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mumblemumble) wrote2024-12-19 10:59 pm
mumblemumble) wrote2024-12-19 10:59 pm
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War of Faith (2024)
The rambling conclusion to my rambling mid-series reactions, now with even more spoilers!
Do I recommend this? Yes. If you like age-gap hoyay, and don't mind some violence* and a truly stupendous amount of CCP propaganda**, this is the drama for you. If you don't like age-gap hoyay, I don't think you want to engage with this.
Anyway, I don't think I'm overselling it when I say it's a love story.
To get this out the way first, both Wang Yang and Wang Yibo survive the show. About halfway through the show, you'll start wondering how, because their paths start diverging quite a bit, but they do. I don't want to spoil the details of the ending, but. I mean. It's a lot.
Anyway, have some completely unorganized bullet points:
- There are a couple of scenes where I was like, did Wang Yang improvise this? And it turns out that he did! When Shen Tunan straightens Ruolai's clothes(1) as he tells him to keep the fire in his heart alive, and when he flings the folder onto the table(2) and shatters several tea cups-- those were unscripted! I love him.
- There were a lot of moments where I was like, are you insane, this man will never convert to communism, you're deluding yourself! But then by the end it's actually mostly believable. I did think all the repetitive speeches were unbearable, but his massive disappointment in the Kuomintang, all the accumulated humiliation he endured for them, the absolute belief in a better future for ~*the country*~, the fact that he's established as someone who's willing to reconsider things based on new information-- it all adds up! I do wish they would have just let Wang Yang do his thing and dialed down the really overt propaganda, but ah well.
- The first communist we meet when the red trio makes it to Jiangxi was absolutely insufferable and I kept waiting for him to die. The show gave me this, so some points from me there. Deducting most of them again because everyone died in that scene, but. Still.
- There's a scene, relatively early on, where Wang Yibo has endured days of torture and weeks in prison because he wasn't going to incriminate his boss in a crime the torture cops were trying to frame him for, and he is now at the hospital and said boss is watching him get some medical attention. It's a scene directly lifted from a h/c fic. It's amazing. Wang Yang says something like, I can't even imagine what you had to endure, and Wang Yibo tells him, and I quote, "I thought, even if they kill me, I can't hold you back. You're meant for great things." What an absolutely unhinged thing to say to your boss. My brain broke a bit at that scene.
- It literally only gets gayer from there.
- The show asks, as its thesis statement, what if you finally meet, after spending two or three or four decades on this Earth, the one person who matches your brilliance, your singular focus, your interests and your personal beliefs. What would that feel like? A younger version of yourself who looks up to you with hearts in his eyes. A mentor, a person of authority, who recognizes your talents and personally pulls you from the muck. Could you bear to lose this bond? What if the strength of your conviction, the ferocity of your beliefs, the thing that drew you to each other, eventually forced you apart? What would you do?
- Also, something about communism. But, and I don't think I'm overselling it, really mostly about that bond.
- Also, there's a third character? I'm gonna be honest with you, I didn't super care for her. I think it helped that both Shen Tunan's beloved disciple and his beloved sister kept trying to convert him, and his wife also didn't seem to mind the communists very much, so at some point he really ran out of arguments on the contra side. The gege-meimei relationship was well acted and I thought the whole family was super lovely and warm and sweet together, and I enjoyed the little child actress. But I... did not like the sister very much.
- I did like the wife.
- Anyway, Wang Yang's character, according to one tiny bit of info given in one of the later episodes, is 33 years old in the first episode. It makes sense in-universe, but is, of course, preposterous given the casting. I don't think fandom cares very much (whatever, age gap, personal backstory timeline, we're all just vibing) but I was shook.
- The jealous secretary character was a source of constant bafflement to me. He kept doing the same bit over and over again, with no escalation and no consequences. Just doomed by the narrative to be jealous of Wei Ruolai and say mean things about poor people. Over and over again. Never grows as a person. Never goes away. Just constantly by daddy's side, desperate for approval, somehow failing to learn what daddy approves of. Even his death is just used as a narrative hook to tell us about a plot twist and insert another little speech about the glory of communism. What a thankless role. What a fascinating non-character!
