flemmings | (no subject)

I'm watching Red Cliff in smallish increments, being one of those people who likes to have watched a thing the way other people like to have written. (I don't know why this is. Infinite distractibility, maybe; or a long-standing and usually well-founded anxiety that I'll be either harrowed or embarrassed by what I'm seeing.) Right now Xiao Qiao is making tea for Cao Cao, and beautiful as Xiao Qiao is, I'm finding the ruse a bit mh well-- a pointless distraction, in short. What did the woman think she'd accomplish anyway?

If this seems to be far along in the action, since it's well into part 2, the reason is that my DVD player thinks Red Cliff 1 is the wrong format and refuses to play it. That it's exactly the same format and company as pt 2 makes no difference. So I watch pt 2, which is reputedly slashier than 1 anyway. In time I'll overcome my technophobia and try pt 1 on the computer, something I've never done to date.

Not a fan of Tony Leung, I'm sorry. Zhou Yu needs to be a pretty-face too, not a plain-featured brooder. (Tony Leung broods well, as he did in Hero, but that's not the Zhou Yu I read in the novel.) In fact, being thrown bodily into the action with no introductions, for the longest time I thought Sun Quan was him, when I wasn't thinking Sun Quan was Liu Bei.

As for Takeshi Kaneshiro, pretty-face is pretty and of course exactly my (Japanese-derived) notion of Zhuge Liang. *I have seen this exact performance before* but nowhere I can place, unless possibly I'm thinking of Fan Li. The tones, the expressions... could it be someone voiced by Shiozawa Kaneto?

This being part 2 I've seen exactly ten seconds of Hu Jun's Zhao Yun and very much want to see more. Forge ahead: I gather he shows up for the battle.

I know the anti-Cao Cao bias is traditional, but really. Must we show the virtuous eastern Wu guys burning the pocky corpses that Cao Cao sent to infect them, while Cao himself drinks and recites poetry? Bah.

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The anti-Cao bias derived from periods when the northern heartland was occupied by 'non-Han' powers (the Mongols - Yuan, the Jurchens - Jin) imperiling the exiled 'Han' power in the south. And then appropriated by the Mongols themselves to distance themselves from the previous northern conquerors...

I mean, it's been centuries, and the whole country is actually safely united now (Tibet, what Tibet?), so why can't they go back to the Sanguozhi tradition, which provides a more balance picture of everyone? The novel (Ro3K) is actually unfair to the Wu side too, for it often credits Shu 'heroes' with deeds actually done by Wu warriors.

(parses that) You mean the Han-types in Yuan and Jin identified Cao Cao with those Evil Guys From The North? both of whom were out to destroy some variety of Han-thingy?

Yeah, those scholarly footnotes to the translation do tend to point out when Zhuge Liang's being given credit for something Zhou Yu thought up, to say nothing of 'actually Liu Bei didn't win this battle at all' moments.

Sorry to hear that part 1 is misbehaving: I hope that it works on the computer.

*Must* overcome my technophobia one of these years...

But the subtitles are being a positive delight compared to Woxin's.

Hope part 1 works for you soon, if only for music!slashy Zhou Yu/Zhuge Liang, and Zhao Yun doing his awesome babymama-warrior thing XD (IIRC that happens quite early on)

is sad that the first thing that came to mind when I read pocky was food

I too wish to see babymama-warrior Zhao Yun! There's a certain kind of role that suits Hu Jun, and Fu Chai wasn't it. Zhao Yun is looking much more likely.

pejorative drift