5
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2
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Duel on Mount Hua: Eastern Heretic and Western Venom
3 people found this review helpful
by MyLangyaList
1
1
This review may contain spoilers
华山论贱: Eastern Vegans and Western Roidheads
‒Review‒
If you are not familiar with the Legend of Condor Heroes series, you might enjoy this. After all, this has some real actors, 'real fighting', and is arguably better than the 偶侠 idolxia flicks clogging up the Hengdian toilets. But if you are, just throw yourself off the nearest cliff right now. Because you'll probably survive the fall, but not this show. This is the kind of the show where the writers claw their long Mei Chaofeng nails into your meridians until snake poison oozes out of your orifices.
I tried to like this show, I really did. I ignored Vengo Gao's Northesternish modern accent, even though he's supposed to be from Northwest China‒Western Venom and all‒1000 years ago. And while derping over basic geography might be a proud American tradition, I wasn't as keen to partake in the other American tradition of derping over crazy bitches. Right off the bat, we get some crazy chick going after Ouyang Feng. She's supposed to be some judge/magistrate, decent at fighting, rich family, yada yada. Except our smart girl struggles to count to three, turned an interrogation of OYF into some get-to-know-your-hopes-and-dreams first date, and also unveiled her domestic violence aspirations by trying to duel OYF for no reason. Luckily it's only aspirational, as she sucks at fighting.
On the other side, we have Feng Heng, Huang Yaoshi's eventual wife. At this point, she's not perpetually slow-deathing next to HYS yet. But it's undeniably her, because she's already thrown herself off a cliff for reasons I don't care about. And of course she's alive but with some perfect excuse for being paralyze and slowly, very slowly, way-too-slowly dying. This may sound cruel, but there's some cosmic level passive-aggressive energy about her.
While the writers have bastardized everything about the Jin Yong classic, they still managed to pay a small homage to the concept of 以毒攻毒 poison vs. poison. It's the concept of using one poison to neutralize another poison. So clearly the writers are trying to neutralize the poisonous love-interest of OYF with that of HYS, and neutralize the cesspit of Nine Yin Sutra with the dumpster fire of this show. And looking at OYF and HYS, it was even starting to make sense. How did these two normal, cheerful (OYF) dudes end up so cranky and psychotic in later years? You glance over at their women, and it all made sense! At least the two have their brotherhood and bromance to sustain them, a refuge from their depressing love life. Ah this was the much needed progressive feminism script of 2025.
But it only took me an episode to change my mind as I realized that the two dudes are also retards. Ouyang Feng is a lousy gambling addict that derped away his savings and horse in one night. And Huang Yaoshi is even more passive aggressive than his future wife as he qigong-glides back and forth between saving her and and letting her get killed. And rather than making the world a better place, his passivity merely lets the wicked endure, and set up compromising situations that coerces him into bigger sacrifices. So the men are just as crazy and they all deserve each other. Ouyang Feng and his girl is like the roided couple that just does impulsive things like gamble and fight. And HYS and his girl are like the most vegan couple that can't even muster the energy to do some real shit and eat some real food.
Is my interpretation completely accurate? No. Did I probably miss some part of the script and whatever finer points in the rest of the episodes? Probably. But the script writers clearly missed a lot more of the plot, and a lot of grey matter in the brain. I had coughed up too much blood after 3 episodes to continue.
--Category Ratings--
- Overall - 5.5 (if you pretend it's not LoCH)
- Plot - 5
- Theme / Concept / Impact - 6
- Acting - 8
- Visuals - 8
- Audio / Music - 8
- Rewatch - 4
- Cultural/Topical Accessibility - 7
- Subtitle quality - 8?
If you are not familiar with the Legend of Condor Heroes series, you might enjoy this. After all, this has some real actors, 'real fighting', and is arguably better than the 偶侠 idolxia flicks clogging up the Hengdian toilets. But if you are, just throw yourself off the nearest cliff right now. Because you'll probably survive the fall, but not this show. This is the kind of the show where the writers claw their long Mei Chaofeng nails into your meridians until snake poison oozes out of your orifices.
I tried to like this show, I really did. I ignored Vengo Gao's Northesternish modern accent, even though he's supposed to be from Northwest China‒Western Venom and all‒1000 years ago. And while derping over basic geography might be a proud American tradition, I wasn't as keen to partake in the other American tradition of derping over crazy bitches. Right off the bat, we get some crazy chick going after Ouyang Feng. She's supposed to be some judge/magistrate, decent at fighting, rich family, yada yada. Except our smart girl struggles to count to three, turned an interrogation of OYF into some get-to-know-your-hopes-and-dreams first date, and also unveiled her domestic violence aspirations by trying to duel OYF for no reason. Luckily it's only aspirational, as she sucks at fighting.
On the other side, we have Feng Heng, Huang Yaoshi's eventual wife. At this point, she's not perpetually slow-deathing next to HYS yet. But it's undeniably her, because she's already thrown herself off a cliff for reasons I don't care about. And of course she's alive but with some perfect excuse for being paralyze and slowly, very slowly, way-too-slowly dying. This may sound cruel, but there's some cosmic level passive-aggressive energy about her.
While the writers have bastardized everything about the Jin Yong classic, they still managed to pay a small homage to the concept of 以毒攻毒 poison vs. poison. It's the concept of using one poison to neutralize another poison. So clearly the writers are trying to neutralize the poisonous love-interest of OYF with that of HYS, and neutralize the cesspit of Nine Yin Sutra with the dumpster fire of this show. And looking at OYF and HYS, it was even starting to make sense. How did these two normal, cheerful (OYF) dudes end up so cranky and psychotic in later years? You glance over at their women, and it all made sense! At least the two have their brotherhood and bromance to sustain them, a refuge from their depressing love life. Ah this was the much needed progressive feminism script of 2025.
But it only took me an episode to change my mind as I realized that the two dudes are also retards. Ouyang Feng is a lousy gambling addict that derped away his savings and horse in one night. And Huang Yaoshi is even more passive aggressive than his future wife as he qigong-glides back and forth between saving her and and letting her get killed. And rather than making the world a better place, his passivity merely lets the wicked endure, and set up compromising situations that coerces him into bigger sacrifices. So the men are just as crazy and they all deserve each other. Ouyang Feng and his girl is like the roided couple that just does impulsive things like gamble and fight. And HYS and his girl are like the most vegan couple that can't even muster the energy to do some real shit and eat some real food.
Is my interpretation completely accurate? No. Did I probably miss some part of the script and whatever finer points in the rest of the episodes? Probably. But the script writers clearly missed a lot more of the plot, and a lot of grey matter in the brain. I had coughed up too much blood after 3 episodes to continue.
--Category Ratings--
- Overall - 5.5 (if you pretend it's not LoCH)
- Plot - 5
- Theme / Concept / Impact - 6
- Acting - 8
- Visuals - 8
- Audio / Music - 8
- Rewatch - 4
- Cultural/Topical Accessibility - 7
- Subtitle quality - 8?
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