- There is--speaking of scenes lifted directly from fanfiction--a moment where Wang Yang arrives on the scene of a car crash (there was another explosion, this show has so many explosions) and jogs up to Wang Yibo who's sitting on the curb all smol and forlorn, holding on to the one box he managed to save from the fire. Wang Yang crouches down, gently asks Yibo if he's okay, almost angrily takes the box and puts it aside when Yibo keeps holding on to it, and then barely holds himself back from checking Yibo for wounds. Then he walks up to the person responsible for the car crash (some law enforcement bigwig) and punches him in the face. Could have also been a really hard slap. It was hard to see. Just really throws his whole body into it. It was so hot.
- This is a show about the glory of communism.
- At some point Shen Tunan gives his lucky fountain pen to Ruolai, in a scene that can only really be described as a wedding? I mean, they officially become shifu and disciple. In an incredibly public ceremony. Just bonkers stuff. Anyway, Wang Yang picked that pen for a livestream(3) where the actors were asked to bring something which represents their character. So that's all fine and normal.
- Wounds don't make sense on this show, recovery from head trauma and physical injuries makes no sense, who dies in and who survives an explosion makes no sense, lots of stuff involving the proletariat side characters makes no narrative sense, the ending makes absolutely no sense if you think about it for more than two seconds, and I still don't understand the timeline of the Shen siblings' university days in Germany.
- The bond between Shen Tunan and Wei Ruolai, though. I'm telling you. Unhinged.
I think that's it for now. There's probably more stuff I meant to say, but let's stop here. Sorry for the lack of visuals, but here, have these screencaps? For reasons.
1. Translated excerpts from the livestream where the cast watches ep 28-29
2. Translated excerpts from Wang Yang's interview with "Spotlight on the Legendary Drama" 《神剧亮了》
3. Translated excerpts from the War of Faith livestream interview of the cast
Do I recommend this? Yes. If you like age-gap hoyay, and don't mind some violence* and a truly stupendous amount of CCP propaganda**, this is the drama for you. If you don't like age-gap hoyay, I don't think you want to engage with this.
* If, like me, you're worried about scenes of torture, but would like to watch Wang Yang be hot and in love with Wang Yibo, please, I will go through all the episodes and give you time stamp information on when to look away and for how long. I will do this for you! And also for Wang Yang. (I skipped the torture scenes by holding a hand up in front of the TV screen, muting the sound, and squinting at the subtitles every now and then to see if we were done. I'd estimate there are maybe a half dozen of these. Otherwise it's mostly shootouts, explosions, some war imagery, and some grossness.)
** So many speeches about the glory of communism, and such swelling trumpet music. It's bearable if you have a sense of humor about it, but my god.
** So many speeches about the glory of communism, and such swelling trumpet music. It's bearable if you have a sense of humor about it, but my god.
Anyway, I don't think I'm overselling it when I say it's a love story.
To get this out the way first, both Wang Yang and Wang Yibo survive the show. About halfway through the show, you'll start wondering how, because their paths start diverging quite a bit, but they do. I don't want to spoil the details of the ending, but. I mean. It's a lot.
Anyway, have some completely unorganized bullet points:
- There are a couple of scenes where I was like, did Wang Yang improvise this? And it turns out that he did! When Shen Tunan straightens Ruolai's clothes(1) as he tells him to keep the fire in his heart alive, and when he flings the folder onto the table(2) and shatters several tea cups-- those were unscripted! I love him.
- There were a lot of moments where I was like, are you insane, this man will never convert to communism, you're deluding yourself! But then by the end it's actually mostly believable. I did think all the repetitive speeches were unbearable, but his massive disappointment in the Kuomintang, all the accumulated humiliation he endured for them, the absolute belief in a better future for ~*the country*~, the fact that he's established as someone who's willing to reconsider things based on new information-- it all adds up! I do wish they would have just let Wang Yang do his thing and dialed down the really overt propaganda, but ah well.
- The first communist we meet when the red trio makes it to Jiangxi was absolutely insufferable and I kept waiting for him to die. The show gave me this, so some points from me there. Deducting most of them again because everyone died in that scene, but. Still.
