*Brief spoilers for episode 14.*
Considering that he didn’t appear until a fourth of the way through the series, Tony Leung Chiu-wai has definitely been positioned as the lead of The New Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre, at least since he came on the scene. Things can move fast on this show, and there may be another big leap at some point that takes the focus off him, but for now, it’s squarely his journey we’re following.
At the end of the last episode, Zhang Wuji’s medical knowledge helped ingratiate him with Iron Zither, the leader of Kunlun Sect. But his help isn’t repaid in the way he might have hoped, and Wuji is forced to flee. On his travels, he’s injured and taken into a nobleman’s house to recover, where he starts to fall for the nobleman’s strong-willed daughter.
Not quite sure what Zhang Wuji is seeing in Zhu Jiuzhen, his new crush. She’s a little spoiled and toys with others for her own means, and yes, she’s beautiful, but he seems too nice to be enamored by her routine. We’ll see if she starts to mellow as they get to know each other, or if he gets wise to her attitude. I’m liking her father, though, who leads with his morals and loyalty and I think is a little shrewder than he lets on.
There aren’t a lot of major themes emerging to me yet in this leg of the series. Since he left Dr. Hu, Zhang Wuji has been traveling from place to place and meeting different people, often getting in trouble and then having to get himself out of it. Usually, it’s his good nature that gets him in over his head, being overly trusting of people who don’t deserve it. We see this in how Iron Zither turns the tables on him, or how he takes a beating when Zhu JIuzhen urges him to spar with her cousin. He believes the best in people and gets burned. I wonder if we’ll see him grow more cautious as his adventures continue.
But even as he winds up in tough situations, Zhang Wuji is smart and resourceful, and he’s usually able to use those qualities to get himself out of trouble. And despite repeatedly encountering unscrupulous people, we haven’t seen him stoop to their level. I like that he’s more often to employ deception rather than harm, using his knowledge to make claims that give him the upper hand while not actively endangering those who are threatening him.
And while I may not understand Zhang Wuji’s attraction to Zhu Jiuzhen, Leung plays smitten so well. I love his transparent denial when a servant questions his apparent interest in spending time with the young lady, and his shy, roundabout attempts to bond with her are cute.
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