This episode is a little all over the place. It follows up on big developments from the last episode, offers some progress on an ongoing arc, and introduces new complications. Wai Siu-bo certainly has his hands full here.
Wai Siu-bo is reeling from an encounter he’s just had with a major baddie, but there’s very little time to process. Almost immediately, he’s pulled back into Heaven and Earth Society business as one of his adepts shows up with a princess they’ve kidnapped from a rival house in retaliation. And even as he’s busy with the princess, Siu-bo is called away to Prince Hong’s home to mingle with a visiting prince. It’s supposed to be a fun evening of drinking, gambling, and opera, but there are hints of deeper intrigue going on under the surface.
I haven’t quite worked out how all these elements fit together yet. There’s political game-playing, martial arts fights, and an ongoing conspiracy involving the sutras, but I’m not entirely following everyone’s allegiances, who’s a friend and who’s an enemy, who’s secretly working with who. Additionally, after a very consequential end to episode 8, it’s a bit wild to jump so quickly into multiple new plots, one of which features an incredibly abrupt tonal shift. For me, this makes the episode feel a little messy, although I do like most of the individual parts.
It’s another episode where Wai Siu-bo is involved in nearly every plot. He enjoys having so many parties want to court his favor, but it can be exhausting for him, and his attempts to juggle everything and keep it all straight waver somewhere between perilous and farcical. When he’s with Prince Hong, visiting the Prince of the Western Pacification, he first has to navigate his place as a servant who’s being treated more like a peer, then try to stay ahead of whatever is going on between the rival camps within the room.
He’s probably at his most amusing as he babysits the kidnapped Princess Muk. He’s definitely thoughtless, teasing and provoking a young woman who doesn’t know where she is or why she’s been abducted, and there’s an element of the clever peasant having fun at the spoiled, scared royal’s expense. But his overall intentions are a bit gentler than that, wanting to tease the princess and draw her out so she won’t be so frightened/miserable.
Tony Leung Chiu-wai has fun, combative chemistry with Teresa Mo, who plays Princess Muk. (Mo has been in a few other projects with Leung, including Hard Boiled and Don’t Fool Me!) They have kind of an aggrieved sister/pestering brother dynamic, which is made explicit when Wai Siu-bo forces the princess to call him “dear brother” in exchange for favors. The two of them are silly together and have some kind banter, my favorite being Siu-bo’s exasperated, “You have to pick this time to break your leg?” after the palace has been beset by attackers.
Another new character in this episode is Fong Yee, a close confidante of the princess. She’s played by the always-great Carina Lau, and I can already tell Leung is going to have an entertaining dynamic with her too.
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