What Chinese Shows do I Recommend?
A reader with the fuliguline-beaked but abbreviated name of Bill L writes:
In my house we’ve abandoned American TV for Korean. No ripping from the headlines, no forcing agendas down your throat, some good story lines. Good guys win, bad guys lose. All in (usually) 16 episodes. I recommend a series called “The Uncanny Counter” as an intro.
The show he recommends is available on Netflix, and can be found here: https://www.netflix.com/title/81323551
In my house, we also turn to the Far East for our entertainment. The Wrights are sickened by modern shows meant for modern audiences, and bored by (start Critical Drinker Reverb Voice) THE MESSAGE (end voice)
I recommend a martial arts soap opera called HANDSOME SIBLINGS (2020) in the strongest possible terms, available on Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/title/80996973
Also the misnamed ORIENTAL ODYSSEY (2018), a martial arts magical crime drama and intrigue tale, is superb on many levels. Available on Viki: https://www.viki.com/tv/35697c-an-oriental-odyssey
I call it misnamed because in Chinese the original novel is “The Magical Nights of Glorious Tang” — a much better title in every way.
Also recommended: CHINESE PALADIN 3 (2009) starring the strikingly handsome Hu Ge and the luminous Tiffany Tang. It is oddly named, because there is no CHINESE PALADIN 2, and the previous film in the franchise, SWORD AND FAIRY, is shares no characters nor plotlines with this.
I saw an episode during my brief stay in the White Swan hotel in Canton, China, untranslated on the television, and laughed and wondered at the scene of a magical potato fairy. I later found the English name and a subtitled version. Available on iQIYI. https://www.iq.com/album/chinese-paladin-3-2009-19rrhxa3wd?lang=en_us
The first few episodes are slow, sort of a routine zombie flick, but thereafter we discover love that endures through three re-incarnations, and crosses the bounds of human, divine, demonic. The last episode ends on a weak note, apparently the set up for a sequel that never came. Between the weak opening and the weak ending, the middle part is a work of genius, well worth one’s time.
Indeed, now that I am penning these words, I might go re-watch it.
Say what you will about the Red Chinese, I found no lurid sexual perversion, no open mockery of Christ, no grotesque scenes of bloodshed as are frequent in Korean, Japanese, and American entertainment.
Ironically, in recent years, or so I hear, the tyrants in China demanded Hong Kong no longer made costume dramas featuring magic and superhuman martial arts. Perhaps they have since rescinded the edict: I don’t know.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
