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Thread: Why are good Martial Arts TV series LACKING now?

  1. #1
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    Default Why are good Martial Arts TV series LACKING now?

    Almost everything I watched last year (Non-Jin Yong stuff) are half-assed Wuxia stuff.

    By that, I mean, the fights are SO bare.

    At best, a nice fight scene every other episode.

    At worst, no quality fight scenes for more than 10-20 episodes.

    Jin Yong stuff, you can't compare, those are like good Wuxia almost EVERY episode.

    What am I missing.

    China, serious, STEP THE F**K UP!!!

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    seriously*

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    because the 2020-2021 trending is romance scene, male-female or male-male relationship
    Best Wuxia author of all time : master Jin Yong

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    China is going the wrong direction.

    Wuxia, Kung Fu RULES!!!

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    That's the sad thingy. Chinese movies n drama was known for good action scenes and choreography.

    Now even high budget movies fight scenes r bad compared to Hollywood or power rangers.

    Chinese drama need good choreography and real martial artist like Donnie yen yuen woping etc to be in charge of choreography.

    That's u I liked Kung fu cult with jet li and Chang mo kei, real martial artist portraying jin yong adaption and make the fight look legit even with all the chi blast etc.

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    Also I believe it's also bc of insurance and the actors.

    Fans complain of actors don't do own stunts etc. But these are high bill actors actress n they have multiple filming endorsement etc to shoot after each project. So just editing quick pace shots etc if faster and cheaper

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    I feel you OT. It's probably because of the restrictions due to pandemic that some film productions were postponed?

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    Quote Originally Posted by a_tumiwa View Post
    because the 2020-2021 trending is romance scene, male-female or male-male relationship
    yes yes agree

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    Sad!

    Any good Wuxia shows airing??

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    we dont have much choice , its why i watched Word of Honor, the story is good, just skip the BL scene

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    Actually, for wuxia, the best we've got so far is Word of Honor (sadly)
    But for fighting scenes only, I recommend Luoyang 风起洛阳.
    The action is limited as this is a detective based drama. Notable fight scenes:
    1) Market Fight
    2) Failed Gao Assassination
    3) Ship Showdown
    I think this 3 scenes alone beats all 2020~2021 ancient china tv dramas as obviously
    the choreographer knows what he is doing.
    4) Well Chase (A good choreographed chase scene, stunts much like Jackie Chan lvl, no fights though)
    Last edited by wusiaobo; 02-01-22 at 08:25 AM.
    Birds belong to the sky like fishes to water; Dont set them free, they are never meant be.

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    This summarizes the lack of effort of today's Wuxia fighting scenes:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWcpm1P75pw

    Not sure if can share this though...
    Birds belong to the sky like fishes to water; Dont set them free, they are never meant be.

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    My loose key opinion. It is hard get word mouth hype. Writers subcon rely old materials instead of taking risk subvert expectation. Fans are attach to safe and spoiler unload remake of jinyong. It seem if you can't beat it, then cave in. Also, wuxia is kind of dated without much modernize hot take. Even if you love jy and prefer it subpar or below avg remakes due to old hype, nostalgia, and comfort to compare. People have to admit, once you seen the plot twist of say sunflower manual or ultimate final confrontation of any action scenes. All the surprises are gone. The charm isn't there. Writers and fans alike should take some risk in their watching habit and genre preferences. It's whole typecast thing apply to all. Once someone or something is out of control successful they need refer to it or straight up remake it and continue doing same boring thinf because it is safe profitable without thinking about future long term effects. Maybe wuxia genre need new original writers , but if you solely watch predom wuxia, then branch out other contents to find new unexpected charm. It could be netflix or other countries work.

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    Why are good Martial Arts TV series LACKING now?
    Martial arts. Or at least, proper martial arts choreography of those you got from the 90s wuxia shows. Now you seem to get is that slow-motion Matrix BS. Yeah I get that freezing a fighting scene just before a sword is close to stabbing someone in the face and panning the camera all around it before slow-motioning it amazes the Normie audience, but this has been way overdone now.

    Having said that I did enjoy LOCH2017 and HSDS2019. Maybe ROCH2022 might go back to some of the old wuxia root elements of the 90s and early 2000s but I highly doubt it. The fact that they went back to using the word "Return" as opposed to "Romance" (in the awful 2014 one) in the title is a good sign.

    Quote Originally Posted by a_tumiwa
    romance scene ...... male-male relationship
    This is why I've pretty given up on modern Wuxia these days. Never would I have thought that the Yaoi/BL horse s**t from Anime /Manga would spread to Chinese Wuxia.

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    Quote Originally Posted by FalconPunch190 View Post
    This is why I've pretty given up on modern Wuxia these days. Never would I have thought that the Yaoi/BL horse s**t from Anime /Manga would spread to Chinese Wuxia.
    The issue is not that simple to just blame on Anime/Manga.
    Wuxia's essence boils down mainly "快意恩仇“。However in the recent social climate, writing about such will only be painted as "toxic masculinity". Modern writers seems to lean towards not angering the SJWs that they tune the extent of bloodshed to the minimal. As such what we are seeing now are Mary Sue protagonist, Lame 5 cent choreography. Female leads that do abnormal stuff in that era. Male leads that keep emphasing feelings and willingly become male slaves. Feeling, feelings, feelings! This is all to appease social media and appeal to female audience. Yes, there is a huge market for BLs and Korean beauty boys. China is the top manufacturing country. Do you think they will forgo such a market?

