The Snow is Red

Warning! Spoilers!

*Disclaimer*

I am always prepared for unnecessary characters, scenes, cheesy and unnatural dialogue when watching an ATV production. All and I mean ALL ATV productions are like that. So always watch ATV serials with a VCR. At least you have the option of fast-forwarding. I watch all ATV serials with this method, so the presence of such problems no longer irk me when watching an ATV serial. Keep this in mind when I do give a glowing review of an ATV production: I did not suffer through needless and weepy plot developments and dialogue. All the names of my characters are given in Han Yu Pin Yin, because I read in Mandarin, though I can understand Cantonese pretty well. I apologise if you are a Cantonese speaker: I do not know the phonetic symbols that translate spoken Cantonese to the written English form, so bear with me.

I wrote this review to defend "The Snow Is Red". This is not to say, however, that I disagree with the other reviewer. The truth is, I agree with everything this reviewer has said, and it may be better for you to read his/her review first before reading this for the relevant background information on the serial. I must also say that I only watched the last 32 of 40 episodes, so I totally missed the "forbidden love" between Nie Meiniang and the monk.

Plot Synopsis: (As I understand from later episodes that made references to this part of the saga)

Nie Meiniang fell in love with a monk from Shaolin temple, and they had a daughter, Nie Xiaofeng. This relationship was doomed to fail right from the start: beyond the fact that the guy was a monk, Nie Meiniang was a member of the Evil Sect. This monk caused Nie Meiniang to die, and she died in front of the daughter, who was but 12 years old. The members of the other orthodox sects wanted to kill Nie Xiaofeng as well, but Luo Xuan persuaded them to spare her, and brought her to live with him. He promised that he'd teach her right from wrong and to steer her away from her destiny, and to kill her himself if he failed to prevent her from causing harm to the pugilistic fraternity.

(I started watching the series from here)

Xiaofeng grew up and fell in love with Luo Xuan, who had become her teacher by then. He liked her too, but was careful to keep his distance because of social taboo. One fateful night, he made the biggest mistake of his life: he spent the night with Xiaofeng. Ashamed of himself, he rejected her completely, despite her numerous pleadings. He even took their twin daughters and told his disciple to take them away. This, of course, is totally unforgivable behaviour, and overnight, the strong love Xiaofeng had for Luo Xuan became strong hatred. To cut the long story short, he was poisoned and he decided to hide in a hidden cavern, with a map which he passed to his disciple, Tianxiang. Tianxiang was to search for one who was worthy and give the map to this person. With the map, this worthy person would be able to find Luo Xuan, who would then be able to pass martial arts which could beat Xiao Feng. Tianxiang was blinded by Nie Xiaofeng, and thus lost one of the daughters accidentally.

16 years passed. Tianxiang was still traveling with one of the daughters, Xuanshuang, and they were still searching for the other twin daughter. The search attempt was not as ridiculous as it sounded: a word from their names was tattooed on their arms, and Xuanshuang had the word "Xuan" tattooed on hers. Xuanshuang traveled around with Tianxiang, who had become her god father by then.

Xiaofeng had rebuilt the Evil Sect, and had 3 female disciples. Of interest to us is the 3rd disciple, Jiangxue, who was the most beautiful, intelligent, and powerful of the 3 disciples. Ironically, she was also the most compassionate, and disliked the cruelty and the lack of respect for human life that was demonstrated by Xiaofeng, and the Evil Sect. As fate would have it, she also had a tattoo on her arm: the word "Jiang" from her name Jiangxue. Apparently, a series of fortunate events led a missing daughter to end up as the favourite disciple of the mother. However, at this stage, neither was aware of their true relationship to each other.

Fang Zhaonan was working as the ancient form of United Parcel Service. More accurately, he was the disciple of a man, whose business was to deliver goods safely from one place to another. An unfortunate love triangle developed between him and the twin daughters: Jiangxue loved him, and saved his life many times, but he only loved Xuanshuang, who loved him too. Xuanshuang was very jealous of Jiangxue because Jiangxue sacrificed so much for Fang Zhaonan, and was afraid that one day, Zhaonan may be touched by everything Jiangxue had done and stopped loving her. However, this jealousy turned into a painful dilemma when she found out that Jiangxue was her sister.

