5 posts tagged with "Animated Film"

“Perhaps the first thing creators ought to figure out is the question of the ratio between fiction and reality in a ‘new mythology.’”

With the summer season more than halfway through, the animated film The Eight Immortals! directed and written by Mou Zhengyang has become this month's dark horse. Ten days after its release was moved up, box office revenue has already surpassed 900 million, with Maoyan predicting a final total of over 2 billion.

Such a dazzling result is bound to draw plenty of attention from inside and outside the industry — especially since reactions were already polarized during the preview screenings, and the controversy has only intensified as the box office climbs and the audience grows.

At first glance this looks like yet another round of the eternal “critically acclaimed vs. commercially successful” debate, but perhaps it also marks a turning point worth discussing in the creation of domestic mythology-themed animated films:

On one hand, drawing classic elements from a vast database already validated by other entertainment markets and reworking them means the finished product's basic form is predictable, and the box office response is usually satisfying;

But on the other hand, how to fully and appropriately present original, auteur-like characteristics on screen, while also answering the hopes of that other portion of “ideal viewers,” remains an unsolved creative challenge.

If we dissect The Eight Immortals! in detail, its strengths and weaknesses are a complete illustration of this very challenge. In a traditional myth whose ending was written long ago, in what form can the importance of human effort be presented? And after walking out of the cinema, what are those things that leave us wanting to speak yet hesitating?

01 Immortals and Mortals Are Different — And Then?​

To summarize the main storyline of The Eight Immortals! in one spoiler-free sentence: it is a “new” myth about how Lü Dongbin, Zhongli Quan, and the other “Eight Immortals” outwitted the heavens to save all living beings.

The traditional framework from A Journey to the East (written by Wu Yuantai of the Ming Dynasty) — the Eight Immortals crossing the sea in a contest of powers and battling the Dragon King — has almost nothing to do with this film, and the characters' master-disciple relationships and appearances differ greatly from the original tales. As for “Penglai,” from the line “a reed boat blows me away to the Three Mountains,” it mainly serves as a backdrop for an otherworld. So, simply put, like all the previous “new mythology” series, The Eight Immortals! is a giant mythological fanfiction (.)

With that premise in mind, let's look more closely at the film's main structure — the most prominent, arguably foundational issue is clearly the discussion of the relationship between immortals and mortals.

Although the film does not elaborate on the distinction between “gods” and “immortals,” judging from its established setting, humans and gods (immortals) are the two clearly distinct races in The Eight Immortals!, and the characters and dialogue (Donghua Dijun mentions the Jade Purity Vase as a symbol of peace between Buddhism and Daoism) reveal a worldview blending Buddhism and Daoism, cultivation and enlightenment. Throughout history, the immortal-mortal relationship has been the most effective and direct perspective for mythology-themed storytelling. Without separately discussing “yao” demons (indeed, no “yao” race appears in this film; the “Three Realms” mentioned by the immortals is only vaguely touched on), the immortal-mortal relationship in practice means a binary power structure in which immortals look down on mortals and mortals look up to immortals — and The Eight Immortals! is no exception.

Except that in The Eight Immortals!, the “intermediary space” is Penglai, an ambiguous space that looks like an enclave but is in fact where immortals and mortals live mixed together. Both the released trailers and the main storyline deliberately highlight this.

The giant statues of the Three Gods of Fortune, Prosperity, and Longevity in Penglai (Yanjiao reality walks into an animated dream (not) and the near-future fantasy-style set design seem intended to emphasize that Penglai fits another sense of “a realm beyond the world.” Of course, this also serves to set up the protagonist group's extraordinary performances later in the story, and implies a creative trade-off: the very fact that mortals can reach Penglai embodies a kind of screening process. As for how one gets there, the creators only offered a brief explanation with a line from Extensive Records of the Taiping Era: “Only those fated to this land may arrive.”

When “immortals and mortals are different” becomes a premise even the audience tacitly accepts — in other words, when “why are they different” is no longer a question the film needs to answer — then telling the “and then?” well becomes extremely important.

The Eight Immortals! once again chooses the safest, but also the greatest-common-denominator path: using a barrage of gags to dissolve the protagonists' discomfort upon first entering the upper echelons of power, and thereby keeping the story's pace in a state of rapid development with no time for anything else.

