First Episode 68: 雾里看花 (Look at Flower in Fog)

[Sarevok]

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

Emule

Language Level: Upper Intermediate (some obscure terminology related to antiques here and there... and a fair share of 成语 and other idioms)

--- PLOT SUMMARY ---

The city museum bought a pricey (10 milion RMB!) porcelain vase at some auction and we see a group of 专家 admiring and discussing it. A well known seasoned antique expert and collector 黄立德 (played by 李幼斌) with his friend 陈汉书 also arrive at the scene and 黄立德 finds out, that the vase is in fact a counterfeit - so called 朱仿, a high quality counterfeits made by 朱伯勤, unrecognizable to most (we get to see 朱伯勤, who is supposed to be dead, in a flashback scene). Following this event, 佟自清 (director of the museum), can't accept the harsh truth and attempts to commit suicide. The attempt is successful, his trusted student 郑岩 is too late to rescue him. 郑岩 is one of the major characters and is not only director's student, but also a would-be-son-in-law (we get to see his girlfriend 佟丽音 in the hospital scene that follows). He is working at 安蒂克拍卖公司 a company dealing with antiques, which is currently preparing for a major event of the year - The Autumn's Auction. When 郑岩 gets the information, that his teacher died because of a 朱仿, he seeks out 黄立德 to learn more about these counterfeits. He swears to solve the mystery behind this 朱仿 phenomenon. At 黄立德's home, we also get to see his daughter 黄忆江, who just returned from Yunnan and brought her father a birthday gift. She recognizes 郑岩, they apparently know each other from the past and 郑岩 seems to owe her something... The Autumn's Auction is taking place by the end of the first episode. There is this weird old bald man, who made a brief appearance before and he came to cause a disturbance at the auction, claiming that there are counterfeits among the auctioned goods. There is one article in particular, a vase brought by 郑岩, which is supposed to be another 朱仿...

--- END OF SUMMARY ---

I already watched the whole series and enjoyed it. Although there are some frequently seen cliché, such as love triangles (or rectangles), the setting in the antiques trade is quite original. We have a clear-cut "good guy" (郑岩), who is honest and an embodiment of almost every human virtue you can think of, but it is not so evident, who is the "bad guy" here and nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning...

That's about it, hope you like it. I still have to re-watch the first episode and make some wordlist out of it, didn't get around to do it yet...

--- WORDLIST ---

wlkh wordlist.xls

Edited February 9, 2010 at 02:22 PM by renzhe

[Sarevok]

I can't get the image to show up, there is always a link appearing instead. Seems I am using the tag in a wrong way... somebody please edit...

[renzhe]

There seems to be something wrong with the attachment. It seems like the post has no attachments.

Try attaching it again. Then use the "attach" tag instead of the "img" tag, and only use the number of the attachment.

I'd edit it, but you probably want to attach the original image first.

[Sarevok]

OK, done... I never posted any images at this forum before and didn't know the "attach" tag... 又学了点什么，多谢忍者老师~呵呵

[Sarevok]

I watched Episode 1 again and drafted a wordlist, I have chosen the words which I consider to be difficult, uncommon or interesting in some way... no translations yet, I'll add them later...

[Gleaves]

Just watched this one and I liked it very much. I have virtually no interest in pottery, but throw in the counterfeiting angle and I am on board. There seems to be plenty of subplots and conspiracies going on here and the characters seem interesting enough.

Since I'm not a huge fan of the war genre, I liked it more than 亮剑 (Drawing Sword) , another 李幼斌 series in the first episode project. Cool actor. Thanks for the show, Sarevok.

[Sarevok]

Glad you liked it... yeah, there is a lot of conspiracies going on, but no spies and secret agents here, which is quite refreshing (I have watched quite a lot of Chinese spy flicks... currently watching 密战 belonging to the same genre - seems interesting enough so far, maybe I'll make a "First Episode 69" of it).

I also like 李幼斌 very much and it is true he is usually appearing in war flicks (according to discussions on VeryCD, 亮剑 seems to be his most popular one... I downloaded a few episodes recently but didn't like it much and I am probably not gonna watch it). But he keeps his charisma even when he is not wearing a military uniform. I have first seen him in 在那遥远的地方, where he also appeared in the role of a military commander (but I wouldn't classify that one as a war flick) and he really shined there... that's why I tried to find more of his works and ended up downloading 雾里看花 as a result

---

I finally got around to adding translations to that wordlist and I added it as an attachment to the first post (in XLS format, so it can be easily imported into Anki).