Xiaofeng’s ambitious plans soon threw the pugilistic fraternity into chaos, and all the heroes in the orthodox sects had to come together to stop her.

Character Analysis:

Jiangxue (Kristy Yeung):

Kristy Yeung was a rather new actress then; I believe this was the first period serial she starred in. She was pretty raw, and it showed. However, her portrayal of Jiangxue was believable, even if she didn’t quite manage to capture the playful, intelligent essence that defines Jiangxue’s character. Her wide-eye innocence and beauty makes the audiences pity her even more, especially when she sacrifices herself numerous times for Fang Zhaonan and the good of the pugilistic fraternity. Considering that she starred in this series so early in her career, I don’t think I’m wrong to say that the series also limited her future filming roles. To my memory, all the characters that she plays on TV or movie are kind, gentle, compassionate, and self-sacrificial (her characters Zhenzhen from “My Date with a Vampire I & II” and Charity from “The Storm-riders” come to mind).

Jiangxue is an interesting character. From Jiangxue’s earlier behaviour, I suspect that the inspiration for this character comes from Huang Rong (Legend of the Condor Heroes). From the things Jiangxue said and did, it’s obvious that she was supposed to be a highly intelligent and fun-loving character. What’s unlike Huang Rong, however, is that Jiangxue’s not spoiled, and is self-sacrificial, whereas Huang Rong can be quite selfish. Another common point between these 2 characters is that they both fell in love with men far beneath them in terms of skill, and intelligence. While Kristy Yeung couldn’t portray that fun-loving bit properly, she got the self-sacrificing character out in spades. At the end of the day, Kristy Yeung makes the audience love her, which is good of course. :)

While other characters were pretty much clueless as to their real relationships with each other, Jiangxue finds out pretty early in the serial that she is the long-lost daughter of her shifu, and that Xuanshuang is her twin sister. She’s burdened by the knowledge, but tells nobody else. Knowing that her mother has ambitious plans that would destroy the stability of the pugilistic fraternity, not to mention cause the deaths of many heroes, she takes it upon herself to thwart her shifu’s plans. Now, this is a very dangerous move, as one does not disobey Nie Xiaofeng without dire consequences. Jiangxue can gain no advantage from all her actions, because for all the risks that she takes, she’s always under suspicion by the rest of the pugilistic fraternity as she belongs to the Evil Sect. This character is the only character in the story to see both sides in all the conflicts between the Evil Sect and the other orthodox sects.

Amongst her shifu’s 3 disciples, she is the most intelligent and hence, she is her shifu’s most favourite disciple. This causes the 1st and 2nd disciples to be very jealous of her, for Jiangxue is seldom punished even when Jiangxue fails Nie Xiaofeng. Jiangxue’s martial arts abilities are the highest amongst the 3 disciples, and it’s a wonder to see her take down her enemies for her moves are well-choreographed and are very elegant. Her choice of weapon, a jade flute, ups the cool factor even more.

Jiangxue likes Fang Zhaonan, but I’ll never understand why, so I can only say that love is blind, though Fang Zhaonan doesn’t look so bad. Hmmm…... okay then, love is character-blind. She saves his life many times, and even lost her virginity to him, but no, he loves another. :P That said, perhaps her love for Zhaonan was her incentive to stop Nie Xiaofeng whenever she could.

