Novoland: Eagle Flag (2019)

An Epic Drama!

I'm hooked to this drama from the beginning. The production is fantastic. Amazing sound effects, wonderful cinematography, authentic costumes/makeup. Everything feels like one of those high budget productions like "The Great Wall", and other Hollywood movies. The warriors are big and fearsome, and the wuxia fighting choreography is beautiful and real.

This is a complicated drama. There are multi-facet developments. There is a lot of manipulation of the mind, rendering one questions oneself what is right and what is wrong, and for the sake of survival, is there such a line (right or wrong), is it (right and wrong) important anymore. These are the questions that keep haunting me long after I finish watching each episode.

The acting by all actors is most impressive; it is almost flawless, to say the least. Each plays his/her role convincingly. I love the seemingly naive but warm-hearted Yu Ran who wants best-friend-forever relationship with her two best friends despite she falls in love with one of them. She would go anywhere to search for them and to ensure their safety. I love the focused Ji Ye who wants to become successful and make a name for himself. He would go out all his way to achieve his dream, except, he would not betray his best friends. I love Lu Gui Chen for his love of humanity, and would not condone anyone who threatens it. His love for his two best friends has never wavered.

The settings of this drama are equally impressive, with the use of large scale human power, costumes, background props, landscape. Everything seems so realistic that you may feel you're actually standing right in front of the dry desert, or the steppes, or the palaces. Even the CGI is very well done and leaves few flaws.

The music is dark and mysterious. The drum and horn of war is menacing. The scale of the battle field is breath taking – I’ve never seen such a grand scale. Only Chinese movies/dramas can produce such grandness. The battle horses and the knights supersede any Hollywood/western productions of similar grandiose. All actors, in particular, the supporting ones, are amazingly convincing – the cunning ones are very cunning, the devious ones are very evil, the righteous ones are unbending, the upstanding ones are selfless.

Having said all these, towards the end, I find myself not crazily in love with any of the characters, including the 3 main ones. Not that they are not lovable, but I find them to be not as well developed; they have not captured my heart. In fact, I find myself loving Ying Wu Yi (aka Li Gong) more than anyone else. He is brave, upstanding, ruthless and yet fair. He does not stab anyone on the back like the others do. He is hated and feared by everyone but faithfully loved by his own men. Even Lu Gui Chen and Ji Ye respect him deeply.

The whole drama centers around warfare and politics, and at times, I feel suffocating. There is so much bloodshed, and men playing politics with others' lives on the line. The use of dark forces, zombie soldiers and scarab beetles can be frightening and yet brilliantly produced with similar vibe as in the Hollywood movie, "The Mummy". It is both dark and mind-provoking. Romance is pretty limited. I don't feel any heart wrenching love, passion and longing. Nonetheless, this is still an epic production.

My final verdict:

Despite what I have written earlier, at the end of the drama when all episodes are aired, I was asking myself, "That's it?" Who wins the final battle? What happens to all these other people? Who is now in charge of the Wings clan (Yu Ran's clan)? Is Jie Ye the leader and protector of the Tian Ju group after Asule entrusts him with the power? Does Princess Xiao Zhou really marry the mentally handicapped prince? Where is Ying Wu Yi? What happens to his daughter who is in love with Jie Ye? So many unanswered questions. There is no closure. After episode 56, I was still checking to find out if I was wrong about the number of episodes. No wonder I saw some comments online asking, "Where is episode 60?" I didn't realize it meant this until now.

Overall:

If you like warfare, politics, dark forces versus the light , this is a must watch!

With such an open ending, I'm not surprised that the production company is planning for a sequel or some sort. For me, I don't think I'm waiting for it as anxiously as I am for others. It is such a pity for this high budget production drama with all the epic scenes, quality sound effects, costumes and everything else, to end up like this, unloved.

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We are back!!! 铁甲依然在 (tie jia yi ran zai).

Novoland Eagle Flag is about a time in fantasy world Novoland's history where the outlawed Tianqu warriors are revived for an epic showdown with growing evil forces of the supernatural Chenyue cult.

