GUARDIAN: Episode 1

[adisgracetothescholars]

GUARDIAN: Episode One

Introduction

moggiesandtea: Oh hell, I realized this means I'm going to have to watch this episode again.

Plot

moggiesandtea: Okay, I sat down with my computer and a notebook, then realized that I would have to pause every time I wanted to write things down, because subtitles. Anyway.

Episode 1 opens with the opening credits and a title song that grew on me more than I want to admit. Also, the opening credits are spoilers. I think the editors were less concerned with dramatic tension and more with Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei sharing significant looks.

This is immediately followed by the info dump exposition described in the previous post. The production values are...interesting. Anyway, after a meteor destroys the environment on Haixing, there’s a big war until the Haixingren use the meteor to make what are called the four Holy Talismans, which somehow end the war. Under the terms of the treaty, the Dixingren have to go back underground, and now we jump 10,000 years to the present day.

hollyberries: The weird thing is reading between the lines, the Dixingren ruling faction was actually allied with the other two groups and was a signatory party to the treaty that … exiled his people underground for 10,000 years. That guy did not think it through.

moggiesandtea: Specifically, we jump to Professor Shen Wei of Dragon City University giving a lecture on biological mutation in species. He also can’t work a powerpoint, so he has his student Li Qian run it for him. This is the most realistic part of the show’s portrayal of academia.

(kitsunec4: I had a professor who refused to use anything other than his actual slides on actual, physical slides for his lectures because he made them decades ago and had more tenure than god. You wanted references to study from? Yeah, that’s not happening. What is modernization?)

(hollyberries: Dude science lectures in ppt are the definition of too much information too fast, we used to cry about the Krebs cycle in the twelve minutes it took our prof to explain the steps.)

moggiesandtea: The lecture wraps up, some senior guy called Professor Ouyang tries to headhunt Shen Wei for some project that will become relevant to the plot twenty plus episodes in. For now, Shen Wei turns him down, I think super politely, but then all of him reads as super polite and overly formal to me.

rageprufrock: In general, at least in this episode, Shen Wei is unfailingly, unflinchingly polite. It’s no less than you’d expect from a scholarly member of the bourgeoisie, which Zhao Yunlan eventually gets around to calling Shen Wei to his face. But it also keeps him deliberately and obviously held apart from all the other characters: he’s kind, thoughtful, conspicuously polite -- and nobody knows fucking anything about this guy other than that he’s a snack and somehow has tenure at 32. (At least we think he’s 32.)

(Ed. note: Apparently tenure isn't really a thing in China?)

hollyberries: He says he’s 32, which is a huge lie but probably matches his fake, fake papers.

moggiesandtea: We get our first view of the One Panoramic Shot of Dragon City, this time lit for night. Cut to Guo Changcheng, who is supposed to kind of be our viewpoint character into the weirdness that is the Special Investigation Bureau. He’s very young, very timid, and completely freaked out when this dude on a motorcycle roars up. This is our first view of Zhao Yunlan, and the camera folks clearly had a lot of fun with the slow shot of him taking off his helmet.

rageprufrock: I ALSO HAD A LOT OF FUN WITH THIS SLOW SHOT OF HIM TAKING OFF HIS HELMET. IT WAS AN EXTREMELY GOOD COMBINATION OF TECHNOLOGIES BETWEEN THE PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE SOUND DESIGN AND HIS FACE. A+ EVERYONE.

moggiesandtea: Guo hands over his notice to report for duty, and Zhao just…immediately is in Guo’s personal space? Like? This is not normal? He drapes himself over Guo, walks him into the building, makes Guo unwrap a lollipop for Zhao and then GRABS IT WITH HIS MOUTH while it’s still in Guo’s hand. After explaining that he’s only recently stopped smoking and has to have something in his mouth, Zhao literally throws Guo to his coworkers.

rageprufrock: This is going to begin a series of tribulations called, “Is Zhao Yunlan really going to do this entire 40 episode show with a sucker hanging out of his whore mouth?” and friends, I’m here to report that the answer is, “Yes, except for one time where it’s not in his mouth because he puts it in someone else’s mouth.”

hollyberries: In the book he smokes like a chimney. A small silver lining to the broadcasting bureau’s many restrictions, I guess? (Sidebar: Prof Shen’s actor would steal the lollipops all the time on set. He is the actual worst.)

moggiesandtea: The coworkers, in order of appearance, are:

Zhu Hong, whose lipstick game is always on point and who is a snake-type Yashouren. We know this because she has a snake lower half, done with very bad CGI.

