The Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber

Heavenly Sword Dragon Sabre (HSDS) is the third of China’s latest Jin Yong adaptations, following hot on the heels of the excellent Legend of the Condor Heroes (LOCH), and as such expectations are naturally high. Given the favourable reviews on the Smiling Proud Wanderer 2002, HSDS always had a very tough act to follow, and it managed to deliver in spades.

I believe most people here already know the story of HSDS, and as such I’ll skip the synopsis bit and move straight on to the review proper. I had just finished LOCH 2003 (in a week), and immediately started on HSDS 2003. LOCH has always been my favourite Jin Yong story, and as such HSDS was always going to be an anticlimax. When I started the show it moved slowly (unlike LOCH, HSDS spends a fair amount of time focusing on the parents of the hero before the inevitable tragedy), and I watched it quite half-heartedly, thinking all the time that it wasn’t going to be as good as LOCH. I was so wrong.

We’ll start off with the first thing you see when you watch – the song. For those of us who have listened to LOCH’s ‘Tien di dou chai wo sing zhong’ 42 times over the course of the 42 VCDs, that’s always going to be THE Wuxia song. HSDS’s song didn’t have that ‘whoa’ factor when I first watched it, but by the time I got to VCD 15 or so, I found myself enjoying it more and more. It’s more of a love song, about how a man in love is willing to surrender to the woman who has captured his heart, and it’s brilliant. Not quite what you’d expect from a Wuxia series (even though they DID managed to fit in the words “Yi Tien Tu Long” into the song), but it works very well. My only complaint is that they chose some rather weird scenes for the theme, giving some small side actors some screen time and leaving out other more major characters. They also screened scenes in this little telescope view, cutting out the four corners of the scene, and it can be hard to see what’s on the screen sometimes. The ending song is also filmed in the same way, with a lot of screen area wasted, but at least it moved much more slowly and you could easily see what and who was being shown. The ending song is even more lovey-dovey than the opening song, and speaks about a woman who loves a man will not allow him to have another woman in his heart. HSDS lacks a song with impact like LOCH’s opening, but the two songs are very beautiful once you hear them a few times and get used to the rhythm – it also helps if you understand the words.

Spoilers

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The early stages of the series were a little bit slow – but perhaps I was still fresh off the LOCH series, and suddenly being in an unfamiliar environment made me enjoy the beginning less. I also tried very hard not to like Zhang Chui Shan and Yen Su Su, because I knew they would die early. However, Su Su slowly won me over. She had that Athena Chu cute, lovable quality about her. Chui San, played by Su Yiu Peng, was slightly less convincing. He looked out of place among the Wudang Seven Heroes as he looked significantly younger. This is understandable, since the rest all spend most of the show in their older years, but Su really didn’t look like one of them – especially with his baby face. He looked much more convincing as Wuji.

The story picks up after Wuji’s parents die, and he goes to butterfly valley, and it really starts to get addictive once Wuji meets Chu Er and they end up going to Kuang Ming Peak with the Ermei sect. From then on (about VCD 13) I was hooked all the way to the end (VCD 40). As expected from a China production, HSDS provided a LOT of extras, lots of soldiers and lovely scenery. They went a bit over the top with special effects in certain places (especially in Shaolin at the end), but at least they weren’t done to death like in some TVB serials. It was a nice touch when Zhou Zhiruo and Song Chingshu used the Nine Yin Skeletal Claw and Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms – the style, hand movements and effects are taken directly from LOCH, which lends some sense of continuity to the story. Sadly, the silly bits remain - Zhiruo’s claw is like Mei Chaofeng’s, with (very) big claws appearing on screen chasing a small opponent. The good bits also remain – the dancing movements which made Mei look so graceful when fighting were copied quite well by Zhiruo, minus that irritating bone-crackling sound when she moves her hands. When Chingshu used the dragon palms, nostalgia came in and I started thinking of Li Yapeng. Great stuff!

The main strength of HSDS, in my opinion, was the casting. LOCH relied very much on Li Yapeng and Zhou Xun to carry the show. While much of the supporting cast like Zhou Jie, Shui Ling and Yang Li Peng were memorable, the (in my opinion) average performances of the Dong Xie, Xi Du, Nan Di and Bei Kai sort of let me down a bit. In HSDS, it’s hard to fault any of the major supporting cast, and as such the entire package was immensely enjoyable. Overall I still prefer LOCH, but HSDS now has a special place in my heart.

