GUARDIAN: EPISODE 3
Sep. 17th, 2018 07:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Introduction
moggiesandtea: This fucking episode, guys.Plot
moggiesandtea: So this is first filler/monster of the week episode. The first two episodes corresponded with the first arc of the novel, but now the writers are on their own and just making shit up.moggiesandtea: We meet a colleague of Shen Wei’s, Professor Zhang Ruonan. She has apparently been having a hard time for the past couple of weeks, and it’s clear something is up. Shen Wei is appropriately concerned. We briefly meet our first victim, a student of Dragon City University and a dude this time. Then he is dragged into the bushes and murdered. Honestly, he deserved it. (Okay, I’m kind of seeing the China Censorship Machine’s point in regards to the criminals being too sympathetic, but at the same time they really had it coming in this episode.)
hollyberries: I don’t get how the murderer knew to ambush him by that specific set of bushes but power to you, murderer person. He deserved it.lunatique: In hindsight the whole dragging him into the bushes thing doesn’t make any sense because THE MURDERER ISN’T ANYTHING THAT NATURALLY HANGS OUT IN BUSHES??? arrghigiveup: Not gonna lie, the first time it happened I thought we were gonna get some weird plant monster.kitsunec4: For the #aesthetic. rageprufrock: In retrospect, I’m very grateful that it wasn’t a weird plant monster because it spared us some additionally blinding and bad CGI. That said, I, too, was deeply confused by the bush situation -- but not as confused as I was at a later juncture. moggiesandtea: ANYWAY. Zhao Yunlan and co. get called in re: bodies, and of course Zhao Yunlan’s first stop is Shen Wei’s office. He promptly steals the cake some of the Prof. Zhang’s students had given Shen Wei as a thanks for taking over this class while something’s up with our teacher present. He also has a really bad cold and proceeds to sneeze all over everyone and everything while his coworkers break out masks in hopes of not catching it.rageprufrock To elaborate on this grievous understatement of “steals the cake,” Zhao Yunlan takes the adorably boxed slice of cake, and with absolutely no shame, helps himself to the pre-packaged tiny fucking fork and starts eating it at at Shen Wei’s desk. This asshole is completely unbelievable. All this in between sneezing all over everything. Merciful whoring Christ. lazulisong: I genuinely thought he was going to get poisoned from the cake, but apparently a) the writers didn't think of that and b) Zhao Yunlan's garbage pit of a stomach can handle anything up to and including actual poison.hollyberries: /hiss/ FIVE COURSE RAMEN MEAL /retreats into cave/rageprufrock Okay, because I can’t remember if we’ve talked about this already or not: in the novel, at one point, Zhao Yunlan is dead broke but still knows morning after rules (I mean, sort of) so he tries to make a feast of different types of ramen for Shen Wei. Among these ramens are a carbonara ramen made with coffee. We’ll wait right here while you hurl. lunatique: I thought we were gonna get some Fussing Over Sick Boyfriend Shen Wei, but not yet…kitsunec4: This was a Missed Opportunity and we were deprived. Though, at least the writers gave that to us later. moggiesandtea: Shen Wei asks why Zhao Yunlan is in here talking to him. Good question, Shen Wei! The excuse Zhao Yunlan gives is that the deceased is one of his engineering students and he doesn’t believe in coincidences. They are interrupted by Prof. Zhang, at which point Shen Wei tries to figure out how to introduce Zhao Yunlan and blanks in the most awkward silence. Zhao Yunlan declares them “good friends.”lunatique: Observe the Look on Shen Wei’s face as he says this. That look is why Zhu Yi Long was hired for this job. 
