Tribes and Empires 《九州海上牧云记》 - Huang Xuan, Shawn Dou, Xu Lu

[hirobo2]

OK, I have seen up to Ep68 ENG subbed and a little bit beyond of the RAWs.

I've come to a critical junction point to be able to judge the drama from what transpires next.

This critical junction point will determine whether the drama gets an A or B grade OVERALL.


But first, anybody ever seen the movie The Banquet (released in the late 2000's)? Basically the Crown Prince played this dumb-as-f*ck char who only loved music and dancing. This feigned outer appearance threw off a lot of ppl. Meanwhile, he was really plotting these really devious ways to dispose of his enemies, who were all vieing for the throne, his throne.


So, whether T&E will get an A or a B grade from me will depend on this:

Is MYS as dumb-as-f*ck to land himself inside a hanging cage, or was he really scheming to have his enemies killing each other?

A grade: MYS is a brilliant strategist who voluntarily caged himself so as to deal out his trump card.

B grade: MYS really is dumb-as-f*ck to get himself hanging caged in the first place, and he needs someone like the other half-Charmer to come and save his arse.

B- grade: All above from B-grade category, only he suddenly releases his Dark Side and regains the throne by his own force, which mean he's still dumb-as-f*ck to get himself hanging caged in the first place...

[Mido-Ban]

Then show went from a grade to c. Dragged plot lines. Previous post said nirvana in fire was text book palace drama, this series became typical palace drama and nothing good happeneds.

Characters become more naive, gullibel, act childish etc.up to ep 66, like little witch and father released all horses but really they has no one there to watch over the horses also, and they both stood there after instead of running away.

Then really Tie duo really toke out all of those mercenaries all by herself after barely eating resting etc.

Then muru 1st son instead of bring some men's with bows and arrows just charged main base killed some people and left when they had the opportunity to kill 2 of main people easily.

Shuofeng he ye and han prefecture story is weakest plot imo. I rather had more of muyun sheng training or showing mastering skills etc, or muru Han jian and siu ning.

They finally showed scenes of mister mo it's like what's he's been up to past 15 ep. Feel smartest character is muyun de, but he got that whole father complex like other princes wanting acknowledgment. He does remind me of Francis ng. Hopefully he is plotting everything and takes over instead of his father.

[hirobo2]

Previewed the RAW up to Ep74 (ENG sub's only go up to Ep68 as of writing). My opinion on Nirvana in Fire vs T&E hasn't changed since thread inception. Here are my reasons why Nirvana in Fire is WEAK writing.

1. No BOSS battle. If you count some guy standing before the Emperor while some other guy tries to kill him and the guards try to restrain him as a boss battle, then I honestly don't know what to say. Even Three Lives, Three Worlds had a boss battle, and that story was written by a woman...

2. Goal driven storylines show weak intellectual skills. What I mean by this, these types of stories have the main char wanting something. And the entire series revolves around whether the hero gets what he wants or not. This is exemplified by Lord of the Rings --- they want to destroy the One Ring by melting it inside a volcano.

I mean look at any Jin Yong story. Has Jin Yong ever wrote a story where the main hero is after something? And the story is only about whether the hero gets it or not?

As such, T&E storyline is not goal-driven, but circular, or karma driven. What I mean by this is the chars do something (usually bad). What happens next is the result of the author dishing out karma back at the chars. SFHY brought a jinx back into his tribe. He ends up being the jinx. This continues on and on until the last episode where the karma is back at zero again.

3. The good guys replace the bad guys. Well this happens a lot in Jin Yong stories too. But in T&E it is slightly different. At the beginning of most Jin Yong stories, the world is out of balance, but gets restored by the end. At the beginning of T&E, the world is balanced (yes the Murus killed tribal ppl and suppressed them, but they are far less evil than the reverse situation). The world goes out of balance the most at the middle, but gets restored by the end...


Anyways, no way will I end up giving T&E a score less than NiF, becoz to me although NiF is textbook Imperial drama genre, and everybody seems to love it, still leaves behind some very obvious flaws like those mentioned above.

[hirobo2]

A little OT:



The lady of the underground tribe who looked for the Sovereignty Seal and claimed her people had their throne stolen from the Muyuns, I could have sworn, when I first saw her, which was the episode where she tricked MYS into painting a pic of her... she looked like Idy Chan. Whenever I saw her scenes, I couldn't but help overlay Idy Chan over her figure...

[hirobo2]

TROUNCES NIRVANA IN FIRE IN THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES:

The time has come to give T&E an overall assessment.

1. THEY ALL F*CKN WANT TO BECOME KING/EMPRESS (or prophesized to become one) EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM. In NiF, most main chars are satisfied with being nobodies with some rank.

