Fei Hu Wai Zhuan (2022)

You can't bring a sword to a gun fight.

Like many wuxia fans, I consider Jin Yong / Gum Yoong (Cantonese) the greatest wuxia writer of all time. Side Story of Fox Volant 飛狐外傳 is one of his early works. It was written shortly after The Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain 雪山飞狐, which is both a prequel and a sequel. Unlike many versions that combine both novels, Side Story of Fox Volant is adapted as a stand-alone story. Despite some meaningful changes, this adaptation captures the essence of the original story, the spirit of martial heroes or daxia/大侠 and the vagaries of jianghu/江湖.

The drama is action packed with fast paced, intense, starkly violent and brilliantly choreographed combat sequences that will satisfy any hard core wuxia buff. Slow motion is used sparingly for maximum brutal impact. No one has magic qigong or special powers. The main fighters - Hu Yidao, Miao Renfeng, Hu Fei and Tian Guinong are swordsman with distinct combat styles and battle advantages. When they clash it is very muscular and lethally up close. The nimble Yuan Ziyi's weapon of choice is a whip, which minimizes close encounters to compensate for the physical disadvantage of being a woman. With each episode I think the action has to be as good as it gets but to my surprise and delight, the production keeps delivering into the final wulin arc. The wulin arc in terms of both plot design and action is the best I have seen. While Miao Renfeng and Hu Fei's martial teamwork in episode 22 may be the best of the best, the ending battle encounters are inventive, exhilarating and savagely satisfying. The action scenes are this drama's strongest point and are worthy of multiple thrilling re-watches.

I am not a fan of the trend of whitewashing characters, especially Jin Yong's characters. Jin Yong is the master of multi-faceted characters. His heroes are flawed. His villains have redeeming features. Nobody is perfect in the Jin Yong universe. So when writers have the audacity to tweak his characters, they usually muck it up. When it comes to earlier, less refined works like this, I don't mind so much as there is room for improvement. While this version does a good job with Yuan Ziyi, Hu Fei is disappointingly adapted beyond recognition. The attempt to make Tian Guinong and Nan Lan empathetic is nauseating and boring. This is one of the four don'ts Jin Yong specifically warned against in the preface to the latest edition of the novel.

This is one of the author's darker, more cynical works. Most of the characters love too well but not wisely - Hu Fei, Miao Renfeng, Cheng Lingsu, Ma Chunhua, and Nan Lan. The heart wants what the heart wants, consequences be damned. Nan Lan and Ma Chunhua are selfish and don't care who they hurt in the process while Cheng Lingsu, Hu Fei and Miao Renfeng are noble idiots. They all pay a terrible price for following their hearts. Yuan Ziyi is the only exception; she dares only to hate but not to love.

Yuan Ziyi is one of Jin Yong's most under appreciated and saddest heroines. She is the only heroine who is not an extension of the hero; she is on her own independent path to salvation. Born from an act of violence, she is consumed by self loathing; doomed by unkind karma to seek justice and then live a life of atonement for the sins of her father. In the context of her beliefs, if she breaks her solemn oath she will only prolong her bad karma. In the novel, she acts out and does very controversial things. These actions drown out her piteous backstory and make her a widely disliked character. This adaptation deftly writes out those events, enabling us to see her in a more empathetic light. Her shifu should have been left offscreen as her pressure obscures Ziyi's own resolve to keep her vow. I always feel terribly sorry for Ziyi; she never had free will. She is alive but she does not live. I am not sure that chanting sutras into oblivion is a better fate than death, which is final liberation from all suffering. I don't love Liang Jie's acting but her Ziyi impressed me. The slightest shadow of regret in her eyes in a stone cold face and her ability to convey so much beyond her words moved me to tears several times.

Even though Cheng Lingsu is a clever character, I never found her relatable because her entire reason for existence is Hu Fei. But to my surprise, I like Xing Fei's warm and personable rendition of Lingsu. Her Lingsu is devoted to Hu Fei without coming across as a doormat and she gets him out of many tight spots with her quick thinking. The complex entanglement between the three of them is well portrayed. Hu Fei's chemistry with Ziyi is tangibly different from his dynamics with Lingsu, making it immediately obvious who he loves and who loves him. He is much more of one heart with Ziyi and they instinctively act in unison with little need for communication or explanation. Whereas Lingsu is constantly reining Hu Fei in and giving him instructions that are at odds with his natural instincts. When he can't help disobeying, he appears reckless and unintelligent. This character flaw arguably contributes to what happens to Lingsu at the end. There are better ways to show that Hu Fei is less in sync with Lingsu without throwing his character under the bus.

Lin Yushen's Miao Renfeng steals the show in this drama. Criticism that his Miao Renfeng is too much like his Yang Xiao in Heaven Sword is fair but he is so cool and he pulls off the character's inner conflicts and emotions so well that I don't mind. This performance anchors the drama for he is the martial hero of this story, His code of honor demands that he does the right thing even when it is the wrong thing for himself and those he loves. I wouldn't object if they call this the Legend of Miao Renfeng because of this compelling portrayal of what it means to be a daxia. Even though he is movingly handsome when he is suffering, the story wallows in Miao Renfeng's betrayal and loss for too long. The tawdry Nan Lan/Tian Guinong arc is a boring extended digression. The opportunity missed is that Hu Fei and Miao Renfeng do not get enough scenes together. They have remarkable combined chemistry and their joint fight scene is the one of the drama's best.

As for the titular character Hu Fei 胡斐, (which is a homonym for fox volant or flying fox), I always loved his character design. Far from being infallible, he is a work in progress - young and smart with tons of potential but a bit hot headed and too idealistic. He is the people's hero; the guy who demands justice for the underdog regardless of the cost to himself. His best traits, this strong sense of righteousneous and his willingness to fight the unfair fight is dumbed down to recklessness and even stupidity in this adaptation. He is written off as a bull in the China shop whose hot headedness could wreck the Red Flower Society's mission to save wulin. He doesn't accomplish much on his own and without Ziyi and Lingsu, he'd have died many times. It does not help that despite his phenomenal acting, Qin Junjie looks a bit too mature to play an 18 year old.

Despite good pacing, the plot digresses into too many dull sub-plots and arcs. This is an issue with the original work, which this adaptation already cleans up considerably. The Nan Lan and Poison Valley disciple arcs are the least interesting and Hu Fei deserves to be less peripheral in the reveal of the conspiracy behind Hu Yidao's death. The wulin arc brings the story to a climax, one that exceeds that of the novel on some fronts but is a let down in other aspects. Good characters die in wuxias, it is par for the course. But their deaths must be worthy and not gratuitous. What I dislike most about the ending is that it unnecessarily sacrifices a knight errant after they capture the king. It is a futile sacrifice because you can't bring a sword to a gun fight. Sadly, the advent of guns heralds the demise of jianghu and martial heroes.

This is a good adaptation overall that is limited by original works that lack the finesse of Jin Yong's subsequent masterpieces. The novel is already too dark and unbalanced. It is not necessary to outdo Jin Yong in how incredibly cruel he is to Hu Fei. Despite its darkness, the novel still ends on a note of optimism because Hu Fei's journey continues. But in the drama Hu Fei seems to be left to live largely in the past with two women, one too old and too icky for him and another so young it would be too icky. Thus to me this is at best an 8.0 in terms of storytelling that I bump up to an 8.5 for the not to be missed fight scenes. Nonetheless, this wuxia takes you on a stirring and addictive journey that is well worth it - as long as you do not need a Disney ending.

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