Da Qing, a very young looking man who transforms into a very large black cat. He is apparently a thousand years old and Deputy Chief of the SID. The stand-in real cat just looks resigned to its fate.

Lin Jing, who has blown something up in his lab. He is a scientist, but I’ll let Kit yell about that.

(kitsunec4: I have been summoned? I would argue Lin Jing is just a shitty engineer with delusions of grandeur because for the most part he just seems to be there to try and make stuff that’ll work. Without caring about the how, I’ll have more to scream in later episodes about Shen Wei and the ridiculous science props in this show too.)

Weng Zheng, who reads as a ghost because she has no feet, but is some kind of “energy type” Dixingren. Look, the writers tried.

Anyway, Guo faints. This gives us a chance to cut to a mysterious MURDER!

lazulisong: In the "I want to die of liver failure drinking game" I have in my head, you take a sip every time this kid faints and a shot every time someone is actually nice about it.

moggiesandtea: Cutting back to SID, Guo faints again. Zhao Yunlan makes it clear during one of the fainting spells that Guo is related to an important minister and everyone better be nice to him. The resolution to be nice to Guo lasts all of, like, a second. To be fair, he’s a very trying subordinate.

rageprufrock: We’ve had a lot of discussions about this, and while I’m amused by Guo Changcheng as a character if he was my employee I would have killed him and thrown his body in a river.

moggiesandtea: Zhao Yunlan, Da Qing and Guo go to investigate the weird murder. Zhao drives up on his motorcycle, and I have no idea how Da Qing beats him there in cat form. I also have no idea how Guo gets there, but he does, and does some more fainting. In the course of investigating the scene, Zhao Yunlan ends up dangling him out a second-story window by a rope, and that’s when Shen Wei comes on the scene. Understandably concerned by this young man he thinks is a student dangling out a window, he comes running when the rope breaks and Guo falls. This is how he sees Zhao Yunlan for the first time, as Zhao ducks back from the window like the guilty party he is.

And honestly, a lot of my notes from this point on devolve into yelling about the interactions between Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei. Highlights include:

Shen Wei not wanting to make eye contact with Zhao Yunlan but stealing glances at him every time Zhao looks away.

Shen Wei’s fucking half smile when Shen Wei introduces himself and Zhao Yunlan says “Good name.”

Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan shaking hands and then Shen Wei just. Forgetting to let go.

The way Shen Wei clenches the business card Zhao Yunlan gives him.

THIS IS ONE FUCKING INTERACTION.

hollyberries: I know precisely 2.5 people will care but the naming conventions in this show kills me. Shen Wei’s name is a single last name + single given name form. Shen is a very old, established family name (famous for its scholars) that has its place as 14th in the Song dynasty’s Book of Hundred Names (like a Domesday Book, but written during the Chinese equivalent of the Enlightenment). In archaic Chinese, it means to sink into, or to be obsessed by. His given name, Wei, is initially a homophonic character that is comprised of the characters for mountain and demon. The person who gives him the Wei character he uses now changed it to one meaning ‘vast’, because his previous name ‘lacked the majestic scope he deserved’. (Yes, really.)

Zhao is the first name in the Book of Hundred Names. Yunlan is a two character given name, and means waves of clouds, like the sort you get at the peaks of very high mountains. For reasons that surpass understanding right now, he is also a dude named Kunlun from 10,000 years ago. Kunlun is actually a range of mountains running between Xinjiang and Tibet, lying between the water basins that give rise to two of China’s biggest rivers. Yunlan as a name calls back to the layer of clouds that almost constantly blanket the mountains’ peaks.

rageprufrock: Because I’m a 贱人 (look it up don’t ask your mom kids), I have to interject here that among ye olde time-y euphemisms in Chinese literature for fuckin’ was “the dance of the clouds and rain” so it’s entirely possible that in addition to being a beautiful reference to the origin of his soul, Yunlan as a name is also a dirty sex joke. You’re welcome.

moggiesandtea: Anyway. Zhao Yunlan is suspicious of Li Qian, who witnessed the murder and has been acting super suspicious the entire episode. Shen Wei shows up to rescue his student, Zhao Yunlan has an entire conversation around his goddamn lollipop, and then he sets Guo to tail Li Qian and Shen Wei, because he apparently wants this to fail.

