Do I Dazzle You?
Jan. 19th, 2009 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alianoraTwo things about this post!
1) We're still all about Asia, here!
2) I watch too much weird tv and movies for you to trust my taste in ANYTHING.
that said!
Last night, I watched a movie called Butterfly Lovers, starring the lovely Wu Zun..actually, that was the whole reason I downloaded the movie. I knew it had Wu Zun in it.
This is Wu Zun. DO YOU BLAME ME FOR DOWNLOADING IT FOR HIM?
So. To review.
This is Wu Zun:
THIS is Wu Zun WITH A SWORD:
Anyway, now that we are all on the same page, let's go under a cut and discuss Wu Zun and why he should never leave home without a sword and a gaping shirt EVER AGAIN.
Also starring: The least convincing girl pretending to be a boy EVER!
Now, a brief warning: aside from knowing Wu Zun was in it, i knew not a darn thing about this movie. Im telling you now, so you dont make the same mistake I did - get halfway through a cute, silly love story and then get completely blindsided by the tears caused by Wu Zun being hot and angsty and CRYING with a sword, as well as by the fact this is a Chinese take on Romeo and Juliet.
That said, the first MINUTE has a very lovely lady being awoken and told, "time to be a boy!" so she hops right out of bed, binds up her boobs, and says goodbye to her family, who are sending her off to some martial arts training clan in the mountains that she can only attend if she's male.
Hilariously, and probably greatly enhancing my enjoyment of this film, that's ALL they do to prepare her. They dont teach her how to act like a guy, they dont tell her to talk like a guy, NOTHING. So, she skips gleefully off through the town in boy clothes and NO ONE, throughout the entire half of the movie she is a boy, comments on the fact that she is a girl. I guess her outfit is JUST THAT POWERFUL, because this? Is the least convincing boy in the history of cross dressing girls.
His Hotness with Ms So Not a Boy.
Maki is cute as Mizuki, Ella is cute with tragic hair as Rui Xi - but they can almost sort of pull it off, if you squint, because they're GIRLS. Ella is fairly genderbendy all on her own, and Maki was just..cute. They can sort of be mistaken as prepubescent boys. If you squint and have bad eyesight.
This lovely, however, is a WOMAN. She has curves, and they are fairly obvious. She is very feminine, and that doesn't change.
And that's what makes it awesome.
TWICE through the cross dressing parts does she even attempt to speak in a lower voice. At one point, she is teaching the martial arts boys how to mend their own clothes, and they compliment her technique and how different it is from their mothers - at which point, she pipes up with, "well, I'm a man."
AND THAT'S IT. There is no gender confusion from ANYONE, everyone accepts that she's a boy, and no one even blinks at her femininity OR her curves or the fact she can't lift anything heavier then her own petite head. No one even mocks her for her fetish for high pitched squealing and chasing after butterflies!
It cracks me up, and makes the whole thing a lot more enjoyable for me.
Now, little Miss is all dressed up in boy clothes and skipping through town and greeting people cheerfully..all of whom smack "kick me" signs on her back. and then they all suddenly ATTACK because, i guess, they all pick one pansy to beat up per day? something, i dont know, the signs arent translated, and it isnt explained.
and there is Wu Zun. With a sword and kicking ass to save her girly self...who is screaming like a girl at the top of her lungs.
WE'RE STILL IN THE FIRST TWO MINUTES, PEOPLE. THERE IS NO BAD IN STARTING A MOVIE OFF THIS WAY!
Naturally, we find out he is the "Big Bro" of the martial arts clan, and after dumping her in a lake and cheerfully telling his friends to strip her, they bond.
What follows is a cute, completely implausible love story between a hot guy and a girl pretending to be a boy, and they go out drinking and she drinks him (and two chicks with weapons who are TOTALLY trying to poach her man) under the table, he attempts to teach her to fight (she got put in the children's class) and then has to JUDGE whether she can stay based on her fighting skills, she draws butterflies on his sword blade, and he rather confusedly tells the herbalist (who, incidentally, is the only one who actually knows her gender) that sometimes he thinks this guy is a girl.
the herbalist tells him to go look at flowers and figure it out himself. I laugh. alot. especially when she finds him crouching next to a bunch of flowers, concentrating hard on them.
so! she passes her fighting test (but not really by fighting), the herbalist tells her he's invented these cool new pills that will make it seem like he is dead for three days, but he'll wake up with the help of this grass (HI FORESHADOWING, HOW ARE YOU?) and maybe she should go pick some? Sure! She chirps, and bounces off to fall down a hill.
Wu Zun swoops in, sees her lying there, figures she must be injured on her chest, so pops her shirt open, registers BOOBS, and closes it superfast. the way he does it is completely hilarious, because I totally expect him to look again, just to double check that they are there and they really are boobs!