Character reviews

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Unlike my LOCH review, I will not assign a score to each character as all of them are done well, and any faults are probably just nitpicking.

Zhang Wuji/Zhang Chui Shan

I had watched Su Yiu Peng in the Princess Pearl series before, and I enjoyed his performance. I had reservations about him playing Wuji, and I felt he might be too short and his face might be too round (playing Ching Dynasty men does tend to exaggerate your head shape) and so on, but he rose to the occasion well. As Zhang Chui Shan he looked a bit too young, but as Wuji he had all those naïve, innocent, yet righteous qualities which we all know Wuji has. He also handles the emotional scenes really well, and can look devastated without actually overdoing it. Then occasionally he becomes a little bit cheeky with Zhao Min and those scenes are really really special. A great choice, and his chemistry with all his female leads – Yen Su Su, and later Chu Er, then Zhou Zhiruo, Xiao Chao and finally Zhao Min was impressive. That exasperated, helpless look is one that Su does very well, and that’s a look which he used a lot to great effect. He also speaks very well – his conversation with Zhao Min in the boat at Snake Island made me laugh, and it wasn’t a particularly funny line, but it was just the way he said it – “Siao hai cher ma!” (trans “I was only a kid then”)

Yen Su Su

She really grew on me. Her introduction looked a bit silly, surfing on that paper eagle, but as you get to know her character more and more, you will like her more and more. She’s lovable, resourceful, and could very well have done a brilliant job as Zhao Min. She’s also very beautiful, and when her eyes light up, I can imagine why Zhang Chui Shan can fall for her completely. One thing about HSDS is that I’m amazed where they can find so many lovely and talented women to play all these parts, even small cameos (although I guess with a population in excess of a billion, beautiful girls in China are probably quite easy to find).

Zhao Min

Beautiful, sweet, lovable, cheeky, lively – Zhao Ming starts off rather unpleasant, as she goes about making trouble for the Ming sect and kills some poor Ermei students having lunch. In the early stages she’s not likeable at all, and I was sad that they cast a beautiful, classy drop-dead gorgeous girl as Zhou Zhiruo and cast this mean tomboy as Zhao Min, but then it was all in the plot. When Zhao Min finally gets down to business after Wuji becomes the Ming leader, she starts to become very lovable. When she stops dressing like a man, she suddenly transforms into a very beautiful elegant girl with a very sweet smile. Her charming expressions and speech will be sure to make you smile. She can speak a bit cartoonish sometimes (I could swear I heard that ‘Eeeeyeeeeer’ she says in the boat with Wuji off the shores of Snake Island in a cartoon somewhere before). When she stops being funny, and gets serious, she also commands a lot of respect, and that heart-moving, tearful shelling she gives Wuji when she runs away from home to be with him and gets nothing but pain and suspicion in return was very very heart-breaking (and of course, Wuji reacts the way any warm-blooded man would have done by hugging her tightly). Her role also provides a lot of comic relief, and her chemistry with Su Yiu Peng is pretty good – I found myself smiling, and sometimes even laughing out loud (that bit where she gets worried about Wuji entering the house to check if something is wrong and not coming out after a while, runs in after him, charges the door, and does a commando tumble only to interrupt Wuji having a meeting with his Ming members was priceless). Zhao Min was a really really wonderful woman, and she would have to be, to be able to beat the lovely Zhou Zhiruo

