The Romance of the Condor Heroes 《神雕侠侣》 - Chen Xiao, Michelle Chen

[Lin Xiao Jie]

In summary, this adaptation has its pros and cons. For a modern wuxia drama I would say that it was quite ok. Much better than swordsman purely because of the finishing. At the end, YZ did not ruin the novel. I have to say that Chen Xiao is a talented actor. As for hardcore Jin Yong fans, it's best that you skip this one because there is no way you can compare it to the novel. Reason why I like the novel or any other novel more is because there are always more details in writing which is difficult to express in acting.

As for the haters, hope you grow up and move on

[luna_lucid]

陈晓主演玄幻网游《圣王》微电影-Chen Xiao Holy King Movie

Hi there
Sorry, what is that ? Is that a movie for a video game ?

[krabs]

english subtitle broadcast in Singapore

click to show/hide spoilers

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[hirobo2]

I may have been too harsh earlier. Jin Yong is a lot better than anything the West has ever put out. Jin Yong is way better than Harry Potter, Jin Yong is way better than Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit, Jin Yong is way better than Disney (personally, I think Disney is over-rated). Jin Yong is way better than Marvel. Jin Yong is way better than D.C. comics. Jin Yong is way better than Star Wars.

If we look at cinematography for the last 100 years, I would say the original Wizard of Oz in technicolor, not Star Wars (Star Wars is like bleh rip-offs of samurais in space, esp. Darth Vader's space suit is essentially a mechanized Shogun's armor painted pitch black with incorporated life-support unit), would be the West's greatest work, which pales in comparison to Jin Yong. That is how great Jin Yong is. But...

I'm also reminded of that ranking chart of top wuxia martial artists in the other sub-forum. Jin Yong is like Yang Guo pre-16 years separation. He is good. He is a literary genius. But there are levels of literary ingenuity. To get at the ultimate levels in the likes of DFBB or Elder Feng, we must look to Japanese arts/literature. I was literally blown away when I saw works in the likes of Akumu-Chan and thought, now this is the cherry on top of the icing.

Japan makes good fiction and Japan makes really bad ones in the form of most if not ALL mainstream animes (Kenshin, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Gundam, Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2, Stein's Gate, Garden of Sinners, Pokemon, etc). They're all time wasters --- each anime episode driven by marketing hype to sell action figures/other merchandise. So, when Japan makes the really good stuff like live action movies and TV dramas with strokes of brilliance *brighter* than Jin Yong's most appraised work, and I find them, it's like... I'm in Heaven chatting with DFBB/Elder Feng's astral forms!

Oh, and btw, I personally think Jin Yong >>> Shakespeare.

[Razorclaw]

english subtitle broadcast in Singapore

click to show/hide spoilers

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LOL! Good one!

[krabs]

LOL! Good one!

and a new challenger appears !

click to show/hide spoilers

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[hirobo2]

I finally found a decent non-YT source to watch. Not exactly HD, since it's quite rare currently (YT 1080p doesn't count as HD, YT vids simply suck). Anyways, it's not half as bad as I originally thought. It's a good thing too b/c I only watched a few episodes of this on YT.

Lots of people complained about this series mostly b/c YT made the videos suck. You see Nintendo recently showed a trailer for their upcoming game StarFox Zero on YT and received a lot of flak --- people complaining about the graphics. They then released the same trailer in 60fps and it looked 10x better. Nothing changed, just more frame rate. YT can make or break a series b/c of its awful video quality.

People who gave ROCH 2014 a "C" b/c they watched it all streamed, it would have easily been a B/B+ if they had watched it from another source, which is why I'm highly against YT where a drama series is concerned. Most of you guys give ROCH 1983 a "solid A" only b/c the only version you ever saw was on VHS/VCD which is at least 10X better than YT.


All the stuff I complained about in Swordsman, which was digital effects making people look like aliens rather than human beings, it looks like they improved upon their techniques in ROCH 2014 so the people look less jarring, but not in those YT videos.

Viann Zhang isn't my type, but she actually looks quite pretty when I saw her in her non-YT form. And I would not have said the same of Joe Chen had I streamed all 50-ish episodes of Swordsman from YT.

(Btw, there are versions of ROCH 2014 that you can download if you Bing hard enough. But those are just offline rips of the YT videos. Hardly worth the trouble...)

Lastly, YZ made an enemy out of me after YT showed me the horrendous things he'd done to ROCH that I no longer wanted to watch his next work HSDS adaptation. No longer, it was all YT's fault. I actually want to see more of his work in the near future as the result of seeing a better quality version of ROCH 2014. This is the reason why I'm so adamantly against people posting things on YT other than trailers and fan-made videos. Stop what you're doing. You could potentially destroy a series for people who don't know better than to source it from YT...

[wuxiarocks]

@hirobo2

When people complain about these series, majority of their complaints came from the story, acting, pacing, and such. Not the quality of encodes.

