(I recently finished The Wolf and was severely disappointed that such a tightly written show was completely butchered by the censorship board – read Xiao Zhan’s explanation here. The following is my reflection on the show: the show is quite long that it is difficult to discuss things without rambling and going off-topic, but if you have seen the show you’ll see what I mean. Obviously, the whole thing will be full of spoiler.)
The Prince of Bo is the most well-written character I have seen on CDrama in a long time. Raised by a pack of wolves, he was wrenched from his world by the usurper-emperor Chu Kui who subjected him through a brutal super soldier training regime that broke him, reprogrammed his worldviews, and turned him into Chu Kui’s enforcer-general who also heads the Night Fury, Chu Kui’s private assassin squad. To maintain his control over this Chinese Bucky, Chu Kui adopted him as the third prince of Yan. While blindly loyal to his “handler” Chu Kui, the Prince of Bo seems to have a genuine respect and affection for his new pack, the imperial siblings, especially the Eldest Prince who he looks to as his new alpha.
When he was a boy growing up on Wolf Hunt Mountain, Bo was discovered by the Prefecture Princess Ma Zhai Xing when she went up the mountain to mourn her dead mother. The two developed a strong bond and, as the wolves were being hunted for their meat, devised a scheme to scare off anyone thinking of hunting Bo’s pack. Complications arise, and the two were separated, with Chu Kui cashing on the scene and convincing Bo that MZX actually viewed him as a monster and had betrayed him for her family. This was the key to breaking Bo, and he grew up seething with distrust for people besides Chu Kui, and a distorted belief that he was actually a monster. The worse thing was, unlike Bucky who seems to be completely unthinking when under control, Bo believes that he is lucid and is in complete control of his actions and choices when those “choices” are just “I have no other choice”.
MZX’s father is the General of the Ma Army, a powerful private army that defends the border of Yan under allegiance to Chu Kui. Years ago, Chu Kui had rebelled against the previous dynasty to become the emperor; the nation had split into Yan, under Chu Kui, and Jin, under the Prince of Jin, who has ascended as King of Jin now but maintained his loyalty to the fallen empire. Now restive, Chu Kui urges General Ma to wage war against Jin, an order that was refused by the peaceable general who knew that the largest price of war is always borne by innocent citizens. To provoke the war he desires, Chu Kui sends in the Night Fury to massacre the entire Ma family and frames it on Jin. Chu Kui is careful to spare MZX because he needed a figurehead to whom the Ma Army would remain loyal and to dispatch the kill order to the Night Fury behind Bo’s back because, in his words, Bo was still “too kind” and would not condone to the senseless killings. This point confused me a lot when watching the scene because we were shown a scene in which Bo quite indiscriminately and brazenly executed dissenting court officials despite mass protests just because Chu Kui ordered him to.
In order to control her and hence the Ma Army who is doggedly loyal to her, Chu Kui betrothed MZX to Bo, and she begins life in his mansion as the future Lady Bo. Oblivious to the truth of her family’s massacre, MZX is powerfully drawn to Bo due to his resemblance to her long lost friend whom she called Wolfie. Bo learns of the truth that she had never betrayed him and he was overjoyed that he could put down the grudge against his preordained bride, but he was tortured by his role in her family’s massacre. Sure, he hadn’t committed the act himself, but could he be absolved of the crimes of his direct subordinates? I think the show was a little cowardly by excusing him in the first place because we know that given his personality, he would have carried out the kill order against her family out of blind submission to Chu Kui. He might even enjoy it, because at that point he was seething with hatred and anger at her perceived betrayal. But I understand – if he had killed her family himself, reconciliation between them might be completely impossible.
Somewhere down the line, Chu Kui “learns” of Bo’s previous tangle with MZX and he pretended to be absolutely surprised. Now, here’s the genius of the show: if you didn’t binge it like I did, you might have swallowed Chu Kui’s pretentions like the gaslighted leads did. But Chu Kui wasn’t only aware of the relationship between the two, it was MZX who initially alerted him to Bo’s existence. During the conflict that separated the two, Bo was hunted down by MZX’s malicious older brother and had fallen off a cliff and presumed to be dead. Elder brother broke her legs when MZX tried to save Bo, and she was delirious for days. In her delirium, she begged Chu Kui to help her save Bo. Ever the cunning strategist, Chu Kui swooped in to save Bo and fed him lies so he could capitalize on the feral boy’s amazing wolf-like capabilities. So not only was Chu Kui aware of the relationship, it explains why he did not send Bo to massacre her family: Chu Kui fully knows that the bond between the two might override Bo’s conditioning, hence the seemingly out-of-place remark about Bo’s kindness.
