Performance Review: 天门决 Legends of the Southern Arch

Date: 11 April 2015
Time: 3:00 pm
Location: Drama Centre Theatre
Kaki: Ms Loon
Rating: 2.5 stars
Language: Chinese

Sypnosis: 
A legendary Wuxia tale of honour, passion and vengeance.

Legends of the Southern Arch is sparked off by events from 60 years ago, when a secret manual was hidden by a cult under the Southern Arch. Legend says that the Arch, which opens every six decades, is due to open again - and he who retrieves the secret manual shall command the Wulin World and reign over the realm of martial arts. 

There has been peace in the Wulin World since the fall of the cult. But the obsession with invincibility continues to draw warriors into battle. The spiral of blood and death threatens to bury their secrets forever. 

Our story begins here. It is a tale of injustice and vengeance, crossing three generations of bloodshed and violence. Now, the Arch is about to re-open and the secret manual will be returned to the world. Will this mark the final battle? 

Review: 
The set was awesome, costuming was up to standard for a wuxia show. Even the fight scenes was within my expectations, and the parts where they had to be strung up was cool, I gave it extra cookie points for it. Real effort!

However, I was disappointed by the convoluted storyline. They kept jumping around the timeline, 10 years ago, Nowm 15 years ago, now, 60 years, now. After some time, I was like whatever. There was too much narrative, too heavy on dialogue and explanations of why things happen. it's a play, we get 2-2.5 hours, keeping it simple is important. It's not game of thrones where you get multiple episodes to introduce the various characters. And the script was just too long winded. Sometimes, I am already bored before they even finish their sentence.

Speaking of characters, the names were all too long. It was funny at the start. But I couldn't remember the names after some time. Sometimes, for the smaller or not so important characters, you have to call darn silly names like 小明， 小兰, along that line. there is no need to give background to every single individual characters. It's an unfortunate fact, but some characters appear, merely to propel the story forward, or as the "绿叶" to the main character. Let it go. For instance, there was a "helper" couple in the inn. They are non-essential, and we don't need to know what strokes or martial arts they are learning, or their role in the past 20 years ago. that would go towards allowing the audience to focus on the main storyline.   

Redeeming qualities include the comic moments, such as 点穴，the weird romance that somehow developed without much warning, but was funny still for certain moments. The beautiful sets, the action sequence...

All in all, simplify the plot, reduce the cast (or reduce airtime for the non-lead cast), up the comic moments, limit the time jumps to max twice, and I think this will go up to a 3.5-4 star performance.