She wakes up, blushes some, has twisted her ankle, so (whose playing drama bingo at home with us today?) a PIGGYBACK RIDE is in order! and he keeps..glancing back, and she's cuddled up to him, because she knows he knows, based solely on the way he is acting, i guess, and it's lovely, because it's like they are trying to be close to each other but not, and did i mention her ankle is injured and the herbalist is MOSTLY DEAD?
yep, he tends to her ankle. and it's kinda sexy, because he's holding her bare foot in his hands and smoothing ointment on her ankle and you can see how much he is caressing her foot and her leg and trying not to caress all at the same time.
and i love the next parts, where he knows, and she knows he knows, and they're attracted, but she's a boy, and so he's doing all these little things, like he comes in the next day with flowers and puts them in the baskets that hang over her head, but he doesnt even look at her while he's doing it, and it's just lovely. and he builds her this floating cage thing so she can bathe without having to stress about being seen, and he sits there and only peeks once and *flails* it's just pretty and sweet and lovely.
AAAAND then we arrive in angst-ville!
Her parents have sent for her, and they're planning to hitch her to this other guy, who planted evidence to make it look like her dad was a traitor, which he planted so he could marry her. Confused, yet? yeah, me too! anyway, she skips home now that the trouble is all over to find her folks decorating for her wedding, and she's all, 'eh? i cant marry him! he's like my brother, and the guy i CALL my brother is the guy i wanna get all hitched and naked with." Daddy says she'll do as she's told, and she's chained up in her room.
Anyway, Wu Zun comes looking, finds out she's supposed to be getting married, sneaks in to see her, and they hold hands through tiny slits in her windows and they come up with a plan! she'll pretend to say yes, and go an pray, (Hi, Shakespeare? I got an idea for your next play!) and then sneak out to meet him.
She sneaks, he gets ambushed AND STABBED AND SHOT FULL OF ARROWS OMG, but that's actually a lot less painful then what is coming.
Dude who she is supposed to marry has locked up her folks and is going to hang them from the tower, and hey! archers ready for Wu Zun! - so, Hotness comes staggering in to find her sitting there, and she just..cuts him down. just..destroys him.
She cuts him down cold, and he staggers out of there, heartbroken and bleeding and with two arrows still embedded in his back.
and she's crying, but it was his heart or his life, so..she made the best choice she could.
But! there is a cunning plan! the herbalist (remember him?) has one of his magic pills with him, which will make it seem like she's dead for three days, etc, blah blah, he'll go and tell Wu Zun!
only, you know how in Romeo and Juliet, the messenger is sent to tell Romeo, but the dumbass isnt home, or the messenger didnt have GPS or something? Yeah, here, the herbalist gets stabbed in the gut and dies. and they bury him without telling the boss, because they dont want to disturb him or something.
She takes the pill as soon as he frees her folks when she gets into the wedding carriage.
Wu Zun has JUST recovered..ish, from his horrible wounds the night before when servant girl comes shrieking up to him announcing butterfly girl is dead.
He figures out she lied, she really did love him, and now she's dead, and he has nothing left to live for, so he knocks three of his friends unconcious and goes to storm the funeral to take her body somewhere she loved.
and then there is this whole AWESOME sword fighting scene IN THE RAIN, and Wu Zun is wet and bloody and crying and armed with a sword and omglove.
we veer sharply from Romeo and Juliet, because when he finally gets to her, he's mortally wounded AND DOESNT CARE, so he hauls her off to the Vale of the Fairies, or somewhere, digs her (THEIR!) grave with his own hands, and puts her in and lays down next to her and dies.
she wakes up as his friends find them and start throwing dirt in, but instead of saying, hey, wait! alive, thanks! SHE LETS THEM BURY HER ALIVE.
AAAAAHHH.
I cried all over my keyboard, i will admit it.
i enjoyed it heartily, even though i know it was a confused version of a Chinese Romeo and Juliet type story, and if I knew the actual story, i might care. but it's cute and sweet and Wu Zun is hot and has a sword and knows how to use it, so really, im pretty damn happy.
even while im crying over my keyboard.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dangermousie has made it very difficult for me to wait to download the new Korean Hanadan with these caps from ep 5. Jun Pyo being protective and tending Jandi's hurts and *swoon* My kink, let me show you it.
The cap with him putting medicine on her knee and then blowing on it almost kills me. JUST THE CAP. I HAVENT EVEN SEEN THE SCENE.
...i was going to talk about something else, but I dont remember what, so Ill leave you with a pic of Wu Zun I found while I was looking for pics of him with a sword. Sometimes he gets hungry on stage? I dont even know.
