Nirvana in Fire || Hu Ge, Wang Kai, Liu Tao || Historical Fiction
★★★★★
Thirteen years after the annihilation of the Chiyan army led by Generals Nie and Lin, and thirteen years after every member of the Lin household is executed for treason, a ghost has come to avenge their wrongful deaths. Master Mei of the Jiangzuo Alliance is the smartest man in jianghu – the prince who possesses his services may as well possess the throne. His presence exacerbates the rivalry between the Crown Prince and his half-brother the Duke of Yan as they compete for his favour, but Mei Changsu has other plans – he plots for the much-maligned martial Duke of Jing, best friend of the dead Young Master Lin, to be king.
Honestly, y’all, I don’t even have WORDS for how incredible this drama is. Like there hasn’t been a drama of this calibre since Legend of Zhen Huan and that was like, four years ago. If you could record my internal monologue while I was watching this show, it would be some variation of either “FUUUUUUUUUUCK” or “AAAAAAAAAHHHHH” or “NOOOOOOOOOOOO” plus or minus some squealing. Because I can’t. I don’t think I’ve had this many feelings since I got accepted to college. No joke. (Maybe a little joke.)
The adaptation is just so well done. It really captures a lot of traditional Chinese aesthetics, without the garishness of Certain Modern Productions (Yu Zheng I’m looking directly at Yu Zheng I am absoLUTEly looking at Yu Zheng). The lighting, costumes, language, landscapes, CGI, fighting, effects – they’re all really well done and you can tell that a lot of effort was put into it, but at the same time they are muted and understated – they serve to texture the world without stealing the spotlight from the plot and the characterisation.
Speaking of characterisation, it’s not the strongest. Because there are so many main characters and because the focus is really on the political maneuvering of the plot, most of the characters are easily consumable essences – you understand their motivations and backstories quite soon after meeting them – but I think it works for the drama. And while the female characters could be drawn much better (Nihuang and Xia Dong can’t get over the deaths of their fiance and husband, respectively, even as they are strong martial characters who are the wielders of significant martial and political power, while sexual assault is used as plot points for Nihuang and Princess Liyang), but they could also be worse, and more often than not, they have agency in their stories, and harbour their own agendas.
dededos
snowghoul
kaledo-art
pixelskylines
baratheonpilled
yousharknotpass