I mentioned that Bo’s character is the most well-written I’ve seen in a long time, so let’s unpack that. In the earlier episodes, Bo used to keep me up at night because he would make baffling decisions. His character was supposed to be very observant and smart, and behind his taciturn exterior, a witty and diplomatic master strategist when he needs to be. But in earlier parts of the show he keeps making bizarre decisions that basically shot himself in the foot. In less well-written shows, I would have dismissed those actions as inconsistent writing, but somehow Bo would not let me write him off so easily. He pulled me in, forced me to mull over his decisions. Once, I finished an episode and he’d made another weird decision and I just spent the next two hours pacing around my apartment until I came to the conclusion that he was indeed aware that his decisions are bizarre, but he was completely broken and conditioned by Chu Kui that he feels incapable of making any other decisions. I mean, those weird decisions are only “weird” because they all stem from Chu Kui’s manipulation of Bo; as clearheaded viewers, we could see that Bo could defy the emperor at any point and the emperor would be in a tight spot instead because Bo has so many strengths, but Bo fully believes that he could only use those strengths for Chu Kui, not against.
Structurally, it was crystal clear that Bo and MZX will face off against each other, and that’s where the tragic crux of the show will come from. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. To a modern audience, something so spoilery seems off-putting, but from a literary standpoint, this is good. The expectation of surprises and plot twists is a relatively modern phenomenon; in traditional conventions of storytelling, the whole plot is outlined during the prologue and instead of ruining the experience, the audience’s sense of anticipation is heightened because they can clearly spot significant moments of the story, like parts that are foreshadowing or ironic, and audiences can have an almost dialogic experience of the story as they debate the choices that characters make. With that in mind, we know early on that the star-crossed lovers will face each other head on in battle when MZX defects to Jin once she finds out that her family’s massacre was an inside job. We also know that because this is a CDrama, the leads will have a happy ending. Naturally, the question now is how will they end up on the same side?
After days of debating, I finally came to the conclusion that the only way for Bo to break his conditioning and go against Chu Kui was if Chu Kui directly betrayed Bo in some way. It was not enough for Chu Kui to attack MZX; no, there were many instances where Bo knows Chu Kui was being very cruel towards MZX and he chooses to side with Chu Kui nonetheless. So the cause of his awakening must be something very deep, very visceral, something that challenges the entire concept of his relationship with Chu Kui. In the mid-point of the story, we learn that there are only 3 imperial brothers left because the Eldest Prince, Bo’s new alpha, died in battle due to a subordinate’s defection to Jin. In the heat of battle, Eldest Prince decided to sacrifice himself to save Bo and their baby brother You Zhen who is innocently blindsided and assumed he was simply welcoming his brothers back from a victorious battle. You Zhen had developed a big grudge on Bo following this battle because he thought Bo had abandoned the Eldest Prince to save his own skin, and man-of-few-words Bo chose not to disabuse him of the notion. Despite You Zhen’s hostility, Bo is fiercely protective of the baby brother his alpha had given his life to save. With this history in mind, I realized that Bo’s awakening can only from learning that Chu Kui had caused the Eldest Prince’s death himself (as we fully know he’s capable of due to the Ma family massacre) or from Chu Kui directly sacrificing You Zhen’s life to achieve some political goal. In short, only a direct threat to his adopted pack can shake the wolfling prince from his stupor.
This did not happen. Once again, the show took the cowardly way out and decided to save You Zhen. Instead of giving us a dramatic death of the baby brother (where Bo could be physically unscathed but completely scarred emotionally, or he could be completely bloodied and on the brink of death in a desperate fight to save You Zhen – either scene would be equally breathtaking and satisfying), the show simply had You Zhen falling into Chu Kui’s hand with a feeble attempt of rebellion. The cause of the rebellion? You Zhen had learned that Chu Kui was the mastermind behind Eldest Prince’s death, which he then relayed to our guy Bo. Now, first of all, the whole show hinges on Bo’s emotional dependency on Chu Kui’s validation: having You Zhen feel betrayed by the emperor is an emotional dud for the viewers. Secondly, Bo has no objectivity whatsoever when it comes to Chu Kui (at least at this point anyway) and he was more liable to doubt You Zhen and turn against him instead of allying with the little brother. Moreover, their attempt at rebellion was so feeble and half-hearted that it does not match our guy Bo’s meticulous nature. The only other explanation for that botched up rebellion was Bo’s secret desire for its failure since he could never go against Chu Kui and he had fully decided to die in battle. Unfortunately, this explanation fails to pass muster as well because in effect it means Bo himself sent You Zhen to die at Chu Kui’s hand; as the current alpha of their dwindled pack, Bo would sacrifice himself for You Zhen instead of the other way around.
