The LOCH adaptation debate

[Sparky]

Zhou Jie was...um...inappropriate for the role. Didn't like him in HZGG, hated him in LOCH. He was just REALLY ANNOYING. I mean, he has the "arrogant jerk" look, but he just didn't pull it off. I love your use of sarcasm, Sparky.
I hope Yuan Hong can put on a spectacular performance, and improve the name of Chinese JY Series.

I've noticed your new signature, redfirefly

Yang Kang might've been an antagonist, but he could've at least been more charismatic and good-looking. Someone so power hungry had to have some charisma.

[redfirefly124]

I've noticed your new signature, redfirefly

Hehehe...welll, hopefully it'll bring some more LOCH 03 supporters...we're losing. But not as badly as I expected.

Anyways, about YK, do you think Yuan Hong will be able to pull it off? He certainly has the YK sort of look. I've never seen him act before though...

[ghostdarTeal'c]

Hehehe...welll, hopefully it'll bring some more LOCH 03 supporters...

red, i would really love to cast a vote to help 03, but that'd be biased. as much as i love LOCH03, i havent watched any of the rest of the poll, so that'd be unfair...hehe....

[redfirefly124]

red, i would really love to cast a vote to help 03, but that'd be biased. as much as i love LOCH03, i havent watched any of the rest of the poll, so that'd be unfair...hehe....

That's okay....it'd be unfair anyway, and even if LOCH 03 "won", it would be a...how to phrase this....a "cheated win". Basically it'd be fake. But its great to know there's another person who liked LOCH 03!

[almo89]

LOCH 82 will always be the best in my heart. I saw the 94 version first and thought it was really good. When I saw 82, I got hooked because it was much longer which made room for character development. Chilam wasn't a very good GJ cause he looks too smart. He looked like thos guys that was trying to play dumb. Athena was a good choice for the role at the time, but I still think that Barbara was better. What I loved most about the 82 version was the hand to hand combat. I like the way fights were choreographed back then. No need for crazy CG and camera movements. The wirework was done very creatively because they have to use camera angles that hid the wires which gave a mystic kind of feeling. Nowdays you literally see somebody flying which looks kinda weird. That's why Crouching tiger didn't reach out to me.

[resident:alien]

LOCH 03 for the spankin'...only hitch was Zhou Jie as Yang Kang.

[TiffTiff]

Does anyone have any pix for Shu Ling in LOC '03 version??? I've only seen a few tapes for this one, I think LYP was so ooglie & doesn't act like GJ at all. I don't think he fit for that role, he look mean more than dumb

[redfirefly124]

Sparky, you've ditched your Barabara Yung Huang Rong avatar! *gasp*

TiffTiff: here you go
http://ent.sina.com.cn/d/2002-06-04/86155.html
You can just go to the Wikipedia LOCH page, copy and paste the Chinese characters, paste them into Google, and click on the sina site.

[Sparky]

Sparky, you've ditched your Barabara Yung Huang Rong avatar! *gasp*

I like change. Change is good. I can't go more than one month without changing my avatar. Anyway, Barbara has enough love without me promoting her

TiffTiff, there are lots of pics on Sina as redfirefly said, but to brighten up the thread, some pics of Shui Ling as Mu Nianci...(they're in small size so they're dial-up friendly, if you want to view them in full size go to http://ent.sina.com.cn/d/2002-06-04/86155.html)

$this->handle_bbcode_img_match('http://image2.sina.com.cn/ent//d/2002-06-04/2_28-3-326-348_20020604132431.jpg') $this->handle_bbcode_img_match('http://image2.sina.com.cn/ent//d/2002-06-04/2_28-3-329-348_20020604132436.jpg') $this->handle_bbcode_img_match('http://image2.sina.com.cn/ent//d/2002-06-04/2_28-3-328-348_20020604132441.jpg')
$this->handle_bbcode_img_match('http://image2.sina.com.cn/ent//d/2002-06-04/2_28-3-358-348_20020604132445.jpg') $this->handle_bbcode_img_match('http://image2.sina.com.cn/ent//d/2002-06-04/2_28-3-359-348_20020604132450.jpg') $this->handle_bbcode_img_match('http://image2.sina.com.cn/ent//d/2002-06-04/2_28-3-522-348_20020604132455.jpg')

Now, that was the acting highlight of LOCH '03 in my opinion.

[Ken Cheng]

LOCH '82 was actually quite tastefully restrained in its use of CGI, especially if you compare it to DGSD '81 from a year earlier. If you *really* want to see wretched TVB 1980s CGI excess, however, you've got to check out THE SMILING PROUD WANDERER '84 with Chow Yun Fat. TVB forgot it was making wuxia and thought it was making STAR WARS. It seemed that even third rate characters would shoot lasers out of their noses when they sneezed in SPW '84.