[renzhe]

currently watching 密战 belonging to the same genre - seems interesting enough so far, maybe I'll make a "First Episode 69" of it

Sure, go ahead!

I'm just back from holidays, and new stuff from me might have to wait a bit longer, as I have lots of catching up to do at work. But recent threads started by you and others are a breath of fresh air.

[doraemon]

Sorry, I didn't mean to bump this thread or anything, but I just finished watching this whole thing in three days and anyway, I think it's a really superb television series and all... but I'm not really sure whether it's an actual reflection of what Chinese society is like or whether it's just fiction made for pure entertainment. But you know, all that manipulation, duplicity, fraud, deception and stuff between people is actually quite scary in my opinion.

From the start I had a feeling 夏海生 would be the 'villain', he just doesn't look like a good person. But it's still pretty fascinating watching him make his way into 老葛's antiques as well as 黄立德's seamless masterminding of everything (even though he got found out eventually by 郑岩) which was a little...well...anti-climax or not complex enough, I mean "我们南方人王黄不分“or something along the lines of that...seems way too predictable after the string of unexpected events that preceded it.

All that love triangle thing, yeah as mentioned before it's pretty cliched and it wouldn't have hurt if they omitted that part of the series...but anyway, does anyone think that despite her illness which deserves some sympathy, 佟丽音is quite a b**ch?

Also, is it actually possible to tell if a piece of antique is counterfeit just by looking at photographs of it? Just like 郑岩 did in one episode? Cos I was pretty impressed by that but I doubt somebody could do that in real life.

I'll most likely watch it again, it's quite eye-opening and definitely interesting.

[Sarevok]

but anyway, does anyone think that despite her illness which deserves some sympathy, 佟丽音is quite a b**ch?

IIRC there was an episode, when it became clear that her illness was already cured before and she faked it... therefore, she deserves no sympathy IMO. A pretty face, but I definitely wouldn't want to have such a GF, poor 郑岩... although I also don't know how well the series stands as a reflection of Chinese society (quite a portion of the characters can be considered 富家子弟 and I never came into contact with this social stratum for a long time), but I can imagine that there are girls like her...

[doraemon]

IIRC there was an episode, when it became clear that her illness was already cured before and she faked it

Really? Whereabouts was that? I have a funny feeling that I missed a lot of parts since I was always doing something else whilst having this played in the background. I got the main gist of the drama though, but I'll watch it properly once more.

A pretty face, but I definitely wouldn't want to have such a GF

Yeah, I agree. But I don't really think she's even that pretty. Her face has a malicious and brooding quality to it that doesn't make her very likeable. Now that I think about it, there aren't many good looking women in this drama, although IMO, 孙丽飞 is probably the prettiest despite what a lot of other people say (that she's ugly). I actually like the character 黄忆江 quite a lot regardless of her mood swings and lack of femininity in her mannerisms. She seems very 爽快, (sorry, I couldn't find a proper translation in English) which is quite appealing, but I don't think she'd make such a good GF either considering she'll probably throw a fit every ten minutes (although it is better than having one who tries to kill herself after an argument). 佟丽音and 黄忆江 pretty much encompass the large majority of girls in China. They're either overly fragile, emotional yet manipulative like the former or spoilt and recalcitrant like the latter. Quite sad...

(quite a portion of the characters can be considered 富家子弟 and I never came into contact with this social stratum for a long time),

Sarevok, so you've met people like them before? What are they like? Some people say that the 富家子弟 in China are just a bunch of decadent parvenus/successful businessmen (who usually become rich overnight) who lack the dignified air given off by aristocrats and wealthy families in Europe, America etc. But I suppose those who collect antiques will most likely be cultured to a certain extent considering they need to be quite knowledgeable about Chinese history in order to live off it.

[DRAGON FLOWER]

I love that it has english subtitles so I can understand..I love this series, as well as New Fair Princess..I watch on ICN TV in California..