The good things about Yu Zheng‘s upcoming adaptation of The Swordsman (based on Louis Cha‘s novel Smiling Proud Wanderer) I can count on one finger – Wallace Huo as Linghu Chong. Bucking my initial reservations, in the official stills he’s gorgeously hot, angsty, and makes me see him for the first time as a non-bland leading man. The bad things….I don’t have enough fingers on all my appendages to count with. For those of you not familiar with Louis Cha’s novel, and how Yu Zheng is about to screw with it, let me give an analogy. Imagine if Michael Bay decided he wants to remake his own Lord of the Rings. And to shake things up, he cast Megan Fox as the neutered leader of the Orcs (forget its a male character), and then have her join in the love triangle with Aragorn (already busy with Arwen and Eowen). He furthered decided everyone in Middle Earth ought to add more color to their wardrobes so he borrowed clothes from the set of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to dress them in.
But he’s not done. He decides that the guy playing Aragorn also needs to play the gay lover of Megan Fox’s transsexual Orc leader, hence more angst and crossed love and battles line. Finally, in a twist of casting coup, Heidi Montag is handpicked to play Arwen. See? Who says Yu Zheng doesn’t have any originality? I can’t imagine any sane person conjuring this up, but he did when he cast Chen Qiao En as Dong Fang Bu Bai, and then had Wallace play both Linghu Chong and Yang Lian Ting. WTF seems way too restrained an epithet to swing around for this atrocity. The drama released a boatload of official stills so have a look below. It’s hella entertaining in a trainwreck sort of way. I’ll start with the super handsome ones of Wallace being all je ne sais quoi as the titular Swordsman, and then present in increasing order of insanity in the making.
Who knew Wallace had an angsty sex-muffin inside of him just waiting to bust out?
At least Yu Zheng is bringing the pretty in terms of scenic set pieces.
Ling Ping Zhi and Yue Ling Shan – never in a billion years could I have imagined these two would be the most functional looking pairing in this story. They are adorable! I also have fully behind Chen Xiao playing Liu Fu Ling in Yu Zheng’s Yun Zhong Ge adaptation. He’d be perfect.
Why are the Hua Shan disciples so….dorking looking? All of them. Come to think of it, other than Linghu Chong, they are mostly all secret power-hungry fakers or earnest puppy dogs.
Oh oh oh, the firefly scene! If done right, it makes me swoon to the moon and back.
Imma not going to mince words. I find Yuan Shan Shan grotesquely unrecognizable since she had her entire face redone. Calling her ugly would defeat why she had so much plastic surgery, but I miss the days when the middling actresses worked on their acting craft rather than expecting a knife to launch them into stardom. To have her playing Ren Ying Ying is such a travesty of miscasting.
Now we get to the super insane stuff. First look at Chen Qiao En as Dong Fang Bu Bai. Not horrible, just kind weird since she’s so feminine and all. And when in the hell did Dong Fang Bu Bai ever meet Feng Qing Yang in his cave? My brain, it hurts.
This part starts grossing me out. Seeing Dong Fang Bu Bai as genuinely trying to turn himself into a sexpot siren makes me shake my head.
And….of course I’m saving the best for last. Voila! Wallace Huo as sniveling boy toy Yang Lian Ting. I recall him being described as quite pretty boy handsome in the book, but here he looks like a tranny. Oh Yu Zheng, you really are quite a piece of work. I’m looking forward to The Swordsman because it will surely make me have lots of opinions.
Wallace Huo = angsty sex-muffin? lololol!!! nicely worded, and i must agree.
As I was scrolling down and looking at the pictures, I started off thinking, ‘oh hey, not that bad… Wallace is lookin mighty smexy’, and then ended up going ‘holy crap!!! gah, my eyes! MY EYES!!!’
this is all sorts of wrong.
That last picture will make sure that I never look at Wallace the same way. He usually looks pretty in the pretty boy sort of way. That picture looks like he’s the evil eunuch who’s out to ruin the main character’s life.
I see Hai Lu! I see that whenever Yu Zheng likes a certain actress, he keeps recasting them. At least she has a role in here, even if it’s a small one.