For example, at the start of the story, the audience's perspective is completely synchronized with Lü Dongbin's, both facing “Noah's Ark”-like Penglai in a state of unknown. The immortal rankings interface and the smiling, baby-faced God of Wealth, the dialect accent of the cloud traffic driver, a certain immortal paying tribute to the classic image of Mao Ri Xingjun complaining at the Immortal Management Bureau, and so on — behind Penglai's flourishing spectacle lies the abilities and power of the immortal race far exceeding mortals', and Penglai's law, “every request granted,” must hold precisely under this premise: mortals worship the immortals, immortals shelter mortals — the former is the foundation guaranteeing the efficacy of the latter's privileges, because the power gap between the two is an unbridgeable chasm.

But a non-equal power relationship inevitably breeds resistance, and the audience naturally expects the film to portray it — the first half of The Eight Immortals! indeed focuses on this. The swindling “lowly underclass” rises up, blazing into something like Now You See Me (Now You See Me) and Guardians of the Galaxy (Guardians of the Galaxy), and the special guest who appears for less than a minute in the battle-of-wits segment steals the show. In terms of cinematic effect, it works quite well.

At this point, the story of mortals “outwitting the heavens” told through the shell of “the Eight Immortals crossing the sea” can largely be considered self-consistent: under a “Great Flood” disaster narrative, the superiors who should have borne the responsibility of protection become corrupt privilege-holders, so all the resistance made by the lower class to survive is self-rescue — and moreover, in Lü Dongbin's words, “the right thing” — even if “all living beings” is just a vague, faceless pronoun.

02 Good Deeds Are Rewarded — Really?​

That said, even though most audiences have long since grown used to the logic of immortal-mortal narratives mixed with political cynicism in recent mythology-themed animated works, a necessary character motivation remains the touchstone.

Looking at the whole film, only four characters in The Eight Immortals! have complete motivations: Lü Dongbin, Yang Jian, He Xiangu, and Zhongli Quan. The storylines of the rest of the protagonist group are comparatively fragmented. It's understandable that this was a trade-off the creative team had to make for runtime, but it's not without regret.

Here, this author will offer one interpretation: the four above together form a closed loop of “good deeds being rewarded,” and none of them can be removed. Because the film not only shows Buddhism and Daoism merging in its dialogue and worldview — the relationships between characters also embody this combination.

Buddhism speaks of karma, Daoism of this life. The core thread of “good intention” originates with Zhongli Quan: the “cause” he sowed brings forth Lü Dongbin's “effect,” which in turn leads to He Xiangu's wanderer's journey and righteous deeds — this is the karma of the three. And Zhongli Quan, though cursed by Donghua (i.e., the fate-decreed verdict), still breaks free of his “fate” in this life — because a variable appeared in his destiny: first, Lü Dongbin, with whom he shares a karmic bond; second, their respective immortal connections, Yang Jian and Sun Wukong.

Therefore, understanding Yang Jian's motivation becomes especially crucial.

Is Yang Jian good in this film? Different answers to this question directly caused some viewers' dissatisfaction after watching, because from a standpoint perspective, Yang Jian is clearly opposed to the protagonist group and the “common people.” But combined with He Xiangu's line, “For your one mother, you would sacrifice everyone else's mothers,” all of Yang Jian's actions in the film stem from one utterly pure purpose: saving his mother. This is a motivation whose purpose is just; what is unjust are the means Yang Jian employs.

Furthermore, if we set aside our emotional standpoint as viewers, Yang Jian is hardly an “evil” figure in this film. What the story of The Eight Immortals! emphasizes is only that “good deeds are rewarded,” not “good and evil are both rewarded” or “evil deeds are punished.” When the eight struggle against Yang Jian, the childlike smile he gives while watching Xiaotian the hound being “forced” to carry Zhang Guolao, and the password voiced through Lan Caihe, are in their way effective portrayals of Yang Jian's “non-evil” side.

Combined with the film's early candor about “immortals and mortals being different,” a fixed, no-longer-struggling hierarchy appears more and more frequently in “new” myths, and creators' attention has shifted more toward rendering relationships between characters, especially emotional bonds. (For more on this topic, see the Academy's earlier article: Why Can't Chinese Animated Films Do Without “Demons and Monsters”?)

Or, put another way, when mythology-themed creation consciously dilutes grand narratives, it inevitably moves toward discussions of emotion and ethics. In The Eight Immortals!, this trend is accompanied by another technical device: the skillful appropriation of the “superhero.”

