*Episode premise spoilers, and a few spoilers from earlier in the season.*
Okay, I know that I only started A Little TLC(w) reviews for this show a few episodes ago, but as someone who’s been watching since episode 1, believe me when I say this series has such puzzling pacing. As of episode 14, over fifteen years have gone by since the start of the show, so we’re objectively dealing with a huge stretch of time here. And yet, within the story, it still feels like so much is happening so fast. You can get whiplash sometimes from the dramatic turn of events, and then you remember that Master Zhang is at least 105 by now. Wild.
In the last episode, a number of poisoned martial artists were sent to Dr. Hu as a test, and they were put in that position by a nefarious old woman known as Granny Golden Flower. Now, having dodged the dilemma she set to him, Hu is anxious to outrun her before she comes for him. In other news, a disgraced former member of Ermei Sect is offered an opportunity to prove herself but is handed an impossible choice, and Zhang Wuji is sent on a dangerous journey that tests his beliefs.
Some nice martial arts stuff here. There’s a good standoff between the women of Ermei Sect and Granny Golden Flower, and Zhang Wuji’s adventures throw him in the path of some skilled and desperate fighters. Also, the Heaven Sword makes an appearance! While everyone has been clamoring over the whereabouts of the Dragon Sabre, the prophecy foretelling its immense power warns that only the Heaven Sword can defeat it. I wonder if we’ll see the same sort of “watch the sword change hands” three card monte as we’ve seen with the Dragon Sabre, or if this one will prove even more elusive.
Ji Xiaofu was once a devoted disciple of Ermei Sect and betrothed to one of the Wudang brothers. But after she was seduced, abducted, and assaulted by a rogue, she spent years trying to hide her out-of-wedlock child from her sisters and her shifu. Eventually, she broke off her engagement and left the sect to spend more time with her daughter, but now, her secrets are out in the open. To put it mildly, this goes very badly for her—she’s blamed for someone else’s sins, and while she’s given the chance to return to her mistress’s good graces, the price she demands of Miss Ji is painfully high.
Zhang Wuji has his hand in a bit of everything today. He assists Dr. Hu, tangles with Granny Golden Flower, and provides help to Miss Ji and her daughter Buhui, the latter of which sends him on a cross-country journey. He encounters people driven lawless by famine, tells a comforting lie to ease someone’s pain, and learns that the study of poisons can be just as useful as the study of medicine. He’s got a lot going on.
There are a few things of note here. I really like Zhang Wuji’s scenes with Granny Golden Flower. Wuji is definitely a better martial artist than Wai Siu-bo ever was on The Duke of Mount Deer, but he’s also young and she’s a shrewd master with a talented apprentice. Wuji knows he can’t beat her, but he stands tall anyway. When she presses him for information about the Dragon Sabre, on pain of death, he replies, “My parent chose to commit suicide instead of revealing the whereabouts of their friend. Do you think I will betray my parent?” What I like about Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s performance here is that Wuji isn’t really being brash or defiant here. He says it more simply, more softly. He doesn’t claim to be brave, but he won’t be moved. It's a nice choice, and the understated nature of it somehow makes it stand out even more to me.
This goes along with Zhang Wuji’s extreme goodness, which I talked about last week. We see it on display in other ways here, like the immense lengths he goes to to protect Buhui. But we also see him confronting moral dilemmas and realizing things are less black-and-white than he might want them to be. What does he do when the necessary choice isn’t a blameless one? Does making the best of bad options soil his integrity, and where is the line on these matters? Wuji searches for the answers to this himself, but he also witnesses where other people draw that line, object lessons as he considers what he will or will not do. But while this is a major theme of Wuji’s story in this episode, it’s not really signposted or belabored. Rather, Leung shows it to us through Wuji’s slight reactions, the subtle shifts he experiences during his various adventures.
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