OMFG!!
Oh, how I wish I could get my hands on this hard subbed so I could do proper screencaps! I know I'm rather new to the genre, but I think it would be safe to say that this is HEAVY with magical martial arts! The eye candy in most cases is superb...the exception being when that dragon was pulling the chariot of Sanniang. Yeah, I know that isn't her name in this one, but it's Liu Shi Shi and she's being all thievery awesome in this one, so until this character has a properly defining moment, I'll probably be calling her Sanniang quite a bit.
The subbing community over at viki (where I just watched this streaming) has done a fairly decent job of subbing this to English, my only quibble really being that in some parts, it was so poorly timed, I backed up a bit and watched that part again. For their community and how it functions, I think I can be OK with it.
Here, you can check it out for yourself, right below:
Tuo'er, who looks to be gearing up to be a primary antagonist in this, is a BAMF! I especially enjoyed the way they showed him summoning the sword. A kind of trope in tokusatsu is that suddenly, the belt appears, or suddenly, there's a weapon in their hand. To show the mystical means of him getting the sword into his hand when he didn't have one a moment ago felt really refreshing.
The Prince of Chen Kingdom (which had fallen 18 years previous and I am blanking on his name right now) is going to be an interesting protagonist in this one. He's mediocre at martial arts, and they use (what amounts to) TV and skits about fighting demons to get over...stay in the people's minds so that when they're finally ready to have a go at getting their lands back from the current rulers (again, cerebral flatulence) the support of the common people will be behind them. From a psy-ops perspective, it's brilliant. From a plot standpoint, it allows for an interesting arc of development. To the writers, I must say: well played, sirs...well played!
With my personal life and other side projects like finishing my recaps for Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber, writing the next part in the Women of Wuxia series, and work, medical issues, social life, etc., I'm not sure how regularly I'm going to be doing these, but from what I saw in the 1st chapter of the Kun Lun Mirror arc...I think watching this one is going high on the list in rotation. Especially with the Olympics preempting Kamen Rider Fourze for the next 2 weeks.
Stay tuned!
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