Watching 镇魂 Guardian is such a trip
Mar. 27th, 2022 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alreadyreadthatfanficDo you know a genre of AU fanfic where the characters are transplanted into completely different setting along with SOME of plot, enough of it that you can see it hitting the important milestones and character beats, but otherwise there's nothing from original backdrop?
镇魂 Guardian is exactly that in live action, but if you were writing the script on toilet paper and respected the cohesion of your plot about as much.
At the same time, from the bottom of my heart: watching it is not a waste of time.
Pretty much the only thing I knew about the drama when clicking "play" was the fact it based on a BL webnovel by priest (who also wrote the novel that got adapted into Word of Honor). The weird sci-fi-esque setup of Guardian is clearly explained in the beginning of the first episode. Despite the fact that nothing really contradicts it outright during the later episodes, somewhere around the middle of the series I was feeling like I misunderstood it anyway. Get yourself a friend to watch it with, because you'll need someone to groan at over the special effects, villains looking like they stepped out of Power Rangers, and the meandering story.
It won't take you long to reach the conclusion that the censorship and poor writing is making mincemeat of SOME sort of plot. And it's not like The Untamed, where they took out a few zombies, a few mature scenes, and the love confession and were good to go with the story still intact. Guardian needed to censor MOST of the setting, leaving only the characters and a few somewhat recognizable storylines.
I managed to last a little over half of episodes, I think, to reach the point where I decided: fuck it. I'm reading the novel. Maybe then I'll understand.
And I did.
Reading the novel and giving up on making any sense of drama plot let me really appreciate the magic of Guardian. By magic, I mean the way the main leads are hitting about 90% of emotional beats of the original story perfectly despite being dropped in lazily sketched AU setting. I was frankly amazed, because I never experienced something like that before. If you read the novel, you can map most of the scenes perfectly onto the original and enjoy the great chemistry and acting that is happening on screen even more.
Drama is not all bad, too. The AU setting can be pretty interesting on its own. There are really funny and cute identity porn shenanigans! (My catnip). The actors are doing an outstanding job and I must give credit where credit is due: the handsome face of man playing Shen Wei definitely helped me persevere.
If you're reading the novel, watch the drama. If you're watching the drama, read the novel. This is the most bewildering accidental (?) intertextuality experiment I've seen, but it's worth it.
镇魂 Guardian is exactly that in live action, but if you were writing the script on toilet paper and respected the cohesion of your plot about as much.
At the same time, from the bottom of my heart: watching it is not a waste of time.
Pretty much the only thing I knew about the drama when clicking "play" was the fact it based on a BL webnovel by priest (who also wrote the novel that got adapted into Word of Honor). The weird sci-fi-esque setup of Guardian is clearly explained in the beginning of the first episode. Despite the fact that nothing really contradicts it outright during the later episodes, somewhere around the middle of the series I was feeling like I misunderstood it anyway. Get yourself a friend to watch it with, because you'll need someone to groan at over the special effects, villains looking like they stepped out of Power Rangers, and the meandering story.
It won't take you long to reach the conclusion that the censorship and poor writing is making mincemeat of SOME sort of plot. And it's not like The Untamed, where they took out a few zombies, a few mature scenes, and the love confession and were good to go with the story still intact. Guardian needed to censor MOST of the setting, leaving only the characters and a few somewhat recognizable storylines.
I managed to last a little over half of episodes, I think, to reach the point where I decided: fuck it. I'm reading the novel. Maybe then I'll understand.
And I did.
Reading the novel and giving up on making any sense of drama plot let me really appreciate the magic of Guardian. By magic, I mean the way the main leads are hitting about 90% of emotional beats of the original story perfectly despite being dropped in lazily sketched AU setting. I was frankly amazed, because I never experienced something like that before. If you read the novel, you can map most of the scenes perfectly onto the original and enjoy the great chemistry and acting that is happening on screen even more.
Drama is not all bad, too. The AU setting can be pretty interesting on its own. There are really funny and cute identity porn shenanigans! (My catnip). The actors are doing an outstanding job and I must give credit where credit is due: the handsome face of man playing Shen Wei definitely helped me persevere.
If you're reading the novel, watch the drama. If you're watching the drama, read the novel. This is the most bewildering accidental (?) intertextuality experiment I've seen, but it's worth it.