lazulisong: /s/good friends/ imperial consort to betammaiya: This is just SO MUCH, guys. Like, even aside from the awkward pause, “good friends” instead of just plain “friends” is a real Statement, particularly in this context. Shen Wei is very reserved and tends to observe social etiquette to the letter—unlike someone, ZHAO YUNLAN— and (mysterious backstory aside) they’ve known each other for about a hot minute, so representing your relationship with this guy in that way is extremely, uh... forward. It also just carries a lot more weight when you say that kind of thing in Chinese than in English, generally speaking. I was there like “wow, boy, you really went there”.kitsunec4: For context, I’ve friends I’ve dragged on intercontinental flights to sightsee/visit my family with that I’ll not say “good friends” in Chinese because it feels so weighted with implications. CHINESE! What a language. arrghigiveup: I also particularly like the way he sticks his tongue between his teeth like a good ol’ pervert before he says it.moggiesandtea: We meet another suspicious character, a young woman who wears gloves, is very twitchy, and basically screams “Dixingren.” Her name’s Wang Yike.hollyberries: Bless her heart she tries to act. rageprufrock: But like, how much did she try. kitsunec4: Not enough. tammaiya: This describes most of the minor character actors throughout the series, and they keep coming back. To be fair, she’s not that bad at acting really gay for Prof. Zhang or like she’s about to shank a guy?moggiesandtea: Zhao Yunlan is back bothering Shen Wei while his subordinates follow Dead Guy #1’s buddy around campus. Da Qing, the cat that he is, falls asleep on the job. Dead Guy #1’s buddy is now Dead Guy #2. The way the scene before Da Qing falls asleep is filmed to cast all the suspicion on Prof. Zhang, so it’s no surprise that Zhao Yunlan winds up questioning her. kitsunec4: I think I commented around here during my first watch through that no one in their right minds should be sending a cat on a stake-out and expect them to stay awake. This was a mission set up for failure from the start. tammaiya: Yeah, the moment he settled against the tree I was like “this was poorly conceived of as a plan.”lunatique: Somewhere in between, Not-Yet-Dead guy #2 crouches at the MURDER BUSHES to speak to Dead Guy #1’s??? Ghost??? asking him to “send him a dream” to warn him about whether the murder is about “that thing they did.” I thought they had some kind of dream telepathy powers or something but no, they’re just assholes. This is very strange and unexplained. rageprufrock: Honestly this is the dumbest fucking thing. Like why would you go beg your...dead shitty friend’s spirit in a bush? Like what possible reason would you think that this is where you could -- bridge the divide between the living and the dead? Moreover, why, as a writer, would this have to be where it happens? I have no fucking idea. This, like so much of this show, makes no fucking sense.moggiesandtea: So. This is where I kind of dissolve into inarticulate rage, because it turns out that after Prof. Zhang failed the two dead guys and one not dead yet guy for skipping class, they decided to trick her into being out in the city late at night, then attacked and sexually assaulted her. arrghigiveup: Yep, this is the first of several cases where I’m like, y’all deserve to die. Bye.(
tammaiya: Although, having seen this twice now, I still don’t understand why she would go to the birthday party of a student she just failed? And not bail as soon as she showed up and no one was there?? Not in a victim blaming way, because fuck those guys forever and always, but in a narrative “this makes no sense and you didn’t even try to make it make sense” way.)(
lazulisong: Why make sense when you can have sad lesbians so the censors step off your dick.)moggiesandtea: So. Turns out Wang Yike can absorb living things’ life energy, and she’s been killing off the assholes. Good for her. Prof. Zhang tries to take the blame for Wang Yike after Wang Yike kills the last guy in the teachers’ office, so Zhao Yunlan calls in Zhu Hong to...be a sympathetic womanly ear? Or something? Which is how they find out Prof. Zhang considers Wang Yike family.hollyberries: Insert the entirety of “Cell Block Tango” here. In passing, how does anyone think Zhu Hong is more comforting than Zhao Yunlan on his best behaviour. She literally was like, oh god, a human