#maybe especially including the yin iron plot

[silvysartfulness]

If we're arguing fun cql canon, Wen Ruohan technically claimed the Dancing Fairy Yin Iron piece some 10-20 years ago and began experimenting with demonic cultivation, presumably predating Xue Yang first fucking around with it...

But the win still goes to the Xue bloodline because this guy

was the one who used death and resentment to first corrupt the heavenly Yin Iron, and started poking around at demonic cultivation literal centuries before the current plot. 🙂

In short: Xue Chonghai is in fact the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation.

Wasn't very good at controling it, but everyone's gotta start somewhere. 😀

i just realized something about the untamed

in the book of mdzs xxc and wwx never met and xue yangs whole massacre of the chang clan happened after wwx was already dead, but in the untamed they changed it so wwx was investigating the chang clan massacre BEFORE WWX INVENTED DEMONIC CULTIVATION so because cql fucked up the timeline xue yang is the real grandmaster of demonic cultivation

[akatsuki-shin]

[REVIEW] The Untamed: The Living Dead

Before anyone asked, for those of you who wanted to watch this movie:

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If it's really on WeTV, then it means the movie can be watched from web, as well, via WeTV's website.

*** Spoilers ahead! You've been warned. ***

STORY: 7/10

Nothing outstanding, but not that bad either. Let's just say it's like one of those Extra Chapters in Mo Dao Zu Shi, a story of one of their night hunts after the end of the official story. It just happens that this night hunt is a tad bit more difficult than the usual, with a dash of existential crisis for Wen Ning.

So in summary, there was one servant in a prominent family's house who was apparently delusional enough to think that the Young Lady of the family cares deeply for him, and he fell in love with her. He hated the fact that there was a new disciple coming into the family, favored by the family head, became a couple with the Young Lady and they would soon get married.

Sounds like your usual soap opera drama......except this servant got black magic on his hands with a shard of Yin Iron which allows him to control others like a puppet.

Hence when he got found out, he destroyed the whole family and framed that disciple guy. But to his misfortune, he accidentally killed the Young Lady in the process. After that, he started using the disciple like a puppet to terrorize the people of the surrounding village, taking their souls in order to resurrect the Young Lady using his shard of Yin Iron.

Despite the plot being pretty much cliche, for a 90 minutes movie, I think the story itself is pretty solid. The fact that this servant being the actual villain was the big plot twist at the end because since the beginning (heck, even since the promotion of the movie), we were made to believe that the disciple guy was the root of the problem.

Also, since this movie took place after the end of the official story, when Wen Ning decided to go independent and no longer depending on Wei Wuxian, I think it's nice that there is a part of the movie when Wen Ning was trapped in that illusion, having his own self doubting his existence, trying to influence him to berate Wei Wuxian for making him a, well, living dead.

And although it happens inside the illusion, for The Untamed fans, it was a pleasant surprise when Wei Wuxian's figure appeared to save Wen Ning from the trap, ensuring him that he is different from all those controlled puppets ("WU JI" PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND, DAMN BRUH)

Still, there are a few things that - I'm not going to say "bad" - is quite questionable and probably could've been done differently.

I'm not going to ask how Zhao Yi got his hand of Yiling Laozu's manuscript. I'll take it with a grain of salt that probably when the Lanling Jin Sect was in chaos after Jin Guang Yao's dead, maybe someone really did able to snuck out a few things from Fragrant Chamber's Treasure Vault......although even if someone can do that, I don't think it's going to be Zhao Yi since he literally has no connection at all with the characters in The Untamed's main story.

But fine, let's just believe that he was somehow able to get it.

Then comes the next problem. How the heck is this guy able to create a shard of Yin Iron? Mind you, even Wei Wuxian didn't create his own shard of Yin Iron to make the Stygian Tiger Seal. He just happened to stumble across that Yin Iron Sword in the Xuanwu of Slaughter's Cave.

If even the Yiling Patriarch couldn't do it, how could a mere servant create a shard of Yin Iron from nothing?