Tranny Wallace actually fits the bill for DFBB a lot more than Chen Qiao En. LOL. I wish they made Chen Qiao En RYY instead. She’s not exactly the best fit but still, a LOT better than Yuan Shan Shan D:
Lol. Me think so too.
So, The main girl actually undergo surgery? She does look much prettier here than in gong2.
That last image is… Wallace Huo? Really? Behold the power of makeup, I suppose.
the guy playing Aragorn also needs to play the gay lover of Megan Fox’s transsexual Orc leader
I am seriously trying to wrap my head around your analogy… and failing miserably. (But I got this much: the orc leader, in this analogy, is a woman playing a man playing a woman?) This sounds like a trainwreck that deserves to be snarked madly every step of the way. Not sure it’d deserve screencaps all the way through (only for the best-worst bits), but it’d certainly be interesting to hear just how wrong, wrong, wrong, the adaptation is going compared to the original storyline.
Although Huo does have major angstmuffin potential. He certainly showed major moments of it in Guai Xia Yi Zhi Mei , though he’s pretty much the deadpan straight-man in Chinese Palandin 3. I haven’t seen all of Qing Shi Huang Fei, just scenes here and there, but from what I’ve seen, he can pull a pretty nasty bad-with-angst guy out of himself if the script gives him that chance.
I KNEW HE COULD BE A SEXY ANGSTY SEX MUFFIN!!! I’m so glad you can see it now 😀 He was so hot in Strange Hero Yi Zhi Mei but seriously in Qing Shi Huang Fei, he was so earnest and beautiful to Ruby Lin’s character but to others he was like this brooding friggin sexy man wearing the most beautiful clothes. Oh my goodness I can’t help but be excited for this just for him even though the main girl is not very attractive…
Didn’t he end up the bad guy who doesn’t get the girl, in Qing Shi Huang Fei? That was the main reason I figured I’d skip it, if his part of the story ends as badly as spoiler-aware friends appeared to be hinting.
SPOILER ALERT
Yea he dies AND doesn’t ever end up with the girl…T____T…I didn’t end up watching all of it too when I found out because I was only watching Qing Shi Huang Fei for him. Cause he’s so attractive <3
The most annoying thing was, in the story of the series, he's supposed to be one of the guys that the main girl marries but he ends up dying. But in Ruby Lin's version, HE NEVER DOES T____T Ended up skipping QSHF and am watching YZM instead 🙂
I feel the same way about Wallace Huo as I do about Song Seung Heon. Just looking at their pretty faces gives me joy. I could care less about the story or acting.
This is the first time I wanted to laugh out loud when looking through stills from a drama. Some of the stills of Wallace trying to emote is seriously funny. Mrs Koala – I like your analogy – that’s a good way to explain the travesty being done here. If they want such a huge departure from the original story, might as well not call it the same name – just say it’s inspired by it.
love your Lord of the Ring analogy. you cracks me up
Party pooper here.
I dun see any angsty sex muffin at all, I dun think LHC needs to look extremely powerful with the sword, but on Wallace it still looks like he’s holding a pretty prop. tbh I see nth but same b;ank/bored/constipated Wallace face fr cap to cap…pretty but stil nth LHC, nth. I do think he’s better in emoting on film than in stills… shown me glimpses of angty hotness in Ijimae aided by lots of mane of glory and black.
And I haven’t stopped lol’ing at the gold T-string worn by CQE as DFBB since oh, when we first saw it months ago?! I can’t stop. Cant
The second picture with the guy. I was like WTF with her hair. O_o With the last picture, I think he is the lost lost lost cousin of the HOTTIE Orlando Bloom from Lord of the Rings. =D
I wish you wouldn´t use transphobic slurs such as “tranny”…
this has FAIL written all over it.
“Smiling Proud Wonderer” or “Xiao Ao Jiang Hu”? Absolutely my FAVOURITE Louise Chia novel! Guess I’ll just have to watch it no matter what the adaptation may turn out to be like. Lead actor looks great and so does everyone except for Ren Ying Ying – wish it would be someone more beautiful and “cool” like how the orginal character should be. When does this drama air? Thanks!
Yuan Shan Shan can’t act. If she had plastic surgery, she must sue the surgeon because she looks terrible in here, especially her nose. She looked better in Palace 2.