Why you need to watch "Guardian"
Sep. 3rd, 2019 11:34 amSo after a million years of not writing much in the way of fanfic or staring longingly at screencaps, I fell for a new show.
And to even explain what this show is... I feel like that's going to require a lot more words than I have brainspace for right now? Also I'm not the best authority on the subject, having only picked up bits and pieces of its backstory through fannish osmosis, but still, I'll try.
Short version: it's called Guardian, and it's a Chinese TV series based on an online supernatural gay romance novel.
However, gay content isn't permitted to be shown in China, nor is anything truly supernatural unless it's in a historical epic (I think?). Anyway, you can imagine that the show’s writers had their job cut out for them. Especially since they had their budget cut to pennies halfway through.
Miraculously, what resulted is a show that is a BONFIRE of newly subversive old-school slash: hurt/comfort, angst, epic fights, self-sacrifice, secret identities, supernatural shenanigans, and lingering closeups on gorgeous men staring at each other, manhandling each other and tucking each other into bed, with no “girlfriend of the week” bullshit, and just enough plausible deniability to somehow get away with it.
Dirtbag Lollipop aka Zhao Yunlan is chief of a supernatural investigations team, very smart, very intuitive, the Kirk to Shen Wei's Spock, having five different ideas and strategies playing out in his head at any given moment, and fearlessly confrontational, even while pretending to be a dumbass bro. Also, he has a terrible car that could star in "Pimp My Ride", and somehow this doesn't lessen my intense affection for him.
Glasses McPretty aka Shen Wei is a beautiful, quiet, buttoned up professor whose micro-expressions are lighting up my life, and who is clearly just very unlucky, because he keeps showing up at crime scenes that he has nothing to do with and frustrating Zhao Yunlan's investigations. And yet somehow Zhao Yunlan doesn't seem to mind:
The two fantastic actors for Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei pretty much carry the entire show on their backs, and I basically only started watching because I thought that the professor in the glasses was hot, but I quickly succumbed.
Still, the first couple episodes are not as full of h/c and angst as the later ones, and I don’t think I would have kept watching if I hadn’t run across spoilers for the one crucial show element: that Shen Wei, as well as being this sweet harmless academic:
is also this sexy BAMF
(gifs courtesy of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
qikiqtarjuaq
( Single essential spoiler for the first few episodes )
Shen Wei reminds me of Leslie Howard in The Scarlet Pimpernel (another cast-iron favorite of my heart and id) and I could watch him change his face in the minutest ways to express the most complex emotions all the livelong day.
Bonus gif and commentary fromqikiqtarjuaq : "You know how TV shows have commercial breaks? Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan have silent breaks during lulls in their conversations to have thirsty flirting interludes."
And to even explain what this show is... I feel like that's going to require a lot more words than I have brainspace for right now? Also I'm not the best authority on the subject, having only picked up bits and pieces of its backstory through fannish osmosis, but still, I'll try.
Short version: it's called Guardian, and it's a Chinese TV series based on an online supernatural gay romance novel.
However, gay content isn't permitted to be shown in China, nor is anything truly supernatural unless it's in a historical epic (I think?). Anyway, you can imagine that the show’s writers had their job cut out for them. Especially since they had their budget cut to pennies halfway through.
Miraculously, what resulted is a show that is a BONFIRE of newly subversive old-school slash: hurt/comfort, angst, epic fights, self-sacrifice, secret identities, supernatural shenanigans, and lingering closeups on gorgeous men staring at each other, manhandling each other and tucking each other into bed, with no “girlfriend of the week” bullshit, and just enough plausible deniability to somehow get away with it.
Dirtbag Lollipop aka Zhao Yunlan is chief of a supernatural investigations team, very smart, very intuitive, the Kirk to Shen Wei's Spock, having five different ideas and strategies playing out in his head at any given moment, and fearlessly confrontational, even while pretending to be a dumbass bro. Also, he has a terrible car that could star in "Pimp My Ride", and somehow this doesn't lessen my intense affection for him.
Glasses McPretty aka Shen Wei is a beautiful, quiet, buttoned up professor whose micro-expressions are lighting up my life, and who is clearly just very unlucky, because he keeps showing up at crime scenes that he has nothing to do with and frustrating Zhao Yunlan's investigations. And yet somehow Zhao Yunlan doesn't seem to mind:
The two fantastic actors for Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei pretty much carry the entire show on their backs, and I basically only started watching because I thought that the professor in the glasses was hot, but I quickly succumbed.
Still, the first couple episodes are not as full of h/c and angst as the later ones, and I don’t think I would have kept watching if I hadn’t run across spoilers for the one crucial show element: that Shen Wei, as well as being this sweet harmless academic:
is also this sexy BAMF
(gifs courtesy of
qikiqtarjuaq ( Single essential spoiler for the first few episodes )
Shen Wei reminds me of Leslie Howard in The Scarlet Pimpernel (another cast-iron favorite of my heart and id) and I could watch him change his face in the minutest ways to express the most complex emotions all the livelong day.
Where to find the show:
Guardian is on Youtube, all 40 episodes, with fanmade English subtitles that range from okay to terrible.
BUT because fandom is awesome, there are also HD downloads for the full show with subtitles that solo has painstakingly improved, available here.
The show is also on Amazon Prime (with hilariously terrible cover art that doesn't even seem to feature the right actors? Oy.)
Bonus gif and commentary from
qikiqtarjuaq : "You know how TV shows have commercial breaks? Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan have silent breaks during lulls in their conversations to have thirsty flirting interludes."