Kristy Yeung did try to portray the complex emotions that Jiangxue has for all the characters around her, especially for her shifu. On one hand, her shifu is her mother, and did bring up Jiangxue. Jiangxue knows that she is the favourite disciple of her shifu, and she’s grateful for all the love and concern that her shifu has given her in all these years. Nie Xiaofeng was the mother that she never had. However, Jiangxue knew that her mother’s ambitions knew no bounds and her cruelty and her ease in killing people was something Jiangxue could never accept. For Fang Zhaonan, her love for him was unconditional, even if he broke her heart many, many times. For Xuanshuang, Jiangxue is torn over the fact that Xuanshuang is her love-rival, but at the same time, Xuangshuang is her twin sister. Knowing that Zhaonan’s true love is Xuanshuang, she tries to bring them together and even counseled Xuanshuang when she quarreled with Zhaonan. Basically, this character is totally unflawed.

Fang Zhaonan (Andrew Yuen)

Fang Zhaonan starts off as a man with low skill and low intelligence. Through luck, and only luck, he is given opportunities to learn great martial arts and help the pugilistic fraternity. Needless to say, he becomes a hero, respected by all at the end of the serial, but he only wishes to spend the rest of his days in quiet bliss with Xuanshuang. Zhaonan reminds me of Guo Jing (Huang Rong’s love interest in ‘Legend of the Condor Heroes’), but with a huge difference: Guo Jing loves Huang Rong, but Fang Zhaonan doesn’t love Jiangxue. That was the real ‘minus’ point in the serial, and I believe that this is the reason why the audience cannot like this character. Huang Rong did many things for Guo Jing, but at least her love was reciprocated. For all that Jiangxue has done for him, Zhaonan shows his gratitude in words, but nothing in action. No TV viewer has the heart to blame Jiangxue for her stupidity in liking Zhaonan; similarly, no TV viewer can stop scolding Zhaonan for not choosing Jiangxue, who is obviously the better choice amongst the twins.

Andrew Yuen’s acting here is pretty wooden. I’m not sure if it’s because the character Zhaonan is really stupid, or that Andrew still needed more work in his acting skills. I don’t remember Andrew in any recent work, so I can’t say for sure if he’s improved or not.

Chen Xuanshuang (Alice Chan)

Xuanshuang is … well… an unnecessary character. It’d be equally intriguing even if Nie Xiaofeng only lost a daughter, and not a pair of twin daughters. Her only role in the serial is to pout and throw tantrums when she suspects that her “Brother Fang” likes Jiangxue, when we know that every time she’s accusing him of thinking of Jiangxue, he’s actually breaking Jiangxue’s heart, one way or another. There’s only so much whining one can take before one tires of this character. And I was tired of this character really early in the serial. My wish was that the writers could find some way to kill of this character so that Jiangxue could finally get the man that she wanted. Sigh. Of course that didn’t happen. She kept her man anyway, despite of all the whining and everything.

Another thing that’s interesting about Xuanshuang is her hatred for Nie Xiaofeng. I suppose that’s not surprising considering the fact that Nie Xiaofeng did kill her godfather. What’s interesting is her hesitation to kill Nie Xiaofeng in the Blood Caves. It is totally out of her character to pity Nie Xiaofeng, for never before in the serial has she ever thought about how much Nie Xiaofeng has suffered before choosing her current path. And suddenly WHAM! She pities her for being spurned by Luo Xuan. After this sudden insight and compassion, she resumes hating Nie Xiaofeng when they get out of the caves. Talk about fickle emotions. :P

Xuanshuang develops sisterly love, and guilt to Jiangxue, after finding out that Jiangxue has a tattoo on her arm. No longer is Jiangxue “the other woman who wants Brother Fang”, and “the demonic woman from the evil cult”, but a twin sister who has sacrificed so much but has remained unappreciated and misunderstood in the pugilistic fraternity. Xuanshuang is more likeable here, once she stops verbally attacking Jiangxue. Too bad she only finds out the truth really late in the serial.