[Ian Liew]

SPW 84 was rather colourful - the amazing thing about TVB is that when it came out I worshipped that serial!!

LOCH wasn't that bad, the only one which comes to mind was the Dragon Subduing Palms. Screen turns black, a HUGE bronze dragon statue appears, and either Felix Wong or Lau Dan dance about in the dragon mouth, then fire off the palms as the bronze statue disappears, then scene returns to normal and all the baddies bar Ouyang Feng fly away. I also remember that Lingzi Lama fellow managed to set a rather colourful laser trap for Guo Jing, and Huang Rong managed to save him by flying through a gauntlet of colourful lasers.. I thought all that was SO cool way back when I was about 12, though, so again, TVB 80s was amazing. It's not what we think of them today, it's how they managed to make us all lap it up during those times.

HSDS 86 also had its fair share of effects although nowhere near as many as SPW 84 .. the QianKunDaLoYi screen-stretching effect was fun. The serial with the most effects, I think, was either Yee Yeung's Buddha's Palm or Austin Wai's Holy Fire Tablets. I adored both serials... =) Yup, LOCH was tame.. very tame!

[0-0-0]

LOCH wasn't that bad, the only one which comes to mind was the Dragon Subduing Palms. Screen turns black, a HUGE bronze dragon statue appears, and either Felix Wong or Lau Dan dance about in the dragon mouth, then fire off the palms as the bronze statue disappears, then scene returns to normal and all the baddies bar Ouyang Feng fly away.

yea, GJ switches clothes everytime he performs XL18Z too

HSDS 86 also had its fair share of effects although nowhere near as many as SPW 84 .. the QianKunDaLoYi screen-stretching effect was fun.

yea, i thought that was a bit dodgy, except then i saw HSDS 03.


As for Shui Ling's acting- it was ok, but i honestly didn't think she was "fantastic" enough to save the series. In fact, i didn't particularly like her Mu Nian Ci- maybe because she didn't look much like what i imagined the character to be.

[Ken Cheng]

For the early 1980s, that was more or less state of the art CGI SFX. Western action shows such as BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, KNIGHT RIDER, and AIRWOLF didn't have much better SFX as far as "energy beams" was concerned.

[Ian Liew]

yea, i thought that was a bit dodgy, except then i saw HSDS 03.

Actually, 03's QKDLY wasn't that bad, kind of a windy whirl of energy and chi. It was the Kongdong 7-Wounding Fist, 9Yin Skeletal Claw and Miejue's duel with Zhang Wuji which was completely over the top. Zhang Cuishan's writing on the cliff was also, surprisingly, rather poorly executed compared to Simon Yam's version in 86.

For the early 1980s, that was more or less state of the art CGI SFX. Western action shows such as BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, KNIGHT RIDER, and AIRWOLF didn't have much better SFX as far as "energy beams" was concerned.

It was pretty good for the 80s, but some of it didn't age well. Battlestar is still quite good, though. I'd LOVE to see somebody write a version of the Battlestar song for any wuxia serial (so much better than the one with Lorne Greene)!!

[almo89]

however, you've got to check out THE SMILING PROUD WANDERER '84 with Chow Yun Fat. TVB forgot it was making wuxia and thought it was making STAR WARS. It seemed that even third rate characters would shoot lasers out of their noses when they sneezed in SPW '84.

LOL that was fricking halarious!

[Ken Cheng]

The serial with the most effects, I think, was either Yee Yeung's Buddha's Palm or Austin Wai's Holy Fire Tablets. I adored both serials... =) Yup, LOCH was tame.. very tame!

Oh, TVB went bats*it INSANE with SFX on those two series...made SPW '84 look like LOCH '82 by comparison. I think the series' director actually told the board of directors, "Let's throw every CGI SFX that money can buy in there and make a series around that! Who cares if there's no story that people will remember or care about years later? We'll just 'wow' them with SFX!"

No, not *everything* was golden for TVB in the 1980s; some of it was rainbow-colored.

[Ken Cheng]

yea, GJ switches clothes everytime he performs XL18Z too

That I could understand as TVB needing to save cash on the SFX, but some continuity errors regarding clothing were truly bizarre. In LOCH '82, there were several scenes of Gwok Jing and Wong Yung running through a forest together. Oddly enough, they wore different clothes when they came out of the forest than when they went into it.

Did Gwok Jing and Wong Yung stop and change clothes in the middle of running through a forest?

Even worse was this one occassion when they visited Seung Yeung and there were these Sung soldiers; five minutes later, Gwok Jing and Wong Yung went to the Mongol base camp and those Sung soldiers had become *Mongol* soldiers (no, they weren't spies).

