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wrote_and_writOkay. So back in the day, I started out as a book blogger, but it’s been a long time since I’ve written reviews and media analysis with any sort of focus, especially once I discovered how much more fun it is to write fan fiction. But since a lot of my friends are watching the current Lost Tomb series (Reunion: The Sound of the Providence) and talking about The Lost Tomb series in general, I thought I would dust off my old skills.
The original Lost Tomb series aired in 2015. I thought I would do a post talking about the iterations of the series, but there is a lot of information, so I’m just going to link to a few sources. The show is based on a popular Chinese web novel series. You can get English translations of the first six books for Kindle (and possibly paperback). There is apparently going to be an American comic book adaptation from Image Comics out in the winter, and the art in the linked article looks really cool!
Given that this is a lot bigger property than I expected, and given that I don’t have anywhere near the familiarity with how it is viewed in China (although I gather that it is extremely popular), I’ll contain my review/round up to my experiences with watching the shows and reading the novels, if and when I get around to reading them — I did buy the books.
Please feel free to leave comments and ask questions and have a fun discussion, but note that this will clearly be very spoilery, so I’ll put everything under a cut. And I’ll be taking character name info from mydramalist.com.
Be aware — this first post is very long as I’m summarizing the episodes. Okay! So let’s go!
Episode one starts with Wu Xie and his friend High Shao in Inner Mongolia, trying to escape from a group of mercenaries intent on stealing the artifact Wu Xie has rescued and is attempting to return to a museum. Wu Xie reminds me of young Indiana Jones in the beginning of The Last Crusade — things belong in museums! It also reminds me a bit of the show The Librarians, both in tone and sfx budget — no shade! I love The Librarians to bits! When I lived in Oregon, I went to Cathedral Park in Portland because that is where they filmed part of the show. Anyway, WX and HS are being chased and shot at by mercenaries. They wreck their car and try to escape on foot, only to be captured, but then! A mysterious man in a Jeep shows up and rescues them! That mysterious man is Wang Pangzi (pangzi means Fatty and is now what I call my portly dachshund Spike), who is both a total badass and comic relief. He helps WX and HS get away, but then he get hungry, so they stop at a yurt/restaurant.
Is this a bad move? Yes, of course, because they are still being chased by mercenaries! Who easily catch up! And go into the restaurant! There’s a bit of slapstick as the trio try to escape. They do manage to get away from the yurt, but their car runs out of gas just outside a mysterious temple/monastery (which by the way, is situated on a precarious cliff). And of course, the mercenaries catch up.
There is a stand off over the artifact, which is wrapped up in a bag WX found in the temple. Rather than give the artifact to the mercenaries, WX chucks it off the cliff! The next moment, a mysterious (there is lots of mystery) storm rolls in and when the dust clears, we see Zhang Qiling, in all his emo glory.
Like, legit emo. Black clothes, bangs swooping across the forehead to cover one eye. I love him so much! ZQL leaps off the cliff and then magically retrieves the artifact after the mercenaries leave. He gives it to WX and then disappears! Mysteriously!
WX and HS take the artifact back to their hometown (I’m not sure where it is), turn it over to the appropriate government agency — anonymously, natch — and go about their lives in their super cool shipping container house. BUT! WX kept the bag from the temple, and in the lining, he finds part of a silk map! HS does what any smart millennial would do. He takes a picture of the map and puts it out on the internet. They meet a girl, Chen Chengcheng, who can give them the other half of the map. There are shenanigans, the silk map is stolen, CC is kidnapped, and WX goes to his third uncle, Wu San Sheng, for help. WX goes to his house, and who does he meet? Qiling! Who saves WX from muggers! ZQL saving WX is basically their relationship.
Luckily, WX has a digital copy of the map (thank you, HS), so he, HS, and Third Uncle decide they can try and track down both the tomb mentioned on the map and try and rescue CC.
Episode one ends with WX, HS, and WSS meeting up with Panzi (not to be confused with Pangzi), an associate of WSS’s, near a village in the mountains. And guess who is also along for the ride? Yup, it is my emo prince, Zhang Qiling! Which brings us to episode two.
The team is trying to get to a village in the mountains. Apparently, the only way to access this village is to get a river guide who will take you through a spooky cave. HS, the smartest one in the bunch imo, asks why they can’t take an overland route, and Third Uncle basically says they should just follow the instructions on the silk map, just to be sure. Even though people who go through the cave usually don’t come back alive because it is full of zombies and bugs called corpse eaters.
A note about the corpse eaters. You know those scarabs in the Mummy movies? Well, corpse eaters are like that except they are as big as your hand. They make that awful skittery sound, and they are everywhere! In the tombs, in the cavern, all over.