is having emotions, guess I’ll have to talk to her. rageprufrock: I guess in the show’s defense, Show Zhao Yunlan is a lot nicer than Novel Zhao Yunlan. But -- yeah. tammaiya: LET THEM DIE, I’m glad Wang Yike managed to finish off the last guy before SID got there. He was the actual fucking worst, because he pretended to be such a nice guy and all solicitous and helpful while twisting the knife and kept imposing his presence on her, HISS. Also Zhao Yunlan seems to consistently overestimate how emotionally reassuring his shitty children are, considering the way Guo managed to make Li Qian’s grandmother’s death all about him in the last story arc. Zhu Hong is so awkward here, she’s like. Heavy shoulder pat, no expression, shoving a tissue at this crying woman. I love her, this is so not her thing.arrghigiveup: In complete fairness, I feel like she at least did a better job than Guo did with Li Qiankitsunec4: Zhao Yunlan has the shittiest work children, we will touch on this more later again, but they really, really are. arrghigiveup: Wang Yike gives Prof. Zhang a last you’ll-never-hear-from-me-again-after-after-I-kill-this-one-last-dude call, which Lin Jing manages to trace… to the school! Uh-oh. Please check out Zhao Yunlan’s look of fear and panic when he realises that the guy he’s known for all of… I dunno, what has it been, a week? is in danger:
moggiesandtea: Wang Yike goes after Shen Wei because he’s been around Prof. Zhang so much, he has to have been planning something. She is very surprised to find her life absorbing powers don’t work on Shen Wei, although he has to pretend Zhao Yunlan and Old Chu arrived in the nick to time to save him. hollyberries: Do you mean - in the neck of time.tammaiya: badum-TISH. rageprufrock: I hate everyone in this bar. arrghigiveup: This is the only one of the (attempted and totally failed) murders that I completely don’t get. Shen Wei didn’t do anything! They’re colleagues! Why would you go after him just based on that? Why am I bothering to try and make this make sense?lazulisong: I think at this point I just assumed Wang Yike thought that the professor liked him and she's jealous. tammaiya: I think I was equally confused on my first viewing, but on the second viewing it made more sense to me? She says that she blames him for not doing anything for Prof Zhang when he should have noticed that something was wrong, because they had a close working relationship. Not that we really see that, considering Prof Zhang only shows up this episode, but if we accept that premise, then from the perspective of someone who has been traumatised, or in this case someone who resonates very strongly with the person traumatised, “why didn’t you do something, why didn’t you help, why didn’t you ask if she was okay” is something you might think. Like not that it was a good reason, but I can see how it would be a betrayal of the person she loves in her very obsessive and rage filled brain. lunatique: Shen Wei didn’t really need saving but does a decently convincing job of acting hurt. This is gonna be a trend.arrghigiveup: Zhao Yunlan’s worried face once again once again makes my little black heart sing:
moggiesandtea: Prof. Zhang rushes to make sure Wang Yike is okay and accidentally touches her bare hand. She gets all old and hovers on the edge of death while she and Wang Yike have a deeply emotional conversation involving a lot of crying and yelling “Jie!” (
rageprufrock: This whole thing happens in the blink of an eye. Like one minute Prof. Zhang is a young-to-middle-aged woman and the next second she has the cheapest possible gray spray in her hair and eyebrows. It is farcical.)lazulisong: I was just staring at the screen at midnight like, HOW DARE YOU GIVE ME LESBIANS AND THEN MAKE THEM SADkitsunec4: Because China, lazulisong. Also, censors. moggiesandtea: Shen Wei, basically when Zhao Yunlan and co. have their backs turned, does something that keeps Prof. Zhang from dying. hollyberries: By the way, we never really get a clearer explanation of Shen Wei’s superpowers - because in-canon, all Dixingren have one special talent but Shen Wei’s, as far as he defines it, is ‘learning’. I guess that’s a convenient handwave for how he can do everything, except use modern technology.moggiesandtea: We cut to monologuing Anime Villain, who is monologuing to his chessboard. We cut to Zhao Yunlan back at the SID office, getting very suspicious of Shen Wei. We