"Word of Honor" in my eyes

Several spoilers are about to come. Beware!

After watching the “Word of Honor”, I dropped myself so deeply and couldn’t help to think it over and over in my mind. That’s exactly why I am longing to write something about it. However, there is a big problem that I have to choose a proper word to transform Wu Xia into English. Usually, words like Chinese Martial, Chinese swordplay, Chinese Kong Fu, or Traditional Wushu are used to describe Wu Xia. As a Chinese who grew up and impacted under the atmosphere of Wu Xia culture, I don’t think the words above could clarify the real connotation of Wu Xia. In my view, Wu, which means Chinese martial or Kong Fu, is over-emphasized in the western society nowadays. contrarily, Xia is the core. To the post-70s, the 80s, the 90s, or even more generations, Wu Xia is not only a word, it is also an amazing world fascinating being including Chinese traditional culture, Chinese feelings, and Chinese dreams. It hasn’t been understood correctly in non-Chinese spoken countries, because there are no words that could present it perfectly. Consequently, I decided to use the original Chinese words full of oriental characteristics to explain this drama, especially the value behind it.

There are two main characters in this drama, Zhou Zishu (hereafter called Zhou) and Wen Kexing(hereafter called Wink), both of whom are mysterious and unfightable. Zhou was the leader of the secret assassination organization. As he killed so many people who are innocent and lost his sect brothers, he started to wonder about the meaning of life and decided to escape from the organization after paying a big price. Zhou left with a broken body and drunk himself into dreams to idle away the last 3 years of his life until he met Wink. Revenge is always the eternal theme of novels or films, no matter in China or the western society, this drama is not excepted. Being the master of the Ghost Valley, Wink has a commiserable childhood experience. He lost his parents and grew up in a dangerous and horrible valley environment. Killing or being killed is the only thing he has learnt learned from the terrible reality. He has a strong hatred of the Ghost Valley or even the whole world, so he made an evil plan to avenge his parents’ death. Fate leads the encounter of Zhou and Wink, and everything changed from then on.
Not the same as the western films or culture, we Chinese people pay more attention to the redemption behind avenge instead of the revenge itself. As you have known that both Zhou and Wink are not the traditional normal person nor good person, they are more like villains. What’s interesting in this drama is that Wink always called himself a nice person although he conducted the evil plan to mess the world up. Furthermore, there are abundant statues of Buddha outside of the Ghost Valley which is known as hell. It seems a little paradoxical and incomprehensible, right? On the contrary, it is exactly the point that the scriptwriter or the author trying to tell us through this drama. No one is born guilty, even the evils could be changed. If you have ever studied Chinese Buddhism you will learn that certain figures save the astray person by sacrificing themselves. From my perspective, that’s what Wink planed at first, he determined to clean the terrible and dirty world with his own life. Having said all the above, I am feeling pity for Wink. Wink shouldn’t be the abandoned one since he hasn’t done anything wrong at first. As I said before, Zhou is not a nice person in the conventional sense, but he is one of those who have brought love to little Wink. Zhou is just like the light in the endless darkness that brings Wink warmth and hope, at the same time, Wink recalls Zhou’s responsibility and courage to live on. It is the most impressive and highlights part of this drama, and I am willing to call it the mutual salvation.

