ROCH 2006: Last few eps!

So here we are, in the post-16 year separation. Um. Yeah. All that white hair on Yang Guo looks a bit silly. He's what, 38 or so at this point? Everyone else in the story looks pretty much exactly the same, oddly enough. Well, except for the Guo twins, who are teenagers instead of babies now. I never liked this part of the story that much. And the giant bird still looks silly.

Guo Xiang meets Yang Guo (the Condor Hero) and becomes his number one fan. Or something. A few more groups of weirdos introduced at this point, but I can't bring myself to care. Anyway, she invites him for her 16th birthday, and he plots out this huge "party" for her, and "gifts" that take her as a representative of the city of Xiang Yang. More or less. Guo Fu is bitchier than ever. Poor Yelu Qi. GX's twin brother (I forget his name) is pretty much a nonentity.

Anyway, after some more woe and intrigue around GX's birthday party (With fireworks that rival Gandalf's at Bilbo's last birthday party!) Yang Guo wants to meet up with Little Dragon Girl again. Of course it doesn't work out that easily. He catches up with Huang Yaoshi at last, and learns some disturbing info (all while teaching a couple of idiots that the Force is no myth...or something...err...whatever...). YG screams a lot. Super-powered screams. Geez, I hate those. GX rides off after YG, meets up with the Golden Wheel Monk, who kidnaps her.

Yang Guo finally learns the true story of his father's life and death. Much screaming and carrying on ensues. I liked the old blind bat guy, here. Well played. Also the four men seeking him for revenge.

Somehow Huang Rong, the two cousins (Cheng Ying(sp?) and Lu Wushuang), Huang Yaoshi, the old rascal Chou Botong, Yi Deng, and Ying Gu all end up converging with YG, GX, and the Golden Wheel Monk at the cliff at the Passionless Valley. Big cliff-diving party! Woo hoo!

A reunion with lots of slow motion flying around, spinning camera, flowers, bees, singing, and teary gazes into each other's eyes. I think I fast-forwarded through most of this. Especially as my 8-yr old son was watching with me and he hates it when people kiss...

And back to the siege of Gondor, I mean Xiang Yang. No giant elephants here and no elves, but they did have big siege towers with cannons. Massive battle scene ensues. The final big battles you might expect at this point. One last heroic charge by Yang Guo (riding on 4 horses, no less!). And then cue the semi-happy ending.

So many of these stories set in these historical settings are really depressing, because you know that a few years after the "happy ending", China is violently conquered after all (or there's a civil war, etc.), and our heroes can't change that.

Concluding thoughts: This was a decent serial. Not my favorite, but then I never liked the story that much in the first place. Luckily I didn't watch it immediately after reading the books, so I wasn't quibbling too much over details. It seemed a fairly faithful adaptation of the novels. The acting was good, for the most part. EXCEPT for the actor who played Yang Guo. Maybe he's just difficult to play convincingly, but I just didn't like this portrayal. He looked and sounded wrong to me. The scenery and costumes were good. (No cheap styrofoam wilderness here!) The CGI animals were pathetic. The music was all right. Not really to my taste. Overall, I thought the pacing was too slow. Too many slow scenes to try to play up the romantic elements, but it had the opposite effect on me.