in the first place because I remember how initially it was going to be right after the sequel but then everything got thrown into disarray, and it kept getting pushed back. But thanks to us being absolute impatient assholes who commented 'give us threequel' every time they so much as breathed on social media we got it and it was wonderful!

[dylanwangmedia]

Dylan Douyin Update [12.12.22]

[choicesjanuarychallenge2022]

Edits

Open Heart

Dolphin Adventures | OpH F!MC (Cassie Valentine), Sienna Trinh, M!OC (Max Valentine) - @liaromancewriter

Red Carpet Diaries

Bogart Hunt on social media - @theartoflovingthomashunt

Edit+Fanfiction

Open Heart

Let Them Eat…Healthy? | Bryce Lahela, F!MC (Luna Auclair), Keiki Lahela, OC (Maxine), OC (Dylan Yu) - @peonierose

Queen Of The Slopes | Bryce Lahela x F!MC (Olivia Hadley) - @storyofmychoices​

Fanfiction

Desire & Decorum

A Beautiful Night (Chapter 22 of Second Chances) | F!OC (Elizabeth Foredale) Briar Daly, Edmund Marlcaster, Annabelle Parsons, Hamid, Luke Harper, Dominique Foredale, Vincent Foredale, Mr. Sinclaire - @missameliep

A Night Of Firsts Times (Chapter 25 of Meant To Be) | Hamid x MC (Daphne Wang) - @lorirwritesfanfic

Mother Of The Year

No Matter The Distance | Levi Schuler x MC (Laura Day) - @storyofmychoices​  

Open Heart

The Cost Of Living | Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Kate Oppenheimer) - @starfurylord

The Interview | Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Kate Oppenheimer) - @starfurylord

Long Stories | Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Kate Oppenheimer) - @starfurylord

Love I Found In You | Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine) - @liaromancewriter

Next Step | Ethan Ramsey x M!MC (Sydney Valentine) - @peonyblossom

Open Doors (What If?) | Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Kate Oppenheimer) - @starfurylord

Red Carpet Diaries

Feel Better | Thomas Hunt x F!OC (Alex Spencer) - @theartoflovingthomashunt

For The Love Of Coffee | Thomas Hunt x MC (Alex Spencer), Addison Sinclair, Chris Winters - @theartoflovingthomashunt

The Royal Romance

The Secrets We Keep (Chapter 1 of You Make Me Whole Again) | Drake Walker x Liam Rys - @sillydg

Moodboards

The Crown & The Flame

Dominic Hunter moodboard - @lorirwritesfanfic

Desire & Decorum

Drake the pug - @lorirwritesfanfic

Jaskier, the cat - @noesapphic

Sunny, the pug - @princess-geek

Open Heart

Pet - @choicesfanaf

The Ramseys and their fur babies - @genevievemd​

Other

Choices game: Tag your OC - @storyofmychoices​

[canolove]

Wang He Di Dylan Wang for the Tencent Pictures, New Classics Media, Yuewen Media joint press conference

(October 2020)

©️ @棣棣的记事簿 Weibo

[bbangpanmen]

00:00

14:00

• pairing: yn x ceo!jin

• genre: romance | fantasy (i guess? cause soulmates)

ceo / soulmate / social media au

you’ve been waiting for your soulmate your entire life. you check your soulmate clock everyday to count down the days until you meet them, until one day it stops working.

@apurpledheart @rjsmochii @irantoyouwithoutthinking 💜

prev | next

au masterlist

——————————————

a/n: um so if you couldn’t tell already, i’m pretty soft for dylan wang and just HAD to include him LMAO thank you for reading!

also! i’m posting the masterlist for my upcoming au called “the accidental bride” ft. taehyung (and jungkook)! i will start posting chapters for that one once i post all of the chapters for 00:00 but please do anticipate that i will be updating 00:00 a bit more frequently now!

[aion-rsa]

Kung Fu: Inside The History of a Martial Arts Classic

https://ift.tt/2Q3B4LS

It’s been a long journey for The CW to snatch that Kung Fu pebble from the master’s (Warner Bros.) hand, but the new reboot of Kung Fu could not have come at a better time.

Issues of diversity and representation have been at the forefront of our cultural conversations for years now. The rise in Asian hate crimes – nearly a 150% increase in 2020 – has made #StopAsianHate a frequent trending topic on social media. For The CW to launch a show with a Chinese leading actress and a largely Asian cast right now makes a bold statement for inclusivity that lives up to the network’s longstanding slogan “Dare to Defy.”

What’s more, Kung Fu is promoting itself as an Asian family drama which could fill a newly opened gap. Two wildly successful Asian family sitcoms just went off the air – ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat ended its six-season run in 2020 and Kim’s Convenience announced that their final episode after a five-season run will be April 13, 2021 (In the wake of Kim’s Convenience, CBC is launching a spinoff series, Strays, following the character of Shannon Ross, the only white actor credited in show’s opening). This leaves the door wide open for Kung Fu to capture fans of Asian family dramas. Plus it’s The CW, a network that thrives on soap opera-esque dramas. 

CW’s reboot is a complete reimagining of Kung Fu, but what of the legacy of the original franchise? Will this new version bring honor to the Kwai Chang Caine a.k.a. Grasshopper? The original Kung Fu series was groundbreaking in its own way. The show garnered critical acclaim including three Primetime Emmys and two Golden Globe nominations. Even though David Carradine’s Kwai Chang Caine would be called out for whitewashing today, with its heavy reliance on Daoist philosophy, Kung Fu provided many Americans with their first taste of many aspects of Chinese culture, especially Shaolin martial arts. It also had the largest Asian supporting cast of any show for decades to come. 

The Shaolin Temple Days

When the original Kung Fu premiered in 1972, it was the right time too. The pilot was such a big hit that the network decided to show it again (remember this was long before the invention of VHS – back then your only chance to see a show was to watch it when it was broadcast). However, the second showing was preempted by President Richard Nixon shaking hands with Chairman Mao Zedong. China was opening its bamboo curtain to America at the same time Kung Fu was telecast. 

Kung Fu ran for only three seasons on ABC and yet it holds a special place in the hearts of its long standing fans. Kwai Chang Caine was a barefoot half-Asian mendicant monk from the Shaolin Temple who travelled the old west in search of his long-lost half-brother, Danny Caine (Tim McIntire). Caine was a wanted man because he took revenge. He killed the Emperor’s nephew who killed his beloved blind master, Master Po (Keye Luke). Beyond casting almost every Asian actor in the business back then, Kung Fu had an astonishing list of guest stars like Gary Busey, Jodie Foster, Harrison Ford, William Shatner, and many others. 

The Chinese Connection: Bruce Lee Vs. Kwai Chang Caine

For decades, it was rumored that Kung Fu was ripped off from martial arts legend Bruce Lee. Lee had written a treatment that was remarkably similar – a story of Chinese immigrant martial arts master who landed in America during the Wild West era. However, in the definitive biography Bruce Lee: A Life, biographer Matthew Polly uncovered substantial evidence that Warner Brothers already had Kung Fu in development prior to Lee’s pitch. Nevertheless, Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, claims that her father auditioned for the part of Caine and was rejected because, ironically, he was Chinese. She went on to develop her father’s treatment into Cinemax’s Warrior (another recent show with a predominantly Asian cast that was cancelled last year).

After the original show ended, Carradine returned to the iconic role of Caine several times. In 1986, Kung Fu: The Movie aired on ABC, reuniting Carradine with Keye Luke and introducing Caine’s estranged son Chung Wang. Even more ironic, Chung Wang was played by none other than Bruce Lee’s son, Brandon Lee. 

Read more

TV

Warrior: The Historical Inspiration for Dylan Leary

By Gene Ching

Movies

How Batman: Soul of the Dragon Pays Homage to 70s Kung Fu and Bruce Lee

By Gene Ching

Kung Fu: The Movie was a steppingstone towards a spinoff series attempt, Kung Fu: The Next Generation, with Brandon Lee playing Johnny Caine. Carradine was not involved in this series. Set in modern times instead of the Old West, Johnny Caine was the great grandson of Kwai Chang Caine, but not the Kwai Chang Caine of the original series. The TNG Kwai Chang Caine was named for his great-grandfather – Carradine’s original character – and played by David Darlow. Brandon Lee was cast as both Kwai Chang Caine’s son and his great great great great grandson. Kung Fu: The Next Generation was not picked up. It was only telecast on an unusual short-lived TV showcase called CBS Summer Playhouse, which ran failed pilots every week. Six years later, Brandon Lee died in a tragic on set accident while filming The Crow.

Twenty years after the original series, David Carradine reprised the role of Kwai Chang Caine, or rather the grandson of Kwai Chang Caine, also named Kwai Chang Caine (not the father of the TNG Kwai Chang Caine because the failure of the pilot removed it from canon). That was the first real reboot of the series – Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. Set in modern times again, Caine was paired with a new son, Detective Peter Caine (Chris Potter). The series ran for four seasons, logging twenty-four more episodes than the original. 

After that, Carradine never returned to Caine. He went on to promote martial arts with his book, Spirit of Shaolin, which he wrote in 1991, and some instructional Kung Fu videos that he made in the mid-90s. Carradine was never able to completely shake being typecast by the iconic role of Caine. Over the course of over 200 roles, a few more Carradine parts echoed Grasshopper. Fans were delighted to see him play the flute as Bill in Tarantino’s Kill Bill films (the flute was Caine’s signature accoutrement). Tarantino also referenced Kung Fu in Pulp Fiction when Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) tells Vincent (John Travolta) that he plans to walk the earth like “Caine in Kung Fu.”

In 2008, Carradine played “Crane”, a martial art monk just like Caine, in Kung Fu Killer, a two-part mini-series for Spike TV. Carradine claimed that the role was based on an actual historical figure, which he alleges is how the production worked around Warner Bros.’ copyright on Caine. But Carradine was never able to provide the name of that historical figure. He believed that Crane and Caine were ‘diametrically opposed’ but aside from being more violent (in one fight, Crane knocks an opponent so hard that his spine graphically bursts out of his back) viewers are hard pressed to separate them. The series was slated to have three more installments, but those never happened.

The Barefoot Journey to The CW

Kwai Chang Caine had to walk a lot of rice paper before the character could become this new incarnation of Nicky Shen (Olivia Liang) for CW’s reimagining of the franchise. The first major talk of reboot was back in 2011 (on Halloween no less). Bill Paxton (Aliens, Predator 2) was in talks to direct a screen adaptation. John McLaughlin (Black Swan, The Patriot) was tapped to write the script. The production was from Legendary Entertainment and plans were being made to shoot in China. Paxton said they had intended to follow the original story more or less – Caine ventures across the American West of the 1870s in search of his birth father instead of his half-brother. Paxton claimed that his new production would enrich the scale and grandeur to the level that the show always deserved. This was to be feature films under Warner Brother’s Chinese cooperative venture, Legendary East. As the project developed, other writers who became associated with the reboot film included Cory Goodman (Priest) and Rich Wilkes (xXx)

In 2014, Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!) was in talks to direct Kung Fu for Legendary. If the deal had been signed, Luhrmann planned to rewrite McLaughlin’s script. Paxton died in 2017 but his name had faded from talk of the reboot prior to his passing. 

In an unexpected twist, Universal announced that it was opting Kung Fu for a feature length film in early 2020. At the helm is none other than stuntman-turned director David Leitch (John Wick, Deadpool). Leitch has also been attached to a remake of Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon (another property with a long history of attempted remakes). However, since the initial announcements, there’s been no information on the further development on either project from Leitch. 

On the TV side of things, Fox grabbed Kung Fu in 2017 for a new series. Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash) came on board to produce with Wendy Mericle (Arrow, Desperate Housewives) penning the script. This incarnation was the first mention of changing the gender of the main protagonist. The new lead was to be Lucy Chang, a Shaolin nun. Instead of being set in the Old West, she was to be living in the 1950s. And instead of searching for her half-brother, it was her kidnapped child. 

In a successive treatment, Lucy was set in modern times. She was to inherit her father’s Chinatown Kung Fu school, only to discover that it secretly operated as a center to help those in desperate need. Lucy was partnered with a Korean War veteran named J.T. Cullen. The reboot moved to the CW in 2019 with Christina M. Kim (Blindspot, Hawaii Five-0) taking over as writer and producer and Berlanti still attached as a producer. The story is reimagined with Nicky Shen as a young Chinese American woman in contemporary times, who leaves to find herself at a monastery in China, and then returns to her family in America.

In the pilot, there’s no explicit connection given between Nicky and Kwai Chang Caine so far (save for the quick appearance of a grasshopper). Kung Fu is a complete re-imagining, so all bets are off. But as the season progresses, who knows what references and homages are possible? Reboots thrive on their Easter eggs nowadays, and even if Nicky isn’t within the Caine bloodline, Kung Fu will be well served by tucking some call-backs to the original show. 

Will Nicky have to walk rice paper and snatch pebbles from her master’s hand? Will she get those classic Shaolin Dragon and Tiger forearm brands? If she does then perhaps Kung Fu will be the right show for its time while still honoring what came before it.

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Kung Fu premieres on the CW on April 7, 2021.

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