Even though the protagonist group are nominally mortals, judging by their feats and combat skills, they are already superhuman “heroes” with immortal connections, not truly ordinary people. Because in an unshakable hierarchy, neither grand narrative nor small-person narrative can hold; only a superhero who “reaches heaven and stands on earth” can “bridge” that chasm.

— Severing the passage between heaven and earth, yet in Penglai, the “Eight Immortals” are the ladder.

Of course, The Eight Immortals! ultimately offers a plain, kind-hearted ending: we can still save something — whether as Lü Dongbin and Zhongli Quan, or as the ordinary people being saved — because in this world, good deeds being rewarded is true, and it remains the highest governing law.

03 Plenty of Twists — Surprising?​

Compared horizontally with recent domestic animated works, The Eight Immortals! is fairly similar in actual effect to last year's modest hit Child of Time. Simply put, both enjoy narrative tricks, keenly grasp market sentiment, and the official side will “ship along” (here meaning that the emotional clarity and intensity of the original work far exceed the emotional portrayals in fan-created secondary works).

Thus, for viewers with a decent amount of viewing experience, a sense of “déjà vu” (having seen it before) after watching is hard to avoid — but not to the point of being hard to swallow. It's like a meal that doesn't taste great but passes food-safety standards: a matter of taste, not quality.

So, will the narrative tricks of The Eight Immortals! wear the audience out?

If treated as a popcorn movie, the several important twists currently designed in the film all serve the logical needs and pacing, and do stir up audience emotions to a degree, as can be seen from some social media discussions. But if during viewing one realizes that the film's central clue is concentrated entirely on Lü Dongbin, then when the biggest twist is revealed, viewers may feel somewhat speechless — as if “wrapping a whole dumpling just for that dish of vinegar.”

And this “speechlessness” ties into another major discussion around the film: Are the ships in The Eight Immortals! worth shipping?

Though shipping tastes vary endlessly, the film's direction is fairly clear: the big triangle of Yang Jian / Lü Dongbin / Zhongli Quan, and the ship lines involving He Xiangu. No matter how the big triangle is arranged, seasoned fangirls can always find their most satisfying flavor in it. But with an implicit “canon pairing” feel, the master-disciple ship in the film never seems quite potent enough — and in a daze, it really does carry the air of an old flame.

Instead, certain “crossover ships” given little screen time in the main plot grow more flavorful the more you savor them — for example, the Yang Jian-related and He Xiangu-related ones.

On one hand, this returns to the old question that only sufficient blank space gives fan derivatives vitality. On the other hand, although Yang Jian is set up in the film as the absolute superior and He Xiangu's storyline isn't fully developed, both of their images within the ship are “inverted” relative to the above, full of contrast — He Xiangu, with a brief past, bursts forth with astonishing power in battle scenes, and her effective screen time greatly supplements her character arc; while Yang Jian's certain fragility of “staking everything” just to save his mother softens his sense of superiority, giving him a charm point open to interpretation in fan works.

As such, the master-disciple ship isn't hard to ship or prefab, either — it's just that it's “good” in every way to the point of being too complete, once again presenting a certain facelessness.

This resembles the feeling given by the film's highly saturated entrance captions and soundtrack: within the fast-paced context of the film, they are fitting and natural, but when you step out of the cinema and try to chew it over, (some) viewers can't help feeling a sense of confusion: as if something smooth slipped away — the twists, the tricks, and the bonds all washed away together in the heavy rain, like beads and pebbles drifting into the sea with the waves, leaving no trace.

04 Epilogue: The Eastern Sea of Clouds, Empty Once More​

On the whole, although The Eight Immortals! bears the legend of “the Eight Immortals crossing the sea,” its story's core is still the same old trio of mythology-themed animation and superhero narrative — conventional, complete in plot (the master-disciple two-man show is even a bit drawn-out), with occasional brilliant touches in design, and no vulgarity or ethical gags — earning it the title of a “good student.”

To be more optimistic, with its relatively smooth and complete narrative, The Eight Immortals! has indeed brought some new breakthroughs to the creative direction of mythology in domestic animated films. For instance, the villain (at least the apparent one) is no longer a venerable one disguised as a “great benefactor,” nor does it simply use “the will of heaven eroding” as a deus ex machina to uphold justice (the monkey counts as an Easter egg, yes); when facing an enemy far more powerful, the protagonists no longer rely on teammates being sacrificed or self-sacrifice to force a power-up, but essentially carry through the film's “outwitting the heavens” theme of battles of wits to a narrow victory.