I myself enjoyed Romance from the very beginning since it aired. All my old post here is proof of that. And yes, I watched them from YT.

[hirobo2]

@hirobo2

When people complain about these series, majority of their complaints came from the story, acting, pacing, and such. Not the quality of encodes.

I myself enjoyed Romance from the very beginning since it aired. All my old post here is proof of that. And yes, I watched them from YT.

What was the last favorite movie you watched? Have you tried watching it in 320x200 pixels (to simulate the YT video quality)? Would that movie still have been your favorite if that was your first experience watching it?

[wuxiarocks]

What was the last favorite movie you watched? Have you tried watching it in 320x200 pixels (to simulate the YT video quality)? Would that movie still have been your favorite if that was your first experience watching it?

My point is, video quality don't have much to do with people hate on certain series. More so this one.

To answer you, yes the first time I saw state of divinity 96, shanghai bund, Chinese paladin 3, and many other series they were in poor quality. But I still enjoyed them. And when I went back to watch them later in those quality I still enjoy them.

Would I ask for better quality? Of course. But options are not always available.

[charbydis]

What was the last favorite movie you watched? Have you tried watching it in 320x200 pixels (to simulate the YT video quality)? Would that movie still have been your favorite if that was your first experience watching it?

I liked "Zu Warriors From Magic Mountain" which is older than me and has horrible screen effects. But the plot, acting, and casts were great. I think the visual beauty of a series enhances one's enjoyment, but if it doesn't pass the other criteria, even a beautiful series can still be excruciating to watch.

[krabs]

I don't really care about small deficiency of image quality on youtube, it's accessible for the masses and that counts when promoting it to new viewers.


I screenshot daily episodes and dumped it at the china fan forum. English subtitles.
http://tieba.baidu.com/p/3714613758?pn=3
5 more episodes to go.

[goodrick]

I thought this series was good. I didn't quite like Michelle Chen's portrayal of Xiaolongnu. Chen Xiao was good.

[hirobo2]

I'm still quite disappointed the series could have been so much more. Could you imagine if ROCH 2014 had the same kind of SFX as this music video, that would have been to die for:

[Linda]

I finally got around to finishing this series, having dropped it when it was airing because it was causing high blood pressure from all the BS going on.

I am going to go against the grain here and say I don't like Chen Xiao's portrayal of Yang Guo, even less then Michelle's portrayal of XLN.

I've only ever saw him in Swordsman, just to check out what he was like without the horrid hair, was not impress with him in either series. I was OK with Michelle because I was already expecting her to be unfit for the role but Chen's YG was so highly praised by so many I was expecting a lot more. He lacked the general aura of the character even after the 16 year jump and he really didn't capture one of my favourite scene of YG so I am a little peeved at him.

To date I think Andy Lau, for all the weak acting and diversion of plot line, was still the best portrayal to the original source. And this is from someone who did not even like the 80's version.

I find this 2014 version has more similarities to the 80's version than the source material.

With all the CGI they put in they couldn't even do the XLN vs 5 masters battle right, I thought he said he was going to do this scene properly?!

But then he also said he'll leave her in all white...

[krabs]

With all the CGI they put in they couldn't even do the XLN vs 5 masters battle right, I thought he said he was going to do this scene properly?!
.

Fight scenes were removed by their country' censorship board. The tv stations trim down the broadcast to suit their timing for more episodes or commercial time.
Not director's fault.

Uncut version was available for their official streaming partners but the source was axed after 27th episode for bypassing their censor authority.
The fans in China are still waiting for the 28-54 uncut episodes.
Every week there are new users claiming to have the uncut version, phishing for others to contact them for download source.
I have no idea why they do that, because I'm not aware that spreading .mp4 can somehow spread virus or keylogger.
To date, none of them can produce a screenshot or clip of the uncut scene after ep27.

[Linda]

Fight scenes were removed by their country' censorship board. The tv stations trim down the broadcast to suit their timing for more episodes or commercial time.
Not director's fault.

Uncut version was available for their official streaming partners but the source was axed after 27th episode for bypassing their censor authority.
The fans in China are still waiting for the 28-54 uncut episodes.
Every week there are new users claiming to have the uncut version, phishing for others to contact them for download source.
I have no idea why they do that, because I'm not aware that spreading .mp4 can somehow spread virus or keylogger.
To date, none of them can produce a screenshot or clip of the uncut scene after ep27.

That's a pity. From what they left in it was very unassuming, hopefully one day they would release the uncut version. I loved this fight in the book, pretty much the only time XLN was doing something just for fun.

[krabs]

The main leads got caught leaving hotel rooms by paparazzi and openly acknowledged their relationship.

Not sure how accurate is the news, I'm not gonna spend effort to verify it.

[Linda]

It was confirmed by both sides. 2nd pair of ROCH to get together.

[lenje]

It was confirmed by both sides. 2nd pair of ROCH to get together.

Who's the first one?