The Dustiest Place on Earth

I've been watching a Chinese television series, Laughing in the Wind, that's in the same vein as movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's also thoroughly chop-socky, in that characters spin like tops in the air and make statements like, "Your Purity Sword technique cannot best my Paper Tiger Style!" (The Purity Sword technique is really something they reference frequently on the show.) Also, even though it was released in 2004, its camera appears to be either something from the 1950s or someone's home camcorder. While I'm on the subject of production quality: maybe it's just my computer, but one of the episodes doubled up every sound effect. When swords hit, they clanged twice, foosteps beat twice, a cup smacked down on a table thumped twice. It hurt my head.

The translations are pretty bad, but generally decipherable, even though it's hard to take a show with an "evil party" at all seriously. Then there's the plot, or what there is of it. Although that's uncharitable of me to say: I get the feeling that there is a plot, which makes it all the more difficult for me to attempt to follow what's going on. New characters are tossed in without any background, and the main plot appears to completely vanish while the show spends half an hour on a group of characters you haven't seen before.

Then there's the martial arts. It looks kind of cool... sometimes. Other times it's people whirling around waving their swords in the air while the sound effects go TING TING TING TING TING! It's almost like watching little kids pretend to swordfight. The costumes are elaborate (albeit appearing to have come straight from a modern sewing machine) and the sets are typically good, even though some of the forest shots appear pretty plasticky.

All that being said, the characters are charming (if very one-sided), and so far that's been enough to keep watching. Netflix, what hast thou wrought?