Although all of this makes the protagonist's battle highlight in the final showdown turn out to be a con, it better fits the logic of how the objective world runs, and thus delivers a different emotional experience. Longing to shake a tree as an ant through self-sacrifice, thereby achieving an artistic effect one might call “catharsis” (catharsis) — this is a reliably effective creative formula, but also a self-destructive, utopian, beautiful expectation. The Eight Immortals! ultimately gave up that direction.

Thus, in this summer season — a rare window of potential for domestic animated films — The Eight Immortals! is not a bad cinema choice, and it once again validates the box-office viability of greatest-common-denominator creation.

However, since it borrowed Penglai and the “Eight Immortals,” some viewers naturally came for the narrative possibilities of ethereal legends and tales of the strange. Yet from the moment they set foot on Penglai, the protagonists face a highly modernized world (leaderboard rankings, highways, renovations, video conferencing……). One could say that to fit modern audiences' lives (or to express a certain surrealism), The Eight Immortals! abandoned many imaginative possibilities of classical literature.

As stated at the beginning of this article, this may be said to be a current creative pain point for mythology-themed domestic animated films: besides borrowing a shell for reincarnation, are there other “new” mythology creative approaches that are both critically acclaimed and commercially successful?

Domestic animated shorts like Goose Mountain and Stealing the Peach certainly offer a “critically acclaimed” approach of breathing new life into classics and making the old serve the new. But translating this into feature-length animation is not easy — with the box office returns of Lanre Temple and The Siege of Luoyang as precedents, the effects of faithful adaptation are clearly less than ideal. Perhaps, for creators, the first thing to figure out is the question of the ratio between fiction and reality in a “new mythology”:

If it is a new symbolic language, what is it meant to convey? And if it is a spiritual plea yearning for resonance, then the gaze you cast from the screen — who is it looking toward?

Over the past few years, Light Chaser Animation has been the most “consistently reliable” domestic animation studio at the box office, and in 2023 it scored a massive hit with Chang An. This summer season, however, the “New Culture” series encountered an “unexpected” turn.

On July 10, Light Chaser Animation's new film *The Three Kingdoms: Part One — The Battle for Luoyang* was released nationwide. Word of mouth climbed steadily, opening at 8.0 on Douban, but 15 days after release the box office had yet to break 100 million yuan — the studio even launched a “refund if you don't like it” campaign.

On July 25, The Three Kingdoms: Part One — The Battle for Luoyang suddenly announced it was pulling out of theaters. The theatrical key expires on August 9, so audiences who still want to see it on the big screen have only limited chances left.

01 History as the Backbone​

We were all taught from childhood that Chinese classical literature has Four Great Novels, but the most widely read and adapted are only Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West.

Water Margin is constrained by its historical context and controversies and now invites divergent interpretations, while Dream of the Red Chamber's high literary threshold limits its popular appreciation. When it comes to Journey to the West, the straight adaptation is the CCTV TV series, comedic takes include Happy Pig: Bajie and Journey to the West: The Aftermath, and deconstruction brings to mind A Chinese Odyssey, Wukong Biography, and Black Myth: Wukong. Thanks to the naturally fictional nature of gods and demons, these immortals and monsters can freely visit one another's stories — Sun Wukong can crossover with the gods of the Investiture of the Gods, and even drop by Japan and America.

But the Three Kingdoms is different.

Broadly speaking, the Three Kingdoms period covers nearly a hundred years of history, from the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 AD to the fall of Wu to Jin in 280 AD. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is an adaptation of a real stretch of ancient Chinese history, a compilation of folk legends, plus imaginative elaboration of details not covered by the histories of the time (including but not limited to the *Records of the Three Kingdoms*, *Book of the Later Han*, *Book of Jin*, and *Zizhi Tongjian*). From this perspective, Romance of the Three Kingdoms is itself an epic tale, an ancient legend (or a massive work of fanfiction).

Some stories can be freely embellished or distorted, but the Three Kingdoms is different. When modern creators adapt the Three Kingdoms, on the one hand they want to break free of the framework set by the Records of the Three Kingdoms and Romance of the Three Kingdoms; on the other, they can't overlap too heavily with existing adaptations. And in either case, no one dares to tear it all down and build a new Three Kingdoms in which no one can tell who is who.

