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laleiaHere it is, the long-awaited post! Any spoilers from beyond the Episode 1 of Leverage and beyond Episode 2 of Guai Xia Yi Zhi Mei has been put in spoiler blocks. Highlight at your own risk!
Let me introduce you to two amazing shows.
The former is called Guai Xia Yi Zhi Mei, and is about a ragtag crew of former thieves and other criminals essentially standing up for the poor against corrupt rich people, who are led by an alcoholic who was once an upstanding member of society before his wife tragically died.
The latter is called Leverage, and is about a ragtag crew of former thieves and other criminals essentially standing up for the poor against corrupt rich people, who are led by an alcoholic who was once an upstanding member of society before his son tragically died.
Oh yeah, plus the former takes place in ancient China and the latter takes place in present-day United States.
Let's meet our cast!
Meet Li Gexiao:
He currently spends most of his life drinking his woes away:
And when I say most of his life, I mean most of his life. I would show you more pictures of him drinking, but then I would have no room for anything else. He has a reason to turn to alcoholism, you see, because he frequently has faded-color flashbacks to his beloved dead wife and her tragic, wrongful death:
At the beginning of our show, he spends most of his time wallowing in misery (and ... fighting for other people to gamble on) but by the end of the first episode he is mobilizing a ragtag gang of ex-criminals to do some good in the world. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
--
Meet Nathan Ford:
He also currently spends most of his life drinking his woes away.
His reason for turning to alcoholism is because of his faded-color flashbacks to his beloved dead son and his tragic, wrongful death:
At the beginning of our show he spends most of his time wallowing in misery (not actually sure how he gets money) but by the end of the first episode he is mobilizing a ragtag gang of ex-criminals to do some good in the world.
Both men used to work pursuing the very criminals they now work with, embittered against the government/legitimate agencies. Anyway, let's meet the ragtag gang!
--
This is Chai Hu.
He is the brawns behind the operation. His superpower is that in the time it takes for this:
to get thrown the through the air and get caught:
(if you can't tell, he's holding the pendant or whatever it is), he can knock out a room full of attackers:
Chai Hu is a little provincial (he speaks with a very pronounced country/provincial-ish accent that ... inexplicably disappears during the course of the show; I only noticed because I watched later episodes first, then when I went back to the first episode I was taken aback at how different he sounded) and a little dull but he's definitely a good guy to have around, especially in a fight.
--
Now, meet Eliot Spencer:
The picture doesn't do him justice (he looks ridiculous) but Chai Hu's picture had the weird eyes, so I guess it's only fair. Eliot's superpower is that in the time it takes for this:
to drop to the floor:
he's already knocked out a room full of attackers. Eliot is a country boy at heart (I think his natural/childhood accent is a Southern accent but I'm not positive since the characters on Leverage change their accents so much), he's not as dull as Chai Hu, and he's definitely a good man to have around, especially in a fight.
In their respective character-centric story arcs, we find that their origin stories are very similar as well. Working-class guy falls in love with girl, ends up having to leave home to make money, and ends up never really returning home. Girl moves on, only to show up in their life again for ensuing plot-related complications.
--
Moving on! Let's meet Hu Xiaomei:
When we first meet Hu Xioamei, he is on stage:
Chai Hu thinks her acting is terrible and says so:
But we learn that despite He Xiaomei's terrible stage acting, he is great at impersonations. Here, he dresses up as Chai Hu:
freaking out the real Chai Hu:
The whole thing is much more impressive when you actually see it. Screencaps don't do it justice.
--
Now let's meet Sophie:
When we first meet her, she is on stage:
This is Eliot's reaction to her acting:
Despite her terrible acting, she is a great grifter, and she can convince you she's anybody, from Princess of Bavaria to innocent bystander. Since her superpower relies entirely on her acting, it similarly can't be screencapped to demonstrate its awesomeness.
