2. Review – Till the End of the Moon

This is the second part of my review where I get into the nitty gritty of storytelling, having explained Xianxia fantasy in Part 1.

You can watch Till the End of the Moon on Youku on YouTube, Viki coming to Netflix

trailer

Till the End of The Moon, promo poster featuring Luo Yunxi as Tantai Jin, the Devil God and Bai Lu as Li Susu, the Lady of Spirituality, from Youku website – I regards this as fair use as it essentially helps identify the production that I am reviewing.

Spoilers – Alert

The Demon God, charismatic, omnipotent and destructive (Luo Yunxi) thrives on the pain, chaos and despair – the sins- of the world and he is on a conquering rampage taking over the Three Kingdoms and Four Continents; threatening to subdue the immortal realms as well. Ten thousand years ago he almost annihilated all the good gods in their efforts to contain him. They just barely did it but where there is sin and despair in the world there is always a way for him to break through any restraint and remerge to recultivate his evil self.

In fact, he laid the ground work for his return 500 years ago in a Machiavellian deal he struck with the Ye hue Moon tribe. A daughter of the tribe would become the enamoured wife of the King of the Jing. Together they would conceive the Demon Foetus whose life would be cursed from the moment of his mother’s death in childbirth. The Demon God ordained that the prince, Tantai Jin would be hated, mocked, lonely and underfoot from the moment of his birth. He would be raised in despair and hatred, a prisoner in the enemy Kingdom of Sheng, incapable of empathy, and cultivating a heart and mind without the need for love and light – the perfect being the Demon God could remerge as.

 Now, 500 years on, fully consubstantial with the soul of the Demon God, Tantai Jin is on the verge complete victory. In an eleventh hour initiative, the Lady of Spirituality, Li Susu (Bai Lu) is tasked with going back in time to when Tantai Jin was a mere human and stopping him. To do this she has to remove the evil bone from his heart. Having witnessed his destructive rampage on the world, her cultivation sect, and her father, Li Susu knows that she is going back to kill him. The problem is, when she meets him he is a meek, much maligned, emasculated man who has no recourse of defence in the hostile social environment he exists in – her aristocratic family home. What’s worse, she, now Ye Xiwu, is married to him and is a big source of his torment.

So begins our enemies-to-lovers journey. I’d love to say romance however, the original ending was not typical of American romances where the girl gets the transformed boy and they live happily ever after (1). This is more about the struggle of good against evil; light against dark; despair vs hope; hatred vs grace/forgiveness played out on the battlefield; between Tantai Jin and Li Susu/Ye Xiwu; and Tantai Jin and the original Demon God within. The goal is to see the transformation of Tantai Jin into an enlightened being, the romantic journey is the key modus operandi. There are lapses in continuity and character formation/motivation within the script however the performances of the actors and the magical/mythical journey and ambition of what has been presented make them easy to overlook.

Some big ideas are examined:

Destiny

Destiny, predestination, fate – call it what you will – is a biggy. Being what you are meant to be and travelling the path to what you are ordained to become is the path of least resistance – the Tao, if you like. Going against this flow is full of challenges and ultimately futile. Destiny paints Tantai Jin as evil even before he chooses this path because he cannot waiver from what’s fated for him.

With this in mind we watch as the Lady of Enlightenment in her guise as Ye Xiwu first allows him to continue kneeling in the snow for days to exact punishment from him for an act that didn’t deserve such cruelty. It allows her to deceive him with kindness and attempt to kill him despite the transformation her acts of humanity, friendship and love have wrought in him. When she makes the near-fatal attempt on his life on their wedding night he has succeeded to the throne of the Jing Kingdom, defeated the Sheng Kingdom, united both peoples as one and brought peace to the land after decades of war, provided a home and place for her family to live and dedicated himself to the daily running of his empire.

On the other hand he has also been absorbing demonic powers to increase his personal strength. Yet, he doesn’t use them for cruelty.

I couldn’t help questioning Li Susu/Ye Xiwu in the way she doggedly pursued her role with a double face. In front of him she was caring and flirtatious, yet she was plotting to kill him. To her credit she did not make any confessions of love to him but allowed him to love her. She had encounters with enlightened guides during this part of her quest and I kept expecting them to advise her to give in to her love for him; to tell her that by love the evil bone would disappear; that being deprived of love, friendship, family and belonging has harboured the evil bone and placed him on this path. This never happened. Ostensibly, we are left with pre-ordained fate that controls outcomes and prescribed evil people who do not necessary do evil acts.

