First Episode 59 - 家 (Family)

[renzhe]

A part of the Grand First Episode Project -- See this thread for more info.

youku - mmtv

Based on 巴金's famous novel.

Language difficulty level: Lower Intermediate

Make sure to read the Book of the Month thread, especially this post with a detailed family tree and character list, it will really be helpful.

The story is quite well known, but deviates slightly from the book. Some of the stuff shown here was only told in flashbacks in the book. Basically, we have three brothers living in the 高 family compound, 觉新 (also called 明轩), 觉民 and 觉慧, and their struggles against their traditional wealthy family during the early Republic. 觉新 is hoping to marry his maternal cousin 梅芬 and then go abroad to study chemistry, but the grandfather doesn't like the idea, and is planning to marry him off to somebody else. 觉民 and 觉慧 are attending a modern school and are full of revolutionary zeal, which doesn't sit well with the older generation. Their cousin 琴 (romantically involved with 觉民) often visits and shares the same ideals. We also meet 梅's mother, 钱太太, who is the younger sister of the three brothers' real mother (who passed away), and a mortal enemy of 周氏, their current stepmother. We also meet a couple of servants and see 觉慧 get grounded for using the family carriage to send a former servant home, which results in the carriage being plundered outside the city walls.

A quick wordlist, probably missing some stuff:

轿子 jiào zi * a sedan chair / a palanquin / a litter

晓得 xiǎo de * to know

主张 zhǔ zhāng * to advocate / to stand for / view

天气 tiān qì * weather

伺候 cì hòu * to serve / to act as a valet

住处 zhù chù * residence / dwelling / dwelling place

会长 huì zhǎng * president of a club, committee etc

理所当然 lǐ suǒ dāng rán * (idiom) certainly; of course; it logically follows that...

哑巴 yǎ ba * mute / muted / a dumb person

经费 jīng fèi * funds / expenditure

军费 jūn fèi * military expenditure

法兰西 Fǎ lán xī * France

冲动 chōng dòng * impetus / impulse / emotional impulse

遥远 yáo yuǎn * distant / remote

福气 fú qì * good luck / to enjoy good fortune

耽误 dān wu * delay / hold-up / to waste time

冤气 yuān qì * unfair treatment / injustice

磨蹭 mó ceng * to move slowly / to dawdle / to work sluggishly

分担 fēn dān * share responsibility

见识 jiàn shi * knowledge and experience / to increase one's knowledge

碍眼 ài yǎn * offending the eye / an eye-sore / in the way

找茬 zhǎochár * to look for a quarrel / to fault somebody

祖宗 zǔ zōng * ancestor / forebear

宠坏 chǒng huài * spoil (a child)

合计 hé jì * to add up the total / to figure what sth amounts to / to consider

挑明 tiǎo míng * to illuminate / to open up (a topic)

闲气 xiánqì * to get angry about trivial matters

翻脸 fān liǎn * to fall out with sb / to become hostile

公道 gōng dào * justice / fairness / public highwaygōng dao * fair / equitable

亲戚 qīn qi * a relative (i.e. family relation)

绑匪 bǎng fěi * kidnapper

土匪 tǔ fěi * bandit

字画 zì huà * the strokes of a character / calligraphy and painting

威胁 wēi xié * to threaten / to menace

顶嘴 dǐngzuǐ * to talk back

成全 chéng quán * to help sb accomplish his aim / to help sb succeed / to complete

后患无穷 hòu huàn wú qióng * it will cause no end of trouble (成语 saw); nip the problem in the bud

招灾 zhāozāi * To incur a disaster

经商 jīng shāng * to trade / to carry out commercial activities / in business

实业 shí yè * industry / commercial enterprise

沾边 zhānbiān * to be relevant

亲事 qīn shì * marriage

专程 zhuān chéng * special-purpose trip

赔礼 péi lǐ * to offer an apology / to make amends

无可厚非 wúkěhòufēi * give no cause for criticism

They changed the story a bit (some of this stuff was told in flashbacks in the book), but it is all tolerable so far. Something that really surprised me is the portrayal of 周氏 as an evil bitch, which is definitely not how she was portrayed in the book.

Other than that, the show is really good. Not perfect (a bit of overacting), but it's the first episode, and it passed surprisingly fast and made me want to see more. Then again, I really loved the book.

I can recommend this one. If you've read the book, you'll enjoy this, and if you haven't read the book, you should know the story one way or the other. At around 20 episodes, it shouldn't drag on for too long either. Unfortunately, no download link.

Edited February 9, 2010 at 02:19 PM by renzhe

[muyongshi]

Looks pretty interesting (more so than the unassuming title). I will try and start it in the next week or two!

[Meng Lelan]

Nice job renzhe. I'm watching Episode 9 now. The old folks really like to meddle in everything the young folks do. Hence the suspense is endless.

[renzhe]

I really hope they don't go all soap-suspense-plot-twist on us.

The strength of the book is clearly in very colourful characters, not intrigue.

[Meng Lelan]

So how does this thread operate, we watch an episode, comment on it, watch the next episode, comment on it?

[renzhe]

That probably wouldn't work that well.

Basically, we discuss the show with other people watching, what we liked about the show, sometimes there are interesting discussions about the story, the characters, etc. Something like this.

Sometimes, we hit a jackpot, and the thread looks like this, but we probably won't get that many viewers this time around.

[muyongshi]

Renzhe... oh yee of little faith!

[renzhe]

I really, really want to like this show, especially since I loved the book.

But Chinese productions (at least the Mainland ones) based on novels all tend to make a big mess and turn into some Latin-American soap opera nonsense.

While this show is not nearly as butchered as 倾城之恋, they've managed to turn 周氏 into an evil bitch, turn 觉新 into a heartless bastard, and his wife into a useless prop. And the young and feisty 觉慧 is played by the rich-boy-CEO from "My youthfulness". And the events from the book have only started in episode 4

The novel is not complex, but it is very nuanced and intricate when it comes to characters. Of course it's not easy to put all of these details into a TV series, but it doesn't really look like they've even tried...

That said, it is really gorgeous, and the scenery is fantastic, and you really get a taste of an old, traditional household of a noble family. Something similar was the case with 倾城之恋, but that one totally lost the compass. I really hope that this show doesn't go down that road, because there are many promising things about it, especially the atmosphere and the customs of the day.

EDIT: BTW, the youku link is down, I've added a new streaming link that works.

Edited November 18, 2009 at 04:01 PM by renzhe