Brotherhood of Blades: Shadow of Mountain and River (2023)

Dead men tell no tales.

Pledge of Allegiance is a dark and murky Ming Dynasty suspense thriller in the vein of the renown Brotherhood of the Blades franchise. Produced by Lu Yang and written by the same writer, the Jinyiwei/锦衣卫 or brocade-clad guards of this drama are grey characters whose true allegiance is to their brotherhood and their personal values and priorities and not to some overarching sense of morality or righteousness on a grand scale. This drama is set in a time of opaque and wild, conspiracy laden history and has an elaborate plot with manifold twists. This is likely to lose casual watchers, especially those without a basic understanding of the historical context. [A detailed discussion of the history can be found in the Discussion section of the drama page.]

This drama is set during the chaotic battle for the throne that followed the demise of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding Hongwu Emperor of Ming dynasty. A succession crisis plagued the last five years of his long reign when the crown prince Zhu Biao died unexpectedly. Zhu Yuanzhang had chosen Zhu Biao to succeed him over his most capable and some claim his favorite fourth son Zhu Di or Prince Yan because Zhu Biao was the son of his legitimate wife. Conflict arose after Zhu Biao's death when he chose Zhu Biao's son Zhu Yunwen to be his successor. Zhu Yunwen was also the son of a consort and not of Zhu Biao's legitimate wife. Thus his claim to the throne was no less legitimate than Prince Yan's notwithstanding his grandfather's endorsement. The young Jianwen Emperor's tenuous hold on the throne was further shaken when he unwisely sought to temper the military might of his prince uncles, exiling and killing many of them. Prince Yan who secured the Northern border needed little further excuse to revolt. The silent power struggle that began with Zhu Biao's death broke out into open civil war almost from the moment of Jianwen's ascent. At the time, the capital was in the south at Yingtian (present Nanjing). Prince Yan for all intents and purposes was already in control of the northern capital Beiping (Beijing) where he defended the nation from the Mongols. He was aided by his elite border spies, the Yebushou/夜不收 or night scouts. They are pitted against the Jinyiwei who are the emperor's secret police but like many bureaucracies and the court at the time, there were divided loyalties at every level. While likely consistent with history, this aspect of unclear and shifting loyalties makes most of the character motivations in this drama especially difficult to follow.

Li Wu is a thief and a consummate liar. He steals the identity of a sergeant and sneaks into the mansion of Wang Kegong, who had just been transferred back to the capital with a secret edict. He has life threatening encounters with Shu Tang an assassin and Lu Zheng, a young detective who is literally willing to kill a sergeant to create a vacancy for himself to assume that position. They get caught up in a race to secure the Yuming Lock, which contains a secret that could change the course of history. Though they have different masters and at times conflicting agendas, they share a decade old traumatic childhood past. Whether by chance or destiny, they are reunited to solve the mystery of what really happened one fateful day ten years ago. But the links to the past get more tenuous and secrets that can turn friend into foe are revealed. As the body count grows, the solution slips further out of grasp as dead men tell no tales.

The main roles are complex and the cast delivers all-round riveting performances. In this kind of battle for the throne story there are no real villains; everyone is quite dark and have their own agendas. Zhang Yunlong is particularly convincing as thief with an inconvenient conscience and a knack for turning dire situations around. He had so many balls in the air at the same time that I could barely keep up with his lies and his promises. Chen Ruoxuan's portrayal of Lu Zheng as such a smart and yet naive and (wilfully?) obtuse character is nuanced and empathetic. It is no wonder Li Wu, Lu Yulin and even Zhang Junqing feel compelled to protect him. I enjoyed Li Wu's bromance with Lu Zheng as much as I did his romance with Shu Tang. Chen Ruoxuan and Zhang Yunlong have such good chemistry that they are masters of the art of the unspoken; how it is possible to have an innate understanding and trust that is beyond words and even actions. The stage is nicely set for this recurring theme in the telling of the fable of the Tan Hua flower spirit in episode 3. This underlies many interactions between main characters including the Mu sisters. This aspect of reading the subtext is very well conceived, it challenges both the characters and viewers to hear the truth behind the lies and to "hear" what is left unsaid. Sun Yi is a gorgeous and terrific actress and this time, she has a meaty role although her character is not always consistently written and her relationship with the colonel is not well fleshed out. As such, it is Ma Yujie's daringly articulated Zhang Junqing steals the show as the most fascinating and strongest female character of this drama.

This drama is not that action heavy but the sequences are fast moving and very well choreographed although they lack the intensity and raw ferocity of Brotherhood of Blades. I am quite relieved at the shorter and less stressful combat scenes as they are still packed with shocking and bloody twists. Just don't look too deeply at the logic defying ability of many characters to survive body piercing stabs in close vicinity to vital organs.

