Whiterose451

Tear Jerker Movie!

To put it off first, although there were some problems I found with the scene cutting and stuff, I still give this a 10. I think it was trying to be artistic and "French" but I'll forgive that. Compare to most overhyped things, this movie actually was able to move me in ways that others stories could not in a long time. It was refreshing, heart wrenching and realistic. The acting of the actors, the characters became so precious in my memory. While watching their trials and struggles, I wanted to jump into the screen and give these complex characters a big hug. I also would like to say it was very "Taiwanese". The passion, the love and the crazy drama! Watching Jia Han and Birdy, their dynamic brought in a sense of nostalgia I had from watching old classic Taiwanese dramas. (Its funny they mentioned chiung yao). The stereotypical crazy lovers, so passionately in love that they make stupid mistakes. It is a annoying cliché nowadays but the movie made the characters so real that this element was like icing on the cake. The love story between Ji han and birdy was so pure, so innocent and precious. Watching this, I think it is a reminder that not all lovers get to be together in the end, even in our modern world. The rights of LGBTQ are still being suppressed and not everyone is allowed to love. "To be denied love and deny one's own love" i realize is one of the most hurtful thing ever and the movie did a good job conveying that. The death of youth is real. Time can be as precious as much as anything else. To live without regrets is probably the most satisfying gift. Overall this movie was great.
Also For fk sake we get that its sad people but dang, it was still a good movie! Just cause something doesn't end how you want it doesn't mean the movie was bad! The chemistry between the actors was off the charts!!!

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Till this day, this was the only Korean drama to really leave an impression. This drama was SOOO good and iconic, it is a must. The story line was a little confusing, but once you got a sense of what was going on, everything was perfect. The music, cimatagophy, acting and humor about the show made me really care about the story. This was a much better and more fulfilling drama then most k drma people tend to like these days. A guilty pleasure and must watch Korean rom-com.
Sooo many iconic scenes that made you laugh and cry. They were all fun to rewatch. Ep 7 was the most eventful one where she confesses to park dong. Seo hyun jin has the most beautiful cry ever. She not only manges to cry beautifully but realistially in a not annoying way that makes you want yo give her a hug ( this girl had to cry alot) its a serious but not to heavy drama. Liked it.

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Too Many Unneccesary Plot.

What I liked,
-Exploration of Plum Blossom Island Sect
-Feng Heng, her relationship with the disciples of Plum Blossom Island. Love that she became an older sister/mother figure to them and regarded them as her children. Really breaks your heart because you know that in the end, all the disiples get kicked out and Huang Rong, Huang Yaoshi and Feng Heng daughter, grows up alone on the island without her mother, and her many martial Brothers and sisters.
-Huang YaoShi and Feng Heng Cp, love love that they did not go the route of paring Huang Yaoshi and Mei Chao Feng, because i always viewed their relationship as Father/Daughter and not lovers. Huang Yaoshi was devoted to Feng Heng only
-Mei Chao Feng and Chen Xuan Feng cp, I like the dynamic. The playful older senior and the cold junior sister. Her warming up to him ladidah.
-Costumes... were okay but I guess their trying to adapt it more into idol drama style.

What I Did not like.
-unnesssary sub plots to fill in the episodes. I wished they Stick more to the actual plot of the original work (There was already pretty good details from the novel that good have just been faithfully adapted)
-Unnessarry villian ( that weird poison guy from the island down...).
-Mei Revenge arch, which I feel should have been resolved in ep 1 and 2. Yet it dragged all the way to the end, and was the motivational plot point for ( many sub plots as well) having her betray her sect 9 which i did not like). I feel like it should have happend that after taking her revenge ( mind you there was no revenge plot in the original novel) her desire to become stronger grew along with he affections for her senior brother Xuang Feng, I feel like this in itself would have been enough of a motivation for her to steal the manual.
-Huang Yaoshi being a mary sue. I did not like his character, just because I can tell they were trying reallly hard for the audience to seem him as the dutiful protective husband. I felt like it took away the character growth of what the character was suppose to go through in this point of the story. In legend of the Condor hero's, Huang Yaoshi has mellowed a bit from his younger days after the death of his wife, a death that was ultimately caused by his own doing. His ambition to be number 1 and to make his school the best, caused him to be alone, teaching him to appreciate the what was most important in life, which in this case was his only daughter, Huang Rong. Him being already perfect, made less impact to the story.

