An important episode for the larger plot, although it’s one with less Tony Leung Chiu-wai. A little light is shed of some of the more mysterious elements of the plot today, which helps me piece some things together.
Hoi Goong-goong is still intent on getting the sutra, and Wai Siu-bo secretly follows his master as he goes to confront the person who has it: the empress dowager. Their confrontation draws out some of the history between them and adds context for Hoi Goong-goong’s actions so far in the story.
A good third of the episode is devoted to a flashback. It involves the current emperor’s father (the dowager’s husband,) a royal concubine, and a sinister plot. I enjoy seeing two characters who’ve been somewhat mysterious going toe to toe and hashing out some of the baggage between them, and I like getting a different side of Hoi Goong-goong in the flashbacks.
It’s also fun to see two martial arts adepts going at it. While the martial arts on this show, unsurprisingly, aren’t up to par with the better wuxia films I’ve seen, the action scenes are still entertaining, and I especially like them here, where the opponents are so well-matched that their fight is equal parts synchronized dance and kinetic stalemate. Every blow meets its equal and opposite block. Wai Siu-bo isn’t much of a fighter, so it’s nice to get these scenes with other characters.
However, I do miss Wai Siu-bo when he’s offscreen for so long. Luckily, he makes up for it in the second half of the episode where Leung is much more prominent, first in the Hoi Goong-goong/empress dowager plot, then dealing with his own predicament. I’ve talked before about Siu-bo’s talent for talking his way out of dangerous situations (only to usually land himself in a completely different, adjacent danger,) and this episode calls for him to dig deep. There’s a scene here where he’s probably the most frightened we’ve ever seen from him. Siu-bo isn’t exactly the stuff heroes are made of, and we’ve seen him yell, hide, and run away plenty of times. Here, though, he can’t run, and he can’t really show his fear even as his whole being radiates with it. He’s just barely holding it together, but because, fool that he is, he’s still clever, he has enough presence of mind to make the lies he needs to keep himself alive.
In the second major plot of the episode, Leung splits his time between interacting with another character (Yui-chor, one of the dowager’s handmaids that he’s sweet on but also kind of using) and scenes where he’s talking mainly to himself. In both cases, it comes off well. He’s sweetly awkward with Yui-chor, mumbling so bashfully that it’s a wonder she ever figures out that he wants to kiss her. And on his own, he’s as sulky as a teenager as he struggles to deal with a major scrape that he can’t talk his way out of. Leung’s performance is both entertaining and endearing, and I continue to have a great time with this show.
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