The plot design is serpentine and deliberately messy. This is probably meant to reflect the opacity, duplicity and chaos that prevailed at the time. Many character motivations are never fully revealed which gives rise to a sense of lazy writing; that at times characters become inconsistent for the sake of delivering yet another twist. There were a few too many twists that detract from the main plot. The final episodes in particular appear to have suffered from heavy cuts. This could be because the main conspiracy that is designed to be weaved into significant historical events may have gone too far in distorting history. This results in an ending that is satisfactory overall but leaves a few open sub-plots and unanswered questions. I love these plot heavy historical suspense thrillers and think this is a high quality, compellingly acted production overall. However, the story could have been told in a much less confusing way so I can objectively only rate this an 8.0/10.0. That said, my personal enjoyment level is at 8.5.

I will include below my personal speculation on how I think the story ends and some other ending comments that are inevitably spoiler heavy. Do not read it until you have finished watching.










WARNING: ENDING SPOILERS AHEAD










The past:
In terms of what happened in that prison years ago, I came to the conclusion that Li Yan, Song Heming, Wang Kegong,, Mu Jinggao and possibly even Lu Yulin were all loyal to the deceased crown prince Zhu Biao. The compassionate and peace loving Zhu Biao did not wish such evil weapons to ever be used so he hid them and left the riddle of the location with Mu Jinggao, the firearms maker. Li Yan was the go between but was framed for murdering the crown prince by an evil Jinyiwei. He revealed the riddle and gave up Mu Jinggao to Song Heming to save his son Li Feng, who was sent to his good friend Minister Yuan. Li Yan probably implicated Mu Jinggao because he not only knew where the firearms were stashed but also how to make them. True to his word, Song Heming arrested Li Wu as Li Feng's substitute. Unfortunately Lu Zheng messed everything up by letting Li Wu and the Mu daughter go. Lu Yulin had to sacrifice Song Heming in order to save Lu Zheng. This is a consistent theme where they sacrifice themselves/each other to keep the secret buried but try to save each other's bloodline. The other possibility is Lu Yulin was working for Prince Yan and killed Song Heming for the Yuming Lock. But his motives changed after he grew to love Lu Zheng and then protecting him became his only objective. In either case, between Lu Yulin and Wang Kegong, they kept the Yuming Lock and the key to how to unlock it hidden for ten years, giving it to no one. The evil Jinyiwei who framed Li Yan and set this all in motion was of course the real Li Dongfang, a bastard son keen to earn merit from his father Prince Yan. That is why he tracked down both Mu sisters and tried to use them to try to find the weapons. He also hoped that if Mu Jinggao were still alive he would come back for his daughters. I don't believe Mu Jinggao ever was a Yebushou because if that were the case, Prince Yan would not only have the weapons, he would know how to make them. I also doubt he is still alive as if he were, he would have surfaced or been found. It seems implausible that Lu Yulin who was just a mid-level Jinyiwei at the time could have saved such a high profile rebel under intense scrutiny.

The ending:
With the help of Boss Shen, Li Wu is in control of the game changing weapons and thus has a seat at the table in terms of the outcome of the power struggle. But he is just a common thief; like all commoners throughout Chinese history 民以食为天/mín yǐ shí wéi tiān - as long as there is food on the table it doesn't matter who the emperor is. Like Zhu Biao, he only cares that his beloved capital and "his people" don't suffer the vagaries of war. So he decides that no one should have the weapons. Yet he made promises and owes debts to both sides of the conflict so he engineers a compromise outcome. As promised (in exchange for Li Dongfang and hostage Bai Mingshan), he and Lu Zheng open the city gates to Prince Yan's forces but he smuggles the weapons away after taking control of the river fleet. In history, a traitor delivered control of the imperial river fleet to Prince Yan while another opened the city gates to his forces - see why the final episodes got cut quite a bit?. To Li Wu, it was clear Prince Yan would ultimately prevail and this was the least bloodthirsty way to cede to the inevitable.

At the same time, Li Wu owed Yuan Zhongdao for a number of things including Lu Zheng's life. He probably made good by smuggling the emperor, his consort and son out of the country. That is probably what Shu Tang went away to do - she was getting them safely out of the capital. She never really sided with Prince Yan she was just repaying her debt to Li Dongfang. Once he was dead, she can act in her own best conscience and she would be helping her sister who gave her life to fake the emperor's death. She may also have wanted to see if her father is still alive or to ensure that the technique of making these weapons is destroyed. In history, the palace was burned when Prince Yan entered the city. He produced three charred corpses allegedly of the Jianwen emperor, his consort and their son and declared himself emperor. That is why I already guessed Zhang Junqing would die with Yuan Zhongdao and I expected Mei Dou to be the third corpse but I am glad they didn't go there or that got cut. It is wild history that Jianwen Emperor survived the fire and escaped to Southeast Asia or further south in China. Zhu Di is said to have sent Zheng He off on his expeditions across Southeast Asia to hunt him down. This part of the conclusion obviously suffered heavy cuts as it indulges in speculative history.

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