1) We're still all about Asia, here!
2) I watch too much weird tv and movies for you to trust my taste in ANYTHING.
that said!
Last night, I watched a movie called Butterfly Lovers, starring the lovely Wu Zun..actually, that was the whole reason I downloaded the movie. I knew it had Wu Zun in it.
This is Wu Zun. DO YOU BLAME ME FOR DOWNLOADING IT FOR HIM?
So. To review.
This is Wu Zun:
THIS is Wu Zun WITH A SWORD:
Anyway, now that we are all on the same page, let's go under a cut and discuss Wu Zun and why he should never leave home without a sword and a gaping shirt EVER AGAIN.
Also starring: The least convincing girl pretending to be a boy EVER!
Now, a brief warning: aside from knowing Wu Zun was in it, i knew not a darn thing about this movie. Im telling you now, so you dont make the same mistake I did - get halfway through a cute, silly love story and then get completely blindsided by the tears caused by Wu Zun being hot and angsty and CRYING with a sword, as well as by the fact this is a Chinese take on Romeo and Juliet.
That said, the first MINUTE has a very lovely lady being awoken and told, "time to be a boy!" so she hops right out of bed, binds up her boobs, and says goodbye to her family, who are sending her off to some martial arts training clan in the mountains that she can only attend if she's male.
Hilariously, and probably greatly enhancing my enjoyment of this film, that's ALL they do to prepare her. They dont teach her how to act like a guy, they dont tell her to talk like a guy, NOTHING. So, she skips gleefully off through the town in boy clothes and NO ONE, throughout the entire half of the movie she is a boy, comments on the fact that she is a girl. I guess her outfit is JUST THAT POWERFUL, because this? Is the least convincing boy in the history of cross dressing girls.
His Hotness with Ms So Not a Boy.
Maki is cute as Mizuki, Ella is cute with tragic hair as Rui Xi - but they can almost sort of pull it off, if you squint, because they're GIRLS. Ella is fairly genderbendy all on her own, and Maki was just..cute. They can sort of be mistaken as prepubescent boys. If you squint and have bad eyesight.
This lovely, however, is a WOMAN. She has curves, and they are fairly obvious. She is very feminine, and that doesn't change.
And that's what makes it awesome.
TWICE through the cross dressing parts does she even attempt to speak in a lower voice. At one point, she is teaching the martial arts boys how to mend their own clothes, and they compliment her technique and how different it is from their mothers - at which point, she pipes up with, "well, I'm a man."
AND THAT'S IT. There is no gender confusion from ANYONE, everyone accepts that she's a boy, and no one even blinks at her femininity OR her curves or the fact she can't lift anything heavier then her own petite head. No one even mocks her for her fetish for high pitched squealing and chasing after butterflies!
It cracks me up, and makes the whole thing a lot more enjoyable for me.
Now, little Miss is all dressed up in boy clothes and skipping through town and greeting people cheerfully..all of whom smack "kick me" signs on her back. and then they all suddenly ATTACK because, i guess, they all pick one pansy to beat up per day? something, i dont know, the signs arent translated, and it isnt explained.
and there is Wu Zun. With a sword and kicking ass to save her girly self...who is screaming like a girl at the top of her lungs.
WE'RE STILL IN THE FIRST TWO MINUTES, PEOPLE. THERE IS NO BAD IN STARTING A MOVIE OFF THIS WAY!
Naturally, we find out he is the "Big Bro" of the martial arts clan, and after dumping her in a lake and cheerfully telling his friends to strip her, they bond.
What follows is a cute, completely implausible love story between a hot guy and a girl pretending to be a boy, and they go out drinking and she drinks him (and two chicks with weapons who are TOTALLY trying to poach her man) under the table, he attempts to teach her to fight (she got put in the children's class) and then has to JUDGE whether she can stay based on her fighting skills, she draws butterflies on his sword blade, and he rather confusedly tells the herbalist (who, incidentally, is the only one who actually knows her gender) that sometimes he thinks this guy is a girl.
the herbalist tells him to go look at flowers and figure it out himself. I laugh. alot. especially when she finds him crouching next to a bunch of flowers, concentrating hard on them.
so! she passes her fighting test (but not really by fighting), the herbalist tells her he's invented these cool new pills that will make it seem like he is dead for three days, but he'll wake up with the help of this grass (HI FORESHADOWING, HOW ARE YOU?) and maybe she should go pick some? Sure! She chirps, and bounces off to fall down a hill.
Wu Zun swoops in, sees her lying there, figures she must be injured on her chest, so pops her shirt open, registers BOOBS, and closes it superfast. the way he does it is completely hilarious, because I totally expect him to look again, just to double check that they are there and they really are boobs!