Guo gets distracted by a lost grandmother, who coincidentally is Li Qian’s granny. After taking the granny home, the two are attacked by the shadow Dixingren. Old Chu gets to make a very dramatic appearance and fight the shadow dude with his puppet (and the effects are so very bad).

rageprufrock: This was the part in my first viewing of this series where I paused the TV and said out loud, “Oh -- no,” and promptly texted everyone I knew about how terrible this was. Shockingly this didn’t dissuade anybody from watching it.

kitsunec4: We make bad life choices.

moggiesandtea: Meanwhile, Shen Wei is moping over a personnel file he either already had or managed to get in a very short period of time. Cue flashback, where past Shen Wei has a lollipop shoved in his mouth by someone named Kunlun. Apparently Shen Wei is 10,000 years old, meaning he was around for the big war, and he made a promise to meet with this Kunlun dude, who is now Zhao Yunlan.

Zhao Yunlan proceeds to stalk Li Qian around campus, mostly by lounging on his motorcycle and eating lollipops. I don’t know why no one called the police on his sketchy ass, but Shen Wei sure notices him.

rageprufrock: When Moggies says “lounging,” she literally means, “lounging,” while also endlessly doing oral examinations on an infinite series of lollipops. I’m pretty sure nobody called the cops on him because, as a line from the book says, Zhao Yunlan has “pretty girls and bottoms falling all over themselves” to get to him. Would I be able to operate a mobile telephone to report him as a public disturbance to the law? Yes -- but only to my nethers.

moggiesandtea: Zhao gets called away by Jin Ling, who has found some sort of lead. While the team is off investigating a dark building, mostly so they can wave flashlights around and Guo can get scared for comedic effect, the shadow Dixingren makes his move and tries to attack Li Qian. Shen Wei manages to block shadow dude with his body and get Li Qian to dial Zhao Yunlan while they’re hiding in a closet because Shen Wei doesn’t have a goddamn cell phone. Finally, Shen Wei and Li Qian escape to the roof, Shen Wei contrives to get thrown off said roof right before the team arrives, and then there is ominous thunder, the sky goes black, and the Black Cloak Envoy arrives.

The SID team is freaked out, no one but Zhao Yunlan is willing to look at the Black Cloak Envoy directly, and...look, I’m just going to say Shen Wei, we all know it’s Shen Wei at this point considering how the camera folks ZOOM IN AND LINGER on Zhi Yilong’s eyelashes at every opportunity during this scene.

rageprufrock: This is the stupidest costume on this show until the next stupidest costumes show up, too, by the way. His black cloak is massive, has raised embroidery, and also some sort of gauzy additional wedding train action happening on the back? Then there’s the domino mask. Jesus wept. He honestly looks like a D&D version of 50 Shades of Gray. Any minute now he’s going to talk about how he has unusual tastes and ask if Zhao Yunlan is a magic virgin.

hollyberries: And yet. The entire ensemble is a hot commodity on Taobao. You too can dress like a concussed vampire who’s late to a masque party for the low, low price of 200 yuan and your dignity.

moggiesandtea: My main note on the showdown between shadow dude and Shen Wei is that it’s kind of amazing how Shen Wei manages to be menacing while wearing a ridiculous mask. Anyway. He turns shadow dude to ice and whisks him off to face judgement, because he is apparently the enforcer of the treaty on the Dixingren’s side. Oh, and he hasn’t put in an appearance above ground since Zhao Yunlan became Chief of the SID. I WONDER WHY.

The sky goes back to normal, time unfreezes, and Zhao Yunlan asks Li Qian where Shen Wei is. Because remember, he fell off a building!

Annnnd end credits.


Production Choices

rageprufrock: What pacing.

lazulisong: Dudes what the heck is up with Chinese dramas finishing the arc of an episode like ten minutes before the end of the airing time and immediately starting a new plot? Is it because they're released in batches? I noticed it with Dr Qin and Nirvana in Fire too.

tammaiya: Guardian is particularly egregious, though, because it’s baddy of the week and then they just… end one case somewhere in the middle of an episode and then start a new one, abruptly, apropos of nothing, and end the episode just whenever they hit time. There is apparently no attempt to even TRY to structure episodes or arcs with a logical narrative flow. Also, the special effects are so bad. SO bad. I’m saying this as someone who has cheerfully watched two full series of Kamen Rider.

kitsunec4: The special effects are...special in that there’s clearly no budget for this. It’s very much bad CGI from a cut-rate, budget studio. Clearly the money all went towards hiring Bai Yu and Zhu Yilong to hard carry this entire wreckage of a plot that the scriptwriters are passing off as something coherent.

moggiesandtea: They certainly didn’t spend money on their sole CGI aerial shot of Dragon City.

kitsunec4: Their sole CGI aerial of Dragon City with the same damn flock of birds flying through at any and all hours that they need that establishing shot for. At least costuming appears to have put serious thought into storytelling and effective execution.

lazulisong: I agree, I was thinking about starting a drinking game for this show, and for every time they used that CGI shot, one sip, and every time they used the same shot, but with a night filter, one shot. Then I decided I was still too young to die of liver poisoning.

hollyberries: Bless the costuming department for giving Shen Wei beautifully fitted suits and waistcoats, Zhao Yunlan his host of leather and denim jackets, and above all the numerous couple trenches that appear in this show. (For context, couples clothing is a huge trend in China, and there is no way the two male leads wearing similarly cut pieces of clothing side by side is an accident.)