Demon-Angels, Angel-Demons, Yin-yang

As a Christian this one was a hard one to get my head around. Li Susu’s revenge motivation didn’t seem fitting to a Lady of Spirituality but more fitting to a demon. Conversely, although I understand why the Demon vixen, Pianran (Sun Zhenni) would want to side with the future Demon God, why she does has more to do with her love for his General, Ye Qingyu (Geng Yeting) than purely diabolical reasons. She plays a role in encouraging the romance between Ye Xiwu and Tantai Jin and is an important General in his army. She is more an instrument of good than evil, yet she identifies as a demon and presents a veneer of herself that would fool all but her closest friends.

As an Orthodox Christian my head says, “Well, even the saints weren’t perfect,” but my Westerner peering into the East sees the yin-yang playing in their personalities.

Concepts of Identity determining behaviour and self-realization

While Ye Qingyu maintains her demon shell, she does it with effort. Her intensions are to serve the greater good, yet she is a seven tailed fox demon. She has so much going for her in terms of her ultimate sacrifice, her devotion to her deceased husband and the way she tries to protect Ye Qingyu from being hurt by her nature. I kept thinking, so what if you are a demon? It’s just a label – ok with pretty cool powers that she used for the greater good.

Gongye Xiwu struggles with the realization that in Tantai Jin’s past someone looked exactly like him, was a cultivator like him and also a military leader who fought against his friend and sect brother, Tantai Jin. He has been reincarnated and doesn’t know who he is. This need for identity may be his impetus for absorbing deposed demonic energies within himself to fight the now Demon God, Tantai Jin

For Tantai Jin, his struggle with identity was on going. As soon as he realized that he was the anticipated Demon God he refused to take on the title/identity. He worked harder at cultivating light and goodness. He was constantly fighting people’s preconceptions. During the time of his greatest temptation he used any skerrick of goodness in him to save the soul of Gonye Xiwu (Deng Wei) and recognizing his own weaknesses he created a fantasy world for Li Susu to live in if she embraced the role of his Demon Queen, and finally he sets into motion the events that will eradicate the Demon God forever. Luo Yunxi’s subtlety in portraying Tantai Jin’s self-doubts while verbally renouncing the title were so heart felt and one of many highlights of his performances.

Enlightenment, Self Will, Environment

What saves Tantai Jin is his cultivation of enlightenment. First he has to experience love, acceptance, friendship, and guidance from a father-figure, in his sect leader, to cultivate the strength to overcome his ordained destiny. It is difficult, but he is tenacious. He sees the good in all of the bad experiences and recounts them all in his exchange with the original Demon God. We learn that the Demon-God set up his environment to force him to develop into a demon. The demon-god influenced his parents, siblings, peers in the Sheng kingdom, carers and his wife – before Li Susu appropriated her body – to torment him. During that time only Prince Xiao Lin (Deng Wei) and Ye Qingyu treated him with respect and care. Presumably they were able to resist the dictates of the original Demon God because they were already cultivating enlightenment.

In this cosmology destiny can be demonic but free will is the path to enlightenment.

The story and series hangs on wonderful performances particularly of Luo Yunxi as Tantai Jin. He was believable, devastatingly scary and delicately fragile. It’s his journey that I was invested in and his portrayal excused some of the main lapses of the production.

The six main leads all gave wonderful performances. It’s unfortunate that there are inconsistencies with the writing of the character of Ye Xiwu. I would have liked to seen her struggle with loving and believing in Tantai Jin, and her duty to kill him. Bai Lu’s portrayal is missing something – not coming across as it should but I believe that’s in the writing. If she was supposed to be a femme fatale, it hasn’t come off. In fact, the story would have been poorer if that was the intention.  I think she has done a wonderful job with what she had to work with and is a joy to watch. Pianran is a fuller realization of the tragic femme fatale type and is played to the T by Sun Rhenni. Deng Wei particularly shone in his third portrayal Gongye Xiwu as he struggled to find out who he was/is. A strong performance from Chen Duling as Ye Bingchang and M Wu, she brought out my ire and sympathy.

The subtitles moved quickly and can only do so much. Perhaps the lapses in the script had more to do with assumed cultural knowledge that just can’t be subtitled for the flow of the story. Perhaps the lapses would be more distracting if I had binge-watched the series but I saw it an episode at a time as it premiered on Youku’s Youtube channel?

Regardless, I loved this show. What an epic! It’s given me a taste for Xianxia. So, I’m off to watch some more… Love Between Fairy and Demon perhaps?