cut between Zhao Yunlan thinking back and forth to Shen Wei wheeling a very old Prof. Zhang to reunite with Wang Yike, who got taken away by the Black Cloak Envoy off screen and apparently did not end up in Dixing Jail. kitsunec4: Our blaring alarm that, under the 200 yuan terrible Party City costume cloak and general foreboding, is the heart of a softie. This won’t be the first time that Shen Wei lets someone off of the proverbial hook. It’s both a good character moment, and, I suspect, a reason to have their extras show up again many different times...but that’s for a later discussion. arrghigiveup: Before his identity reveal he never lets them off on the spot though; always takes them away in his glowy purple portal and makes things look all sad and tragic first… only to let them go almost immediately after, and in at least one of those, the girl he lets off gets seen by Zhao Yunlan on his way home on his bike on what seems to be the same day (though I could be wrong). Which means that Black Cloak Envoy is bringing them tearily through a portal for the express purpose of maintaining his scary, stern facade, porting them about two streets down, and probably delivering some long-winded formal speech along the lines of “Fuck it, you haven’t really hurt anyone who didn’t deserve to die. Go away” (or in the case of Wang Yike, setting up a meeting so she can go collect Prof. Zhang and leave with her). Only he clearly doesn’t try very hard to stop the SID team from finding out anyway, so… why even bother, lol.hollyberries: Interestingly enough, book!Shen Wei is a straight-up ‘let them die’ type, and most people who use the Holy Talismans are either hit with severe, non-reversible effects (losing half your lifespan, being stuck in eternal torment in hell, perma-killed). Book!Yunlan is also less kind: the SID has a special rule against capturing ghosts if they are engaged in karmically just revenge against the living. Even if book!Shen Wei cared to give erring spirits some leeway, the setup of the book universe doesn’t allow for people to go unpunished for their actions. Every decision comes with its corresponding cost. rageprufrock: The show as a whole has softer edges than the book, where both Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan are meaner, the cases are darker, the consequences are more harrowing and the stakes are perpetually higher. Some of this is due to the censorship, some of it is due to the budget, and I think honestly some of it just goes down to the fact that books can go to the deepest of niche audiences, versus television -- even web television -- which by its very nature needs to succeed with a broader appeal.arrghigiveup: Separately and also of interest is the scene of Shen Wei in his office and saying on the phone, “I know, I know that place is further away from my workplace. But I have a reason why I need to stay there. Alright, please find something that fits my specifications.” That is to say, a mere two cases and tiny handful of interactions in, Shen Wei has already decided, well before--spoiler!--the principal of the university directly requests for it, that he should move out of the staff dormitories and into somewhere closer to Zhao Yunlan’s apartment hollyberries: Shen Wei is hiring realtors and buying condos with what money, exactly?? My headcanon is that sometime before the series took place, Shen Wei lowkey saved a random tailor who now throws three fitted suits and a few shirts/accessories at his head every month. Seamstressing in China is cheap but not THAT cheap, come on.tammaiya: Maybe Drama!Shen Wei actually has a nest egg? Or at least some money he saved up specifically for the purposes of stalking. moggiesandtea: And here’s where the writers went “pacing, what pacing” and threw all semblance of that out the window. Instead of ending the episode there, it keeps going into the start of another monster of the week episode. The team is trying to find a killer who strikes at night, kills women, and destroys their faces. As this case is not on campus, Zhao Yunlan makes the observation that this should have nothing to do with Shen Wei.Of course, the next scene is Shen Wei, also trying to hunt the killer through the back alleys of Dragon City. Stuff happens, a woman screams, and Zhao Yunlan and Lin Jing find Shen Wei at the scene of...not a crime, because the lady’s not dead, just terrified. Anyway. Zhao Yunlan is not amused.
