First Episode 22: 天龙八部 (Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils)

[renzhe]

I'd still say that it's upper intermediate. There's lots of wuxia jargon and idioms and archaic speech.

That said, the story is not too hard to follow, once you figure out who is who and who is after what.

If you can follow it, that's a great thing! I found this show extremely enjoyable and lots of fun.

[doraemon]

Apparently Wang Yuyan's meant to be 15. Does anyone think she looks 15? Not to me. Anyway, what's with A Zi and the guy in the iron mask who's like her servant or something?

[skylee]

Anyway, what's with A Zi and the guy in the iron mask who's like her servant or something?

What do you mean? The guy in the iron mask is called You Tanzhi (游坦之).

[eatfastnoodle]

That guy wasn't A Zi's servant, he's just crazy, really really really crazy, in love with her. Basically, he can and will do literally anything so that she could literally just smile at him. This particular novel is probably the novel, out of all JingYong novels, with most over the top characters, You Tan Zhi's obsession, A Zi's sheer callousness, Wang Yu Yan's cold-heartedness (pay attention to how she treated Duan Yu, the guy who saved her life multiple times. It's ok for her to not love him back, but it's scary to know that she literally doesn't give a damn about anybody or anything beside the guy she's obsessed with. What kind of person is she?) Ding Chun Qiu's minions' shamelessness and Mu Rong Fu's stupidity (he wanted to be emperor of his own dynasty, yet he wasted his time hanging out, scheming against and seeking alliance with, a bunch of essentially gangbangers who, no matter how powerful their personal Kung-fu is, is unlikely to help him in any meaningful way in his quest to establish his own empire.)

[eatfastnoodle]

To answer some of the questions:

Yue Lao San (Nan Hai E Shen) is as much a comic relief in the original novel as he is in any of the later adaptions. Jing Yong always has one or two characters serving as comic relief in his novels, it's kinda one of his trade mark. And I don't know how well you guys know Jing Yong's half classic, half colloquial Chinese he used in his novels, but very often his deadpan jokes are hilarious and impossible to adapt to an TV show.

Yeah, Jing Yong (later, Huang Yi) likes to tell an story embedded inside an specific historical period with real historical figures appearing inside (of course, these "real" historical figures are only real in their names and what they did, their personalities are created by Jing Yong). There was indeed a kingdom called Da Li and Duan Zheng Ming (the actual emperor of Da Li) and Duan Yu were all real historical figures and both of them were real emperors of Da Li, but they were figureheads, actual political power of Da Li was controlled by another guy called Gao Sheng Tai, he also appeared in this novel and in the novel, he was portrayed as a loyal supporter of Duan family and competent fighter in combat despite the fact that in real history, he and his family took over power and pretty much treated Duan, the royal family like dirt.

[eya323]

I can't get the youku or mysoju sites to work past episode 15. Besides torrents, anyone have another option for viewing? I can't find it on Netflix.

[renzhe]

Try here: http://so.tudou.com/isearch/天龙八部/

Unfortunately, no subtitles.

This here is episode 16 with subtitles: http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/BDJFMMLyghw/

You might have to dig through tudou to find other ones, I don't have time to do it now.

Youku seems to be blocking traffic from outside China right now.

[rob07]

I watched the whole series on Tudou (with Chinese subtitles) so they should all be there.

Youku seems to be blocking traffic from outside China right now

Youku listed on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this month. I suspect that as part of that process, they are tightening up advertising and licensing arrangements and that Youku will remain unavailable overseas for the foreseeable future.

[eya323]

Thanks for the help!

[Ruben von Zwack]

I know this topic is aeons old, but I just started watching the show*, and I'm really enjoying it, so I just want to thank you guys for bringing it up.

The killer pet was indeed incredibly cheesy

So, renzhe, I guess you did not make any further vocabulary lists, or did you? Just asking, he he ... ^^

*with English subs I should add. My Chinese is still too basic. But I am ecstatic whenever I understand a complete sentence here and there.

[renzhe]

No, I did full vocabulary lists for the first season of iPartment, and for 奋斗, and I recommend people to try those. It takes a couple of hours per episode, so 40 episodes comes to almost 100 hours of work.

[Ruben von Zwack]

I can imagine how much work it must be! And even though I'm still new here, just by reading around a bit I noticed how much work you have put into the TV series. I didn't want to sound ungrateful Thanks!

[renzhe]

No offense taken. I was going through a bit of a compulsive period back then