Wenxia
Hopefully hiking somewhere in the world's mountains as far away from civilization as possible:)
Human nature is just more complicated than this!
I'm writing this out so I can try and put my thoughts in order about this drama - cause I have so many conflicting ones...
First of all, communities existing outside of common law and the constraints of civilization is probably my favourite theme in the cinema as a whole. That's just to give you an idea how excited I was when I stumbled upon this show. And it did start very promising, weaving a pretty intricate web of suspense and ambivalence among several intriguing characters...
This doesn't follow the tired narrative where we'd see the younger brother arriving at the remote goldfield to unravel one big mystery step by step. Instead the story unfolds from several different POVs at the same time, with the brother just being one link in the chain of events. Thanks to that, there's a steady pace of reveals and new mysteries happening - you just have to have the patience to put together the various puzzle pieces sprinkled here and there by yourself. What's more, you get quickly and deeply immersed in this world thanks to the incredible attention to detail and quite creative cinematic style!!!
But then as I kept watching, I'd pause the video more and more often to let my mind focus on other things. By ep10 I had to actually force myself to continue watching.
I think the main reason for that is they just didn't delve deep enough into the psychology of the characters. Every episode has a sub-title that is like an aphorism about gold and greed f.e. "Apart from wildness, gold can lead to nowhere''. At some point, it became clear that whatever these characters do next - strike a deal, form a bond, etc. It would all just circle back to that message in the end. Which is fine, if they planned it like that - it's a storytelling device. However, what's missing is the struggle! Humans struggle with conflicting emotions (like I am now;), even if in the end we go with the predictable choice. That complexity is majorly missing in this script - and I needed that human quality to be able to connect to these characters.
This is further compounded by a very weird narrative flow. There are quite a few scenes where we'd have a very suspenseful situation, at times turning into Mexican-style standoff ...and then ...nothing.
No blow-up! No tension release!
We go from build-up straight into the fallout.
Like we'd see two characters standing at the opposite sides of a door readying for a fight. The camera would switch back and forth several times between them racking up the tension… Then next thing we see, one of them is already tied up on the floor!
So disappointing. I was like: OK, thanks! Is this freaking IKEA for me to have to play this scene in my imagination and add it by myself?
Doing it once is fine. But after it happens several times, the story just becomes monotonous, especially as there's also no surprises in how these people would act in any given situation.
Hence, needing to force myself to continue watching. Maybe if they condensed the story into 8 or 10eps, this wouldn't have irked me so much.
In the end, there were aspects of this drama I greatly enjoyed, but as a whole it awfully tired me out. Zero rewatch chance for that reason.
Still, I'm not discouraging anyone from checking it out. Gold Panning is a uniquely themed and well executed series with high-quality production values! Plenty of people seem to love it too - just sadly not me.
First of all, communities existing outside of common law and the constraints of civilization is probably my favourite theme in the cinema as a whole. That's just to give you an idea how excited I was when I stumbled upon this show. And it did start very promising, weaving a pretty intricate web of suspense and ambivalence among several intriguing characters...
This doesn't follow the tired narrative where we'd see the younger brother arriving at the remote goldfield to unravel one big mystery step by step. Instead the story unfolds from several different POVs at the same time, with the brother just being one link in the chain of events. Thanks to that, there's a steady pace of reveals and new mysteries happening - you just have to have the patience to put together the various puzzle pieces sprinkled here and there by yourself. What's more, you get quickly and deeply immersed in this world thanks to the incredible attention to detail and quite creative cinematic style!!!
But then as I kept watching, I'd pause the video more and more often to let my mind focus on other things. By ep10 I had to actually force myself to continue watching.
I think the main reason for that is they just didn't delve deep enough into the psychology of the characters. Every episode has a sub-title that is like an aphorism about gold and greed f.e. "Apart from wildness, gold can lead to nowhere''. At some point, it became clear that whatever these characters do next - strike a deal, form a bond, etc. It would all just circle back to that message in the end. Which is fine, if they planned it like that - it's a storytelling device. However, what's missing is the struggle! Humans struggle with conflicting emotions (like I am now;), even if in the end we go with the predictable choice. That complexity is majorly missing in this script - and I needed that human quality to be able to connect to these characters.
This is further compounded by a very weird narrative flow. There are quite a few scenes where we'd have a very suspenseful situation, at times turning into Mexican-style standoff ...and then ...nothing.
No blow-up! No tension release!
We go from build-up straight into the fallout.
Like we'd see two characters standing at the opposite sides of a door readying for a fight. The camera would switch back and forth several times between them racking up the tension… Then next thing we see, one of them is already tied up on the floor!
So disappointing. I was like: OK, thanks! Is this freaking IKEA for me to have to play this scene in my imagination and add it by myself?
Doing it once is fine. But after it happens several times, the story just becomes monotonous, especially as there's also no surprises in how these people would act in any given situation.
Hence, needing to force myself to continue watching. Maybe if they condensed the story into 8 or 10eps, this wouldn't have irked me so much.
In the end, there were aspects of this drama I greatly enjoyed, but as a whole it awfully tired me out. Zero rewatch chance for that reason.
Still, I'm not discouraging anyone from checking it out. Gold Panning is a uniquely themed and well executed series with high-quality production values! Plenty of people seem to love it too - just sadly not me.
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