lazulisong: I think I actually complained about that in chat, because Dr Qin did that a couple times too. What the hell? Is it because they're released several eps at a time???? Why????? It really hecked up my sleep schedule because OF COURSE I had to watch the next ep to figure out what the hell was going on.tammaiya: Yeah, ditto, if nothing else the pacing (“pacing”) of Guardian drove my inner editor NUTS, because it was just so unnatural. Cliffhangers can be a useful (if sometimes annoying) tool in an episodic or chapter format, but… they didn’t even try, man, half the time the episode endings are entirely arbitrary. As are the bits where they don’t end an episode, and instead you get whiplash because— didn’t they just solve the case? What is going on here? Who are these people? What does any of this have to do with the rest of the episode?hollyberries: I think the pacing is a casualty of the webdrama editing, and unfortunately out of the control of any script-writer or director. (Not that I don’t want to send the scriptwriters back to school or anything.)lunatique: At this point I realise I seem to have completely missed episode 4 on my first watch of this drama? Because I have zero recollection of any follow up to this particular weekly monster. I thought this whole unresolved mystery was merely an excuse to have Zhao Yun Lan suspect Shen Wei. :/ Oops. rageprufrock: That’s episodes 4-11 for me, lunatique.kitsunec4: We all really watch this show for the leads interacting, this rewatch is really making me actually notice details...and be even more infuriated at most of the shitty excuses for plots. Character Beats
moggiesandtea: Of course Shen Wei (or as I called him in my notes, “this asshole”) has a fancy brush stand on his desk. For all that calligraphy you do when teaching biology and apparently also engineering.kitsunec4: I think they have him be a bioengineering professor? Which. I...it’s a doozy. Professor. In life sciences, at THIRTY-TWO. Most people I know in this age bracket are still toiling away in the post doc mines.hollyberries: moggiesandtea, he cannot use a computer or typewriter. That brush stand is his stationery kit. It’s so adorable I want to throw up, and also, now I need to go sit somewhere and have deeply inappropriate thoughts about calligraphy brushes and Zhu Yilong, thank you for coming to my TED talk.kitsunec4:...I bet Shen Wei is of the same opinion as my grandmother, which is that purchased ink in a bottle is cheating and you should sit there and grind the inkstone at least one hundred strokes. lunatique: I just want to add that, as someone who grew up around brush and ink set ups, his desk is Way Too Clean to be the desk of someone who regularly uses brush and ink. WHERE IS HIS WATER? Does he use his spit like a commoner? Or is that aquarium a convenient excuse?? ???? rageprufrock: TELL ME no one actually uses spit. Oh my God. hollyberries: I mean… calligraphy ink tastes gross. People traditionally have used blood if things got really dire? (lunatique, it’s his magic black cloak envoy powers. ;D)lunatique: Maybe he wears a black cloak to hide all the ink stains. moggiesandtea: I would also like to note that Shen Wei, like the idiot trying to desperately maintain a facade that he is, makes sure to put his glasses back on before turning around to face down Zhao Yunlan at the end of the episode.tammaiya: His ridiculous Clark Kent glasses. You WEAR A MASK, you nerd, what the hell are glasses going to do that the mask doesn’t? We can all see your ridiculously long eyelashes and pouty lips anyway. I am distressingly into his whole glasses look, though, ngl. He is about the only person on the planet who can make round frames work, but man does he make them work.
hollyberries: THOSE DUMB ROUND HIPSTER FRAMES THAT HE CAN PULL OFF BC HE HAS A DEFINED YET SUBTLY POINTY CHIN. AUGH.arrghigiveup: They’re meant to make his face look extra different! Not only is he not wearing a mask, he’s got myopia! Totally not the same person! Haha. Haha. Ha.lazulisong: this episode made me vomit blood for several reasons but mostly: LET THE LESBIANS BE HAPPY!!! WHAT! IS! THIS! BULLSHIT! CHINA!!!!!!!! So are they lesbians or what?