I do appreciate that the director, the scriptwriter, the actors, and the crew in this drama give the full efforts to “Word of Honor”. They tried their best to display an excellent work with logical storytelling, marvelous choreography, meaningful Chinese poems, and beautiful costumes full of Chinese traditional aesthetic. I enjoy the dialogues and martial fights between Wink and Zhou so much. A lot of feelings are channeled in an unspoken way and leaving our audiences the room for interpretation. The tiny details are essential, especially the eye contact, the body contact, and the ancient poems or idioms. All of them are full of flirtation feels. The micro-emotions in this drama moved me so much that most of the time I will put myself in Wink’s role. I’d like to compare Wink to porcelain, which is exquisite and hard outwardly but delicate and eager to be protected inwardly. Wink knows the complex society and nefarious humans nature so much that he keeps alert all the time. Since he has lost the expectation of the world and the desire to live, he is determined to destroy the world. When he encountered Zhou he was attracted and gradually fall in love. As I said before that Wink always doubts everything including the love from others. So he uses flamboyant words constantly to cover his pains and feelings and tests Zhou with unanswered questions repeatedly to tell if Zhou could understand and trust him completely at the beginning of this drama. While he confirmed Zhou’s love he started to reveal the true self and try to struggle against the world for love. To be honest, I see myself in Wink’s experience, we are the same persons that always looking forward to being loved but hesitant and doubt when coming across love.

Another reason why I appreciate this drama is that all the side characters here are displayed naturally and totally. They completely showed the complexity and uncertainty of human beings. Even the good person could do wrong while the demon person could also do good, each of them has their own particular emotions and principles just like ourselves in reality. From my perspective, the scriptwriter is trying to deliver the conception that there is no definite right and wrong, nor love and hate. Someone describes both Zhou and Wink as the ones with thousands of layers of gray because there is no pure black and white. If you have ever used image applications you will understand that. When we remove all the colors from the picture, it will be shown with varieties degrees of gray. Therefore, we shouldn’t simply divide the person into two extremes and ignore the good one’s errors or the bad one’s philanthropic acts.

As a BL adaption drama, “Word of Honor” is very adventrual and clever. It was adapted from “The Wanderers” which was written by Priest decades ago. Through readers, we know that most of the scenarios in this novel are blatant sexy and hard to pass the censorship. The talented scriptwriter applied the ancient idioms or classic stories skillfully to display some sexual implications. Candidly, it needs a large amount of knowledge about Chinese culture or history to understand this drama. For example, Wink used a large number of amatory poems to show his love for Zhou. In one of the plots, he cut the blood sleeve of Zhou which is always acknowledged as the metaphor of homosexuality in Chinese ancient stories. Besides, they even stuck two pancakes together to implicate the physical intimacy of Wink and Zhou. It is very interesting to enjoy the word games and explore the potential secrets behind the drama.

All in all, it is an excellent work about Wu Xia even though there are certain shortcomings. The film crew showed their sincerity to the audience and saluted to the old school Chinese martial. They narrated a beautiful Chinese story and delivered the Chinese universe value to the world. It explained something deeper about Wu Xia. Wu, namely martial, is just the tool to fulfill Xia. So what’s the real meaning of Xia? I believe that the ancient Chinese swordsman living thousands of years ago must have questioned the samely. What they were persuing when they decided to live in danger and instability as a swordsman? What impelled them and made them insist to protect the weak or the country with their blood and body? All I can imagine is Xia, the particular spirit about responsibility and sympathy, the unique humanitarianism that derives from Chinese culture and romance.

Actually, there is still a question that lingered around me day and night after I watched this drama. In the extra episode, Zhou and Wink are living together in an extremely cold world immortally, but it is inconsistent with the storytelling from the context. So I wondered what if the plot is just the dream of Zhou? We all know that Zhou has the drug named the magic wine and it could create an illusion world in which you will be satisfied with the things you desired. Supposing that Wink died and left Zhou behind to suffer the endless life full of solitariness. What will Zhou do? Living in the cruel reality or addicted himself to the fictional dreams about Wink? On the surface, Wink seems to be the selfless one for he chose the death and left the survival chance to Zhou. On the other hand, he deprived Zhou of the right to sacrifice for him. Wink knows from the beginning to the end that the deeper the love, the more pain to the living one.

Whatever the truth is, the undertone of this drama is still the vow of “Till death we part”. Their fears, their hatred, their guilt, and the efforts they have made to redeem themselves in the tough world. All of them touch me and remind me to value the nice details in my life.

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