Personal Review: Legend of Xiangxi

Comparing with many other made-in-China movies and TV series, Legend of Xiangxi is one of the best I have seen in many years. A drama with a strong story line set in a historical background. Not only leading roles made their marks in this show, many other "insignificant" actors also delivered their best performance. The story was told in a coherent way with little waste of time. The camera was captivating and the music was beautiful. The script was appropriate and clear.

Although it was very good for what it was trying to convey, it was nothing beyond. Some details were sacrificed for better effect. For example, when Suisui went to see Sannu while he was on a hunger strike, Sannu should have been starved for 7-8 days, not to mention that a normal person would have died by that time, at the very least, he should be semi-unconscious; however, Sannu only showed a little bit of weakness not enough to tear him apart during those tortures. It would be more believable if he had only been starved for 3 days or so. I know that the effect of 3 days versus 7 days is different, but if the director and screen writer cannot work miracles here, we audience will have to believe in one. Another regret of this story is that the tragedy from last generation had to be repeated in order to separate two lovers whose love had endured their own test of life and death. Can't we think of something else? On the other hand, the death of Tian Dayou, though meant to be heroic, was underlined with a pathetic nature. He could have died out of a good fight with the true enemies, or maybe, more dramatized, out of saving Sannu's life (while fighting with the true enemies) for his daughter's sake so that the inevitable hatred from last generation would become the ultimate gratefulness in this one.

This show was constantly testing the audience's limit. I anticipated bad things to come almost non-stop, and soon reached a point that I could no longer enjoy those very few love (and supposedly happy) scenes. I was deeply touched by the first couple of episodes when Sannu fell in love with Suisui at first sight and insisted in knowing her name. Those scenes were straight to the point with no string attached, very neat and natural. However, later on, when things got complicated, I did not quite sense the strong chemistry between those two love birds. They had little time to strengthen their love (or maybe the director did not give them enough time) but to jump into yet another mess and face a even stronger obstacle. When the time finally came that they could marry each other, almost everybody knows that it would be the end of their love story. There was one big failure in an otherwise touching scene when Suisui offered Sannu her hand to jump into arrays of knives together. Maybe both actors are too young and inexperienced to show emotions at a deeper level. They looked at each other, no desperate hugging, no tear-dropping kisses, the only thing I saw were two somewhat sad faces that could mean many things but not love at the final moments. At that time, they should be care-free and do whatever they wanted. At the bottom line, they did not make me believe that they really knew what they were getting into or they were about to die. I saw two people "act", that was about it. Another thing that could have been done to signify this scene is to use different daring angles of camera shots; however, before they started jumping, there was only one shot from the front with our main figures standing atop a table not revealing any significant feelings, or I could not tell any, simply because they stood too far away to be observed clearly.

I remember when I watched the TV Series 人间四月天 (April Sky on Earth?), I did not like most of it, but I was very much moved by one scene when Xu Zhimo went to see Lin Huiyin outside her home after they both went back to China. They looked at each other, knowing their love would have no result, yet the magnetic feelings were still so strong between them. The whole scene lasted several minutes without a single word, but I could feel tons of "words" from their facial expressions. My own emotions went along with theirs and I was completely overwhelmed by their grave mutual attractions entangled with common morality and unbearable hopelessness.

To be continued...