The rebellion happened maybe at the end of episode 36. I tell you, before everything was revealed, the rebellion was breathtaking indeed. I had planned to go to bed at the end of the episode; nope, the ending of episode 36 made me start the next one immediately. I tell you, that disappointment in episode 37 was massive. After such a buildup, this… this reconciliation romance was how they wanted to tell the rest of the story? The foundation of the show was strong enough that I finished it but I tell you, the show died on episode 36. After that, the story made no sense and the characters turned pathetic and inconsistent. I was so angry that I googled for answers and apparently we were failed by the Chinese State Administration of Radio and Television, who kept the show in post-production hell for more than 3 years. I am now fully convinced that the original story went somewhere along the lines of my expectation whereas the monstrosity we’re stuck with is a desperate mashup to save this big budget production in the face of state censorship.
I don’t wanna talk about MZX’s character other than the fact that the actress did not impress me in Joy of Life but she did not annoy me here, especially in the earlier parts of the show. I really like it when a main character dies in the end if it is logical to the plot because I’m against shows that keep the leads alive against all odds for no reason, but I’m annoyed that it was her who died instead of Bo. Now, I have nothing against Bo, but the entire show was about his redemption, about his wish to be free of earthly shackles, and he clearly believes that his broken soul can only find rest with death. So why did they keep him alive when it would only torment him? Moreover, his survival was ensured by her sacrifice: did she think he wasn’t shouldering enough survivor’s guilt that she wanted to add her death as well? And, as peace and unification of Yan and Jin was achieved at the end of the show, who best to sit on the throne than a (usually clear-headed) princess-general who was the last surviving member of the previous dynasty who was instrumental in engineering that peace? Nope, she just left everything to the King of Jin?
Not that I have anything against the King of Jin, but I do find his characterization suspect. In the prologue, we are told in no uncertain terms that Chu Kui was “evil” while the King of Jin “good”. Like, a definite black and white. Now, I don’t know about you, but I find such dichotomy alarming and I immediately questioned it. Eventually we get to Jin and we see that the country was peaceful if a little austere, and that the king run his government as a council member instead of a monarch or dictator, so I guess he was good. But I think this was a censorship-mandated change: I suspect that the original plan was for MZX to discover that an alliance with Jin was just as treacherous as an alliance with Yan. I mean, in what world can we find an altruistic political alliance? I really thought the King of Jin was going to turn out to be a President Coin – morally no better than Chu Kui, perhaps secretly even more sinister since he wears the appearance of a benevolent ruler, but the show does not address the issue of his morality or politics beyond being really supportive of whatever nonsense MZX is cooking at any point.
Speaking of Chu Kui, obviously I wouldn’t want anyone like him in my life, but as a fictional character? He was fabulous. At least initially anyway. He’s painted as a no-nonsense usurper-emperor who is actually smart and knows what he’s doing. His best talent is at dividing and conquering… ooooh, it is just perfection watching him nudge the court against one another that they completely lose the perspective that he’s their ultimate enemy. I guess that is why he is “bad” according to the prologue, but on the other hand, I don’t quite buy that. First of all, we have no idea what the previous dynasty was like – maybe Chu Kui actually liberated the nation from the dynasty’s tyranny? We don’t know. And if you want to say that Chu Kui is a bad king… well he may be evil and uses underhanded methods to achieve his political ambitions, but if you look at the citizens in general, they are happy and prosperous. MZX grew up under his rule as a prefecture princess so beloved by the people that random citizens would give her treats on the streets – would an oppressed people be so kind to their ruler’s princess? Granted that these people were under the direct authority of the vassal king General Ma instead of Chu Kui himself – granted that General Ma is portrayed as a benevolent, kindly ruler – but if Chu Kui was so completely evil and had corrupted his entire court, would General Ma be able to afford to be kind to his prefecture for as long as he did? So the correct word to describe Chu Kui is Machiavellian instead of bad, and if you understood politics at all you’d know that those two words aren’t actually synonymous. That is why I waited for the reveal that Chu Kui and the King of Jin are two sides of the same coin, but it never happened. I guess any discussion of political ambiguity is taboo for the Chinese censorship board, huh?
Having said that, it’s clear as day that the main villain of the show was supposed to be Chu Kui but they even effed that up. After the princes’ doomed rebellion, Chu Kui suddenly grew frail, causing him to recall the banished Second Prince back to court. Now, hold up, banished? As a binger, I specifically remember that the Second Prince was “confined to the imperial mausoleum” for attempting to assassinate Bo. How can he come back from that? Do you mean to tell me that when he was confined to the imperial mausoleum he was literally confined instead of it being a euphemism for a death sentence? When the Second Prince returned, he came back uncharacteristically power hungry and in the end murdered Chu Kui to become the show’s ultimate boss. Like what? The Second Prince was a cowardly, stupid prince led astray by his father-in-law Prime Minister when he attempted to kill Bo; do you mean to tell me he spent his time in the mausoleum reading up strategy manuals or something that he grew brains and balls to rebel against his father and use baby brother You Zhen as his scapegoat? No. You remember I said the show had a clear structure in the beginning? Yeah, this development does not fit that structure. This isn’t a “plot twist”; this is inconsistent writing.
