skygiants | (no subject)

tenillypo and I (along with it seems more or less half the internet) have been watching The Untamed, the live-action version of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. Because of scheduling, we've been gulping it down at a rate of approximately 5 episodes a week; last week we finally finished!

Of the three of us, I was the only one who'd read the novel first (

genarti has read the first few chapters,

tenillypo was coming entirely fresh) which has made it an interesting experience. The biggest change between the two versions is in the pacing of the stories -- Grandmaster paces its backstory reveals throughout the novel, allowing the reader to experience them through the perspective of an older, chiller, already-re-incorporated Wei Wuxian; The Untamed gives you a brief intro to Wei Wuxian's return to the world and then plunges the viewer back into thirty linear episodes of backstory about his tragic fall before returning to present-day reunion road trip hijinks.

Personally, I missed the novel's pacing, because half the fun for me is having the contrast between the younger and older versions of the characters played out over the course of the book; also, the show's pacing in general has a way to stop and linger around climactic moments for several episodes in a way that loses a lot of the zippy energy of the rest of it. Also also, in order to maintain backstory pacing, the show has added a whole evil MacGuffin plot that (as

coffeeandink has pointed out) takes a significant amount of responsibility off Wei Wuxian's shoulders for literally inventing zombie magic, which is kind of frustrating as it very much blunts the point of the message that the cultivation world turned on Wei Wuxian for innovating frightening war magic that it then cheerfully went on to continue using.

On the other hand, I did appreciate that the show slithers its way around censorship by replacing all the backstory's moments of fraught mutually oblivious sexual tension with intense explicitly mutual but technically not sexual pairbonding. For example:

BOOK: Lan Wangji, overcome with fraught pining, anonymously kisses a blindfolded Wei Wuxian
SHOW: Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have a fraught discussion in which Wei Wuxian says "I used to see you as my soulmate in this life" and Lan Wangji says "I still am"

On the one hand: it's a bummer China can't show makeouts; on the other hand: I think we can all agree that the show's version here may in fact be better.

These changes, plus the amazing array of long-suffering micro-expressions displayed by Lan Wangji's actor, significantly shift the tone of the romance overall. Book!Lan Wangji spends all his time stoically pining for a man he believes is oblivious to his feelings and will never return them; tv!Lan Wangji spends all his time mildly annoyed that his useless undead husband, to whom he has been married for twenty years, forgot another anniversary. Both great tastes and I'm glad to have experienced both!

Speaking of actors, I already loved the novel version of Jin Ling (the bratty nephew of everybody in the cast) but Jin Ling's actor in the show was a true standout for visibly incorporating all the most annoying traits of the actors who played his father and his other variously terrible uncles into his performance. Truly sublime; a very gifted child.

The show also makes a significant effort to give the few female characters more screentime. I'm not sure how well this serves Jiang Yanli, the sweet but tragically doomed sister, who does appear significantly more often but still unfortunately never gets to do anything besides make the same soup recipe ad infinitum. Wen Qing, on the other hand -- an irritable but virtuous doctor from an evil clan who helps our heroes out at a few key points -- has been elevated to a main player, which is probably the best choice the show ever made, except then it makes her disappearance from the story midway through and the absolute lack of women in the future plot significantly more frustrating. Justice for Wen Qing! (as I requested, in my Yuletide letter.)

(If I had to rank my five favorite characters, it would probably go as follows:

#5 - Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, inextricably linked in favor as they are in life
#4 - Jin Ling; I love a furious gremlin child
#3 - Jiang Cheng; I love the man who taught the furious gremlin child all his worst habits
#2 - Wen Qing; the combo of 'irritable but virtuous doctor' and 'irritable but virtuous elder sister' is too powerful for me to resist
#1 - Lan Jingyi, because someone has to love the most mediocre Lan child and that someone was, inevitably, going to be me.)

My other favorite thing about the show: the special effects on Lan Clan members summoning their magical zithers from Z-space with a strum of their fingers. Amazing. Flawless.

I still have not seen the donghua past the first episode but that will probably be next!

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Oh my god, you're a hundred percent right, if anyone is the Band Kid in the Lan Clan it's Lan Jingyi. (Though

lacewood pointed out that if any of the Lans played the guzheng rather than the guqin, they could use it as a bludgeoning weapon, and I feel like perhaps ... that is the only thing ..... Lan Jingyi knows how to do with a guzheng ......)

And I love the idea that Jingyi has theoretical knowledge of every instrument taught at Gusu but hasn't yet specialised (and then picks the most obscure one there is). He does have to know at least a little guqin so as to mock Su She for Doing It Wrong.

The guqin is a very good bludgeoning weapon too. :p

Lan Jingyi: I am the best in the clan at playing suona! :D
All the other Lans, internally, but not externally, because that's not the Lan Way: It doesn't count if you're the only person who specialized in suona!