She wakes up, blushes some, has twisted her ankle, so (whose playing drama bingo at home with us today?) a PIGGYBACK RIDE is in order! and he keeps..glancing back, and she's cuddled up to him, because she knows he knows, based solely on the way he is acting, i guess, and it's lovely, because it's like they are trying to be close to each other but not, and did i mention her ankle is injured and the herbalist is MOSTLY DEAD?
yep, he tends to her ankle. and it's kinda sexy, because he's holding her bare foot in his hands and smoothing ointment on her ankle and you can see how much he is caressing her foot and her leg and trying not to caress all at the same time.
and i love the next parts, where he knows, and she knows he knows, and they're attracted, but she's a boy, and so he's doing all these little things, like he comes in the next day with flowers and puts them in the baskets that hang over her head, but he doesnt even look at her while he's doing it, and it's just lovely. and he builds her this floating cage thing so she can bathe without having to stress about being seen, and he sits there and only peeks once and *flails* it's just pretty and sweet and lovely.
AAAAND then we arrive in angst-ville!
Her parents have sent for her, and they're planning to hitch her to this other guy, who planted evidence to make it look like her dad was a traitor, which he planted so he could marry her. Confused, yet? yeah, me too! anyway, she skips home now that the trouble is all over to find her folks decorating for her wedding, and she's all, 'eh? i cant marry him! he's like my brother, and the guy i CALL my brother is the guy i wanna get all hitched and naked with." Daddy says she'll do as she's told, and she's chained up in her room.
Anyway, Wu Zun comes looking, finds out she's supposed to be getting married, sneaks in to see her, and they hold hands through tiny slits in her windows and they come up with a plan! she'll pretend to say yes, and go an pray, (Hi, Shakespeare? I got an idea for your next play!) and then sneak out to meet him.
She sneaks, he gets ambushed AND STABBED AND SHOT FULL OF ARROWS OMG, but that's actually a lot less painful then what is coming.
Dude who she is supposed to marry has locked up her folks and is going to hang them from the tower, and hey! archers ready for Wu Zun! - so, Hotness comes staggering in to find her sitting there, and she just..cuts him down. just..destroys him.
She cuts him down cold, and he staggers out of there, heartbroken and bleeding and with two arrows still embedded in his back.
and she's crying, but it was his heart or his life, so..she made the best choice she could.
But! there is a cunning plan! the herbalist (remember him?) has one of his magic pills with him, which will make it seem like she's dead for three days, etc, blah blah, he'll go and tell Wu Zun!
only, you know how in Romeo and Juliet, the messenger is sent to tell Romeo, but the dumbass isnt home, or the messenger didnt have GPS or something? Yeah, here, the herbalist gets stabbed in the gut and dies. and they bury him without telling the boss, because they dont want to disturb him or something.
She takes the pill as soon as he frees her folks when she gets into the wedding carriage.
Wu Zun has JUST recovered..ish, from his horrible wounds the night before when servant girl comes shrieking up to him announcing butterfly girl is dead.
He figures out she lied, she really did love him, and now she's dead, and he has nothing left to live for, so he knocks three of his friends unconcious and goes to storm the funeral to take her body somewhere she loved.
and then there is this whole AWESOME sword fighting scene IN THE RAIN, and Wu Zun is wet and bloody and crying and armed with a sword and omglove.
we veer sharply from Romeo and Juliet, because when he finally gets to her, he's mortally wounded AND DOESNT CARE, so he hauls her off to the Vale of the Fairies, or somewhere, digs her (THEIR!) grave with his own hands, and puts her in and lays down next to her and dies.
she wakes up as his friends find them and start throwing dirt in, but instead of saying, hey, wait! alive, thanks! SHE LETS THEM BURY HER ALIVE.
AAAAAHHH.
I cried all over my keyboard, i will admit it.
i enjoyed it heartily, even though i know it was a confused version of a Chinese Romeo and Juliet type story, and if I knew the actual story, i might care. but it's cute and sweet and Wu Zun is hot and has a sword and knows how to use it, so really, im pretty damn happy.
even while im crying over my keyboard.
dangermousie has made it very difficult for me to wait to download the new Korean Hanadan with these caps from ep 5. Jun Pyo being protective and tending Jandi's hurts and *swoon* My kink, let me show you it. The cap with him putting medicine on her knee and then blowing on it almost kills me. JUST THE CAP. I HAVENT EVEN SEEN THE SCENE.
...i was going to talk about something else, but I dont remember what, so Ill leave you with a pic of Wu Zun I found while I was looking for pics of him with a sword. Sometimes he gets hungry on stage? I dont even know.
