This review may contain spoilers
Abundant themes and ideas with a major ethical reservation
„Love of the Divine Tree” harbours an impressive number of themes in the neat chain of causality. However, some ask for ethical reconsideration, so prepare for a bitterness overload.
YIN & YANG. It is pleasing to observe how these clash when the two strong leads are confronted, then gradually mix and form a delineating curve. When the plot tears them apart, the yin and yang start rattling anew, searching for a new equilibrium.
Su Yi Shui is tagged as a sample of yin. He displays a total immersion in a belief or feeling. All he needs is freedom and appreciation. His opening up to love reveals his hidden nature of a giver. After the loss of his master, his remorse grows immense till it blocks his ability to participate in life fully. Followed by a short period of calm, his amnesia phase sees a radical depletion of his potential.
Deng Wei in this role is brilliant at expressing those wuthering heights, this wild turmoil – especially by means of one-second movements, gestures, glances, outbursts with graded volumes of fury, longing or regret. He is immersed in this character so deeply that each cell seems to play the role. He is a black diamond of hundred facets, each imprinted as a dark hot flash in our memory. The dignified frame and silky movements add to the impression. Note the actor’s awareness of the meaning a body position may convey: when exposed to a comparison against Wei Jiu, Su Yi Shui chooses to stand half-turned away from the crowd: perplexity and unwillingness to participate. Regardless of the prevalent Asian standard of beauty, he has been adorned with wavy hair; both black and white wigs match the complexion. Alert – he cannot hold a baby safely.
This character would not be complete without Xu Yi Ming and Zhang Jing Yi, performing scenes from Su Yi Shui’s childhood. The scene with the mother’s door shut is truly heart-rending. I am not in favour of stripping actors of their natural voice, but the selected voice actor (Sun Rui Yang) yields a matching timbre for exasperation.
Mu Qing Ge vel Xue Ran Ran is a specimen of yang, with self-certainty, pride, joviality. Her readiness to take responsibility, straightforwardness, lack of fear or regret are also bright. A lady in red, her broad smile and directness in flirting challenges to surpass the Chinese convention of modesty.
Han Zhi Xiang did well in depicting both the mature master and the budding apprentice. Worth noticing is her capability of presenting the purged memory, the unprepared youth. When confronted with the masked stranger, she tosses all the paper spells at him. The voice actress (Duan Yi Xuan) did her work so diligently that I thought there are two.
RESOCIALISATION. The subjugation of Su Yi Shui is not an isolated occurrence. Mu Qing Ge has a vocation, an innate tendency to rehabilitate. Apart form building a mixed-ability team of apprentices, she manages to convert Wei Jiu, as soon as Tu Jiu Yuan has cracked his callousness. She also reshapes the world-view of the sects that once killed her, and catalyses a bond between two ex-enemies.
The prolonged presence of Spirit Spring inside Su Yi Shui’s heart is a symbolic reminder that childhood abuse drags on, requiring time, empathy, willingness on both sides. Unfortunately, the drama involuntarily challenges the boundaries of interference in another person’s integrity.
OBJECTIFICATION OF MEN. In most C-dramas man has to serve woman, which is hardly acceptable. There is a heavy load of possessiveness in Mu Qing Ge’s acts. The chains she put on her apprentice are no different from those of the Eternal Sect or in his nightmare. After the memorable scene with lamps, she ruins the mood by insisting twice on his eating fruit and drinking alcohol. Once means an offer, twice is coercion. The scene in which Su Yi Shui receives cat pets and starts purring (vol up!) shows that the heroine fails to respect his dignity.
SHORTAGE OF TRUST. We gather enough evidence that the young man knows his aim, the risk of hosting an evil force, and his eagerness to quit crime once he breaks free. The prophetic book shows merely a dispute who would become the new emperor – not the end of the world. Princes’ rivalry has always brought a bloody fight. So Mu Qing Ge had better advise rivals to take a duel, instead of bloodshed that depletes the army. Su Yi Shui does not pose threat to humankind, his intentions deserve no distrust. Unlike Dun Tian, with whom she shares her plans.
LACK OF SENSE OF JUSTICE. Mu Qing Ge disregards the long list of persons Su Yi Shui’s father once ordered him to eliminate. A punishment for the past would serve as a practical guidance better than irrational blame of potential future crimes. The worst example of validation of cruelty is the justification of Su Yi Shui’s mother through her dishonest letter. At the Marrow Cleansing Pool, supposed to accept cultivators after they leave their obsessions, Xue Ran Ran and Dun Tian somehow manage to retrieve theirs.