tammaiya: Officially? No. Deliberately implied? I have very little doubt. Keeping in mind Chinese censorship (which Guardian ultimately has fallen afoul of anyway, though for supernatural themes rather than homosexuality), and also general cultural norms, there are certain signifiers you tend to get in popular East Asian media to imply a same-sex relationship or attraction rather than it being stated outright. A common one is them describing their relationship as “like sisters/brothers” — which may seem strange to a western audience, particularly if you’ve grown up in an era where it is no longer taboo to openly depict queer relationships, but it is a way to indicate how incredibly close these two people are without stepping over the line of what is acceptable. hollyberries: … that’s also putting aside China’s love affair with calling people ‘sister’ or ‘brother’ as one half of a romantic relationship. That agonized ‘jie’ Wang Yike screams out is not platonic. tammaiya: Yes, exactly. Chinese, Korean and Japanese all have a custom of using terms of familial relation for people you’re not actually related to, which depends on factors like age, how close you are to them, etc etc. Korean and Chinese in particular like to use brother/sister for romantic partners; rageprufrock talked about this before on Twitter in the context of why calling Shen Wei “Gege” (older brother) makes Zhao Yunlan a complete slag. As a sidebar, brother/sister in Japanese doesn’t have this specific connotation in general usage, but it’s also not taboo— for example, Sorata calls Arashi “Nee-san” (older sister) in X/1999, which doesn’t imply a crush, but also isn’t creepy to use with someone you’re into. (Please note the “general usage” caveat, a girl breathlessly calling another girl “onee-sama” is ABSOLUTELY and intentionally playing up the gay, but this tends to be a fictional trope more than anything.)Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that while a woman calling another woman “jie” isn’t necessarily gay, it definitely can be, and… it 100% has that vibe here.
Other key indicators are the fact that their story and character arc revolve around each other— no official love interest in sight for either of them, and they end the arc together for whatever time they have left, which is clearly portrayed as happiness and fulfilment for them (in the circumstances). They are willing to sacrifice their lives for each other— devotion is a big one! And, for these characters in particular, they make a big deal out of wanting to touch each other but not being able to. Aside from the obvious parallels there to being in a socially taboo relationship where you can’t touch in public, the focus on their ability to touch each other is pretty significant. Would I miss being able to touch friends/family without wearing gloves? Probably, but in a narrative sense, this is usually only brought up in a very broad sense (I can’t touch anyone), or in a very specific relationship context (I can’t touch my boyfriend/girlfriend).
(
lunatique: Prof. Zhang also emphasizes how Yike can finally touch her face, which is a pretty intimate gesture all things told, usually reserved for Close Relations such as parents/grandparents or lovers. The way she says it reads to me like they have been wanting to do this and that not being able to has been a hardship.)tammaiya: Ultimately this is all subtext so it’s not hard set-in-stone canon, but… when it comes down to it, they’re lesbians, Harold. Production Choices
moggiesandtea: The costuming department was really feeling the distressed denim when it came to Zhao Yunlan. lunatique: Also they had one (1) outfit for poor Prof. Zhang, and like two borrowed coats. tammaiya: Hey, be fair, she has two! One for flashbacks, and one for the rest of the time.hollyberries: You could make the excuse that she was too distressed to change outfits but that is probably giving too much credit to the production. Speaking of which: they didn’t even bother with too much makeup and prosthetics for aging up the dead guys? It was just - foundation wrinkles and spray-painted hair. DID YOU EVEN TRY.lunatique: They really did not. Calling it merely cringeworthy is being generous. tammaiya: Ahhh, the first appearance of the spray-painted grey hair. Even assuming you can’t find a person with actual grey hair to act— which I am willing to believe, since the same actors routinely fail to act as a rotating cast of background characters, to the point where you could make a drinking game out of just that— grey hair is not that hard to do convincingly if you put in even the slightest effort. That spray paint is just. Bad. SO bad. And persists for the rest of the drama, every time they need a guy to look “old”.moggiesandtea: My notes on the photographs of Dead Guy #1 read “worst fake corpse.”ohbthr: TBH my first thought when I saw the corpse was not “old” it was “frozen.” Like the spray paint looked more like ice crystals than grey hair.arrghigiveup: Well if I remember correctly, they pretty much did the exact same thing for when they DID want to portray someone frozen.moggiesandtea: The other thing I noticed in terms of set dressing is that Shen Wei has some seriously nice looking antiques in his office. Maybe that makes up for the lack of compound interest in his life.hollyberries: NEVER FORGET. HE COULD BE WOOING ZHAO YUNLAN WITH HIS INDEX FUNDS ON A TROPICAL ISLAND.rageprufrock: If only he knew a single thing about money. Final Thoughts
tammaiya: This episode, in a nutshell— sad lesbians, secret softie Black Cloak Envoy almost blowing his cover by being a secret softie, and the “Cell Block Tango.” Kicking off the trend in this show where you often sympathise with the murderers, because the “victims” are for the most part awful and deserve what they get, so fuck ‘em. But especially these guys. Fuck these guys IN PARTICULAR. kitsunec4: Those guys had it coming. Join us here next week for a discussion of Guardian: Episode 4 and more amazed confusion at why we keep rewatching this show! So much!
