Post by ajk on Jul 1, 2017 15:20:13 GMT -5
Back on track! What a relief. Finally we're focusing on the Mongol invasion now. Obviously this Songi nonsense is here to stay but it was kept to a minimum in this one so that's about as much as we can ask for, apparently. And we even got some looks at maps to show us how things were progressing and moving around in the invasion. That was a big help.
Not crazy about making a six-year time jump at the beginning of a new episode. Kind of disorienting. But the exchange of written letters, that was a clever way to bring us up to speed. Wish they hadn't thrown so many new characters at us; including all of the Mongol subordinates we got 19 new faces to deal with. With the time jump and the new setting we had to expect new faces but it was a tall order keeping up with so many.
Uh-oh...it's a brightly moonlit night, that's what all of that floodlighting is supposed to suggest...but it's a thunderstorm too! Oops. And it looked like some of that rain was added post-filming with CGI. Well I guess you have to give them some slack, if only because cleaning so much mud off of those expensive uniforms would be a big job.
"I know your heart is divided. But it's only a dream." Mrs. Choe went out talking sense, didn't she. She'll be missed. So she died and we never even learned her name, ugh.
Songi, she continues to annoy and be unlikable. At that temple when her son asks her what her heart's desire is, you'd think she'd set a good example for the kid and say victory for the country, safety for the soldiers, that kind of thing. But all she thinks of is herself. Blecch.
The reference to Queen Jinseong who never married and loved a military commander, she's an interesting story...and a controversial one:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinseong_of_Silla
The narrated text we got:
Pretty standard battle scene but not bad at all. Too many guys falling forward over the walls, but it's TV, gotta love it. The jars of oil were interesting, we haven't seen that before. And flaming arrows during the daytime! There was a shocker. Every time we see the arrows on fire, it's a nighttime scene, and I grumble about why we never see them during the day. Bravo to whoever worked them into the scene even though the visual payoff wasn't anything big.
So the Mongols sent all those horsemen up to the gate rapid-fire to dump the hay bales...and then sent in the torch guys one by one? Really? Staged for TV or not, that was dumb.
"You asked for it. And Koryo is going to give it to you." No, Yakson, you're not the trash-talking type. Stop it.
The council meeting scene was excellent. Whoever is writing those meeting scenes is doing a good job.
One other good thing about this episode (and this has come up before) is that KJ isn't the focus of it. He's a bit player in the larger story and we're seeing the larger story and not just KJ's part of it. People may have different opinions about that but I like it this way. And it will make KJ's eventual emergence all the more significant.
So hooray for this one, if only because it got things going in the right direction again and back to what the series does well.
p.s. That first Mongol subordinate general Putau, his face was so familiar it drove me nuts. Is that Maeda from Jingbirok? I can't find any cast listing in English for either series that mentions either character.
Not crazy about making a six-year time jump at the beginning of a new episode. Kind of disorienting. But the exchange of written letters, that was a clever way to bring us up to speed. Wish they hadn't thrown so many new characters at us; including all of the Mongol subordinates we got 19 new faces to deal with. With the time jump and the new setting we had to expect new faces but it was a tall order keeping up with so many.
Uh-oh...it's a brightly moonlit night, that's what all of that floodlighting is supposed to suggest...but it's a thunderstorm too! Oops. And it looked like some of that rain was added post-filming with CGI. Well I guess you have to give them some slack, if only because cleaning so much mud off of those expensive uniforms would be a big job.
"I know your heart is divided. But it's only a dream." Mrs. Choe went out talking sense, didn't she. She'll be missed. So she died and we never even learned her name, ugh.
Songi, she continues to annoy and be unlikable. At that temple when her son asks her what her heart's desire is, you'd think she'd set a good example for the kid and say victory for the country, safety for the soldiers, that kind of thing. But all she thinks of is herself. Blecch.
The reference to Queen Jinseong who never married and loved a military commander, she's an interesting story...and a controversial one:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinseong_of_Silla
The narrated text we got:
And so at last the Forty Year War with the Mongols began. The Mongols poured over the Yalu River. It was 1231, the 18th year of Kojong's reign. Genghis Khan's son, Ogodei, continued his father's dream of world conquest, launching three simultaneous attacks in the east and west. Ogodei himself led a force of 200,000 against the Jin. Of those, he gave30,000 cavalry for Marshal Sartai's attack on Koryo. Sartai had experience leading actions into Koryo with the Khitan in the past.Heck of a shot by the new guy! Mun Dae knocking that helmet off, a real William Tell moment there. I like him--good first impression of the character and the actor.
Pretty standard battle scene but not bad at all. Too many guys falling forward over the walls, but it's TV, gotta love it. The jars of oil were interesting, we haven't seen that before. And flaming arrows during the daytime! There was a shocker. Every time we see the arrows on fire, it's a nighttime scene, and I grumble about why we never see them during the day. Bravo to whoever worked them into the scene even though the visual payoff wasn't anything big.
So the Mongols sent all those horsemen up to the gate rapid-fire to dump the hay bales...and then sent in the torch guys one by one? Really? Staged for TV or not, that was dumb.
"You asked for it. And Koryo is going to give it to you." No, Yakson, you're not the trash-talking type. Stop it.
The council meeting scene was excellent. Whoever is writing those meeting scenes is doing a good job.
One other good thing about this episode (and this has come up before) is that KJ isn't the focus of it. He's a bit player in the larger story and we're seeing the larger story and not just KJ's part of it. People may have different opinions about that but I like it this way. And it will make KJ's eventual emergence all the more significant.
So hooray for this one, if only because it got things going in the right direction again and back to what the series does well.
p.s. That first Mongol subordinate general Putau, his face was so familiar it drove me nuts. Is that Maeda from Jingbirok? I can't find any cast listing in English for either series that mentions either character.