I’ll confess, I fast forwarded through most of this episode. I don’t like bugs. I don’t like jump scares — which are mild, but still. The special effects are super cheesy, the blood is super fake. There is a Ring-style ghost at one point. Basically, it didn’t add much to the plot, although it did establish the dynamic of Wu Xie getting hurt and Zhang Qiling rescuing him. I love that dynamic.
The team makes it through the cave, although the man they hired to ferry them across ends up dead and partially eaten, but it’s okay because he was just going to murder the team anyway, so justice! The old man who introduced them to the ferryman also disappears and appears to be dead, but we don’t see a body, so... The team makes it to the village, which, despite being so remote they had to go on this dangerous river trip, has a hotel with two rooms left. Wu Xie has to share with Zhang Qiling, who, by the way, has fainted after rescuing the other team members, so now WX has to look after him. And there’s only one bed! But it’s a big platform bed, so no shenanigans.
And here the episode ends. What will the next day bring?
Okay, so, I am enjoying this show. It is trope-tastic, the sfx are not great but honestly, not bad. Wu Xie is an idealistic cutie. He comes from a family of tomb raiders, but he decided to make it his life’s work to return artifacts to China after seeing items in a museum in Germany, where he was studying. The actor playing him in this series, Li Yifeng, looks like a wide-eyed pop idol. According to mdl, he was also in a series called The Prince of Tennis, which I recognize from scrolling through tumblr as an adaptation of a popular sports manga.
Third Uncle is kind of a sketchy business man. You get the feeling he would go right back to tomb raiding if Wu Xie wasn’t looking.
I like High Shao a lot, and I’m trying not to get too attached because although he and Wu Xie look like besties in this show, as the series goes on, Wu Xie, Pangzi, and Zhang Qiling become the Iron Triangle, and High Shao is nowhere to be seen. Their friendship in the reboot is so so good, but HS is a good dude, too. He seems to be the sensible one where Wu Xie is a dreamer. I feel like he would keep Wu Xie out of a lot of trouble, but then we wouldn’t have a series, I guess. I just hope he doesn’t meet a gruesome end.
There are already more women in this series than in the reboot. The lead mercenary, who we will learn is called Ah Ning, is great, and Chengcheng is more than she seems, but so far, it’s just two women. This seems to be a pattern with far too many TV shows. We are allowed two, maybe three named female characters who are at all complex and interesting. *sighs in sexism*
If you made it through this wall of text, thank you! Please come shout at me about the show and any other Lost Tomb related items. I’m not finished with the show yet, but I don’t mind spoilers. These posts and comments can be as spoilery as you need.
The original Lost Tomb series aired in 2015. I thought I would do a post talking about the iterations of the series, but there is a lot of information, so I’m just going to link to a few sources. The show is based on a popular Chinese web novel series. You can get English translations of the first six books for Kindle (and possibly paperback). There is apparently going to be an American comic book adaptation from Image Comics out in the winter, and the art in the linked article looks really cool!
Given that this is a lot bigger property than I expected, and given that I don’t have anywhere near the familiarity with how it is viewed in China (although I gather that it is extremely popular), I’ll contain my review/round up to my experiences with watching the shows and reading the novels, if and when I get around to reading them — I did buy the books.
Please feel free to leave comments and ask questions and have a fun discussion, but note that this will clearly be very spoilery, so I’ll put everything under a cut. And I’ll be taking character name info from mydramalist.com.
Be aware — this first post is very long as I’m summarizing the episodes. Okay! So let’s go!
Episode one starts with Wu Xie and his friend High Shao in Inner Mongolia, trying to escape from a group of mercenaries intent on stealing the artifact Wu Xie has rescued and is attempting to return to a museum. Wu Xie reminds me of young Indiana Jones in the beginning of The Last Crusade — things belong in museums! It also reminds me a bit of the show The Librarians, both in tone and sfx budget — no shade! I love The Librarians to bits! When I lived in Oregon, I went to Cathedral Park in Portland because that is where they filmed part of the show. Anyway, WX and HS are being chased and shot at by mercenaries. They wreck their car and try to escape on foot, only to be captured, but then! A mysterious man in a Jeep shows up and rescues them! That mysterious man is Wang Pangzi (pangzi means Fatty and is now what I call my portly dachshund Spike), who is both a total badass and comic relief. He helps WX and HS get away, but then he get hungry, so they stop at a yurt/restaurant.
Is this a bad move? Yes, of course, because they are still being chased by mercenaries! Who easily catch up! And go into the restaurant! There’s a bit of slapstick as the trio try to escape. They do manage to get away from the yurt, but their car runs out of gas just outside a mysterious temple/monastery (which by the way, is situated on a precarious cliff). And of course, the mercenaries catch up.
