Help, I can’t pick between Hu Ge and Tang Yan!
The gods must’ve heard all your wishes to see Wallace Huo, because fantasy-wuxia series Hua Qian’gu 花千骨 released a set of stills for Wallace Huo today. He plays the most respected and one of the oldest fairy (xian*) of the realm who takes the prepubescent Zhao Liying’s Hua Qian’gu under his wings. He will spend most of the series conflicted between his duty to the world and his creepy forbidden love for Hua Qian’gu.
* The word 仙(xian) is often translated as fairy but is more of a Taoist concept indicating humans who have reached immortality through practice)
I want more stills of Wallace.. Wallace, Wallace … swoons..
YAAAY! I was hoping for some stills of Wallace! ;)
So much pretty! I’ll watch it for Wallace Huo even though I’m not sold on the story.
I would translate 仙 as “an immortal”. I never watch ancient dramas, but Wallace Huo is pretty. <3
Totally agreed! Wasn’t the “八仙” of Taoism called the eight immortals?
I feel like in Western literature, the most akin to the 仙 in this book would actually be the elves of the Middle Earth.
Fairy is the conventional translation for 仙 in popular culture (The Legend of Sword and Fairy, Fairy from Wonderland, Fairy Couple, etc. ), probably because people are more interested in something with the word fairy in the title over immortals unless it’s an epic war series (picture a movie titled The Immortals ) , and the concept of xian in those cases are very removed from their origins (contrary to popular belief, you do not practice Taoism by defeating people level by level)
In general, I think pretty female xian (仙女) is almost exclusively translated as fairy, while more canon Taoist 仙 are usually translated as immortals.
I don’t really think deity is appropriate unless (s)he is a xian 仙 that others worship, such as the Jade Emperor.
I actually just read this blog post about translations of mythical creatures, and I’m actually inclined to start using pinyin for these concepts since I don’t really think any English words do them justice. I’ve always been super annoyed by the fact that long = dragon, which, imo, is one of the best example of why China sucks at PR.
http://bigthink.com/dragons-and-pandas/how-many-more-chinese-mythical-creatures-can-the-english-language-take?
Agreed. As for me I translate the word “xian” in different ways. It depends on the situation. In this case since we are talking about 仙侠, I prefer use the world “immortal” than “fairy”. It sounds cooler. But “仙女” or “仙鹅” fits “fairy” quit well. Sometimes “仙” can be translated also as “sacred” or “divine” for example “仙剑” or “仙气” is more “sacred/divine sword” or “sacred/divine aura” instead of “fairy sword/aura”.
Actually there’s a lot of mismatching of
English words to Chinese’. For example the mythological creature
Qilin or Kirin in Japanese is translated as unicorn but it’s wrong!
Or western know the Chinese Phoenix as “fenghuang”, but in the same time they translate the Japanese world “Suzaku” also as Phoenix but actually “fenghuang” in Japanese is oh-oh and Suzaku is in Chinese 朱雀 zhuque. And the two birds are different in The Chinese mythology. These are just a few example. So I think maybe is better to use pinying to indicated tipical words of Chinese culture.
That’s the thing, though, immortal sounds cooler. It’s what I would use if I wanted to draw an audience who want to see Thor vs. Loki in a battle of the universe . This story is targeted toward the romantic who really just want to see Wallace Huo look pretty.
I’m slightly okay with dragon just because it’s used so often, and phoenix for the rebirth concept, but I can’t deal with the translation for qilin. Although to be fair, I equally hate the Chinese translation of unicorn since it makes it sound like a monster when in the West, it’s often a symbol of healing.
I like to think of xian more as a human equivalent of yao guai. I mean they both kinda follow the concepts of a creature or person removing themselves from their lot in life and living in isolation to practice and improve their essence and achieve a powerful and debatable-y immortal state of being. The only difference is that the animal version is usually seen as more malevolent while the human version is seen as more benevolent.
Hey I’ll watched it even if there’s not Wallace Huo XD.
As for “dragon”, in Italy we use two different words to differenziate the chinese dragon (drago) from the western one (dragone).
Actually it’s ok for me the translation of unicorn in chinese, since it’s translated literally (独角兽). “Shou” doesn’t have necessarily a bad connotation. It just means a mythological creature. Even the four sacred animal are considered “shou”.
I think the word ‘deity’ is more appropriate than ‘fairy’. Well, i’m not mandarin speaker though
He looks so pretty! Kind of reminds me of his Chinese Paladin days.
….Oh.
(Fangirl swoon).
I need wallpaper size versions of this. Maybe I’ll watch this series on mute just to take screenshots :P Maybe they’ll change the plot?
The author is involved in the script-writing :(
I’ll probably do what I did with Perfect Couple and watch the first half and skip the second half. I’m still upset they had to ruin such a cute series with 20 episodes of draggy melodrama.
More like 25! I’m still bitter. What could’ve been. Still, their chemistry was fantastic.
Agreed. It got so draggy and I had to skip second half till the last two eps. I hope Wallace/Tang Yan will work on another project soon. They have good chemistry. Wallace did well for his first drama production.
LOL at the tagline. He’d pick Hu Ge. Ha!
Like his name HUA, looking like a flower there. He has the look for ancient dramas.