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Date: 2018-09-17 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-17 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-18 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-18 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-17 01:35 pm (UTC)On the subject of whether Prof Zhang and Wang Yike are lovers, I believe that Prof Zhang explicitly states that they are 情人. Pretty sure the colloquial meaning of that is lovers? Unless it means something different in China.
Also, on pacing and episode endings, it is because the standard format of Chinese dramas (and Korean dramas) are serial dramas. Similar to soap operas, this leads to editing which generally favors cliffhanger endings, as it would compel the viewer to catch the next episode when it airs.
Regarding the "dream sending", it reads as pretty normal to me. It is a Taoist(?) belief that the dead can reach out to the living through dreams. Growing up, my grandma would talk about how her mom would send her a dream, instructing her to take good care of the family etc. I'm also used to seeing it in many Hong Kong dramas, though less frequently in Chinese dramas because of censors. I believe that this is a pretty common belief in China, which is probably why it got past the censors even though it alludes to the supernatural. As for the location, generally these requests are made either at the location where the body was found, or at the altar.
I am looking forward to future episode discussions, especially when Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei get domestic. So much subtext I wonder how it is even subtext anymore??
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Date: 2018-09-17 02:56 pm (UTC)Well. technically, according to the official Chinese subtitles, she says 我们是亲人, which is more "we are [close as] family":
BUT the way she SAYS it does kinda waver towards the second tone 情. Now, we can put that down to accent + voice being shaky due to crying, OR we can cheerfully take it as what she totally meant to say, and put the subs down to censor-avoidance tactics =D
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Date: 2018-09-17 04:14 pm (UTC)Also, for native (standard) Mandarin speakers, the pronunciation for 情人 (qíng rén) and 亲人 (qīn rén) is pretty different.
Plus, Prof Zhang-Wang Yike interactions make SO much more sense when their relationship is viewed as romantic rather than familial.
When all of these factors are taken into consideration, I think it's safe to conclude that the show intended to portray them as lovers, but had to use censorship-avoidance tactics for this crucial line.
I am learning much about China's strict censorship and censor avoidance from this show, it's really interesting.
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Date: 2018-09-17 05:39 pm (UTC)Either way, I'm perfectly happy to take them as lesbians in love, cos yeah, the interactions absolutely make more sense that way =D
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Date: 2018-09-18 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-17 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-17 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-17 08:50 pm (UTC)I have no doubt that once they get their shit together, Zhao Yunlan does everything he can to irritate that look out of Shen Wei.
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Date: 2018-09-17 09:09 pm (UTC)I’m forcing myself to do a rewatch of the whole show, and I cannot wait to get to the scene where SW gets mugged and he’s just doing the cute little bunny thing until they try to take his pendant and then Shit Gets Real. That scene is real good for all kinds of reasons.
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Date: 2018-09-17 09:42 pm (UTC)...and then ZYL shows up, and it's an immediate switch back to innocent slightly confused bunny.
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Date: 2018-09-18 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-18 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-18 02:31 pm (UTC)I also completely forgot that this is the scene that leads into him applying the medicine to ZYL’s arm and getting to put his hands all over him. Good times, good times indeed.
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Date: 2018-09-19 12:07 am (UTC);-)
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Date: 2018-09-19 07:49 am (UTC)Gege
Date: 2018-09-18 03:10 am (UTC)SAME. I blame Youtube (and the show's nonsensical pacing)
I never call non-family or non-family friend "Gege" myself, but I was surrounded by girls who did. Usually specifically to (older) boys that they have romantic interest in. And when they're girlfriend/boyfriend, the girl still continue calling the guy "Gege."
