Wai Siu-bo is in trouble—what else is new? The setting for one. A new locale, on different characters’ turf, creates different challenges for our intrepid hero.
At the emperor’s behest, Wai Siu-bo has taken the princess to Yunnan to marry the son of Ng Sam-kwai, who’s greatly suspected of plotting against the throne. Siu-bo’s true mission is to suss out Ng Sam-kwai’s loyalties once and for all, but before he gets a chance, the princess goes missing and he’s left scrambling to keep the Ngs from finding out.
Confession time: even though multiple characters have been talking about Ng Sam-kwai for quite a while and I knew what his deal was, I wasn’t entirely sure who the character himself was. I’ve got it straight now, and I’m clearer on who his people are. I was familiar with the Prince of the House of Western Pacification and knew he wasn’t altogether trustworthy, but now it’s been reaffirmed that he’s Ng Sam-kwai’s son
As I said last week, all the various groups are converging on Yunnan, each with their own designs on Ng Sam-kwai, the princess, and/or Wai Siu-bo. The House of Muk makes a big move here, one major enough to cause clashes within their own ranks. It’ll be interesting to see just how convoluted this whole thing will get before it all shakes out.
The princess gets a chance to feel a bit more developed in this episode. Up till now, she’s mostly been depicted as 1) spoiled, 2) untrustworthy, and 3) into sadomasochism, which certainly isn’t nothing, but to me, she’s felt more like a collection of traits than a specific character. Here, we see her thrust into a serious situation and later dealing with the fallout from it, and she responds in ways that are more grounded/honest while remaining true to her character.
When she goes missing, Wai Siu-bo doesn’t at first realize what’s happening. The princess plays games and loves to push his buttons, so he thinks she’s just hiding from him. But once he realizes that he’s about to present a powerful lord with a new daughter-in-law who’s not even there, the panic sets in. Tony Leung Chiu-wai does a nice job showing Siu-bo’s frantic state of mind, ordering the guards to search high and low for her even as he snaps at them to be subtle about it. In private, he laments, “I am in trouble, I am going to become late Lord Wai.”
Naturally, she isn’t found before Ng Sam-kwai comes a-calling, and Wai Siu-bo has to pull out all the stops of his cunning to stall, throwing out every excuse in the book to delay the inevitable reveal that the princess has disappeared. In the midst of it, he does what I’m recognizing is one of Siu-bo’s go-to moves: often, as he’s about to launch into a new lie, he’ll turn his back on the person he’s talking to for just a second, rapidly trying to come up with something before he fixes his expression and turns back around. It’s a pretty consistent trait for him, and I like seeing it recur as something of a “tell” for him (although it doesn’t seem like any other character has picked up on it.)
There’s also an interesting scene where Wai Siu-bo is dealing with the prince, who has his own subterfuge going on. Now, over the course of the series, Siu-bo hasn’t proven himself impervious to deception by any means, but this is an instance where it’s clear that the prince is trying to play a player. Leung is great in his bit—his expressions and line deliveries are perfectly pitched to give the prince what he wants to see while at the same time showing us the audience that he’s wise to the prince’s game. Really well done.
No comments:
Post a Comment