From this angle, Light Chaser's Three Kingdoms: The Battle for Luoyang is ambitious: on one hand, it bills itself with the slogan “Honoring History, Carrying On the Original” printed right on the poster; on the other, the title format nearly explicitly signals an intent to shape the material into something akin to Hollywood's millennium-era epic historical films.

In the past, whenever anyone attempted a new Three Kingdoms work, they invariably stressed their “respect for history.” But having seen the film, the author can confidently say that Light Chaser's screenwriting team put real effort into honoring history, keeping adjustments and changes for dramatic purposes to a minimum.

In fact, the three-way struggle among imperial in-laws, eunuchs, and scholar clans presented in The Battle for Luoyang's trailer is only the first part of the story; it then unhurriedly transitions to Dong Zhuo entering the capital, Cao Cao's assassination attempt on Dong Zhuo, and the coalition of warlords against Dong Zhuo. Throughout, the story follows the perspectives of two young talents — Cao Cao and Yuan Shao — viewing the struggles of high-ranking late-Han ministers through their relatively “lowly” eyes.

In the film's first part, the narration succinctly summarizes the late-Han power struggle: eunuchs battling imperial in-laws, imperial authority sidelined, and scholar clans maneuvering for profit with the wind. Unlike recent Three Kingdoms adaptations that focus on battlefield deployments and war scenes, The Battle for Luoyang makes a bold attempt at portraying “Chinese-style political thriller”.

From the rivalry between Empress Dowager He and Empress Dowager Dong, to the Ten Attendants' about-face from arrogance to fawning, to the starkly different temperaments of He Jin and Dong Zhuo, we see how the young Emperor Xian, Liu Xie, is utterly powerless, and how the subjects Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, while doing their best to assist the General-in-Chief, gradually grow into the deeply scheming regional warlords of later years.

When Cao Cao first appears, he has already displayed his martial bravado leading troops into battle. But sometimes, more terrifying than visible blades and spears on the battlefield are the invisible knives in the shadows of the court. The scene of He Jin entering the palace to be executed is the first time Cao Cao feels fear; the wobbling, off-balance camera composition perfectly mirrors the shattering of his first ideal: earning merit cannot save the Han, because while he is holding up one pillar, someone else is pulling down the others.

Light Chaser struck an excellent balance, painting the late Eastern Han political struggles — which most audiences know relatively little about — in rich, vivid detail. The screen time devoted to it rivals even the 1994 straight adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, while the better-known coalition against Dong Zhuo is briskly covered at a faster pace.

Dong Zhuo's entry into the capital is the second act of The Battle for Luoyang: when the imperial in-laws and eunuchs have all been exterminated, someone will inevitably covet the power vacuum. Dong Zhuo claimed kinship with Empress Dowager Dong, granting himself the status of an imperial in-law. Then, the peace Yuan Shao and Cao Cao hoped for never arrived; instead, Dong Zhuo's tyranny brought even greater bloodshed.

In this section, the pacing accelerates as many familiar characters appear in quick succession, leading straight to the climax of the coalition against Dong Zhuo: here the film stunningly showcases the different landscapes of the Central Plains' provinces, with place names rising in artistic lettering styled after local terrain, set against a montage of prefects and governors raising armies. This also neatly ties up the fates of characters like Bao Xin and Yuan Shao mentioned earlier: after leaving Luoyang they did not despair, but rebuilt their fortunes with trusted followers from their home regions, waiting for a chance to restore the Han.

For audiences unfamiliar with this history, or for children still learning it, Light Chaser saves a highlight for the end: this epic dual-protagonist story of Cao Cao and Yuan Shao concludes with the debut of brand-new characters — who will also deliver the action highlight of the entire film: the Three Heroes battling Lü Bu.

Beyond grounding itself in serious history, Light Chaser Animation has, since White Snake and Chang An, been devoted to filling the gaps of historical legend with meticulously researched cultural and artistic design. If audiences remember children reciting classical poetry in unison in theaters during Chang An, then The Battle for Luoyang certainly has its share of such moments. From Cao Cao reading The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art at night and getting a headache over math problems, to Han dynasty bricks and various lacquerware, hall settings, and costumes — everything reflects deep cultural research, and one can easily imagine how long they spent digging through museums to achieve such fidelity.