Three of those shards were with Wen Ruo Han, and were destroyed after his death.

One shard was hidden by Xue Yang. Idk where this one goes, tbh, but I am inclined to believe Jin Guang Yao was the one who kept it in the end (CMIIW).

The last shard was within the sword Wei Wuxian found, then used to create the Stygian Tiger Seal.

Did the shard hidden by Xue Yang actually fell to this Zhao Yi's hand? Did he create it from scratch by following Yiling Patriarch's manuscript?

Either way, none of those sound logical for me, which is the biggest flaw of this movie in my opinion. They could've just said the villain was a sorcerer using black magic/demonic cultivation and it would've been fine. No need to put Yin Iron into the story.

Also it's a bit unclear to me how they handled Zhao Yi at the end. Wen Ning and Sizhui were shown walking in Gusu during the ending, but just before that, we clearly saw Wen Ning seemingly sending Zhao Yi into the same illusion trap that he experienced before.

So they just punished Zhao Yi based on their own judgment? Or did they still at least deliver his physical body to be imprisoned in Gusu?

And how the heck could they just finish the story with Wen Ning being the one who got to hold the Yin Iron, wtf?

Last but not least, this usually happens to most 90 minutes movies that I've watched - which is the pacing problem. Especially in the first half of the movie, the pacing was way too fast, they kept changing from one scene to the other as if they're in a rush. I know it's probably because of duration, but still it made me feel a bit uncomfortable following the flow of the story.

CHARACTERS: 7/10

Again, not bad, but nothing spectacular, as well.

I'm going to start with the 3 new characters: Zhao Yi, Xiao Qing, and Zhou Zishu.

Aside from Zhao Yi who got decent screen time due to him being the villain, I don't think the other two characters even got to do anything except dying after they finished telling the past.

A pity, considering that they were put in all promotional materials since the beginning. At least I had expected them to be a little bit more important.

As for Zhao Yi himself, I guess he did a fine job in the handful of screen time he got for this 90 minutes movie. I think his part is pretty solid despite the fast pacing of the movie. At least his background, his motive, and his way of doing things were all explained without any holes.

Now moving on to Lan Sizhui. I don't mean anything bad by this, but I feel that - despite the heck ton of screen time he got - he is barely any different from the rest of the side characters.

To be blunt, I feel like he's just there so Wen Ning got a friend he could talk to. True, he's matured compared to his self during The Untamed. He fought so much better. Heck, his action is really really REALLY cool.

But that's that. He's just there to be Wen Ning's sidekick. Even if he wasn't there, Wen Ning could've solved the case on his own, really.

Sorry, Sizhui. It ain't your fault. The plot makes you like this. :')

But again, as I said before, this story feels like another Extra Chapter after the main story, just another one of their night hunts. If we think about it from this perspective, it's not strange for Sizhui to simply be Wen Ning's sidekick. It just means that they happened to stumble upon the same case and worked together to solve it. Since Wen Ning is older and more experienced, he's "leading" the investigation while Sizhui is following and learning from him.

Now, Wen Ning.

If there is one thing I was more scared about before watching this movie, it's that I was afraid they would destroy Wen Ning's character. It's pretty clear if we see their promotional materials. Even from the make-up, Wen Ning looks so much cooler compared to his appearance during The Untamed. I was scared that they would destroy the Wen Ning that we know to create a brand new, super cool protagonist for this movie.

Well, in the end they didn't really destroy his character - which is a relief. In some aspects, Wen Ning did still retain some of his original nature. For one, he still listened to Wei Wuxian's words and kept it in his heart, hence why he insisted for Sizhui to start calling him "Senior/Brother" instead of "Uncle Ning" because Wei Wuxian said being called "Uncle" sounds old.

However, his demeanor still feels kinda foreign for me, including his interaction with Sizhui which feels like Wen Ning is being too blunt with him. Granted, we can argue that during the span of idk how many years since the end of the original story to here, Wen Ning must've matured and gained confidence in himself.

But the thing is, we did not see any of those happenings that made him the way he is right now, so it just feels strange to see a Wen Ning who does not stutter, does not doubt, and often speaks bluntly.