-Huang Yaoshi being injured and dying as well. I like that the detail of Feng Heng being sick, because it made sense to her fate in the actual novel. But Huang Yaoshi is one of the greats and a doctor himself. He was also at this point in the novel, getting ready for the duel on mount Hua (as he has ambition to become the number 1 martial artist). This is important because it was specifically this desire that cause him to fool Zhou Botong to give up the manual, thus ending the life of his wife and basically destroying the happy family of Plum Blossom Island. I also didn't like how this was the plot device for Feng Heng to try and rewrtie the mantra. In the novel, it was clear she wanted to appease Huang's anger, ( and in a way, this is my opinion, have him forgive his disciples). This would have worked well in this show as it was established how much Feng Heng saw her husband and their disciples as her family and children. Her, the mother figure, trying to save this family from breaking apart would have made sooo much more sense, and again more impactful then the Mer fact fo trying to save Huang yaoshi's life.

what i wanted.
- There should have been a better romance plot. This was not in the origianal work, but was in some revised versions of the story, where alot of the male disiples were all vibing for Mei Chao Feng's affection. Mei played them all, but she secretly was inlove with Cheng Xuang Feng. This would have worked so well, because we could have seen mei, use her charm to learn martial arts from her martial brothers. It would have made her betrayal more devastating to her fellow disciples and add more hurt to their memory of their once happy found family on Plum Blossom Island. In the novel, Cheng Xuang Feng and Mei Chao feng were actually hunted down by their fellow martial brothers, thus causing them to run to Mongolia where they met with the Seven Freaks, causing the death of Xuan Feng and for Mei to go blind. This would have made the story more impactful and full circle.
What I wanted to see was her using their affection for her to learn more martial arts from the different brother but in the end, end up falling for Cheng Xuan Feng.

- I wanted to see more of the disciples of Plum Blossom island out their in the martial arts world. In the novel, it was known throughout that Huang Yaoshi was known to have 6 disciples, all talented in martial arts. In the show, they made it seem like all they did was stay on the island. How would anyone know about them? Huang Yaoshi was known to be very eccentric, and was fiercely protective of his disciples, and people knew not to mess with them. I wished they could have in cooperated this plot. Because Plum Blossom Island, although revered, by the time of Legend of the Condor Hero's, it is pretty much in a weaken school with no true successor. It would have been nice to see the school triumphing the martial art world during its glory days.

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Ok...

Heaven Sword Dragon Sabre is an all time classic. Before the start of rise of Asian drama, this story was one of the most classics along with may of Jin Yong's work especially during the time when Hong Kong was the top dog of the asian entertainment industry during the 80s-90s. Who has never heard of Heaven sword and Dragon sabre? Like many of the classics, this story is one where it has been adapted many many times before and it stands just. The intricate story, world building and complex relationships has made this one of the most classic tales to come out of modern Asian literature. Heaven Sword Dragon Sabre is the third installment of the late Jin Yong's Condor Triology. Although it is a triology, each story can entirely be a stand alone and one does not need to necessarily understand what happens in each story to understand this drama. With that said, although this live action did take creative action to change some minor details or add some minor plots, I would say it did a good job of trying to stay true to the story.
I would say in this live action adaption, for casting, I think they did a good job. The leads were all refreshing new faces who brought something new to the classic characters they played. Yuki Chen who played Zhao min I would say was one who surprised me the most. Her interpretation of Zhao min( although I would say isnt the best) was very good. The charisma she brought with the character made her outshine most of her new cast memebers. The only thing i did not like for her was that she became really whiny at the ends and was always " wuji" this and " Wuji" that and it was totally kind of out of character for Zhao Min. Like she became such a suck up to Wuji that it was just kinda stupid Also something I did not like was that I felt no chemistry between the leads. They did not write enough in to the script to help flesh the relationships out more so that they were better define. At least Wuji and ZHao min relationship should have had more of a spark. This is literally why they were an intriguing couple. There was a spark there that wasn't there with other other 3 girls in Wuji life. The actors and the script apparently did not deliver( cause-plus that kiss scene was atrocious).
THe choreography was crap. Sorry to say, but this is wuxia. Although I love the aesthetics and costumes, I felt like the fight scenes were boring and seriously, the slow mo were not needed at all. This was the thing I most hated in this series. The fights were stiff with horrible sound editing and it totally takes you out of the story when you can tell none of theses "Martial Artist" can fight. There were some action scenes where it did look good but then again I think it was the slow mo that ruined it.
Finally The ending felt rushed and made no fucking sense. I like how they went with the " lets tear the lovers apart" as this was an aspect that they never really wanted to explore in the other adaptions but like they did such a poor job. All characters felt out of character and suddenly I felt like a toddler took over the script. Even though the ending in the original novel was a little ambiguous, The ending of this particular adaption is one where I think it definitely was a fanfic. Although I did enjoy the little ending in the Mongolian planes, that slightly made up for the bad conclusion. Like they totally skipped out the final scene where Zhirou kidnaps Zhao Min and makes Wuji really confront his feelings. Like shit that was a pivotal plot point, how the heck are you just gonna glaze over it.

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