Lang Ya Bang
The thing that has been occupying most of my attention in the past two weeks, and really the past month, is Lang Ya Bang (Nirvana in Fire) which is not only the best Chinese drama I’ve ever watched but simply one of the best TV shows in any language, from any genre, period. I’ve seen it succinctly described as The Count of Monte Cristo set in ancient China, which I think works as well as any plot summary if you are familiar with that book. If you, like me, have never read The Count of Monte Cristo (a fact I have now attempted to rectify by downloading the book from the excellent Standard eBooks), all you need to understand is that this is a story of a long-overdue revenge, and that it is the kind of story you need to rewatch from the beginning once you finish it because the early events take on a totally different complexion once you understand the whole plot.
I’d been keeping Lang Ya Bang on the shelf for several years, intimidated by its length (54 episodes of 45 minutes to an hour each), but once the story got going, it flew by. I’m not a fast watcher of shows—in fact, I am notoriously slow because I usually get tired after watching a couple of eps—but I zoomed through Lang Ya Bang in just over a month. I have never watched anything so long so quickly. The pacing is so good that you just want to keep going. The story, the acting, the characters, the economy of the script and the cinematography are all absolute top tier.
One of my favourite things about film as a medium is how much you can convey visually without having the characters say a single word at all. I remember being enamoured of this facility while studying screenwriting and wondering how I could do that in writing. I still think about it a lot. Lang Ya Bang is a masterclass in many things, but in this aspect in particular, it is outstanding. There were so many cuts that stood out to me as full of meaning even though they lasted only a few seconds. I really love when stories trust the reader/viewer enough not to spell everything out for you, leaving you to draw your own conclusions from what’s left unsaid and unshown; it always makes me feel that much more immersed and emotionally drawn into the journey.
Just how good Lang Ya Bang is became even more painfully apparent to me when I moved on to another show afterwards and kept thinking, Lang Ya Bang would have done this or that differently, and it would’ve been better. I don’t even think this show is bad, objectively speaking. It’s just not as good as Lang Ya Bang, which I have heard for so long is the gold standard for Cdramas (honestly, for dramas in general, IMO), and now I understand why.
Anyway, I had intended to do a rapid-fire rundown of all the things I’d been up to in the past couple weeks, from acquiring a new mechanical keyboard to reading about rivers, and I just… wound up writing a whole post about Lang Ya Bang because once I started I had so much to say about it. And I haven’t even gone into specifics, to try and avoid spoilers! I wish I could experience it all again for the first time. You can though, free on YouTube, so don’t hesitate. I’m taking a short break before I go on to S2 because I’m sure I will really miss the S1 characters, but I already can’t wait to get back into it.