02 From Hero to Demon King​

“Many years later, as the Yuan army collapsed before him, Cao Cao was sure to remember that afternoon when he and Brother Yuan went off to steal a bride.”

As “the first part of Three Kingdoms,” “The Battle for Luoyang” — which tells of “the Three Kingdoms before they became the Three Kingdoms” — seems at first glance a somewhat counterintuitive choice.

But Luoyang as the center of the known world and a symbol of the Han's old order, in an era when the court was teetering and warlords were about to contend for supremacy, means that how various figures fought for a foothold in Luoyang symbolizes precisely different personalities, even different ideologies — different attitudes toward the establishment.

In the film, Cao Cao holds a lower position, full of realism and materialist color, with steadfast execution hidden beneath an unassuming surface; he divines with falling leaves yet “doesn't believe in fate,” revealing a materialist outlook ahead of his time;

Yuan Shao believes in order and places his hopes in reputation and legitimacy, yet is tormented by his status as a concubine's son — lawful good and indecisive (hard to say whether it's a lack of conviction or being too kind to make hard calls); He Jin is reckless and blindly self-confident yet unable to truly control events; Dong Zhuo is vicious and flamboyant, choosing to violently smash the order…

Cao Cao is the film's first protagonist. Born into a eunuch family, unlike more illustrious relatives or other scholar-officials, Cao Cao's odds of rising far lower than theirs — and precisely because of that, he worked exceptionally hard and was exceptionally attuned to survival wisdom. Historical records note that Cao Cao was unpopular for his frivolous behavior, yet at the same time the young Cao Cao genuinely worried for his country and people, and it's hard to say he didn't give his all serving under the General-in-Chief He Jin.

The film opens with an adaptation of the A New Account of the Tales of the World anecdote in which Cao Cao and Yuan Shao steal a bride, and Cao Cao schemes to help Yuan Shao escape — a small scene that showcases Cao Cao's flexible survival wisdom and Yuan Shao's uprightness. The idealism of these two young talents is later worn away by reality, and they ultimately take different paths.

And so that audiences unfamiliar with the Three Kingdoms can remember the characters amid the flood of historical events, the animation team necessarily had to apply a degree of characterization.

Some of it is apt; some comes across as overly exaggerated.

For example, Yuan Shao covering his face when indecisive, or Cao Cao's occasional loud laughter. Such theatrical flourishes suit Li Bai, the unrestrained poet immortal of Chang An, but on a warlord who will one day command vast armies and reshape the fate of the realm, they can feel somewhat juvenile and jarring.

Still, the character work in the film is commendable. Cao Cao's ideals are shattered twice: the first comes after He Jin's execution, when he realizes that in a dark court, scheming is sometimes more powerful than a sense of justice; the second comes when he witnesses Dong Zhuo brutalizing commoners attending a village opera, and realizes he must ultimately rely on his own strength to destroy evil. Together, these become the villain-hero we know: a believer in scheming, cold and ruthless, trusting no one, whose idealism can only be spoken to himself in dreams.

Cao Cao's striving first half of life was also his failed first half. He supported He Jin but won no trust; he trusted Yuan Shao but saw that Yuan Shao could never achieve great things; after Dong Zhuo entered the capital and the ministers' ugliness was fully exposed, he ceased to trust human hearts, believing only in the power and talent he held in his own hands.

“When Duke Zhou feared the rumors, and Wang Mang humbly served before usurping.” That line fits Cao Cao remarkably well. From aide, to one of the Eight Commandants of the Western Garden, to regional warlord and Imperial Chancellor of Han, Cao Cao unified most of China, restored production, and protected livelihoods — yet he truly did execute advisors and massacre cities, becoming the demon king in the eyes of the half of China he did not unify. Between “capable minister” and “hero,” and “villain-hero” and “traitor,” how many times did Cao Cao's heart grow cold? How did he gradually come to accept what he shared with the very people he despised?

Unlike Cao Cao, Yuan Shao was already everyone's big brother by the time he made his name. In the film he is both the favored child and the abandoned one. As the eldest son of the Yuan family of Hebei, with four generations of high office, Yuan Shao could advance to serve the Han emperor, or retreat to his family seat in Hebei after the anti-Dong Zhuo affair and unify the north. But as a concubine's son, he was overshadowed within the Yuan family by his legitimate half-brother Yuan Shu. Yuan Shao, full of pent-up drive, likewise wanted to achieve great deeds, but he saw through the Han's problems; after his mourning period ended, he privately befriended heroes and wandering knights rather than sink into court life.

