A Splash of Tang Dynasty: The Longest Day In Chang An 长安十二时辰
The auspicious day is here. For one day the whole city was decked with prismatic colors, all the gates of the 100+ walled districts of imperial capital would be opened for this festive occasion, where people of all ranks and all backgrounds would be welcomed to freely travel across the whole of Chang An. Almost a million would be at their leisure to traverse the capital without restrictions, to admire the performers, to ply their wares, ...and for some: to inflict the most unspeakable harm upon the distracted city and its people. Assassins and killers walk among the festive crowds, they looked like the festive crowds, a shadow in the swirling colors of autumn.
There's only 24 hours until that fateful hour- the climax of the festival, and only a handful of unlikely protagonists are burdened with the true scope of what was about to happen. Each hour that passes leads the culprits closer to achieving their goals. In each dramatic passing hour, the ultimate truth is made clearer to all involved. All is not what they seemed. And all that's between death- death of friends, death of comrades, deaths of families, or death of thousands, are those who would place themselves between the culprits and their deadly plans.
THE PRODUCTION
Music: 清平乐 (Tang dynasty)
I am sure a lot of my readers from East Asian are already well familiar with the new TV series, "The Longest Day in Chang An" 长安十二时辰 (lit. Chang An 24 hours- 12 时辰 means 12 double hours.)
But for anyone unfamiliar, it's the new Chinese produced thriller based on the acclaimed TV series "24," only this one is set in Tang dynasty China. Over the span of 24 hours, each roughly corresponding to one episode set in the great city~ a group of city guards and constables must thwart the plans of a group of assassins in a cat and mouse chase that span the entire metropolis.
The show is noted for it's sumptuous and detailed recreation of Tang dynasty China, from sets that closely mimicked the 108 walled- wards of the imperial capital, down to the red beam on white plastered walls, to the detailed, largely period- accurate clothing of the protagonists. Most of all, on a personal level, beautiful authentic armors from this period 🤗.
The end effect was one of the most immersive TV productions ever put on screen in China, and unmatched perhaps by anything from the last 20 years. Dear reader, I cannot even began to express how glad I am to see armors that are consistently over 70% accurate, or have period accurate props, soldiers, sets, even baubles populating ever frame of most of the episodes. Seeing it makes all the difference, and the makers of the show are well aware of that for those who are deeply curious about all aspects of the Tang dynasty.
As a fortuitous aside, the director is also a great admirer of the long take, of continuous tracking shots for fight scenes- if you love the many hallway fights from "Daredevil" and the most hair-raising single takes from "Game of Thrones" battles, you are in luck. All in all it was a brilliant swirl of silk and glorious carnage laced with martial arts.
Simply put: the show immensely raised the standard in what a Chinese period piece could be, and will serve as a high watermark for all future productions to compare themselves to. To check out the quality of the series, you can check out the trailer for the series here.
SETTING
Based on the same named novel, which is set in the Tang dynasty, “The Longest Day in Chang An” tells the story of a disgraced constable pardoned from death row in order to lead a breakneck- paced investigation against a cabal of assassins called the "Wolfpack" that had infiltrated the capital during the Lantern Festival: the single day where all the major gates of the city would be opened, and mobs of people of all social ranks, both foreigners and strangers from the frontiers would be freely permitted to travel across the entire metropolis. 24 hours, no curfew, no locked gates, a city of 2 million on its feet to gratify their curiosity. And for the Wolfpack, all was prepared for this night.
As previously discussed, each single episode is usually focused on one particular hour of the day as the clock winds closer to the climax of the lantern festival. In the death race, new plots will be discovered, friends and foes will be revealed, and switched, and many , many corpses will be made.
Music: Song of Chang'e, the Moon Goddess
TO WATCH
For those interested in watching the series, you can find the entire series on Amazon PRIME, which will be updated with the latest episode as soon as they aired. If you do not have PRIME, you can still find the series (with Closed Captions for English Subs) on Youtube.
If you have reservations, at least stay and watch the 1st long shot, it will give you an impression of both the unique aesthetics and the competent level of storytelling.
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Comments
The production values are great, with the clothes being so authentic. The acting and fighting is also good, none of that fanciful wire-fu martial arts stuff, which I like, but has no place in a historical I think.
The references to government agencies and ministries and ethnic groups is great too and accurate.
Can't wait to watch the next episode tonite!!
There are a lot of movie screencaps, reenactment armors, concept art, and action figures that get a lot right but have small details wrong (like belt buckles, wrong combination of helmets / cuirasses, wrong period of bows and sabers, wrong silhouette, wrong textures or even from the wrong period of the dynasty)
Whenever I feature something they usually have to be 70 % right to convey a good impression of the subject: good silhouette, good selection of featured equipment etc.The reason being it's extremely hard to find things that are 95% right or 100% right in terms of everything. If you are in a group that loves sourcing and loves to cite archeological origins of items, of tomb findings and recovered armors etc you realize that most people gets something wrong even despite their best efforts. I get things wrong to from time to time as well. At times different people's sources also get them wrong. What was seen as reliable sources from a decade ago could be undone with new archeological evidences etc, there are a lot more Chinese reports than what could be translated into English and despite my best efforts to translate Chinese sources the English ones for reading are always catching up.
