Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

It's very often that people who are of non-Chinese origin or that outside of the Chinese countries may confuse Wuxia and Xianxia. I could remember a conversation I had with some Filipino friends who called all of them "Wuxia". I also kept calling every martial arts series Wuxia. What wasn't too surprising is that Xianxia is often confused as Wuxia. It's very easy to confuse the two especially if one's knowledge about Chinese culture is rather casual. For me, I was too involved with too much American superiority mentality and only started to appreciate my Chinese roots when Meteor Garden (2001) aired in the Philippines.  What does Wuxia  (武俠) actually mean? For some Filipinos, their first exposure to Wuxia may have been in  The Amazing Twins . In my case (or for others), it was with the  Once Upon a Time in China film franchise or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon . So what does Wuxia mean? The Chinese words for Wuxia are martial (wu) and xia (heroes). That...

After watching quite a hefty serving of Korean crime series -- I think I might go back to watching Wuxia and Xianxia series now though I might want to focus first on the movie. Since today is the 24th day of the 12th lunar month -- I decided to do a bit of a Merry Mortal Khristmas Review instead. I decided to watch the movie that premiered on Netflix Philippines called The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity which has Wuxia/Xianxia regular Allen Deng (who really resembles Korean actor Park Seo Jun) and Mark Chao as Yin-Yang practitioners Bo Ya and Qing Ming respectively. There will be some spoilers but I'd try not to get too much out. Just remember don't confuse this movie with the other movie known as  Yin-Yang Master which stars Chen Kun as the Hanyo known as Qing Ming.  The movie itself seems like the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon franchise hit with Doctor Strange or other similar franchises. The portals may make you think of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy . For me, it doe...

Right now, I feel like I might devote some leisure time to watching some Chinese movies a the Lunar New Year 2021 is about to strike. He had various roles in action movies such as The Return of Chen Zhen and Dragon Tiger Gate to name a few. Who can also forget him as Ip Man in the Ip Man film series? The first exposure I had towards him was in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and in Huadu Chronicles where his character was called as such. Then one film which I felt was underappreciated is called The Lost Bladesman which focuses on the legendary hero Guan Yu from the Romance of the Three Kingdom Chronicles . There were other portrayals of Guan Yu even before Donnie took the role. One of them was in the series  The Legend of Guan Gong  starring Wang Yingquan. I tried to watch the series but it felt that Donnie, not Yingquan, actually made Guan Yu feel like he was never executed. Perhaps it's because Donnie has that fierce expression that went well with the beard he grew (or fa...

I remembered back when Kamen Rider Fourze was berated for this and that. Was it true that the series wasn't so well-liked (at first) but it got its following? Maybe not as next year's Kamen Rider Wizard failed to ride on the hype. It was the first space-themed Kamen Rider for the Heisei era but not for the entire franchise. In fact, the first space-themed Kamen Rider (or at least, on the surface was Kamen Rider Super-1 ). Sadly, it turned out that the actor Shunsuke Takasugi was swindling people during the time it was aired. Was Takasugi jealous of the success that Fourze had while his series caused a six-year hiatus before the appearance of Kamen Rider Black ? Sota Fukushi is one lucky guy to have fulfilled what Super-1 failed to do. Hopefully, Fukushi doesn't fall into that path. More interestingly, Fourze is the first Kamen Rider to take place in a high school - something similar to Saban's Mashed Rider . Until now, the staff at Saban Entertainment continue to look d...

I remembered some time ago when I wrote an entry about how Metal Hero's discontinuation may have something to do with Kamen Rider's revival . You may have observed how the Kamen Rider suits during the Heisei era up to the most recent one are obviously more metallic than the Showa era counterparts. Most of them may resemble Metal Heroes. It's safe to say that Metal Hero is discontinued but never forgotten by Toei as other later series (after Robotack ) still gave tribute to the series. You may notice at how Kyukyu Sentai GoGoFive may have the elements of the Rescue Police Trilogy ( Winspector up to Exceedraft ) or how Tokosou Sentai Dekaranger contains elements of the Space Sheriff Trilogy ( Gavan up to Shaider ). The Kamen Rider franchise is no different. In fact, it seems that Kamen Rider is the new Metal Hero and Kamen Rider Kabuto takes place in 2006 - 10 years after B-Fighter Kabuto came to existence as a less successful sequel to B-Fighter . Yup, after B-Fighter Kabut...