You might remember me from translating the previous Romance of a Calligrapher, Hua Tuo and Cao Cao 1983.
This time it's more of a jolly fantasy/fairytale movie than a period-drama, it has a lot of the similar charm and style as those previous two films. Legend of Eight Immortals 1985 is very similar in line with some of the public broadcast kids films from back in the day, like BBC or some of the Swedish Astrid Lindgren adaptations,.
While in terms of Chinese gonzo fantasy films, it's no Zu Warriors of the Magic Mountain or Encounters of the Spooky Kind (which both came out a couple years before this), its still a cute and charming film I find, and shares some of the strengths as the prior two historical films I've subbed.
This film features the Eight Immortals, popular folklore figures, a group of folk trickster gods in similar veins to Anansi or and Kokopelli, or the Seven Luck Gods, which are the Japanese equivalent. Tons of stories and idioms feature them, most prominently Eight Immortals Cross the Sea, The Flying Sword 飛劍記, and Journey to the East 东游记 as well as many modern things, such as apparently the Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon. Extremely ubiquitous in the East, esp. Taoist parlances, but probably not especially well-known in the west.
The Immortals, or Xiān 仙 or alternatively translated as "celestial" or "fairy" (or "adepti" if you are a Genshin Impact fan hahaha) are basically a class of divinities in Chinese mythology; people who reached demigod-like status through self-mastery and spiritual cultivation and/or great acts worthy of worship, another extension of the very Chinese or general pan-East Asian ideals of meritocratic practice and self-mastery.
Unlike other kinds of gods, they're always born as regular people (or even just regular living things in general, as per animism) who gained their amazing supernatural powers and immortality through their own efforts and practice, sort of like bodhisattvas, or Catholic saints. Thus they tend to be the more approachable and human kind of demigods.
If you've seen any Chinese-language media featuring a heavy fantasy element, you've probably encountered the Xiān. From Journey to the West adaptations to Sword and Fairy to Heaven's Official Blessing, they all would feature the Xiān in some manner.
This RAW is probably as high quality as I can have, however it doesn't seem to have gone through much restoration, so that green line is just stuck permanently there unfortunately.
Дата на публикация: 10 февруари, 2024
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