He Xiaomei and Sophie are bother very similar. They can pretend to be anyone and get away with it while on stage, their acting is acknowledged to be terrible by all of their friends. Nevertheless, they persist with their dreams. Interestingly, He Xiaomei is a very feminine man. This is possibly an effect of his profession or the reason he chose his profession: he specifically plays the role of female characters in Chinese opera. (This is back when women weren't allowed to act on stage, I think. Either way, men played all the roles. According to Red Chamber Dream, men who played women's roles could sometimes also because concubines of the Emperor ...?) I bring this up because the way he addresses Chai Hu and Li Gexiao as Hu-ge and Ge-ge respectively can be interpreted as flirting, much as Sophie frequently flirts with Nate (and depending on who you talk to, has a few UST-y scenes with Eliot).
--
Then we have our thieves!
First, let's meet Yan Sanniang:
She is a super-awesome thief!
She spends a lot of time jumping from rooftop to rooftop:
--
And this is Parker:
Instead of running along rooftops martial-arts style, she prefers to jump off them:
... with the proper gear, of course.
Both Parker and Yan Sanniang have semi-tragic pasts with not-so-great foster parents and slightly emotionally distant mentors but both turned out alright in the end, even if Parker still ... has difficulty adhering to societal norms.
--
The only role that's not accounted on both sides is Hardison's:
This is because Hardison is a computer hacker and surprisingly enough, there were no computers around in Ming Dynasty China. Thus, though we are sad to miss out on his personality, he has no practical skill set to offer Team Yi Zhi Mei.
--
And there you have it! Our cast! I was originally going to do a picspam of the first story arc (one episode for Leverage, about three and a half for GXYZM) and the similarities in their plots but this is already a really long post so perhaps I will save that for another day.
Let me introduce you to two amazing shows.
The former is called Guai Xia Yi Zhi Mei, and is about a ragtag crew of former thieves and other criminals essentially standing up for the poor against corrupt rich people, who are led by an alcoholic who was once an upstanding member of society before his wife tragically died.
The latter is called Leverage, and is about a ragtag crew of former thieves and other criminals essentially standing up for the poor against corrupt rich people, who are led by an alcoholic who was once an upstanding member of society before his son tragically died.
Oh yeah, plus the former takes place in ancient China and the latter takes place in present-day United States.
Let's meet our cast!
Meet Li Gexiao:
He currently spends most of his life drinking his woes away:
And when I say most of his life, I mean most of his life. I would show you more pictures of him drinking, but then I would have no room for anything else. He has a reason to turn to alcoholism, you see, because he frequently has faded-color flashbacks to his beloved dead wife and her tragic, wrongful death:
At the beginning of our show, he spends most of his time wallowing in misery (and ... fighting for other people to gamble on) but by the end of the first episode he is mobilizing a ragtag gang of ex-criminals to do some good in the world. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
--
Meet Nathan Ford:
He also currently spends most of his life drinking his woes away.
His reason for turning to alcoholism is because of his faded-color flashbacks to his beloved dead son and his tragic, wrongful death:
At the beginning of our show he spends most of his time wallowing in misery (not actually sure how he gets money) but by the end of the first episode he is mobilizing a ragtag gang of ex-criminals to do some good in the world.
Both men used to work pursuing the very criminals they now work with, embittered against the government/legitimate agencies. Anyway, let's meet the ragtag gang!
--
This is Chai Hu.
He is the brawns behind the operation. His superpower is that in the time it takes for this:
to get thrown the through the air and get caught:
(if you can't tell, he's holding the pendant or whatever it is), he can knock out a room full of attackers:
Chai Hu is a little provincial (he speaks with a very pronounced country/provincial-ish accent that ... inexplicably disappears during the course of the show; I only noticed because I watched later episodes first, then when I went back to the first episode I was taken aback at how different he sounded) and a little dull but he's definitely a good guy to have around, especially in a fight.