FALSIFIED HISTORY. The opening legend is all twisted on purpose. Mu Qing Ge is its main victim of accumulated superstitions that brought about a ‘witch process’ and foddered the hypocrisy of observers. Even Su Yi Shui’s hitting the formation wall is misinterpreted as his attempt to kill his master. The legend leaves out Mu Ran Wu’s enactment.
COMMUNICATION ISSUES. Much plight results in insufficient communication. It was given the form of a muteness spell. In spite of her eloquent quirk, Mu Qing Ge / Xue Ran Ran proves unable to circumvent the spell (by gestures, metaphors) or detect its symptoms on others. She seals Su Yi Shui’s and Zeng Yi’s mouths, being aware of ensuing injustice. Note her negligent attitude to other sects and her sister as regards the information flow. She indeed is warm but frank towards Su Yu, and reasonably instructive towards the rehabilitated Wei Jiu.
Mu Qing Ge fails at overhauling information gaps. She takes Su Yi Shui’s integrity as obstinacy. Having been around her sister or Dun Tian, she remains unaware of their evil nature. As Xue Ran Ran she is unable to recognise her master in Ling Xiao. When she talks deprecatively about Su Yi Shui to his rival, the content is abusive enough, the wording even more.
BASIS OF LOVE. A drunken kiss brings pain. Trying to reignite love to regain memory, the leads hastily kiss and fail. It shows that love needs an emotional basis, not physical. When forced it can be unrewarding. It takes work to find and maintain a point of convergence. What triggers Su Yi Shui is a promise of a home, light, good food (alco and cicadas excluded!) and understanding.
LOVE AFTER LOVE. This is relevant for viewers who experienced the loss of their beloved. It touches subtly upon the aspect of age difference in a relationship, attitudes and expectations, similarity vs sameness.
APPROACH TO THE LOSS. Unlike many dramas indulging in time travel, this one disdains the idea. Changing one’s fate is possible, but only in alignment with its temporal development. We must embrace the bygone. The greatest offence is made by the worst villain, Dun Tian. His family love is vitiated in confrontation with the spirit of his wife, whom he grabs by the throat. Mu Ran Wu is punished for ousting a person, Su Yu for drawing someone unwilling. The conflict between particular interest and common good is relevant here.
INSTABILITY AS A CIVILISATIONAL THREAT. There is a symbolic scene at the invaded Mount Wester, with dilapidation and nauseatic rolling movement of grey, disintegrated settings, and the death of the Reincarnation Tree. It may stand for today’s world’s decay, atomisation. There is nothing left to adhere to, no point of reference.
TRAP OF PROFESSIONALISM. Mu Qing Ge is so self-assured in her moral teaching skill that she trespasses the boundaries of Su Yi Shui’s integrity. Even if the outcome turns out to be right, it is not THANKS TO but IN SPITE OF the intrusion. He separated the good he received (love, home, sacrifice) from the accompanying bad.
Mu Qing Ge’s sect’s recruitment pattern is gathering youth whose talents fail to comply with the expectations of the competitive sects. She is adamant in defending them – and proves right. Su Yi Shui’s process of recruitment proves wrong: what matters is devotion, mere skill is insufficient, pride is disruptive.
The married leads organise chores to reflect their past turn-taking at supremacy. This model builds independence and yin-yang completion. However, the eldest son should have been taught to wipe off his stain.
NOTES
The flow gets disrupted by redundant verbalisations, reappearance of longish proper names. Still fewer in comparison with the artifact data in “The Blood of Youth”. It makes a viewer feel like a PC gamer, having to “select the weapon” to be allowed to move. The imagery also needs trimming: too many symbolic trees, twigs and one-use beasts.
OST: some phrases will stay in my memory for long. However, I reserve max 10 pt for creative masterpieces like in “The Blue Whisper” or “Kill Me, Love Me”.
The YouTube version might be abridged. Probably this is why it is not clear when Wen Hong Shan claimed to be disfigured by Mu Qing Ge, when Wang Sui Zhi left the Wester, when Su Yu got poisoned or when Tu Jiu Yuan gave birth. For final battle resolution, it took an irrelevant dragon immortal and her motionless child.
APPEAL
My appeal concerns everybody involved in determining C-drama’s future development directions. The genre has become a chance to evade being under the fusillade of the Western convention: this one spark of hope left to preserve dignity, creativity, modesty, true development, faith in humanity and more. Please avoid the Western ‘aesthetics.’ One of the greatest threats is the indulgence in unnecessary plastic surgery and tweakments as breach of authenticity, as interference in actors’ and actresses’ integrity, in their sacred bodies and countenances – the beautiful mirrors of their souls.