1 T&E
0 NiF

2. FRIGGIN EPIC BOSS BATTLE AT THE END. The next most friggin awesome boss fight was between YG and GWM in RoCH '83.

1 T&E
0 NiF

3. SHOW DON'T TELL. I don't want to hear about how some guy marched alone straight into the enemies' camp and talked them into killing each other. Show me in gory details what really happened. Likewise, I don't want to hear about the Sovereignty Seal/Soarers/Oceanides/Giants, etc. Show me what they really look like.

1 T&E
0 NiF

4. GORGEOUS CGI. OMG, half-way thru NiF keeps replaying that zoomed out village shot with some CGI birds flying across the sky and it looked like it was done by kids.

1 T&E
0 NiF

5. LETS YOU EXPERIENCE IMPERIAL LIFE IN A REALISTIC WAY. This drama shows you what it's like to be General, Emperor's guard, etc. Their social standing, and the conflicting decisions they must make. I took away none of this from Nirvana in Fire. In the Forbidden City, there are these creatures that eat gold and are made emblems of. T&E even has this version as a golden beetle that eats gold nuggets.

1 T&E
0 NiF


T&E does contain a lot of flaws. It's great as a standalone work, but next to Novoland: Eagle Flag, probably won't have 50% of the latter's glory and execution. The flaws:

- Bad editting
- To explicit (sexual/gory)
- Annoying chars (too abundant)
- Could never understand why some women fell for SFHY
- Could never understand Nanku Yue Li's obsession with being Empress
- Too many flashbacks
- Too few high fantasy figures (Soarers/mermaids/giants)
- Some stuff don't make sense (how can anyone survive without Vitamin D [sunlight] for so long?)
- Some Mary Sue type superwoman chars (Helan Tie Duo)
- Cheap-looking CGI in certain parts (black Dragon in MYS's nightmare)
- Wizard's staff looks yucky (it's just a stick with mounted metallic head piece)
- Overused some Imperial cliches (bad Queen/Emperor always gets attacked on a hunting trip, etc.)


Overall rating (my scale)

23.0/10 - A great RoCH adaptation
18.0 - A good RoCH adaptation
18.0 - T&E
18.0 - Ode to Gallantry 2017
17.5 - Nirvana in Fire
16.0 - Fighter of the Destiny
14.0 - Princess Agents
12.0 - Three Lives, Three Worlds TV drama
12.0 - Dragon Nest: Warrior's Dawn movie in 3-D
9.0 - Candle in the Tomb
7.0 - Ice Fantasy

[hirobo2]

OK, I have seen up to Ep68 ENG subbed and a little bit beyond of the RAWs.

I've come to a critical junction point to be able to judge the drama from what transpires next.

This critical junction point will determine whether the drama gets an A or B grade OVERALL.


But first, anybody ever seen the movie The Banquet (released in the late 2000's)? Basically the Crown Prince played this dumb-as-f*ck char who only loved music and dancing. This feigned outer appearance threw off a lot of ppl. Meanwhile, he was really plotting these really devious ways to dispose of his enemies, who were all vieing for the throne, his throne.


So, whether T&E will get an A or a B grade from me will depend on this:

Is MYS as dumb-as-f*ck to land himself inside a hanging cage, or was he really scheming to have his enemies killing each other?

A grade: MYS is a brilliant strategist who voluntarily caged himself so as to deal out his trump card.

B grade: MYS really is dumb-as-f*ck to get himself hanging caged in the first place, and he needs someone like the other half-Charmer to come and save his arse.

B- grade: All above from B-grade category, only he suddenly releases his Dark Side and regains the throne by his own force, which mean he's still dumb-as-f*ck to get himself hanging caged in the first place...

A- grade - He does nothing to the Royal Court but lets the Imperial situation resolve itself (via other chars)

[hirobo2]

Some more BTS vids from DramaFever.

Muru Family:

[hirobo2]

Muyun Family:

[hirobo2]

Huan Xuan transforms into graceful dancer:

http://www.dramapanda.com/2018/01/hu...ul-dancer.html

[hirobo2]

First thoughts on T&E ending:

http://www.dramapanda.com/2018/01/fi...d-empires.html

[hirobo2]

Comment I wrote on MyDramaList:

https://mydramalist.com/17023-tribes...rm-of-prophecy

"10X better cliff-hanger ending than Princess Agents. I don't really care if PA gets a 2nd season. I really want to see a 2nd season of T&E though. I hope they make enough profit from this season to consider another one..."

[hirobo2]

Female article about going on a date with Muyun De:

http://www.dramapanda.com/2018/01/tr...-muyun-de.html

[hirobo2]

Seems to be a movie version of T&E:

[hirobo2]

Seems to be a movie version of T&E:

See? I told u guys, the only reason why T&E filmed in Japan coz they wanted a piece of the Japanese market. With Legend of the Demon Cat being a co-Japanese production starring Huang Xuan, and an Imperial genre movie involving magic, it's the perfect tie-in for T&E!