Advance Bravely - Episodes 1 to 18 (Season One)
If I have a guilty pleasure when it comes to BL, it's Chinese series Advance Bravely. How can something so slight and vacuous be so entertaining?
Summary: Xia Yao is a young and supremely beautiful waif, from a very wealthy, very powerful family. He used to be a ladies man but he's recently become more solitary and stay-at-home, earning him the nickname 'The Monk', which he loathes. He is pursued relentlessly by the 'goddess' Yuan Ru, whom he rejects repeatedly to no effect. She is entirely unfazed by anything he dishes out at her and will stop at nothing till she marries him. She enlists the help of her older brother Yuan Zong, a highly skilled former special forces soldier who now operates his own successful bodyguard business. The brother and sister are from a very different background to Yao, having grown up poor and then left motherless at a young age, with Zong having to take on the responsibilities of raising his baby sister. He obviously knows well his sister's propensity for near-psychotic infatuations, but always agrees to help her - mostly so that he can thoroughly scare off any suitors. His constant shadowing of Xia Yao starts off on this footing, which incenses Yao. But it's very quickly obvious that the strong silent Zong is intrigued by Yao, and is following him for reasons that have nothing to do with his sister.
There's so much that's ludicrous about this series, it's hard to know where to start. How on earth does slender Yao manage to fight in professional kickboxing tournaments?? The 'meet-cute' involves a packet of chewing gum being shoved suggestively down someone's shirt neck?? Why do the two main characters wear obvious make up?? Can Yuan Ru be any more vapid and annoying?? When will the entire Yuan family finally be diagnosed as psychotic stalkers?? Yao takes his caged pet bird for walks?? Zong defeats an assassin using unconvincing martial arts...in the pouring rain...with his shirt off...in slow motion?? You'd better believe it! But really, who cares? It's a ton of fun watching the two men overcome their hesitations and accept their feelings over the course of a very long drawn-out series. All the BL clichés are present, and then some - hatred that turns to love, the contemptuous childish 'submissive', the unforthcoming protective 'dominant', the abject use and misuse of women, the virtually worthless attempts at sub plots involving secondary characters, an act of violence / nature that gravely injures the submissive, the dominant's valiant rescue of the submissive, the dominant's endless gift giving and generosity, the submissive's repeated mockery of said generosity with a disdainful petulance, the petty vengeances, machinations and manipulations riven with jealousy, the long lusty stares at point blank range. The list goes on and on. Almost none of them in Advance Bravely are played for long-term gain, they are just episodic waymarkers of momentary distraction along the path to the foregone conclusion. But what fun distractions they are!
Some of the waymarkers play better than others, of course. There's a motorbike trip to the Yellow River that's easily the best episode in the whole season - possibly because it's the only one where there's a genuine emotional resonance and connection between the characters. Some scenes involving Yao's talking bird are laugh-out-loud funny, though they are used perhaps a little too often. A couple of scenes scavenging for lotus-root dial up Yao's childish machinations to eleven, but they achieve his larger purpose and give the audience a softly glowing sense of satisfaction (or at least I felt satisfied, especially with the subsequent climactic kitchen scene). It certainly helps that production values are high; it's obvious that a substantial amount of money is being spent on all aspects of this series.
Advance Bravely makes no excuses for itself; it's nothing more than unpretentious unabashed entertainment. Sure, it has plenty of weak moments, average acting, a contrived and totally wild screenplay, tentative scripting, and a such a vast amount of ridiculousness that it will leave you gasping. But it's not masquerading as anything other than pure escapist fantasy. Just relish it for what it is and you'll enjoy it as much as I did.
Rating: 13 out of 20.
Ending: Incomplete. I have only found up to episode 18 of series 1 on youtube, perhaps it's is still filming?
UPDATE: you can now find my review of the final episodes 19 through 30 here.
Best scene: it's really tough to make a choice here, there are so many memorable scenes. The kitchen scene that follows the lotus-root hunting scenes is pretty damn good.
Summary: Xia Yao is a young and supremely beautiful waif, from a very wealthy, very powerful family. He used to be a ladies man but he's recently become more solitary and stay-at-home, earning him the nickname 'The Monk', which he loathes. He is pursued relentlessly by the 'goddess' Yuan Ru, whom he rejects repeatedly to no effect. She is entirely unfazed by anything he dishes out at her and will stop at nothing till she marries him. She enlists the help of her older brother Yuan Zong, a highly skilled former special forces soldier who now operates his own successful bodyguard business. The brother and sister are from a very different background to Yao, having grown up poor and then left motherless at a young age, with Zong having to take on the responsibilities of raising his baby sister. He obviously knows well his sister's propensity for near-psychotic infatuations, but always agrees to help her - mostly so that he can thoroughly scare off any suitors. His constant shadowing of Xia Yao starts off on this footing, which incenses Yao. But it's very quickly obvious that the strong silent Zong is intrigued by Yao, and is following him for reasons that have nothing to do with his sister.
There's so much that's ludicrous about this series, it's hard to know where to start. How on earth does slender Yao manage to fight in professional kickboxing tournaments?? The 'meet-cute' involves a packet of chewing gum being shoved suggestively down someone's shirt neck?? Why do the two main characters wear obvious make up?? Can Yuan Ru be any more vapid and annoying?? When will the entire Yuan family finally be diagnosed as psychotic stalkers?? Yao takes his caged pet bird for walks?? Zong defeats an assassin using unconvincing martial arts...in the pouring rain...with his shirt off...in slow motion?? You'd better believe it! But really, who cares? It's a ton of fun watching the two men overcome their hesitations and accept their feelings over the course of a very long drawn-out series. All the BL clichés are present, and then some - hatred that turns to love, the contemptuous childish 'submissive', the unforthcoming protective 'dominant', the abject use and misuse of women, the virtually worthless attempts at sub plots involving secondary characters, an act of violence / nature that gravely injures the submissive, the dominant's valiant rescue of the submissive, the dominant's endless gift giving and generosity, the submissive's repeated mockery of said generosity with a disdainful petulance, the petty vengeances, machinations and manipulations riven with jealousy, the long lusty stares at point blank range. The list goes on and on. Almost none of them in Advance Bravely are played for long-term gain, they are just episodic waymarkers of momentary distraction along the path to the foregone conclusion. But what fun distractions they are!
Some of the waymarkers play better than others, of course. There's a motorbike trip to the Yellow River that's easily the best episode in the whole season - possibly because it's the only one where there's a genuine emotional resonance and connection between the characters. Some scenes involving Yao's talking bird are laugh-out-loud funny, though they are used perhaps a little too often. A couple of scenes scavenging for lotus-root dial up Yao's childish machinations to eleven, but they achieve his larger purpose and give the audience a softly glowing sense of satisfaction (or at least I felt satisfied, especially with the subsequent climactic kitchen scene). It certainly helps that production values are high; it's obvious that a substantial amount of money is being spent on all aspects of this series.
Advance Bravely makes no excuses for itself; it's nothing more than unpretentious unabashed entertainment. Sure, it has plenty of weak moments, average acting, a contrived and totally wild screenplay, tentative scripting, and a such a vast amount of ridiculousness that it will leave you gasping. But it's not masquerading as anything other than pure escapist fantasy. Just relish it for what it is and you'll enjoy it as much as I did.
Rating: 13 out of 20.
Ending: Incomplete. I have only found up to episode 18 of series 1 on youtube, perhaps it's is still filming?
UPDATE: you can now find my review of the final episodes 19 through 30 here.
Best scene: it's really tough to make a choice here, there are so many memorable scenes. The kitchen scene that follows the lotus-root hunting scenes is pretty damn good.
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