But in regard to the show, looks like the people working on them dug deep in research. Occasionally I still see things from late Tang featured here and there, but then again who is to say that they might not have been invented earlier?
The only problem I have is the accuracy of the foreigners in Chang'an. I mentioned them using an African actor as the gang leader in the slums of Chang'an, was this accurate? Were there really Africans like that in those times in China? And their portrayal of the Zorastrians with Chinese actors, should they have used Persian looking actors instead?
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-b83a9d7eae6871f1e2951ccffd184457-c
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f1/2a/50/f12a501214399b35c6dfd0881ddf3369.jpg
The chain Islands of the Andaman Islands were settled by black skinned African sea farers in the ancient ages. But in time the area became very isolated from the outside world, unsurprising since even today, right to the west of the Andaman Island is the Sentinels Island, where just last year the American preacher was killed by the bow wielding natives.
Over time, the nearby powers would raid the Andamans and abduct the locals as slaves. The kingdom of Chola, Funan in Cambodia/ Thailand, and even Srivijaya near moder Malaysia/ Indonesia raided the island for slaves. The sight of well trained black skinned slaves in these regions was a common sight and they served the nobles, priestly castes, and the royals of these regions faithfully. They were also exported to the nearby countries, including Tang China.
The Tang were rather fond of them, they had a reputation of being strong, gentle, kind, and loyal, and quickly became popular among the upper class as servants. In fact, one of the most famous written stories from Tang China and one of the first pieces of martial arts literature in China had a protagonist who was a Kunlun Nu gifted with kung fu and extraordinary martial feats. In fact many argued it's probably the 1st wuxia story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunlun_Nu
http://www.geocities.ws/pieterderideaux/li_fang.html
Lastly: /did that philosophy still have any meaning in Tang times?/ Come on man, what do you think lol
Seriously, I'm not sure about this. Didn't Ruism and the teachings of Confucius and Daoism (and even the Buddha) overshadow the teachings of Shang Yang, Han Feizi, Xunzi, Shen Pu Hai, etc, etc .. the great Legalist masters of the past. Did the Tang even know these names any more??
Hmmm, not sure, never gave that much thought about legalism in general. When I grew up in China never felt any of its influences or things directly attributed to it.
omg，I am a little nervous,hope I can pass, bless me.
do you know what the phrase 'non sequitur' means ??
This site is not facebook.
Please refrain from posting random unrelated spam content.
@Der
Legalism still had its weight in Tang dynasty and the later dynasties. The imperial examination in Tang dynasty actually included some teachings of Legalism. At that time (and later dynasties), Legalism was basically treat as a lore of ruling instead of a philosophy. So it mostly draw the attention of the ruling class those who enacted and enforced laws.
That is actually not his voice. His voice was dubbed over by actor Chen Jianbin.
(no, literally the ghost of Cao Cao reborn to possess him, there never was any Chen Jianbin, just Cao Cao possessing him too)
The rest was... meh...
I am really not a big fan of Chinese era dramas (with very few exceptions), most of them are trash. That is, until this show managed to set a new standard. Then again, the Longest Day in Chang'An is probably the only Chinese-language TV show I've seen to have managed a meticulous attention to detail and accuracy. Hopefully, the success of this show would influence the rest in the years to come.
I promote lone wonders like TLDICA bc most of the other "historical" shows are essentially Chinese version of lazy Korean soap operas. Half immature twinks Whinging about twink romance, half- extremely ghetto production quality, with repeated shots of the same 2 sets in Hengdian and plastic looking armors. To be honest most of those shows are brain rot. It's all fillers, or none threatening harem cat fights. Just tepid consumerism and petty bullshit with period costumes.
Tribes and Empires and Rise of the Pheonixes changed the formula somewhat, they have good production values, but they are fantasy and the length of the drama is bloated with fillers and the story just fizzled out by the end of it. Honestly I was ecstatic when the Muru clan got genocided and seeing Muru Hanjiang cry because he caused so much of it himself. So rare is there a show where I found myself wanting the protagonist to be offed so much.
As for historical shows...I think Yanxi Palace has really solid production value through out. It's gorgeous, immersive, and every shot could be screenshoted as wallpaper. But at the end of the day I have no business calling itself "historical" the protagonist is an ice queen brat of a Mary Sue and the whole world just conforms to her whims. And if you look beneath the surface it's basically "Empress in the Palace" with a slightly fresh coat of paint and some sepia filters. The costumes are also all wrong, mostly looking late Qing rather than Mid Qing. In general I just hate harem dramas, it's both petty and filled with Mary Sues.