1. Review – Till the End of the Moon

Youku on YouTube, Viki coming to Netflix

trailer

Till the End of The Moon, promo poster featuring Luo Yunxi as Tantai Jin, the Devil God and Bai Lu as Li Susu, the Lady of Spirituality, from Youku website – I regards this as fair use as it essentially helps identify the production that I am reviewing.

Spoilers – Alert

I have just finished watching ‘Till the End of the Moon’ and I just have to, have to, have to, talk about it. It’s my first Xianxia fantasy and it spirited me away to many different planes of reality that were uncircumscribed by eastern cosmology, mythology and philosophy for these theatrically portrayed realms live on in the realms of my own imagination and contemplation, beyond the small screen. There were so many ideas and cultural elements to immerse myself in. And it was structured like a progression through levels of a video game with the same level of excitement – read- cliff-hanging drama but remove the stats.

This narrative epic – 40 episodes – brought in aspects of Chinese mythology, Indian cosmology, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and ideas of cultivating enlightenment through a series of quests crouched in the development of a romantic relationship. No, not a romance- not in the American sense that there has to be a happily-ever-after – but an incredibly romantic story where the omnipotent Devil God – and the Universe he is about to dominate – is saved from himself by the love of the enlightened Lady of Spirituality.

And it was thoroughly enjoyable!

Xianxia fantasy is a Chinese genre of fantasy that incorporates Chinese history in the same nebulous way Game of Thrones is set in Medieval Europe. Here we have Medieval China but not necessarily in a Dark Ages experienced in the West. Xianxia is also set in a mythical world of fairies and demons where power is cultivated with enlightenment. Xianxia narratives are often referred to as Cultivation dramas referring to the quest for personal power/enlightenment. These beings experience their quest, powers intact, in the human world and in many other mythical worlds e.g., in Till the End of the Moon the quest moves from a Cosmic outer-space realm filled with asteroids, to historic China, to the dream-state of a dragon who was once a humanoid God of War living in a heavenly palace, back to China, through the sea of reposed souls, and a heavenly monks retreat, and down the Barren Abyss to the Devil Gods nether-worldly palace and a cosy wishful fantasy world conjured from the memory of family long-deceased.

Xianxia narratives can also be called Wuxia, which is more appropriate to martial arts focussed stories, however, martial arts and special effects are integral to the storytelling. The main actors in this Xianxia at least, can’t be afraid of heights as they seem to have spent a lot of time in aerial harnesses.

Martial arts are employed in executing the quest that is central to the story – finding or accruing talismen that deliver untold powers on their own or when used in conjunction with each other. The quest – journey – is also one of personal development e.g., in Till the End of the Moon, the quest embodies the question, will Tantai Jin overturn his destiny to become the Demon God by cultivating enough goodness and spiritual enlightenment to fend off the previous Demon-God’s agenda?

Xianxia on film offers sumptuous costumes with flowing fabrics, jewelled and studded robes and tunics, elaborate headdresses and make-up. Make up is used a lot in Asia for both men and women in film. I don’t mean the kind of make-up that drops the sheen of the skin to film better. I mean theatrical make up, more subtle than in their traditional theatre forms but nevertheless obvious. Faces are whitened, eyes are enhanced and lips are coloured. In the case of Tantai Jin, the heaviness of his make-up and the colour of his robes help us identify him in when he is vulnerable as opposed to when power is in his hands (if we have missed the fireball he’s holding).

The sets are many, imaginative, gorgeous and various. This series is ambitious with the number of environments that had to be created to signify different world environments. What has been achieved isn’t uniform in terms of being realistic. The urban environments of historic China are most believable. The heavenly kingdom of the Hengyang Sect harmonises with this level of reality and even the Devil-God’s Palace meshes well, however, a couple of the other sets would have benefited from either CGI touch ups/overlays or filming on location. These are the Mohr River underwater Clam Kingdom which although enchanting, needed some CGI love; and the Barren Abyss which would benefit from location shooting e.g., if the Barren Abyss were filmed in Australia, the MacDonnell Ranges outside Alice Springs would be where I would do it – China must have an equivalent. The Clam Kingdom and the Barren Abyss looked theatrical and would be fine on stage but film demands a deeper level of reality – these two environments looked very staged and didn’t mesh with the level of reality created everywhere else.

Ultimately, if the actors stay true to character the meshing of styles of set doesn’t diminish the storytelling and that’s the case with Till the End of the Moon. I must talk about the performances, as well as the subtitles and ideas of free will vs predestination, yin-yang etc. in this wonderful drama but…

… this post is getting long, so I’ll be back with Part 2 soon.