azdak

I started the Great NiF Rewatch last night and this time what struck me most forcibly is NO WONDER it's so hard for first-time NiF watchers to orientate themselves. This episode is so misleading! Prince Yu looks like he's going to be a stoic hero, Lin Chen looks like he's a serious scholar and swordsman, the library at Langya Hall looks like it's going to be really important, Mei Changsu floats around in a boat defending the territory of the Jiangzuo Alliance as if this were his real job. So much of the episode has a kind of mythic quality to it (or do I just mean a standard wuxia quality?) that is replaced by a much more realistic narrative and filming style from the moment MCS arrives in Jinling. Once you know that these big, beautiful set pieces are just there to fill us in quickly on a big chunk of backstory (so you don't need to devote any brain power to them), the story becomes easier to follow, but on first viewing you don't know any of this. You think you might have to remember how the steampunk shelving system works, or that the Two Swords Leader might be a major antagonist, or that Lin Chen will turn up in Jinling any week now to worry sombrely over MCS's health. And you don't yet even know that MCS is the protagonist, let alone who all the minor characters are and whether they'll recur. The episode takes absolutely no prisoners, you sink or swim, just like that guy from the Two Sword Sect that Fei Liu throws into the river, and it's glorious.

Also, how much do I love the super-intense look MCS bestows on Marquis Ning when Su Zhe first meets him? It's the first of a whole series of MCS stares, each somehow both expressionless and entirely unique, and it's absolutely top quality, ten out of ten, no notes.