Unlike Cao Cao's flexible, pragmatic survival wisdom, Yuan Shao's standing rested on his family's reputation and his personal charisma — heroes of the realm came unbidden. History records: “The Yuan family has held high office for generations, their lofty principles renowned throughout the land. Shao's prestige was long established.” Thus when Yuan Shao draws his sword and denounces Dong Zhuo in the film, Dong Zhuo still fears him and cannot touch him, even later trying to co-opt him with promotions.

Yuan Shao had abundant resources and a knight-errant air, never worrying about lacking a way out. But in the film's latter half, the flaws of this character gradually emerge: Yuan Shao is impulsive yet lacks execution; he listens to advice, but he takes in diametrically opposed opinions alike; once he acts he charges with unstoppable spirit, but once he fails, he's so enraged he cannot rise again.

The maladies of the later, sprawling Yuan army are much like a big internet tech company: beautiful financial reports, but tangled internal relationships, alienated colleagues, everyone scheming to look good before the boss, even tripping up others to do so. Yuan Shao himself was “grand in ambition but small in wisdom, fierce in appearance but thin in courage, suspicious and lacking in majesty” (Cao Cao's words), unable to manage his own coterie of strategists, his style of governance “I want it all” and “you're all right” — until he could no longer withstand history's cruel filtering. These two young friends, Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, finally took up arms against each other.

They could have joined hands to restore the Han; instead, it all came to nothing.

03 What Is a True Hero?​

In The Battle for Luoyang, the imperial in-laws and eunuchs fight for power and check each other, with the scholar clans mediating between them. With Emperor Ling of Han's death, the in-laws and eunuchs seized the chance to fight each other to the death over the power vacuum. During this time, Cao Cao hopes to move slowly and at least maintain a surface balance; Yuan Shao, harboring his own ambitions, hopes the scholar clans can rise through this, and so vehemently urges He Jin to slaughter every last eunuch.

If things had only progressed to this point, it might have been relatively simple, but the imperial in-law faction was not monolithic: besides the He family, the Dong family was also part of the in-laws, competing with the Hes; and He Jin's relationship with Empress Dowager He was not as simple as it appeared.

What follows is depicted brilliantly in The Battle for Luoyang — the stifling history of the late Han opens the age of heroes precisely with this scene of blood.

Which brings us to this: dull and obscure is exactly why mainstream opinion finds the film lacking in appeal.

The political and battlefield landscape facing the Three Kingdoms heroes is inherently tangled; the film chooses not to oversimplify these conflicts, preserving as much room for thought as possible for the audience. It does not shy away from dark, cold scenes, nor chase the market's “lowest common denominator.”

It's all struggle, but compared to the court-style scheming we're used to in film and TV, the bloodshed within the late Han palace, the struggle of heroes' ideals, and the lament of displaced commoners are far crueler. Perhaps once the film hits streaming and reaches more viewers, The Three Kingdoms: The Battle for Luoyang will be understood anew.

The small work Light Chaser has done is not to spend a huge budget parroting a classic story, but to give young audiences a reason to walk into a theater and learn the details history textbooks never covered — and, one day when they've learned enough, to feel this: the difference between a hero and a demon king sometimes lies only in a single heart, and many things that seem self-evident are not so simple after all.

At the end of The Battle for Luoyang, on the other side of the warlords' march on Luoyang, the director uses montage to reveal each of their fates — many not dying at Dong Zhuo's hands, but betrayed and swallowed by their own allies.

For us, with our god's-eye view, we may quietly feel it was a pity, a waste. But in that moment of heroes clashing before Hulao Pass, none of them was thinking much about what tomorrow would bring — only of today's surge of hot blood.

And so we return to the question from the beginning: we are so passionate about watching and adapting the Three Kingdoms — what exactly makes it different?

Just as the World Cup ends and fan numbers swell once every four years, just as we remember Haaland, Mbappé, and Kane, when we speak of the Three Kingdoms, we think of those vivid faces, one by one.

The Three Kingdoms was an era with true heroes. And every era needs true heroes.