[Ian Liew]

Hehe... remember those Pac Man ghost CGIs the bad guys used? The Red Lightning and Yellow Flower CGIs used by the zither and drum evils? The Fishy CGI used by Tam Bing Man?The stars CGI used by the Ancient Tomb? The Bagua CGIs by Emei, snake CGI by the Snake clan and the Skull CGI from the skull clan? At least Holy Fire Tablet tried to give each martial art its unique CGI.. but the PacMan ghosts were so.... cute... and they were supposed to be the most powerful.

Buddha's Palm was even cuter.. each palm had it's own CGI, so we have Yee Yeung shooting a blue fireball, then some yellow stars at Chu Titwoh. Chu then fires a CGI snake at Yee, and Yee reciprocates with this ... blue heart-monitor bar kind of zigzag, and Chu fires more snakes (poor bad guy only had one martial art and hence only one CGI). Yee then fires the pink fireballs and Chu gets beaten. Then at the end Yee goes all mad and fires these Buddhas all over the place and beats up Leung San and Law Lan. All great stuff.

The greatest thing was, not being contented with unique CGIs for each move, TVB went one step further and added a unique sound for each CGI in both serials. You could tell who was winning sometimes by which sound was louder.. I wish I could get these two on VCD now.. probably laugh my head off, but the memories are rather good.

Back on topic, (sorry, got carried away with childhood memories) with LOCH, I remember being awed by Mei Chaofeng's first appearance when she kills that Mongol peasant.. suddenly he flashes and his skeleton dances before falling in a heap. Today I can see it was a man in a skeleton bodysuit, but in those days it was WOW...

[Ken Cheng]

Hehe... remember those Pac Man ghost CGIs the bad guys used? The Red Lightning and Yellow Flower CGIs used by the zither and drum evils? The Fishy CGI used by Tam Bing Man?The stars CGI used by the Ancient Tomb? The Bagua CGIs by Emei, snake CGI by the Snake clan and the Skull CGI from the skull clan? At least Holy Fire Tablet tried to give each martial art its unique CGI.. but the PacMan ghosts were so.... cute... and they were supposed to be the most powerful.

Buddha's Palm was even cuter.. each palm had it's own CGI, so we have Yee Yeung shooting a blue fireball, then some yellow stars at Chu Titwoh. Chu then fires a CGI snake at Yee, and Yee reciprocates with this ... blue heart-monitor bar kind of zigzag, and Chu fires more snakes (poor bad guy only had one martial art and hence only one CGI). Yee then fires the pink fireballs and Chu gets beaten. Then at the end Yee goes all mad and fires these Buddhas all over the place and beats up Leung San and Law Lan. All great stuff.

The greatest thing was, not being contented with unique CGIs for each move, TVB went one step further and added a unique sound for each CGI in both serials. You could tell who was winning sometimes by which sound was louder.. I wish I could get these two on VCD now.. probably laugh my head off, but the memories are rather good.

Both of those series were made before LOCH '82, correct? If so, it might explain why LOCH '82's SFX were so modest by comparison: possibly, TVB's entire annual budget for SFX was blown on those series, which means LOCH '82 and ROCH '83 would have to be made "old school" style (it might also explain the disco lights finale of ROCH '83).

Back on topic, (sorry, got carried away with childhood memories) with LOCH, I remember being awed by Mei Chaofeng's first appearance when she kills that Mongol peasant.. suddenly he flashes and his skeleton dances before falling in a heap. Today I can see it was a man in a skeleton bodysuit, but in those days it was WOW...

It was quite impressive, but it did make Mui Chiu Fung seem *way* more powerful than she was actually supposed to be. Having seen that, I thought that nobody in DGSD could have fought against Mui Chiu Fung (because nobody in DGSD '81 had an SFX so powerful-looking).

[LuNaR]

94 is best cause everytime i think of HR and GR its athena and julian.

I like change. Change is good. I can't go more than one month without changing my avatar. Anyway, Barbara has enough love without me promoting her

TiffTiff, there are lots of pics on Sina as redfirefly said, but to brighten up the thread, some pics of Shui Ling as Mu Nianci...(they're in small size so they're dial-up friendly, if you want to view them in full size go to http://ent.sina.com.cn/d/2002-06-04/86155.html)

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$this->handle_bbcode_img_match('http://image2.sina.com.cn/ent//d/2002-06-04/2_28-3-358-348_20020604132445.jpg') $this->handle_bbcode_img_match('http://image2.sina.com.cn/ent//d/2002-06-04/2_28-3-359-348_20020604132450.jpg') $this->handle_bbcode_img_match('http://image2.sina.com.cn/ent//d/2002-06-04/2_28-3-522-348_20020604132455.jpg')

Now, that was the acting highlight of LOCH '03 in my opinion.

wow thats the new HR? she should be HR in ROCH, but in LOCH... she is so old wow.