I don't think anyone ever called me "Jiejie" flirtatiously, but when some of my underclassmen did, it sure did activate strong "I need to protect her" feelings in me. The power of "Jiejie"... lol
Re: Gege
Date: 2018-09-18 03:47 am (UTC)...but then I figure out a friend is younger than me and immediately it’s the whole: must protect and feed and possibly scold if being a silly switch is flipped.
How does that even work? XD
Re: Gege
Date: 2018-09-18 05:40 am (UTC)Re: Gege
Date: 2018-09-20 01:32 am (UTC)Re: Gege
Date: 2018-09-18 05:41 am (UTC)* Still feels that way for cousins who are two years younger than me.
Even though they're married and have kids.no subject
Date: 2018-09-18 05:39 am (UTC)One doesn't have to be a strict Taoist, I think it's a general Chinese syncretic religion thing. (Which makes it consistent with the novel's myth-reliant setting but not with the drama's sci-fi world where people insist that ghosts don't exist... But yeah.)
no subject
Date: 2018-09-18 12:21 pm (UTC)I generally have problems grasping the cultural context in Asian shows, but that is what makes them interesting to watch, too. More learning experiences!
I am by now very attuned to the "need to cook for your lover" and "need to put food into beloved person's bowl" tropes, for example, which I knew nothing about a few weeks ago, but they turn up in every single show. *g*
no subject
Date: 2018-09-19 12:10 am (UTC)Only my mom has ever done that for me ;__;
Oh, and you can tell who's the favorite by watching who gets the choice bits of meat/dessert/what-have-you hahaha.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-18 12:14 pm (UTC)I would like to delve further into your opinion on Zhao Yunlan not being nice in the novel. I just reread the first 10 chapters (for reasons) and he is *very* nice to Guo, for example.
Yes, he's shameless and extremely inappropriate towards Shen Wei, and he keeps threatening his underlings with docked pay and refused bonuses (just like on the show).
But...
He's usually very nice to the people he interviews for cases. He can turn up the charm if he wants to, is what I'm saying. I'm not sure how caring he really is - both the show and the book call him "cold-hearted", but I didn't really get that impression from him in the book.
Did I miss anything?
no subject
Date: 2018-09-18 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-19 12:13 am (UTC)That's my take on it too, from what I've read of the novel so far.
Guo Changchen in the book is less annoying than show!Guo, but he still should get fired. *mumble mumble*
no subject
Date: 2018-09-19 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-19 03:52 am (UTC)*dies*
In that freezing episode, Lao Chu should've killed him instead of cuddling him D=
I know they're the beta gay couple in that drama, but I just CAN'T with Wall Wall.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-19 07:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-19 08:10 am (UTC)Lao Chu: *Obama eyes* "PERISH"
no subject
Date: 2018-09-20 06:31 am (UTC)It defies description. How could anyone think this was either funny or cute? The writers on this show sometimes...
I just found it mindbogglingly annoying.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-19 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-20 06:29 am (UTC)He might get more respectable over time, but he starts out so very low.
(I usually can only get through the scenes with him and Chu by chanting "moronsexual" under my breath. so tedious.)
Wall Wall
Date: 2018-09-20 06:20 pm (UTC)Whereas in the drama he's supposed to be this? cute mascot??
CUTE (???) And he's supposed to be this pure paragon/moral compass/whatever? *looks at Wall Wall sideways*
It doesn't help that the actor looks older than Zhao Yunlan, when he's supposed to be 24 y.o. He might've been a smidge less annoying if he was played by an actual teenager/20 y.o. Maybe.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-20 06:26 am (UTC)Now that I think about it, there are places where I remember him being manipulating, even towards Shen Wei. The scene in the show where he's trying to make him "pay back" and letting him clean his apartment comes to mind immediately.
I will definitely keep looking for this in my book reread (waiting for the rest to be translated).
no subject
Date: 2018-09-20 06:22 pm (UTC)Does it count as manipulation when it's a blatant (and successful) attempt at flirtation? ;-)
ZYL: Take care of these domestic duties for me *bats eyelashes*
SW: *fluffes up pillow happily*