Zhou Zhiruo

Zhou Zhiruo steals the show the moment she appears on screen in a non-combat scene. Wuji is lying on a rack, and Chu Er gets into a fight with Ting Minchin. Wuji looks up, and sees Zhiruo watching the fight, and she glances at him. She stole my heart with that glance, and it’s no wonder Wuji couldn’t take his eyes off her. Zhiruo is very soft, gentle, vulnerable and sophisticated in the early part of the series, and I genuinely felt very sad that she wouldn’t end up with Wuji (and having watched the Lawrence Ng version in 2000, I was worried for her that she might end up insane – the thought of her going insane was a heartbreaking one). If only Wuji managed to rescue her from that pagoda on his first attempt (and he came so close) the story would be different, but then again it wouldn’t be HSDS. When she does turn to the dark side, she does so with a reluctance which no other Zhou Zhiruo had ever shown on screen – Theresa Chow, Sharon Teng, Kathy Chow and Charmaine Sheh all just turned evil, and you don’t know what happened at Snake Island. In this version there’s no mystery - you see her commit he crime, and her anguish and despair as she is doing it makes you really want to rush into the screen, hug her and tell her to forget that stupid old sifu and be strong. The scenes where Zhiruo is supposed to emotionally blackmail Wuji made me hate her in previous series (especially Charmaine’s evil eye look) but in this show you genuinely feel that she’s trying very hard to not turn evil, and is begging Wuji to provide an anchor for her to hold onto. Even when she becomes the powerful Ermei leader, and manipulates Song Chingshu, her gentle nature is hard to suppress (she looked completely shocked and devastated when Chingshu kills Ting, who had just betrayed her), and it is only at Shaolin when she starts to genuinely look evil. Then finally, when everything falls apart, and she thinks back on what she’s done, and cries on her sect sister’s shoulder, you can really feel that burden being lifted – an absolutely brilliant performance by Gao Yuan Yuan. The happy thing is that this Zhiruo probably had the best ending of all the Zhiruos, and she returns to Ermei as leader with her head held high, her dignity recovered, and her friends forgiving her. She has that Kathy Chow pout, and the sad eyes of Lei Kar Yan, and is really beautiful, serene and haunting. Throughout the entire show, you find it hard to dislike her even at her most vicious – I keep seeing her as a very unfortunate victim of circumstance, and as she herself put it - “If only Zhang Shanfeng hadn’t sent me to Ermei, and let me stay in Wudang as his disciple, things would have been so different”. I agree.

Yang Siao

Zhang Tielin played the Emperor Qianlong in the Princess Pearl series, and I always found him to be a commanding presence. He had a lot of charisma, and I was happy they chose him to play Yang Siao. He looked a bit funny when young, when he was courting Zhi Xiaohu, mainly because he had no facial hair and I couldn’t get used to seeing him that way. When he gets older, he looks totally powerful and imposing, and looks every bit the Kuang Ming Left Herald. The scene when Cheng Kun breaks into Kuang Ming Peak and ambushes everybody really made Yang look like a real hero, and the sort of person you would love to have as a right hand man. His chemistry with his daughter Pu Hui and with Xiao Hu was also done really well. There’s this scene at Wan An Temple where Wuji tries to rescue Zhiruo the first time, Wuji gets ready to fight, and Yang comes up behind him silently to protect Zhiruo (who they had already got on their side of the battlefield), and Wuji glances back and sees him advance – you could really feel the reliability and reassurance from that commanding presence backing you up. Of course, they failed to save Zhiruo, but for a while you didn’t think that anybody could possibly get to Zhiruo with Yang guarding her.

Xie Shin

Xie Shin didn’t provide a bad performance either, although I had always kept the image of Shek Kin as my stereotype Xie Shin. Even Chun Kong and Lau Dan, both great actors, failed to provide that ‘Lion’ feel for me. However, Xu (?) Kuang, a veteran actor of many brash wuxia characters (his performance as the ‘tattooed monk’ Lu Zhi Shen in the cinema show ‘All Men Are Brothers’ comes to mind), does manage to create a violent, aggressive, fierce and yet principled image. In the early 80s Chun Kong’s eyes were too sparkly, and when he did eventually go blind his body frame seemed a little bit too small. Lau Dan in the early 90s was better, but he wasn’t quite violent enough. The one from Lawrence Ng’s 2000 version tried very hard, and TVB tried very hard to promote him by giving him important roles like Xie Shin and Huang Yaoshe in LOCH, but he just doesn’t have that impact (obviously so, since I don’t even know his name). Xu comes the closest to Shek Kin’s performance in the 70s. I pity Xu, though, for unlike the others who went through the series with either their eyes closed or covered by prosthetic scars, Xu went through the series pretending to be blind by rolling his eyeballs upwards. That cannot possibly be comfortable for even short periods of time, and it shows how professional Xu is in his acting. My previous experiences with him were mainly cinema productions, including some hilarious soft-porn comedies, but he did really well as Xie Shin, and handled the complex character with a lot of emotion. That rolled-up eyeball act stifled his facial expressions a little (it’s hard to do much with your face when trying to keep your eyeballs rolled up) but by and large it was a class act.