There is a stand off over the artifact, which is wrapped up in a bag WX found in the temple. Rather than give the artifact to the mercenaries, WX chucks it off the cliff! The next moment, a mysterious (there is lots of mystery) storm rolls in and when the dust clears, we see Zhang Qiling, in all his emo glory.
Like, legit emo. Black clothes, bangs swooping across the forehead to cover one eye. I love him so much! ZQL leaps off the cliff and then magically retrieves the artifact after the mercenaries leave. He gives it to WX and then disappears! Mysteriously!
WX and HS take the artifact back to their hometown (I’m not sure where it is), turn it over to the appropriate government agency — anonymously, natch — and go about their lives in their super cool shipping container house. BUT! WX kept the bag from the temple, and in the lining, he finds part of a silk map! HS does what any smart millennial would do. He takes a picture of the map and puts it out on the internet. They meet a girl, Chen Chengcheng, who can give them the other half of the map. There are shenanigans, the silk map is stolen, CC is kidnapped, and WX goes to his third uncle, Wu San Sheng, for help. WX goes to his house, and who does he meet? Qiling! Who saves WX from muggers! ZQL saving WX is basically their relationship.
Luckily, WX has a digital copy of the map (thank you, HS), so he, HS, and Third Uncle decide they can try and track down both the tomb mentioned on the map and try and rescue CC.
Episode one ends with WX, HS, and WSS meeting up with Panzi (not to be confused with Pangzi), an associate of WSS’s, near a village in the mountains. And guess who is also along for the ride? Yup, it is my emo prince, Zhang Qiling! Which brings us to episode two.
The team is trying to get to a village in the mountains. Apparently, the only way to access this village is to get a river guide who will take you through a spooky cave. HS, the smartest one in the bunch imo, asks why they can’t take an overland route, and Third Uncle basically says they should just follow the instructions on the silk map, just to be sure. Even though people who go through the cave usually don’t come back alive because it is full of zombies and bugs called corpse eaters.
A note about the corpse eaters. You know those scarabs in the Mummy movies? Well, corpse eaters are like that except they are as big as your hand. They make that awful skittery sound, and they are everywhere! In the tombs, in the cavern, all over.
I’ll confess, I fast forwarded through most of this episode. I don’t like bugs. I don’t like jump scares — which are mild, but still. The special effects are super cheesy, the blood is super fake. There is a Ring-style ghost at one point. Basically, it didn’t add much to the plot, although it did establish the dynamic of Wu Xie getting hurt and Zhang Qiling rescuing him. I love that dynamic.
The team makes it through the cave, although the man they hired to ferry them across ends up dead and partially eaten, but it’s okay because he was just going to murder the team anyway, so justice! The old man who introduced them to the ferryman also disappears and appears to be dead, but we don’t see a body, so... The team makes it to the village, which, despite being so remote they had to go on this dangerous river trip, has a hotel with two rooms left. Wu Xie has to share with Zhang Qiling, who, by the way, has fainted after rescuing the other team members, so now WX has to look after him. And there’s only one bed! But it’s a big platform bed, so no shenanigans.
And here the episode ends. What will the next day bring?
Okay, so, I am enjoying this show. It is trope-tastic, the sfx are not great but honestly, not bad. Wu Xie is an idealistic cutie. He comes from a family of tomb raiders, but he decided to make it his life’s work to return artifacts to China after seeing items in a museum in Germany, where he was studying. The actor playing him in this series, Li Yifeng, looks like a wide-eyed pop idol. According to mdl, he was also in a series called The Prince of Tennis, which I recognize from scrolling through tumblr as an adaptation of a popular sports manga.
Third Uncle is kind of a sketchy business man. You get the feeling he would go right back to tomb raiding if Wu Xie wasn’t looking.
I like High Shao a lot, and I’m trying not to get too attached because although he and Wu Xie look like besties in this show, as the series goes on, Wu Xie, Pangzi, and Zhang Qiling become the Iron Triangle, and High Shao is nowhere to be seen. Their friendship in the reboot is so so good, but HS is a good dude, too. He seems to be the sensible one where Wu Xie is a dreamer. I feel like he would keep Wu Xie out of a lot of trouble, but then we wouldn’t have a series, I guess. I just hope he doesn’t meet a gruesome end.
There are already more women in this series than in the reboot. The lead mercenary, who we will learn is called Ah Ning, is great, and Chengcheng is more than she seems, but so far, it’s just two women. This seems to be a pattern with far too many TV shows. We are allowed two, maybe three named female characters who are at all complex and interesting. *sighs in sexism*
If you made it through this wall of text, thank you! Please come shout at me about the show and any other Lost Tomb related items. I’m not finished with the show yet, but I don’t mind spoilers. These posts and comments can be as spoilery as you need.
