Post by ajk on Aug 25, 2016 1:43:26 GMT -5
This episode could have been a big positive turning point in the series but it turned out to be a letdown. The assassination plot was a huge missed opportunity. Could have been exciting but it was flimsy and unsatisfying, and full of holes. (A provincial minister, traveling at night, with only three guards? And no one in the entire army guarding the compound knows what the guy looks like?) And then of course YM has to have the big fight scene as he tries to escape afterwards, and then he does a forward flip over a seven-foot wall to escape. Amazingly, the flip wasn't even the worst part--the worst part was, well, why didn't he just do that to begin with and avoid the fight? Sheesh.
"No matter how big a Shilla merchant becomes in China, he is discriminated against." You can certainly believe that. Goes entirely with what I've been saying about how implausible it is that these Shilla merchants are having so much marketplace power. But Madam Jami did make a good point: if the Tang government is having trouble suppressing its rebellion, they would be more willing to reach out to whoever could help them the most. Like she said, they can't afford to be picky.
One positive, full credit, it's neat to hear so much Chinese being spoken.
"I can smell money." What a good character Master Jo is...always something unusual with that guy. Entertaining mixture of stand-up guy and self-interested capitalist.
The Joong-dal character is getting very annoying. He doesn't serve any useful purpose in the storyline, either. Interesting that the guy playing him also played an annoying character in QSD...so he's doing his job well if that's the intention. Just kind of hard to understand what the intention is. In QSD he was more of a harmless, roll-your-eyes irritant. In this one it's much more unpleasant.
So Yi Sa-do gives command of 5,000 of his troops to an assassin? Without knowing whether or not the guy has one tiny thimbleful of military experience or knowledge (which he doesn't)? I think we can guess how successful this rebellion is gonna be.
The reference to Lu Buwei...we got a little bit of information about him but here's a more complete summary of him. Yes he was a real person:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BC_Buwei
Quite a story--actually it would make for a really interesting historical drama. He ended up working for the first Qin emperor...that was the guy who had the massive tomb constructed with all of the terracotta warriors.
And one other chunk of background info. The word "fanzhen" kept coming up in this episode. As in, people were going to Yi Sa-do's fanzhen. Turns out, it means "buffer town." It's a term very specific to the time and place of this series.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanzhen
So at least we learned a little from this episode. Always a plus.
"No matter how big a Shilla merchant becomes in China, he is discriminated against." You can certainly believe that. Goes entirely with what I've been saying about how implausible it is that these Shilla merchants are having so much marketplace power. But Madam Jami did make a good point: if the Tang government is having trouble suppressing its rebellion, they would be more willing to reach out to whoever could help them the most. Like she said, they can't afford to be picky.
One positive, full credit, it's neat to hear so much Chinese being spoken.
"I can smell money." What a good character Master Jo is...always something unusual with that guy. Entertaining mixture of stand-up guy and self-interested capitalist.
The Joong-dal character is getting very annoying. He doesn't serve any useful purpose in the storyline, either. Interesting that the guy playing him also played an annoying character in QSD...so he's doing his job well if that's the intention. Just kind of hard to understand what the intention is. In QSD he was more of a harmless, roll-your-eyes irritant. In this one it's much more unpleasant.
So Yi Sa-do gives command of 5,000 of his troops to an assassin? Without knowing whether or not the guy has one tiny thimbleful of military experience or knowledge (which he doesn't)? I think we can guess how successful this rebellion is gonna be.
The reference to Lu Buwei...we got a little bit of information about him but here's a more complete summary of him. Yes he was a real person:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BC_Buwei
Quite a story--actually it would make for a really interesting historical drama. He ended up working for the first Qin emperor...that was the guy who had the massive tomb constructed with all of the terracotta warriors.
And one other chunk of background info. The word "fanzhen" kept coming up in this episode. As in, people were going to Yi Sa-do's fanzhen. Turns out, it means "buffer town." It's a term very specific to the time and place of this series.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanzhen
So at least we learned a little from this episode. Always a plus.