Apologies on this one: normally I review The Duke of Mount Deer episodes within a few days of watching them, but this time around, I had other stuff going on at the time and focused on doing the write-ups I needed for immediate blog posts. As a result, it took me over a week to swing back around to this review, and my notes are more incomplete than I’d like. I know there are plot elements that I’m forgetting here.
Wai Siu-bo is in a tough position as usual, for more reasons than one. Fong Yee’s lover was captured and thrown into the dungeon after the attack on the palace a few episodes back, and she’s begging Wai Siu-bo to break him free. This is a dangerous task that could potentially land Siu-bo in huge trouble and wreck his relationship with the emperor, not to mention he has feelings for Fong Yee himself and is loathe to help his rival. Elsewhere, the Green Wood Lodge continues to feud with another house of the Heaven and Earth Society.
It’s the non-Wai Siu-bo stuff that I can’t remember as well, so I’ll be very brief here. Other than the general martial-arts society reasons—fights over honor, retaliation for various slights—we discover another reason why these two different groups are at odds. Despite both being Ming loyalists who want to depose the current emperor, they have different ideas about which member of the Ming royal family should be restored to the throne. That adds another wrinkle to their rivalry, even though they’re ostensibly on the same side.
As for the Wai Siu-bo side of things, my clever fool continues to get the job done, even as he constantly seems to hop from one calamity to the other. It’s interesting to see how quick-thinking he is. Especially with other members of the servant class, he has a real talent for manipulating others to the point that he gets them begging to do what he wants them to do. His reluctant plan to help the imprisoned rebels has multiple steps and involves duping an impressive number of people.
We also get more of Wai Siu-bo as the master of the Green Wood Lodge, which always makes for some good scenes. Here, in addition to the usual scramble to figure out how to lead this house of martial-arts adepts who are way more experienced/knowledgeable than him, there’s a really nice scene between him and Helmsman Chan. Some of Siu-bo’s troubles are catching up to him in a major way, and after some calm scolding from the helmsman about shirking his duties, he breaks down. This leads the others to rally around him and the stern but kindly Helmsman Chan to do what he can to help. Some nice interplay between the characters, and even though Siu-bo usually manages to keep his head above water on his own, it’s nice that he has people who’ll have his back when he’s feeling low.
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