 

moggiesandtea: The couple trench coats AND ALSO THEIR FACES

hollyberries: The colour scheme of this show tends towards crisp, almost overlit blues and greens; Shen Wei is likely found in every conservative office wear colour commercially available. He is never without at least one stiff white shirt, matching sleeve garters, and ridiculous retro round wire-rim glasses. His clothes are ironed, creased to perfection, and he often adds little touches like collar chains, cufflinks, or silken ascots to complete his look.

Zhao Yunlan’s style can only be described as ‘bad boy cop’. He arrives on a motorcycle, leather jacket and helmet in place. His jeans look painted on, and some of them have strategic (and likely expensively designed) wear and tear.

rageprufrock: Please imagine the above and then a voice of God intoning, “This kills the Pru.”

hollyberries: Even his haircut is telling: Zhao Yunlan sports a boyish short cut with front-swept bangs when he first meets Shen Wei, and by the middle of the drama, when he is widely assumed to have consummated his relationship with Shen Wei, his bangs are parted, in the way that married women in historical China would put up their long hair and part the middle to signal they are wives.

lazulisong: Actually if you're paying attention, not only do they have the Couple Coats (the! First! Mention! Of! That! Coat! Is! Specifically!!! When! Zhao Yunlan!! Asks! Where! A Girl! Bought it!!! So! He can!!! Get! One! For! His! Girlfriend!!!!! --- costume department already realizing they're fucked for budget or deliberate suggestion, YOU BE THE JUDGE) but as the show progresses, Zhao Yunlan wears less leather and more denim and khaki, and Shen Wei gradually stops wearing such formal clothing, even at school, so by the end of the show they're actually at about the same level of formality in dress.

moggiesandtea: As you can imagine, we totally retained our chill throughout this show.

lazulisong: Hahaha. Haha. Ha. Ha.

Final Thoughts:

rageprufrock: I have really complicated feelings about this show, which are inextricably tied to this episode. By every objective measure aside from the two leads, this show is farm league. It feels like a crazed jumble of donated skill sets: the music is amazing, the sets are sometimes okay, the extras are dreadful, the special effects should be tried for war crimes -- but all of this falls so completely by the wayside when you have Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu acting their hearts out as Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan. They do so much with what little they have on the script pages, especially once you consider how much got gutted to align with Chinese censorship laws that cover both the original tenor of the relationship -- explicitly gay, romantic and consummated in the original novel -- as well as the themes -- explicitly religious, mystical and superstitious. I keep finding myself recommending this show to people, but in the context of, “Okay, this is terrible, but,” and even here, I find I conclude on, “Okay, this is terrible, but I love it.”

hollyberries: On a logistical note, Guardian was initially picked up by LeTV in 2016, and was slated for a very large budget. This is why the soundtrack, for example, sounds so well-done: they were completed while the production company still had money. Later in 2016, for reasons completely unrelated to the production itself, LeTV ran out of cash flow. Youku picked the show up as a hail-mary distributor and rushed it through the rest of the filming and post-production at a fraction of its original budget. The heart was there, but the money simply couldn’t follow where it led.

The chemistry between the two lead roles is the single worthiest reason to keep watching, and they never disappoint.

kitsunec4: I watched all forty episodes of this in about a week of delirium, and readers. All the faults which we’ve enumerated above? They only get worse as the storyline proceeds and more of it crashes against censors shaking their heads. Still, count me in the, I still love this stupid show camp. Why else am I forcing myself into a rewatch for these roundtable discussions?

moggiesandtea: All told, it’s not that bad of a first episode? It does what it needs to do in terms of establishing the world and the characters, it actually has a clear beginning, middle, and end, and I quite possibly have been rendered incapable of objectivity by my fondness for the two main characters and the actors who play them.

The special effects are real bad though.

 

Join us here next week for a discussion of Episode 2 and more yelling! Definitely more yelling!