    We see past Wuxia films scoring high points, i.e more than 7pts on Douban but they are very well planned out productions. Now with low budget channels such as Netflix and all, everyone can be a superstar. The quality will definitely drop. Producers today rather put out 10 titles with 0~5pts to earn quick cash than to create a show worth high pts. It is just not worth it.
    Birds belong to the sky like fishes to water; Dont set them free, they are never meant be.

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    Judging by current situation and current popular dramas, most drama watchers prefer Xianxia/Fantasy or Historical love stories now that's why Wuxia is in decline

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    It's also bc agencies don't want these stars to get injured since they have a lot of other endorsement shows etc to fill so they don't want them to do dangerous stuff n injure themselves.

    That's y it's so easier to make xian xia dramas since the actors just stand there on wire n shoot out chi blasts etc

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    Quote Originally Posted by wusiaobo View Post
    The issue is not that simple to just blame on Anime/Manga.
    Anime/Manga are one of the sectors to blame for it, as the BL/Yaoi thing originated from this medium. The BL/Yaoi genre was founded by a female artist in Japan.

    I believe that this sector have massively influenced and spread the cancer into other mediums which we are now seeing in K-Pop male boybands and "Wuxia".

    Not only that, but in modern Anime, we are seeing more and more of these Yaoi undertones of male characters (the handsome ones of course, for example Bishounens) for no reason at all. It's outright pandering to the female audience without consideration of the male audience who were once the main customers and the target audience of the Anime and Manga.

    Wuxia's essence boils down mainly "快意恩仇“。
    Which is supposed to be of martial arts, honour, chivalry, fantasy (of martial arts, supernatural stuff, etc), coolness, dedicated love between a man and a woman, etc.

    It was never and should not be a parade of handsome pretty boys and male-on-male relationships.

    And then there's also the infuriating double standards meaning that there's no female equivalent of the above for the male audience, because if there was, it would upset most of the female audience and they would whine and complain about it.

    However in the recent social climate, writing about such will only be painted as "toxic masculinity". Modern writers seems to lean towards not angering the SJWs that they tune the extent of bloodshed to the minimal. As such what we are seeing now are Mary Sue protagonist, Lame 5 cent choreography. Female leads that do abnormal stuff in that era. Male leads that keep emphasing feelings and willingly become male slaves. Feeling, feelings, feelings!
    I am aware of this. This cancer has also affected video games as well. In fact, is affected virtually all of entertainment media around the world, especially in the West.

    Freedom of expression and creativity are no longer allowed.

    Unfortunately the Overton Window has shifted so much towards the SJW side that Normies are now seeing these gender roles as the norm. Tired of it all tbh.

    This is all to appease social media and appeal to female audience. Yes, there is a huge market for BLs and Korean beauty boys. China is the top manufacturing country. Do you think they will forgo such a market?
    I don't expect them to forgo such a market. But it would be good if they stopped injecting BL and "beauty boys" into existing mediums that originally were not about those; instead just separating it into some spin-off show or material, and stop classing it as "Wuxia".

    What would also make it slightly less infuriating and perhaps "acceptable" is if they implemented the same concept as above but for the other way round, such as having Yuri/GL and loads of "sexy/hot women" for the male audience. At least then there will be some equality and the balance would be somewhat evened out. We all know they would NEVER do this because of SJWs, and the existing female audience would complain about it.

    There is a market for "beautiful/hot women" in entertainment medium, because straight guys have been denied this for over a decade in movies, video games, TV shows and even board games. There's this new upcoming video game called Stellar Blade / Project Eve which features a beautiful female protagonist and everyone apart from the prudes and SJWs have been raving about it.

    [QUOTE]We see past Wuxia films scoring high points, i.e more than 7pts on Douban but they are very well planned out productions.[QUOTE]

    Which are rated by the older generation guys. The modern crowd, especially the females, wouldn't touch the old/past Wuxia shows with a bargepole. The male lead actors are not handsome enough for them.

    One example of this is this lady I know at work. She's in her 20s. A few years ago she watched SOD2013 because she liked Wallace Hao. After she finished the series, she said that she liked the show, and I recommended that she watch the TVB 1996 version. She looked up the show, saw Jackie Lui and said "nah".
    "If you have ever ogled at a handsome man in entertainment medium, you have forfeited your right to complain about women being sexualized and objectified in entertainment medium."

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    God it's really SAD whenever I want to watch a good Chinese Wuxia/martial arts type of series, I find NOTHING to even watch.

    And they give us (well I suppose the Chinese viewers that actually enjoy that kind of crap) the shows like 'Blood of Youth' where all the Wuxia/fighting is half-assed plus a main characters acts like a half-wit moron all the time.

    *SIGH*

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    Claiming Chinese TV has gone "full woke SJW" is the most ludicrous thing I've seen in years. The government censors don't care about toxic masculinity. What they'll ban is things like homoromantic relationships, and pride flags being shown on television. Saying that Chinese television doesn't portray toxic masculinity anymore (which isn't true btw) and that this is some sort of assault on freedom of speech is deeply ludicrous and offensive when LGBTQ+ content for example is what's ACTUALLY being censored. I'm done with this forum, been nice knowing you lot. Bye.

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