Xiao Chao

Xiao Chao was very cute. Her makeup while she was pretending to be ugly and hunched with twisted lip and lame etc in Kuang Ming Peak scarred her badly but she still looked pretty. When the disguise is removed, however, she’s absolutely charming. They chose very appropriate hairstyles and costumes for her (that twin ponytail hairdo is so very cute), and apart from that final Persian outfit when she becomes the Ming sect leader, she looks girlish, vibrant, happy, charming, while all the time very sophisticated and resourceful. That Persian outfit tended to make her face look VERY round. Her character starts off rather shy, being stuck in the secret passage with Wuji, but then she opens up after Wuji becomes Ming sect leader, and her chemistry with Su is good. That bit where she faints when her mother is being burned really just highlighted how soft she really was. I started to really really like her by the time they reach Snake Island, but it was sad, because by then you know she’ll be gone soon. It was very sad that she couldn’t even give Wuji a farewell kiss, and she looks absolutely broken in that scene. A beautiful performance, superior to Idy Chan and Maggie Siu’s performances, which is saying a lot. This Xiao Chao had more energy, charm and beauty, and she also looked very young, which made the role very convincing.

Chu Er

Chu Er is probably Wuji’s first real friend as an adult, and is his first love interest. She’s a little bit moody, but warms up to Wuji quite quickly. She’s unique among the other Chu Ers in that she didn’t actually kill Zhu Jiuchen, but rather got framed for the murder. For a while you get really comfortable with her as Wuji’s girlfriend, and they have some really nice scenes together (the bit where Wuji loses his appetite when she practices her “Thousand Spider Ten Thousand Venom Hands” while he is eating was actually quite funny). She’s strong, very protective of Wuji, and his only friend. However, once Zhiruo appears, she immediately moves into the background – Chu Er was very pretty, but Zhiruo was just out of this world. She then gets abducted by Wei Yi Siao, and he lets her go and she meets up with Golden Flower Granny and the next time you see her in Snake Island she’s changed a lot. She becomes a lot more gentle (especially with Xie Shin) and she becomes very helpless. She spends most of her time in Snake Island wounded, and finally gets hacked down. When she reappears at the end her performance becomes much better, and she becomes the confident strong Chu Er again. The weird thing is despite all her scars at the end, she somehow comes across as even more beautiful. I think it was the hairdo and the costume.

Cheng Kun

The main villain behind the series, this has got to be the best Cheng Kun I have ever seen. Kong Ngai in the 70s had “I am evil” written all over his face, and it was amazing anybody actually trusted him. Until today, nobody I’ve seen could even come close to his evil chuckle. Lau Kong in the 80s was more reserved, and was my favourite up to now. Lau wasn’t bad (although he did lose his cool a bit too much to be the calm evil villain), but Zhang Guo Li threw in a lot of extra effort. Lau Kar Fai in the 2000 version was terrible. A great actor, but maybe I had seen Lau in too many comedies and it was so hard to picture him as the ruthless, scheming, evil monk. Zhang has this very casual air about him, and a very disarming manner around him. He looks absolutely harmless, but when he decides to reveal his true nature, he can really make you hate him. He has these smiling eyes, and he’s extremely pleasant to everybody, and it’s almost like he’s too good to be true, and hence very fake, which is exactly how I would expect a slimy scheming chap to be. It’s almost tragic that such a talent could be foiled by a lucky brat like Zhang Wuji, who just happened to be in the right places at the right time. He doesn’t even look villainous, but given the context of the character, it is a good thing – the perfect villain.

Other characters

It’s hard to find fault with other characters – the barbarian warpaint on the Xuan Ming Two Elders gave them a really frightening look, and it was scary that until the end, nobody could really confidently beat them (even Zhiruo in her evil mode looked completely helpless) and it seemed that when they did get beaten by Wuji it was more due to them not being prepared rather than being inferior. Zhang Shanfeng’s gentle, caring, philosophical nature is well-captured, and I personally love that it was he, not Wuji, who foiled Chingshu’s attempt to poison Wudang. For once Wuji doesn’t get all the glory. Ermei’s Mie Zhue Se Tai wasn’t even close to Shang Guan Yee’s performance in the 70s – she will always be Mie Zhue, nobody can screech and glare like Shang Guan Yee could – but was quite well done. They showed her softer side, and how much she cared for her students, but it’s hard to like her since she ruined Zhiruo’s life. The Shaolin abbot Hong Wen looked very monk-like, with a very gentle disposition, although while leading the attack on Kuang Ming Peak he did seem a bit ruthless. The other sect leaders all looked fairly convincing – the battle at Kuang Ming Peak where they lost to Wuji was quite well done, and showed very diverse styles of kungfu from each sect. The three monks guarding Xie Shin’s cell didn’t use whips this time, but mainly used a lot of qi bolts fired from their fingers.