"lazy Korean soap operas"
Ah, speaking of Korean dramas... I understand Korean nationalism is on the rise, and S. Korean historical gigs in particular is a major outlet of it. Recently saw the movie 'The Great Battle', and just cannot withstand the overall discomfort & cringiness throughout the film. This is also the second Korean gig I've seen where Tang Taizong lost an eye, and the film ends with something like 'never again did China invade Korea'. Sorry, what?
And don't get me started on Korean depictions of the Imjin War.
But worst of all the way it's shot is filled with those quick cuts or sped up cuts, even quick close up to surprised Korean peasants so it looks more like a Dr Who Monster special than an emotional tragedy, the cutting is so jarring it almost looked like a Mexican reality TV comedy- very very incongruous. Also the amount of hand holding and emotional manipulation is PRC and DPRK level.
This is not to compare to previous Korean dramas about the Imjin War: in the early 90s cartoon the Ming general Li Ru Song was depicted as a corrupt man who openly extort the Koreans, bullies them as a racist, and is a coward buffoon. The fact that there is no evidence to justify any of that in writing from the period infuriates me. Only recently, in this decade did SK dramas began to depict the Ming and the whole struggle with less jingoism, "Jingbirok" mostly treated the struggle fairly and was more educational and faithful to the thinking of the people during the era (they still murdered Wanli's portrayal) and Imjin War 1592 was also better than those from the proceeding decades.
Worst part that annoyed me is that this era is extremely interesting. Admiral Yi is pretty much a personal hero to me and someone I frankly respect immensely. His career > that of Nelson, but filled with more tragedy, injustice, and the backdrop is one of the most brutal wars in Asian history.
But holy crap, When I saw the trailer and the snippets from it I just laughed it off. All the costumes are inaccurate AF and look like plastic LARP pieces. Their distinctive cataphracts looks really shoddy and holy crap when it got to the part where the "Tang" began to speak I lolled for minutes because I can't understand what the hell they are saying. It's like they are trying to do a Mongol impression, with Korean accent, while trying (and failing) to pronounce Chinese as if they all had cerebral palsy.
Tang Taizong lost an eye, what? Taizong got dysentery, he died from the shits, not some random Korean arrow.
FFS, this is another perfect opportunity they squandered. As I have depicted both the Goguryeo cataphracts and also Taizong himself, I think I can say that I seek to be faithful to them as they were, and not unrecognizable. The whole movie has the good foundation of history, but they went all jingoistic about it. Why couldn't they try to do something the Europeans have been doing for the last 60 years? Trying to give a composite perspective? Movies about Waterloo shows it from both side of Wellington and Napoleon, or even WW2 movies where you get the impression of what the Axis commander is all about. No, but in this Taizong is just Chinese Palpatine.
What a squandered story! Thing is, I actually condemn Taizong's wars in Korea, I feel he has no business being there, he's just trying to out do the Suis and leap at any opportunity to gang up with Silla. But rather than anything educational about him, rather than being a cunning but perhaps formiddable adversary he's just a cartoon. You know they made it as a tall tale for their own people and gullible foreigners in the west.
It is worse when they are trying to speak the languages of the 'villains'. At least in 'The Great Battle', the 'Chinese' dialogues, although cringy, are short (as befitting a cartoon villain), whereas the dialogues in Admiral: Roaring Currents, we are treated with long and protracted dialogues in very bad Japanese. Most hilariously is the fact that these movies are marketed to nearby countries.
Speaking of the 'Great Battle', near the end credits we were told that "China would not invade Korea again". I was pretty stunned at that outlandish statement. I mean, who actually believed it? Anybody with an ounce of knowledge in history should know that Taizong's son eventually completed what his father started. That movie was a joke.
If they make it right it will be an eye opener and educational experience. With something that I can walk off and think about from time to time. As it stands it's not only propaganda ala DPRK or PRC level but a very ghetto looking one at that.
I swear to God the entire movie's about a Ming invasion of Joseon Korea with hundreds of thousands of soldiers only to have a tiny band of "muh heroic" Korean tinkers building a Hwacha prototype and killing thousands of the devil Ming and sent them scram back to where they came from. The claim for these things are purely absurd, and they didn't even say that it's alt history or whatever.
Also~ no joke, I once had an American art teacher who went to Korean and came back to my class. When I showed a Youtube video with the Monkey King in there my teacher lit up with recognition, got happy and called him by his Korean name, saying that he's a Korean myth hero. When I tried to explain that no the Monkey King was from Journey to the West and Ming China etc he didn't believe me, saying that all the Korean artists who introduced this character to him said that he is a Korean invented cultural hero. I swear, the way my teacher looked at me was so shaded it's as he I was telling a lie to his face.
The same way I consciously avoid any PRC ww2 films and Chinese films (regarding foreigners in a war) as well.
But from the comments shown, all I can say is that I am immensely disappointed. And yes the 'great battle' of Ansi fortress would have been a feast upon the eyes (the ramp being taken by the besieged). What a shame.