Nie Xiaofeng (Mimi Kung)

After Jiangxue, this is the next most interesting character in the film (note, not most likeable). Unlike most stories when the bad guy did all the evil things because they wanted more power, this bad gal didn’t start out like this. Sure she had to endure the trauma of watching her father cause the death of her mother, and living with some complete stranger who promised to kill her personally if she ever stepped out of line. Despite all that, she managed to grow up into a pretty lady whose only wish was for the man that she loved to love her back. This man, Luo Xuan, the so-called honourable hero in the pugilistic fraternity, spent the night with her, and had her imprisoned. He even took away their daughters so they wouldn’t be under her “evil” influence. And they wondered why Nie Xiaofeng was so disillusioned about men, and her hatred for the pugilistic fraternity, who considered such a man ‘honourable’. Oh well. Now, I personally liked Mimi’s interpretation and portrayal of this character. She looked a little young, but her emotions and facial expressions were genuine enough. I couldn’t have asked for a better Nie Xiaofeng.

Also, her relationship with Jiangxue is fascinating to watch. Chinese serials like the idea that all women have maternal instincts and have a ‘natural’ affinity with their children, even if they don’t know that those people in question are their children. Nie Xiaofeng does not know that Jiangxue is really her daughter, but she favours Jiangxue and treats her better than her other two disciples. And she doesn’t even make secret her favourtism. Jiangxue would have died very early in the serial for the numerous failures if Nie Xiaofeng didn’t like her as much as she did. One thing I like about the plot is that even with this ‘strange’ affinity, Nie Xiaofeng acts totally in character when she perceives Jiangxue’s wavering loyalty to her: she did not condone/forgive Jiangxue’s actions, but neither did she punish Jiangxue too harshly when Jiangxue failed her. Her actions were exactly what you may expect of a person whose head and heart were tugged in 2 separate directions. Examples are 1) she did not save Jiangxue when Jiangxue was seriously injured because Jiangxue failed her, but she welcomed Jiangxue back to her fold warmly when Jiangxue recovered. 2) she repeated asked Jiangxue to reconsider leaving Mingyu and destroyed her martial arts when Jiangxue steadfastly decided to leave, but returned her martial arts to her when Jiangxue (under very dire conditions) returned to Mingyu. Jiangxue’s response to her shifu’s rather extreme behaviour was also expected: she never told her shifu that she was her shifu’s long-lost daughter, but she was reluctant to hurt her shifu unless it was absolutely necessary.

Nie Xiaofeng knows that Xuanshuang is her daughter rather early in the serial, and does protect her as best she can, without jeopardizing her ambitious plans of course. She treats Xuanshuang pretty well actually, considering that while Jiangxue secretly works against her, Xuanshuang actively thwarts her plans and sides with her enemies. I feel that her “friendly” interactions with both Jiangxue and Xuanshuang showed a softer side of Nie Xiaofeng and endeared her to the audience somewhat.

Her tragic love story, or rather her ‘lack of love’ story with Luo Xuan was interesting. Due to her unfortunate experience with Luo Xuan, she perceives herself to be a victim and is therefore justified to have taken the path that she takes. At the end of the story, you pity her more that you hate her. I would rather Jiangxue had treated her more kindly, after defeating her; instead of simply staring at her and walked away.

Luo Xuan (David Chiang)

He is partly responsible for the disaster that befell the pugilistic fraternity, for his actions were the catalyst that led Xiaofeng to the ‘dark side’. That’s not to say though, that he was wrong in choosing to reject Nie Xiaofeng. He was an honourable man, and he felt that his relationship with a disciple was a dishonourable act. Especially since this disciple was the descendant of an evil woman. The fact that he liked her was totally irrelevant. We may not agree with his mentality of course, but we have to admire his determination in upholding what he believed to be right. However, he made the grave mistake in taking her daughters away. This was unforgivable in my opinion. For that, he deserved all the suffering he had to go through, and more. David Chiang performs well here, and when he appears, he steals the thunders off his younger co-stars.

This serial is a pretty good series, weak dialogue nonetheless. The fighting scenes are well-choreographed, and the story’s premise is promising. The script, however, suffers from the introduction of too many useless characters, and these characters drag the pace of the story down. However, the series IS worth a watch. If you are looking for a period drama that does not have hard-to-understand ancient Chinese and tons of poetry type of dialogue, or if you are a Kristy Yang fan, watch this.