With regard to the Ming sect, the Eagle King had a very regal and dignified screen presence, similar to Lum Theen of the 80s, while the Bat King was small-sized, which seems realistic for his great qinggong. Dragon King didn’t have much screen time, although she did look exotic, but when she was Golden Flower Granny she looked downright scary, and really had that menacing presence – scarier than Wu Mei Yee in the 80s, but not quite as scary as Sze Ming in the 70s. Fan Yao and the Five Separate Men were all cast well – although my impression of the Cold Faced Lang Him was slightly different. I always imagined him to be more of a scholarly-looking man, rather than the barbaric-looking thug he was portrayed as. Fan Yao could also have been more charming, since he was one of the two most good-looking men in the martial arts world prior to disfigurement, but these are minor problems. Pu Hui put on a great performance, and her transformation from a perky young girl to a matured confidante of Zhang Wuji was seamless. Yen Ye Huang looked a bit young, but he captured the agony of his relationship with his daughter quite well. Chang Yu Chun looked a bit more gentle and learned than the stereotype Chang Yu Chun normally was, but in the context of the story it probably didn’t matter, since they didn’t throw in Zhu Yuan Zhang’s mutiny at the end. Wuji just passes the Will of Wu Mu to Chang to pass to Zhu, and leaves happily with Zhao Min, so there’s not much room for Zhu’s treachery and scheming to manifest, and hence no need for Chang’s simple-minded approach to appear either. Zhu has a few scenes, and does look rather crafty, but he does not do anything bad against Wuji and Zhao Min at all.

On the other characters, Song Chingshu did a brilliant job in portraying the useless, helpless, lovesick, addicted and pathetic man who would do anything to get Zhiruo (and given the class of Zhiruo, who can blame him?). I really disliked him, and he was complete putty in Zhiruo’s hands. He dies saving his father from Zhiruo, and it’s good that he finally gets some respect. The Wudang Seven Heroes are okay, although almost no screen time is given to Yu Er Zhou and Zhang Chongchi – the two minor roles. Yen Li Ting and Song Yuenchiao are the two who appear the most, and they’re both well-done – Song also played Wang Chu Yi in LOCH (at least he looked like the same man). The treacherous Zhu Jiuzhen was very beautiful, and I actually felt sorry for her when she died – she was betrayed by her lover, and you wonder that if she did manage to escape whether she would have been forgiven by Wuji and eventually become one of his real girlfriends. It’s almost like she did what she did for the love of her cousin and father, and if she was single and unattached when she met Wuji she might even have liked him. She really did care for and love her cousin, and her gentleness when she really meant it showed that she was probably not inherently evil. The Mongols looked quite good as well. Yu Yang Huang, Zhao Min’s father, sported the Mongolian hairstyle which the Mongols in LOCH had, making him look authentic Mongol.

Conclusion

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In conclusion, I rate this series a 5-star – even higher than LOCH. It’s a must see, although I would recommend watching it before LOCH – purely because LOCH has more of a classic feel to it. HSDS has a better cast, but somehow lacks the great plot which LOCH has – no fault of the production crew or actors, though. It’s professionally done, enjoyable (especially once we get to Wuji grown up), and is a must see. Small minor errors irritate (like in the Ming secret passage, there was one scene in which you could see crewmen shadows flitting across the top left of the screen, and when Song Yuenchiao carries Song Chingshu’s body and leaves Shaolin, Chingshu’s body is bent backwards horribly, and it’s obvious it’s either a dummy, or Zhiruo broke his back with her attack), but by and large it was wonderful. I have come to a new respect for some of the actors in the show, and Zhang Wuji, Zhao Min, Zhou Zhiruo and Xie Shin alone would have made the show worth watching. As it is, don’t miss it!