--
Now, meet Eliot Spencer:
The picture doesn't do him justice (he looks ridiculous) but Chai Hu's picture had the weird eyes, so I guess it's only fair. Eliot's superpower is that in the time it takes for this:
to drop to the floor:
he's already knocked out a room full of attackers. Eliot is a country boy at heart (I think his natural/childhood accent is a Southern accent but I'm not positive since the characters on Leverage change their accents so much), he's not as dull as Chai Hu, and he's definitely a good man to have around, especially in a fight.
In their respective character-centric story arcs, we find that their origin stories are very similar as well. Working-class guy falls in love with girl, ends up having to leave home to make money, and ends up never really returning home. Girl moves on, only to show up in their life again for ensuing plot-related complications.
--
Moving on! Let's meet Hu Xiaomei:
When we first meet Hu Xioamei, he is on stage:
Chai Hu thinks her acting is terrible and says so:
But we learn that despite He Xiaomei's terrible stage acting, he is great at impersonations. Here, he dresses up as Chai Hu:
freaking out the real Chai Hu:
The whole thing is much more impressive when you actually see it. Screencaps don't do it justice.
--
Now let's meet Sophie:
When we first meet her, she is on stage:
This is Eliot's reaction to her acting:
Despite her terrible acting, she is a great grifter, and she can convince you she's anybody, from Princess of Bavaria to innocent bystander. Since her superpower relies entirely on her acting, it similarly can't be screencapped to demonstrate its awesomeness.
He Xiaomei and Sophie are bother very similar. They can pretend to be anyone and get away with it while on stage, their acting is acknowledged to be terrible by all of their friends. Nevertheless, they persist with their dreams. Interestingly, He Xiaomei is a very feminine man. This is possibly an effect of his profession or the reason he chose his profession: he specifically plays the role of female characters in Chinese opera. (This is back when women weren't allowed to act on stage, I think. Either way, men played all the roles. According to Red Chamber Dream, men who played women's roles could sometimes also because concubines of the Emperor ...?) I bring this up because the way he addresses Chai Hu and Li Gexiao as Hu-ge and Ge-ge respectively can be interpreted as flirting, much as Sophie frequently flirts with Nate (and depending on who you talk to, has a few UST-y scenes with Eliot).
--
Then we have our thieves!
First, let's meet Yan Sanniang:
She is a super-awesome thief!
She spends a lot of time jumping from rooftop to rooftop:
--
And this is Parker:
Instead of running along rooftops martial-arts style, she prefers to jump off them:
... with the proper gear, of course.
Both Parker and Yan Sanniang have semi-tragic pasts with not-so-great foster parents and slightly emotionally distant mentors but both turned out alright in the end, even if Parker still ... has difficulty adhering to societal norms.
--
The only role that's not accounted on both sides is Hardison's:
This is because Hardison is a computer hacker and surprisingly enough, there were no computers around in Ming Dynasty China. Thus, though we are sad to miss out on his personality, he has no practical skill set to offer Team Yi Zhi Mei.
--
And there you have it! Our cast! I was originally going to do a picspam of the first story arc (one episode for Leverage, about three and a half for GXYZM) and the similarities in their plots but this is already a really long post so perhaps I will save that for another day.
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-15 10:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-16 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-16 06:58 pm (UTC)But woohoo, Leverage is coming back soon!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 01:26 am (UTC)But also, YAY for Leverage!!!
huge sum, there's a lot more price to come
Date: 2011-06-16 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-16 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 04:47 am (UTC)And you can find subtitles of some of the episodes here: http://jiang-hu.org/
:D I haven't watched the wuxia genre since forever, but when I started the series, I couldn't stop! I would love to convert everyone in the world, but I know ancient Chinese martial arts heists isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea...
no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-13 11:09 pm (UTC)Links (Scroll down to see them) (http://anonym.to/?http://www.ancientchinese.net/series/strangehero/)
Ep 1-13 are up, and the rest are available as raws. Just in case anyone else wants to watch this show.
Please delete this comment if you don't want a link in a public post.