What a view | Martial arts and courtship in Who Rules The World, Netflix wuxia series
- You can’t have a martial arts epic without a love story to underpin all that action, can you? Yang Yang and Zhao Lusi play star-crossed fighters on Netflix
- The wooing is more overt in season two of HBO’s Gentleman Jack, based on the life of a trailblazing lesbian landowner in northern England in the 19th century
Where would any wuxia blockbuster be without an underlying love story to balance all that swooshing, swooping and flying-fighting that energises the likes of Who Rules the World (Netflix)?
Now complete, the 40-part first series stars Yang Yang as Hei Fengxi, who is so good at martial arts he doesn’t need a sword to defeat marauding ranks of villains – just a folding paper fan.
It also stars Zhao Lusi as Bai Fengxi, who is so good at martial arts she doesn’t need a sword to defeat marauding ranks of villains – just a long white scarf used in the “zapping towel” style familiar to schoolboys in shower rooms everywhere.
Hei and Bai are friends and rivals in the search for the revered Empyrean Token, which bestows world rulership on its holder. The token’s current owners, the Dadong imperial family, have carelessly lost it down the back of a sofa, or somewhere, prompting conflict among vying states in the scramble to find it.
But the motives of Hei and Bai in joining the quest are far purer – unless, of course, theirs is really all just one long courtship game.