ACTION & SPECIAL EFFECTS: 8/10

I'm going to say first hand that during the climax battle, I was actually snickering throughout the whole fight because it feels like one of those Tokusatsu movie where Wen Ning and Sizhui did a henshin and suddenly become super powerful. x'D

But aside of that, the action of this movie is just SUPER DUPER GREAT, at least compared to The Untamed. You can tell that they got high budget for this movie, finally.

The fights no longer feel awkward. You know there are people being hung and flung about by wires, but their movements overall look natural. At least you don't see them forgetting to completely erase the traces of wire from the final product, unlike when Jin Ling was fighting against the Goddess Statue at Dafan Mountain in Episode 2 of The Untamed.

And the CGI/special effects completely support this. First of all, Wen Ning's chains look mighty fabulous and the animation is perfectly in line with his body movement.

Then there's Lan Sizhui. Damn this boy is really killing it. No wonder he is Han Guang Jun's child. The way he fought with the Guqin is just A++++ 

The only downside is that Gusu CGI at the end which look totally unnatural. Like, man, I can totally imagine them just walking on green screen there.

OVERAL SCORE: 7.3/10

Not exactly spectacular or mind blowing, but it does have some surprising elements and the actions exceeded my expectations.

I don't think non-MDZS/The Untamed fans will be able to fully enjoy this movie, but otherwise it's a good watch. I think they really went all-out for the actions. It's simply the winning element of the entire show.

Bottom line is, I will treat this movie as an Extra Chapter of The Untamed/MDZS. Just our beloved Uncle Ning and his nephew going out on a night hunt and happened to stumble across a difficult case, hence they worked together to put an end to it.

And last but not least:

Wei Wuxian when he saw this translation:

I mean... WHAT THE HECK IS MASTER OF YI TOMBS??? x’DD

[wei-meddling-wuxian]

tbh I'm used to the fandom since I like JC and I ship Chengxian lol

I'll elaborate with your tags:

#CQL’s adaptation changes make LWJ indispensable to that canon IMO#since they establish Wangxian as a relationship of mutual respect and fondness starting wayyy back in Cloud Recesses#and LWJ is the means through which they both find out about Lan Yi and the Yin Iron#but in the novel??? damn like. there really isn’t anything related to the main plot that you need LWJ for there#there’s no reason WWX can’t kill the turtle by himself#since LWJ doesn’t succeed in rescuing him from Burial Mounds 2.0 (and WWX doesn’t remember till later) that doesn’t impact the plot either#yes you need a Lan to help investigate the severed arm but you could just have LXC do it#LXC who had a personal stake in the mystery bc the corpse is one sworn brother and the murderer is the other!#yeesh the political plot being largely unrelated to the romance plot irked me bc it meant the political plot would be tossed aside#but it cuts both ways! if the political plot isn’t necessary for the romance then the romance isn’t necessary for the political plot!

I was so shocked that the yin iron wasn't a thing in the books bc there was so much that the cql did with it, including giving us more wgxn moments, and I liked the ship in the cql. But in the books, not only do they not have those bonding moments but they seem to be actively pushing away each other? Like wwx specifically says he wishes jc was there with him instead?

lxc and wwx is a guilty pleasure ship I have, with the scene where lxc reams wwx out for breaking his little bros heart before mentioning trauma (wwx can appreciate some protectiveness, especially when it's like jyl's and feels familiar)

what bothers me the most is the potential lwj had as a character and love interest! and it would have incorporated well into the political i.e.,(and I'm working on a meta about this) having lwj confront lxc about maybe doing something for the wens considering there's a child there and having the brothers contend with what needs to be done for the sect (lxc bc nmj called jc a wen sympathizer for just bringing up the idea) vs what's the right thing to do (lwj even if he has to admit how wwx is going about it is wrong) -that tension could carry over into other aspects of the politics, sect relationships and lwj's character development (it also showed that he tried to do something for wwx beyond just visiting him and asking him to come to gusulan with him and shows his righteousness was there from the beginning, that he was hanguang-jun before the rep <- character growth)

but alas,

mxtx could have made wgxn a lot better and way more compelling (i can admit it has good tropes and imagery but there was potential for so much more depth) and just...didn't