- There's a scene, relatively early on, where Wang Yibo has endured days of torture and weeks in prison because he wasn't going to incriminate his boss in a crime the torture cops were trying to frame him for, and he is now at the hospital and said boss is watching him get some medical attention. It's a scene directly lifted from a h/c fic. It's amazing. Wang Yang says something like, I can't even imagine what you had to endure, and Wang Yibo tells him, and I quote, "I thought, even if they kill me, I can't hold you back. You're meant for great things." What an absolutely unhinged thing to say to your boss. My brain broke a bit at that scene.
- It literally only gets gayer from there.
- The show asks, as its thesis statement, what if you finally meet, after spending two or three or four decades on this Earth, the one person who matches your brilliance, your singular focus, your interests and your personal beliefs. What would that feel like? A younger version of yourself who looks up to you with hearts in his eyes. A mentor, a person of authority, who recognizes your talents and personally pulls you from the muck. Could you bear to lose this bond? What if the strength of your conviction, the ferocity of your beliefs, the thing that drew you to each other, eventually forced you apart? What would you do?
- Also, something about communism. But, and I don't think I'm overselling it, really mostly about that bond.
- Also, there's a third character? I'm gonna be honest with you, I didn't super care for her. I think it helped that both Shen Tunan's beloved disciple and his beloved sister kept trying to convert him, and his wife also didn't seem to mind the communists very much, so at some point he really ran out of arguments on the contra side. The gege-meimei relationship was well acted and I thought the whole family was super lovely and warm and sweet together, and I enjoyed the little child actress. But I... did not like the sister very much.
- I did like the wife.
- Anyway, Wang Yang's character, according to one tiny bit of info given in one of the later episodes, is 33 years old in the first episode. It makes sense in-universe, but is, of course, preposterous given the casting. I don't think fandom cares very much (whatever, age gap, personal backstory timeline, we're all just vibing) but I was shook.
- The jealous secretary character was a source of constant bafflement to me. He kept doing the same bit over and over again, with no escalation and no consequences. Just doomed by the narrative to be jealous of Wei Ruolai and say mean things about poor people. Over and over again. Never grows as a person. Never goes away. Just constantly by daddy's side, desperate for approval, somehow failing to learn what daddy approves of. Even his death is just used as a narrative hook to tell us about a plot twist and insert another little speech about the glory of communism. What a thankless role. What a fascinating non-character!
- There is--speaking of scenes lifted directly from fanfiction--a moment where Wang Yang arrives on the scene of a car crash (there was another explosion, this show has so many explosions) and jogs up to Wang Yibo who's sitting on the curb all smol and forlorn, holding on to the one box he managed to save from the fire. Wang Yang crouches down, gently asks Yibo if he's okay, almost angrily takes the box and puts it aside when Yibo keeps holding on to it, and then barely holds himself back from checking Yibo for wounds. Then he walks up to the person responsible for the car crash (some law enforcement bigwig) and punches him in the face. Could have also been a really hard slap. It was hard to see. Just really throws his whole body into it. It was so hot.
- This is a show about the glory of communism.
- At some point Shen Tunan gives his lucky fountain pen to Ruolai, in a scene that can only really be described as a wedding? I mean, they officially become shifu and disciple. In an incredibly public ceremony. Just bonkers stuff. Anyway, Wang Yang picked that pen for a livestream(3) where the actors were asked to bring something which represents their character. So that's all fine and normal.
- Wounds don't make sense on this show, recovery from head trauma and physical injuries makes no sense, who dies in and who survives an explosion makes no sense, lots of stuff involving the proletariat side characters makes no narrative sense, the ending makes absolutely no sense if you think about it for more than two seconds, and I still don't understand the timeline of the Shen siblings' university days in Germany.
- The bond between Shen Tunan and Wei Ruolai, though. I'm telling you. Unhinged.
I think that's it for now. There's probably more stuff I meant to say, but let's stop here. Sorry for the lack of visuals, but here, have these screencaps? For reasons.
1. Translated excerpts from the livestream where the cast watches ep 28-29
2. Translated excerpts from Wang Yang's interview with "Spotlight on the Legendary Drama" 《神剧亮了》
3. Translated excerpts from the War of Faith livestream interview of the cast