Written by a nationless spirit confined in the decaying Mid-Europe.
YIN & YANG. It is pleasing to observe how these clash when the two strong leads are confronted, then gradually mix and form a delineating curve. When the plot tears them apart, the yin and yang start rattling anew, searching for a new equilibrium.
Su Yi Shui is tagged as a sample of yin. He displays a total immersion in a belief or feeling. All he needs is freedom and appreciation. His opening up to love reveals his hidden nature of a giver. After the loss of his master, his remorse grows immense till it blocks his ability to participate in life fully. Followed by a short period of calm, his amnesia phase sees a radical depletion of his potential.
Deng Wei in this role is brilliant at expressing those wuthering heights, this wild turmoil – especially by means of one-second movements, gestures, glances, outbursts with graded volumes of fury, longing or regret. He is immersed in this character so deeply that each cell seems to play the role. He is a black diamond of hundred facets, each imprinted as a dark hot flash in our memory. The dignified frame and silky movements add to the impression. Note the actor’s awareness of the meaning a body position may convey: when exposed to a comparison against Wei Jiu, Su Yi Shui chooses to stand half-turned away from the crowd: perplexity and unwillingness to participate. Regardless of the prevalent Asian standard of beauty, he has been adorned with wavy hair; both black and white wigs match the complexion. Alert – he cannot hold a baby safely.
This character would not be complete without Xu Yi Ming and Zhang Jing Yi, performing scenes from Su Yi Shui’s childhood. The scene with the mother’s door shut is truly heart-rending. I am not in favour of stripping actors of their natural voice, but the selected voice actor (Sun Rui Yang) yields a matching timbre for exasperation.
Mu Qing Ge vel Xue Ran Ran is a specimen of yang, with self-certainty, pride, joviality. Her readiness to take responsibility, straightforwardness, lack of fear or regret are also bright. A lady in red, her broad smile and directness in flirting challenges to surpass the Chinese convention of modesty.
Han Zhi Xiang did well in depicting both the mature master and the budding apprentice. Worth noticing is her capability of presenting the purged memory, the unprepared youth. When confronted with the masked stranger, she tosses all the paper spells at him. The voice actress (Duan Yi Xuan) did her work so diligently that I thought there are two.
RESOCIALISATION. The subjugation of Su Yi Shui is not an isolated occurrence. Mu Qing Ge has a vocation, an innate tendency to rehabilitate. Apart form building a mixed-ability team of apprentices, she manages to convert Wei Jiu, as soon as Tu Jiu Yuan has cracked his callousness. She also reshapes the world-view of the sects that once killed her, and catalyses a bond between two ex-enemies.
The prolonged presence of Spirit Spring inside Su Yi Shui’s heart is a symbolic reminder that childhood abuse drags on, requiring time, empathy, willingness on both sides. Unfortunately, the drama involuntarily challenges the boundaries of interference in another person’s integrity.
OBJECTIFICATION OF MEN. In most C-dramas man has to serve woman, which is hardly acceptable. There is a heavy load of possessiveness in Mu Qing Ge’s acts. The chains she put on her apprentice are no different from those of the Eternal Sect or in his nightmare. After the memorable scene with lamps, she ruins the mood by insisting twice on his eating fruit and drinking alcohol. Once means an offer, twice is coercion. The scene in which Su Yi Shui receives cat pets and starts purring (vol up!) shows that the heroine fails to respect his dignity.
SHORTAGE OF TRUST. We gather enough evidence that the young man knows his aim, the risk of hosting an evil force, and his eagerness to quit crime once he breaks free. The prophetic book shows merely a dispute who would become the new emperor – not the end of the world. Princes’ rivalry has always brought a bloody fight. So Mu Qing Ge had better advise rivals to take a duel, instead of bloodshed that depletes the army. Su Yi Shui does not pose threat to humankind, his intentions deserve no distrust. Unlike Dun Tian, with whom she shares her plans.
LACK OF SENSE OF JUSTICE. Mu Qing Ge disregards the long list of persons Su Yi Shui’s father once ordered him to eliminate. A punishment for the past would serve as a practical guidance better than irrational blame of potential future crimes. The worst example of validation of cruelty is the justification of Su Yi Shui’s mother through her dishonest letter. At the Marrow Cleansing Pool, supposed to accept cultivators after they leave their obsessions, Xue Ran Ran and Dun Tian somehow manage to retrieve theirs.