The lack of a meaningful relationship in the past for wangxian, has made me a chengxian shipper (imo that's why so much vitriol against jc)

oh my god anon. anon.

this genuinely never occurred to me before, because I am highly indifferent to shipping and forget that it is a life-or-death situation in other corners of fandom, and so I have been sitting here figuring that oh, they just hate JC because they have no reading or viewing comprehension and think he hates WWX

BUT I THINK YOU'RE RIGHT

BECAUSE JC IS A REMINDER OF WWX'S LIFE BEYOND LWJ

and the enmeshment and shared history the two of them have going on is something that LWJ does not and cannot share, because it happened already! it is written! it's done! whereas Wangxian's current shared story theoretically could include JC unless pains are taken to keep him out.

[glyphsinateacup]

To go off for a sec, the opening on “Great news! Wei Wuxian has died!” is such a strong way to start the story, and one of my probably top five reasons CQL is compelling. Right off the bat, the audience has been given some really glaring questions that need answering, including but not limited to:

Okay, so why is everyone so thrilled about this Wei Wuxian dying?

Not only that, but does he look so devastated? Especially given the tonal dissonance between what we’re hearing (celebration over a villian’s death) and what we’re seeing (a sympathetic framing of this person’s suffering)

Who is the person trying to save him?

Who is the person trying to stab him?

What’s the floating magic object everyone’s paying so much attention to while this is going on?

What even is this location, with its dramatic and convenient cliff?

Questions 3 through 6 are pretty straightforward - we want to identify two people, a magic object, and a location, and those can be signposts for us. By the end of the first two episodes, in the post-resurrection timeline, we’ve got partial answers about the people, at least:

The would-be savior is Hanguang-Jun. Wei Wuxian thinks about him before he appears on screen, smiles when he sees him, but tries to avoid meeting him. Just before the time jump backwards, we see Hanguang-Jun coming to his defense. Clearly some history there. He’s also associated with the Lan juniors; when we see them, we can know he may be present. And the Lan juniors, for that matter, clearly hold him in high esteem.

The person who did the stabbing is Jiang Cheng. He’s still angry, and Wei Wuxian appears to be (understandably) terrified of meeting him, too. He’s powerful; people obey him; he wants to make sure the Yiling Patriarch is definitely dead. There’s a family relationship - Jin Ling calls him uncle, Wei Wuxian realizes that Jin Ling is his nephew, so the audience can start digesting that, and tacking on some assumptions about what that structure means.

Pretty workable identifications of those two, right? At this point, we still don’t know the answer to our “what” questions, but we do hear Hanguang-Jun/Lan Wangji namedrop the magic object (attributing the sword spirit to its effects, in fact), to remind us that that is still somewhat of a mystery. We won’t fully understand the Yin Iron/Yin Tiger Seal’s significance for another 20 or so episodes, well into the flashback. At which point we have returned to this very location, and know enough context about the Nightless City to have an answer to that question, as well.

Of course, at this point, the first two “Why” questions on our original list have gotten exponentially more interesting. Wei Wuxian is a hero! But we know for certain that he will die here, in the Nightless City, and the cultivation world will cheer. And as for the cause of his suffering - we, as the audience, are still working to connect the dots between the state of things post-resurrection and where the plot has lead so far.

And not only that, but over the course of the flashback, our answers about Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng have changed dramatically, and will continue to change right up until the moment that the flashback resolves itself. At that point, our original questions have been answered, maybe; so those driving forces for the tension we feel as the audience are resolved. And the story does take on a bit of a different shape, post episode 33. But using the death scene as a catalyst in this way works fantastically to justify the wacky timeline.

what you knew getting into mdzs/cql for the first time: the main character is named wei wuxian

literally the first sentence: “Great news! Wei Wuxian has died!”

me: