First Stills of the 2012 C-drama Adaptation of The Swordsman with Wallace Huo
[I can’t even fathom why this happened but I am being blocked from my own website in the country I am currently in, so I am posting via my IPhone until my business trip ends. I am weirded out and vastly annoyed.]
So it’s finally here. Last week saw the upcoming Yu Zheng adaptation of the famed Louis Cha wuxia novel Xiao Ao Jiang Hu (it has multiple English drama translation names, and here it will be called The Swordsman) start filming over in Heng Dian. I was hoping a meteor might fall on the production site (with no one around, of course) and this draTma might magically never get made. Alas, my wish shall not come true, as the first official stills of the leads have just been released. Aside from Chen Qiao En as Dong Fang Bu Bai and Han Dong as Tian Buo Guong, the rest of the leads are finally unveiled in costume, Wallace Huo isn’t dreadful per se (that would be seeing the stills of Yuan Shan Shan looking like she was auditioning to be a parakeet), but he’s just NOT Linghu Chong, at least not at all like how he’s described in the novel.
I thought of all the leads, the two that stood out for me were Chen Xiao nailing the Lin Ping Zhi aura of callow arrogance and superficial good looks and Yang Ming Na as Linghu Chong’s wonderful surrogate mother and the wife of his Master. Everything nevertheless looks too bright and a tad chintzy, but I remain sadly hooked because this is my favorite wuxia C-novel ever and I can’t just pretend this drama adaptation isn’t happening. I’ll leave you all with a very reliable rumor that Wallace Huo will be playing two characters in this adaptation, the lead Linghu Chong, as well as Yang Lian Ting. If anyone needs a refresher, Yang Lian Ting is Dong Fang Bu Bai’s boy toy. Yumama’s insanity really knows no bounds.
Linghu Chong as the Eldest Disciple
Linghu Chong as The General
Linghu Chong in casual garb
Yuan Shan Shan as Ren Ying Ying. She looks like a dour Han era lady crossed with a dancer’s costume from Carnival. Or a parakeet stuck in a teleportation device with a duck and melded into that final form.
Yang Rong as Yue Ling Shang
Chen Xiao as Lin Ping Zhi
Huang Wen Hao as Yue Bu Qun
Yang Ming Na as So Zhong Zhe
Hei Zhi as Ren Wo Xing
I know absolutely nothing about C dramas, but those costumes are just superb. Am i wrong assuming the guy in black is not a nice guy?
Lol…mentally I’m matching the characters to other adaptations but all Im waiting for is to compare Brigette Lin and Joe Chen in character
Have not read the book and am a huge Wallace fangirl, so I’ll be tuning in.
Re: website problem. Have you tried getting around it by trying an IP proxy?
I was self-therapy-ing watching fan-cast fanvid atm. I need a drink, I bet u do too. *hugs and bottoms up*
I can live with this much better. My pick has always been HG as LHC all along last few years.
*hug* it’s the way it is, but yes an IP proxy will do the trick, I hope….*sigh* things r extra bigbrothered with that ‘reality’ show that’s going on.
The political freakshow here is hilarious if only it didn’t have ramifications that annoyed me so much. Apparently both myself and dramabeans are a danger, oh and Perez Hilton too. I’m too pooped from working all day to figure out VPN. Sigh, this Swordsman is going to a travesty of epic proportions, isn’t it? *hugs*
*bighugzzz* Ganbette!
I think there r a few times I got lucky by using Chrome with some settings, at least with YT.
huh, the only good thing is we r having some tummy exercises lolzing at Wallace maybe playing the sole person providing all the wood of a love triangle involving ‘3’ guys
We can’t ever accuse YMM as not creative fr now on.
We still have JoeChen to ‘anticipate’.
A ~100day shooting schedule for an easily 40eps wuxia, we aren’t seeing tip of his rainbow shaved ice yet.
OMG. This is SOOOO wrong I can’t even…
SOBS.
I can finally truly understand what you felt when DMY casting was announced now…
T_T
Wallace’s costume isn’t even the problem here… but ren ying ying and company?
I TRIED to be optimistic. Thinking it can’t be so bad…
Until I saw the stills and now, I’m not even sure hoping for a miracle is possible.
What was yu zheng thinking????
and I have to add…
I HATE that smirk on her face in the 2nd picture… really?
Drama gods, WHY?
I’m okay with the look on each actor/actress’s face. I think even YSS is conveying the look of the independent girl that RYY is supposed to be.
BUT my problem is every costume is too colorful. Everyone look like anime characters. The story is darker than what those colors convey. Plus, Wallace is too clean. LHC needs to be “looser”. LHC wouldn’t care about having all his clothes tied up just right.
Wow, I HATE these costumes. They just seem so cheap and tacky – Wallace looks like he’s in fancy dress in that general outfit.
Yang Ming Na as So Zhong Zhe:
uhhh….from the picture above alone, she does NOT look like she could be a mother/surrogate mother of YLS and LHC. She looks too young imo
I mean, putting her and Wallace & the actress for her daughter next to each other, they look like friends. I can also imagine WH pairing up with her….
I would love to see her pair up with Wallace too 🙂
Welcome to china. =)
The costumes are too bright! Very Yu Zheng.
& the fabric makes everything look cheap. LHC’s clothes look too new. As a wanderer who doesn’t care about his appearance, that is. Wallace looks okay but he is just NOT Ling Hu Cong. It’s just so obvious that he’s trying to act like him.. but just isn’t him. If anyone gets what I’m trying to say T.T
I`ve been coughing up blood ever since this was announced. Now I feel like rolling Yu Zheng under the bus…like 1000 times. Really WTF if Wallace is playing Yang Lien Ting as well.
The costumes aren`t too bad I guess if it is meant for some run of the mill period drama. I never expected much from Yu zheng’s productions when it comes to costumes, as his costumes are usually pretty blah when it comes to quality and design (with the exception of Schemes of a Beauty). But for an adaptation of this book? A big no No NO.
I like Wallace but he’s no Linghu Chong. He looks so serious. And for a free spirited, devil may care character that he is, I expect his costume to be more free, flowy, and a bit messy. Not all clean and done up so neatly. Both Ren Wo Xin and Yue Bu Qun looks pretty meh.
Aragh and I don’t even want too see what Joe Chen’s Dongfang Bu Bai is gonna be like.
I’m a bit…unsure about the costumes. Why does it seem like the girl is wearing UGG style boots?
For some of the guys, it appears as if they’re either wearing an oversized sweater with that texture or a bath robe…
Just my personal opinion 🙂
Oh damn, Wallace looks so amazingly hot to look at <3
I thought the costumes are pretty, in a bright cheery way. Of course by all accounts it might not match the book’s, but hey if we are going to be such stickler for details…the period dramas should all just recycle each other’s costumes…I doubt the people back then had that many designs and colors.
Wallace looks dashing…but yeah, not very LWC-like. Especially the general garb. That gave me pause…it’s ermm…too fake. Not really a fan of YSS, but have to say she looks kind of pretty in the first picture and last picture of her. The rest are fine but Yang Ming Na looks much too young to be LWC’s surrogate mother
the general one is supposed to be fake… LOL in the novel, he took/stole a general’s clothes, put on fake beard and used that general’s identity to avoid those who wants to kill him.
But the general clothes he stole are real & you can clearly see that the armour is made of cloth from the stills (ie fake).
I thought Ming Dao is included in the cast…
Isn’t he still serving in mandatory army service something?
Actually I believe Wallace can pull it off. I’ve seen Wallace in different type of roles and I think he is capable of being LHC, perhaps not the best, but I have faith in him. Besides, actually it doesn’t matter, although not being a real Wallace fan, everytime I watch his dramas, he’ll manage to mesmerize me, I will like him anyway^^ Well, perhaps except for one really old TW drama, 100% senorita or something like that, that drama was awful, I never managed to finish it which reminds me of the fact that QE acted with Wallace together already….oh well, but I agree with you all about the costumes, LHC’s costume is definetly too clean and YSS as RYY, grr….I don’t think she can really act to be a lead actress (watch Gong2), besides her costumes are really too colorful, I always thought of her as a rather dark character although she is ‘good’. YLS might be okay with wearing bright colors because she is supposed to be cute, but is it nescessary for her to be that colorful….it just is a sore in the eye. And last I do ‘anticipate’ QE as DFBB, but seriously wth was Yu Zheng thinking when he did that?! I love QE in all her TW dramas as the cute and a bit of dumb girl (Frog turned prince, FTLY etc.), she is great in those characters, but c-period drama and DFBB, gosh they should stick to the original, seriously. Brigitte Lin was a totally different issue, first it was a movie, that was in general quite different to the novel, second it is a Tsui Hark movie and third well, it is Brigitte Lin, a legend for the man-woman-roles.
Hmm Yu Zheng and his love for bright “pretty” clothes without realizing that overly bright and crisp sometimes comes off as tacky more than anything.
In my mind, Brigitte Lin will always be THE DFBB for me.
I don’t like the look of YSS. She looks snobby. 🙁
Koala, you might be excited to know that yu zheng has announced on weibo that han dong (9th prince in BBJX) will be playing Dong Fang Bu Bai, Chen qiao en as Ruan Ying Ying and Yuan Shan Shan as Dong Fang’s sister!!