FALSIFIED HISTORY. The opening legend is all twisted on purpose. Mu Qing Ge is its main victim of accumulated superstitions that brought about a ‘witch process’ and foddered the hypocrisy of observers. Even Su Yi Shui’s hitting the formation wall is misinterpreted as his attempt to kill his master. The legend leaves out Mu Ran Wu’s enactment.
COMMUNICATION ISSUES. Much plight results in insufficient communication. It was given the form of a muteness spell. In spite of her eloquent quirk, Mu Qing Ge / Xue Ran Ran proves unable to circumvent the spell (by gestures, metaphors) or detect its symptoms on others. She seals Su Yi Shui’s and Zeng Yi’s mouths, being aware of ensuing injustice. Note her negligent attitude to other sects and her sister as regards the information flow. She indeed is warm but frank towards Su Yu, and reasonably instructive towards the rehabilitated Wei Jiu.
Mu Qing Ge fails at overhauling information gaps. She takes Su Yi Shui’s integrity as obstinacy. Having been around her sister or Dun Tian, she remains unaware of their evil nature. As Xue Ran Ran she is unable to recognise her master in Ling Xiao. When she talks deprecatively about Su Yi Shui to his rival, the content is abusive enough, the wording even more.
BASIS OF LOVE. A drunken kiss brings pain. Trying to reignite love to regain memory, the leads hastily kiss and fail. It shows that love needs an emotional basis, not physical. When forced it can be unrewarding. It takes work to find and maintain a point of convergence. What triggers Su Yi Shui is a promise of a home, light, good food (alco and cicadas excluded!) and understanding.
LOVE AFTER LOVE. This is relevant for viewers who experienced the loss of their beloved. It touches subtly upon the aspect of age difference in a relationship, attitudes and expectations, similarity vs sameness.
APPROACH TO THE LOSS. Unlike many dramas indulging in time travel, this one disdains the idea. Changing one’s fate is possible, but only in alignment with its temporal development. We must embrace the bygone. The greatest offence is made by the worst villain, Dun Tian. His family love is vitiated in confrontation with the spirit of his wife, whom he grabs by the throat. Mu Ran Wu is punished for ousting a person, Su Yu for drawing someone unwilling. The conflict between particular interest and common good is relevant here.
INSTABILITY AS A CIVILISATIONAL THREAT. There is a symbolic scene at the invaded Mount Wester, with dilapidation and nauseatic rolling movement of grey, disintegrated settings, and the death of the Reincarnation Tree. It may stand for today’s world’s decay, atomisation. There is nothing left to adhere to, no point of reference.
TRAP OF PROFESSIONALISM. Mu Qing Ge is so self-assured in her moral teaching skill that she trespasses the boundaries of Su Yi Shui’s integrity. Even if the outcome turns out to be right, it is not THANKS TO but IN SPITE OF the intrusion. He separated the good he received (love, home, sacrifice) from the accompanying bad.
Mu Qing Ge’s sect’s recruitment pattern is gathering youth whose talents fail to comply with the expectations of the competitive sects. She is adamant in defending them – and proves right. Su Yi Shui’s process of recruitment proves wrong: what matters is devotion, mere skill is insufficient, pride is disruptive.
The married leads organise chores to reflect their past turn-taking at supremacy. This model builds independence and yin-yang completion. However, the eldest son should have been taught to wipe off his stain.
NOTES
The flow gets disrupted by redundant verbalisations, reappearance of longish proper names. Still fewer in comparison with the artifact data in “The Blood of Youth”. It makes a viewer feel like a PC gamer, having to “select the weapon” to be allowed to move. The imagery also needs trimming: too many symbolic trees, twigs and one-use beasts.
OST: some phrases will stay in my memory for long. However, I reserve max 10 pt for creative masterpieces like in “The Blue Whisper” or “Kill Me, Love Me”.
The YouTube version might be abridged. Probably this is why it is not clear when Wen Hong Shan claimed to be disfigured by Mu Qing Ge, when Wang Sui Zhi left the Wester, when Su Yu got poisoned or when Tu Jiu Yuan gave birth. For final battle resolution, it took an irrelevant dragon immortal and her motionless child.
APPEAL
My appeal concerns everybody involved in determining C-drama’s future development directions. The genre has become a chance to evade being under the fusillade of the Western convention: this one spark of hope left to preserve dignity, creativity, modesty, true development, faith in humanity and more. Please avoid the Western ‘aesthetics.’ One of the greatest threats is the indulgence in unnecessary plastic surgery and tweakments as breach of authenticity, as interference in actors’ and actresses’ integrity, in their sacred bodies and countenances – the beautiful mirrors of their souls.
Written by a nationless spirit confined in the decaying Mid-Europe.
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