![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rogueslayer452So I've been completely consumed by Guardian lately, like incredibly deep into it.
I thought about writing a full review, which I might in the future, but for now you'll forgive me for simply just giving my brief incoherent fangirlish ramblings about it.
First of all, you know those characters that you know instantly the second you lay eyes on them that not only are going to be your favorite, but also are absolutely your type in a very specific and predictable way? That's Shen Wei for me. He is my type to a fucking T, to the point that it's just ridiculous. (Note: this traces all the way back to being imprinted at a very young age by Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Captain von Trapp from The Sound of Music, so of course I was doomed to fall for this bespectacled fashionably suit-wearing reserved professor who has a secret job/identity, of course.)
Secondly, I cannot get over the whole time travel loop paradox angle of the story, like that kind of thing is my jam. I know they had to rework the background plot due to censorship reasons and strict rules about what they could or couldn't include in their media, so while they had to Frankenstein things together I think making the Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan story be a cyclical one not only works it actually makes their story, their entire connection with each other, even more romantic. It enhances the fact that Shen Wei fell in love with Yunlan in the past was because Yunlan had already fallen in love with Shen Wei from the present because Shen Wei was already in love with him, etc. It just works. They fell in love because the other was already in love with them, and that shit makes me go fucking feral, I love it. The "it took me ten thousand years to find you" line is just top-tiered romance. And while the ending was sad and bittersweet and utterly tragic and many fans did not like it (understandably so, hence all the fix-its), there's something about it that just gets to me. Yes, I agree that they deserved their happy ending, they deserved to live and not die so tragically after having just found each other, but I think it adds more depth to all the time they spent together, how deeply they affected one another and how, although tragically bittersweet that ending was, it also has a hopeful note? That somehow, someway, they will meet again.
I don't know. It's hard to explain, but I think having gone through this with Word of Honor and with The Untamed having an open-ended yet optimistic ending, and plenty of others that have bittersweet endings, not to mention having been warned about this one, it prepared me so it softened the blow a little bit. Just, the tragedy hits very specifically to that they found each other, it's cyclical, and yet somehow this timeline they're in treated them so unfairly because of how events played out. It's heartbreaking.
(Although, I'll fully admit it did take me a little while to warm up to the pairing in the beginning, I knew it was canon but I had zero knowledge beyond that and was just feeling things out as the story unfolded, so it took longer to catch on unlike some other canonical BL pairings, but once I did, oh boy.)
Also, in terms of the story being reworked, I was completely taken aback but pleasantly surprised by having it be aliens and mutant genetics. You have to admit, that's a pretty unique idea, and it makes me want more scifi elements in cdramas.
And lastly, but certainly not least, it just needs to be said: Zhu Yilong was absolutely phenomenal in this. I think all the actors did an amazing job, but man, Zhu Yilong is just on another level. I know that he's credited as playing three characters (because Ye Zun, oh my precious unhinged Ye Zun, I love you, you need all the hugs and so much therapy), but I'd argue that he technically plays multiple: Shen Wei (himself, his professor persona and him as Hei Pao Shi), Ye Zun, young!Shen Wei and young!Ye Zun, and of course Ye Zun pretending to be Shen Wei. There is a reason why I've been saying he Tatiana Maslany'd all over this drama, just way all of these versions can be differentiated just from the mere micro-expressions alone is so utterly mesmerizing, he's just that good. Again, on an entirely other level, and it's amazing to watch. Also, can you believe this is me first discovering Zhu Yilong? Seriously, you'd think he would've been on my radar and seen him in passing among certain fandom circles. So now, of course, I'm going to go down that rabbit hole of looking into his other works.
I thought about writing a full review, which I might in the future, but for now you'll forgive me for simply just giving my brief incoherent fangirlish ramblings about it.
First of all, you know those characters that you know instantly the second you lay eyes on them that not only are going to be your favorite, but also are absolutely your type in a very specific and predictable way? That's Shen Wei for me. He is my type to a fucking T, to the point that it's just ridiculous. (Note: this traces all the way back to being imprinted at a very young age by Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Captain von Trapp from The Sound of Music, so of course I was doomed to fall for this bespectacled fashionably suit-wearing reserved professor who has a secret job/identity, of course.)
Secondly, I cannot get over the whole time travel loop paradox angle of the story, like that kind of thing is my jam. I know they had to rework the background plot due to censorship reasons and strict rules about what they could or couldn't include in their media, so while they had to Frankenstein things together I think making the Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan story be a cyclical one not only works it actually makes their story, their entire connection with each other, even more romantic. It enhances the fact that Shen Wei fell in love with Yunlan in the past was because Yunlan had already fallen in love with Shen Wei from the present because Shen Wei was already in love with him, etc. It just works. They fell in love because the other was already in love with them, and that shit makes me go fucking feral, I love it. The "it took me ten thousand years to find you" line is just top-tiered romance. And while the ending was sad and bittersweet and utterly tragic and many fans did not like it (understandably so, hence all the fix-its), there's something about it that just gets to me. Yes, I agree that they deserved their happy ending, they deserved to live and not die so tragically after having just found each other, but I think it adds more depth to all the time they spent together, how deeply they affected one another and how, although tragically bittersweet that ending was, it also has a hopeful note? That somehow, someway, they will meet again.
I don't know. It's hard to explain, but I think having gone through this with Word of Honor and with The Untamed having an open-ended yet optimistic ending, and plenty of others that have bittersweet endings, not to mention having been warned about this one, it prepared me so it softened the blow a little bit. Just, the tragedy hits very specifically to that they found each other, it's cyclical, and yet somehow this timeline they're in treated them so unfairly because of how events played out. It's heartbreaking.
(Although, I'll fully admit it did take me a little while to warm up to the pairing in the beginning, I knew it was canon but I had zero knowledge beyond that and was just feeling things out as the story unfolded, so it took longer to catch on unlike some other canonical BL pairings, but once I did, oh boy.)
Also, in terms of the story being reworked, I was completely taken aback but pleasantly surprised by having it be aliens and mutant genetics. You have to admit, that's a pretty unique idea, and it makes me want more scifi elements in cdramas.
And lastly, but certainly not least, it just needs to be said: Zhu Yilong was absolutely phenomenal in this. I think all the actors did an amazing job, but man, Zhu Yilong is just on another level. I know that he's credited as playing three characters (because Ye Zun, oh my precious unhinged Ye Zun, I love you, you need all the hugs and so much therapy), but I'd argue that he technically plays multiple: Shen Wei (himself, his professor persona and him as Hei Pao Shi), Ye Zun, young!Shen Wei and young!Ye Zun, and of course Ye Zun pretending to be Shen Wei. There is a reason why I've been saying he Tatiana Maslany'd all over this drama, just way all of these versions can be differentiated just from the mere micro-expressions alone is so utterly mesmerizing, he's just that good. Again, on an entirely other level, and it's amazing to watch. Also, can you believe this is me first discovering Zhu Yilong? Seriously, you'd think he would've been on my radar and seen him in passing among certain fandom circles. So now, of course, I'm going to go down that rabbit hole of looking into his other works.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-24 12:34 am (UTC)