These are tumultous times in Novoland, where the ruling Yin Empire only has a tenuous grip on its power over its vassal kingdoms. The emperor and the ruling nobles of the various kingdoms are protected by their own armies led by skilled generals. By coalition and mutual self interest, an unstable balance of power is maintained. Internal politics and power struggles within the empire and the kingdoms complicate the plot. These sub threads are quite well written but can be ignored or followed loosely without losing track of the story-line. This inherent instability is manipulated by the Chenyue cult who preys on the superstitions, insecurities and ambitions of the ruling elite. As war breaks out when a powerful warlord seizes power, the might of the Chenyue's undead Redteeth army grows surreptitiously with the death count. This sets the stage for the return of the formidable Tianqu warriors, historical protectors of the realm until banished for killing a despot. Only the Tianqu warriors, lead by their chief suzerain with a legendary sword, had been able to suppress the Chenyue.

Our three main characters are destined to play a critical role in Tianqu's return. They are bound together by a touching friendship as they come of age during these troubled times. Asule is crown prince of the nomadic Qingyang tribe who are fierce warriors in the harsh wintry North. He is sent at young age to Eastland as a political hostage. Yuran is an orphan from the elite of the Winged Tribe who is a princess in name at the Xiatang court. Ji Ye is the unfavored elder son of a nobleman whese mother was a concubine. They were lonely children whose paths crossed in Xiatang and essentially become each others' families. Yet they are pawns in this ruthless world where their friendship is constantly tested by ambitious and powerful actors who use them to achieve their own agendas. Asule is an idealist who wants to use his power to save the world. Ji Ye wants to prove himself, he is a conqueror who wants to rule the world. Yuran doesn't care about the world or the future, she just lives in the moment for herself and her friends. The relationship between the three leads was one of the best parts of this drama and well written. They balance each other out perfectly. Asule is a gentle soul who cannot bear to kill even when it is the only way to achieve the greater good. Ji Ye has no such reservations but his ruthless ambition is checked by Asule's goodness. And Yuran is the glue that binds them together and keeps them grounded on what is truly important - their friendship and the importance living for oneself.

The cast was very strong as this big budget production spared no expense with veteran actors. Many did not like the actress Song Zuer but I thought she was the perfect Yuran, which is not a deep character, just a very vehement one. While Liu Haoran did a good job portraying Asule, the character was poorly written and waffled in the back half. Don't hold it against him that the scriptwriter turned him into a brainless incredible hulk-like killing machine whenever he is angry. And while Chen Ruoxuan overdid the petulant youth in the beginning, Ji Ye's character is a strong one that showed tremendous growth towards the end.

The script-writing which was fantastic and gripping in the first half turned into an epic disappointment in the back half. It became repetitive, deviated into half heart-ed ill fated romantic tropes and took odd and messy turns with several core characters including Asule. I realized too late that this is the same dastardly Linmon Pictures that similarly destroyed the back half of Legend of Fuyao. It is their signature gimmick of replacing the production team with Team B so that Team A gets to move onto new projects. At that point you are so invested that you end up watching the rest of it anyway. The only thing that helped Novoland is that it is backed by the substance of a real book whereas Fuyao descended into 100 pct script-writer induced train-wreck. Given the record budget, the popularity of the novel, serious hype and the veteren cast this should have been a 9 or 10, one of the best of the year. What an epic let down - despite some truly superb battle scenes and cinematography, it ended up as just an OK overall production due to the messy writing.

The ending is controversial and felt rushed. Unlike most, I believe the Eagle Flag chapter of Novoland ended where it should have. One of the biggest misconceptions of this drama is that the story is character driven. It is not. The three leads may have their own subplots but all of the plot threads converge in the final conflict between Tianqu and Chenyue. The characters are relevant only as far as their roles in the build up to an epic climatic clash between good and evil. What happens to the characters after that is not important since the story is not really about them. A sequel or season 2 seems unlikely in this context although there could be spin offs that once again touch upon some of their subsequent paths - someone who read the books will know better than I.

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