What’s a discussion of The Wolf without a mention of the much-beloved Ji Chong? Now Ji Chong entered the story as a vagabond bounty hunter intent of making as much money as quickly as possible. Along the way, he develops a friendship and deep love of MZX. He was later revealed the be the youngest prince of Jin who is on a self-imposed exile due to differences in principles with the King of Yan. See this? Because we like and trust Ji Chong, his clash with the King of Jin is one of those subtle hints the show was trying to make about the king’s unsettling reputation as “good”, and that’s one reason I think the original story was so well-written. Another is the fact that Ji Chong’s reveal as Prince of Chuan surprised absolutely no one at all, but, like I said, it’s because the show gives the audience enough subtle hints. First of all, he shows up with a trained hawk. Yeah nah, only bluebloods could afford those, no matter if he chooses to live as a hobo. For another, he’s clearly set up as Bo’s rival for MZX’s affections, so he must be at Bo’s level in some way, thus he must be a high ranking official of some kind if not a downright prince. Then, he’s supposed to be an AWOL Jin soldier, but no one from the Jin army took any actions when they run into him. In fact, they tripped all over themselves trying to curtsey to this guy, so he must be Somebody. Oh, they tried to red herring us by having the Jin soldiers address Ji Chong as “Young Marshall” instead of “Your Highness”, but if you paid attention these are clue enough.
Anyway, in the earlier parts of the show, while MZX was still running around as Lady Bo, I actually shipped her with Ji Chong. Not because she wasn’t a good match with Bo, but because Bo was so toxic. Not his fault, for sure, but the fact remains. On the other hand, this guy comes along and he’s wholesome and he loves her dearly, and he lives a carefree life and she could be free with him. Then she was abandoned by Bo – again, for her own good, but the fact remains. Anyway, once Bo abandons her and Ji Chong reveals himself to be a prince, I stopped shipping them. At that point, their chemistry suddenly fizzled into nothingness. If she were to accept him, it would be just as a rebound and I felt that that was deeply unfair for his character. And yet things persisted and she ended up marrying Ji Chong for a political alliance, only to turn around like a week later to go back to Bo. Now, I understand the love triangle angle – Ji Chong willingly lets MZX go because he really loves her and truly wants her to be happy – but I cannot see anyone else being on board with this. In Jin, the refugee princess MZX marries their youngest prince to seal a political alliance only to jilt him a week later and enter into a domestic partnership with Bo who was formerly their most hated nemesis and everyone was okay with this? Say what? Maybe as a father the King of Jin could sympathize with his daughter-in-law, but as a savvy political leader he would never be so stupid. And if I’m a soldier of Jin, I would not take such an insult to my master and would definitely break my alliance with both the Ma and Bo armies.
Not only did Ji Chong end up a cuckold, he was completely cheated of his ending. Look, he started with a heavy survivor’s guilt hidden behind a façade of free-spiritedness – at the end of the story, he seems to have forgotten all about his self-prescribed debt to his fallen comrades’ widows and children and decides to travel the world. Okay fine, maybe he’s healed and paid his debt. But why did he have to go travelling with the Khitan princess Yelu Bao Na? Again, nothing against Bao Na, but the show writes her as the eventual partner of You Zhen. You watch the series carefully – they’re both spoiled royals of their respective countries; they grew up together because You Zhen was a hostage prince to her nation; when they meet, all they do is bicker but you can clearly see that when push comes to shove, they would sacrifice themselves for the other. So why did Bao Na suddenly develop a crush on Ji Chong who she had seen as an elder brother all this while? Like, throughout the show she herself shipped Ji Chong with MZX (who she’s taken as her sworn sister) and then that pairing fell apart and she moves in on Ji Chong? That’s like if your sister got a divorce, you then hooked up with your brother-in-law. Like what?
One final person I’d like to touch on is Yao Ji, Bo’s rival for the position of Head of the Night Fury. Yao Ji has the potential to be such an interesting, intricately written character, but the show ended up squandering her as nothing more than a plot device who could seemingly teleport anywhere that the plot needs her to be. Initially, she was a child who survived Chu Kui’s inhumane training alongside Bo, and the two developed a sort of telepathic instinct between the two of them due to their mutual need for survival. And yet, when we first meet her, she’s in jail because she tried to assassinate Bo during the contest to select Night Fury’s Head. We never quite learn of the true reason why she did this; she was initially painted as nothing more than his fierce rival and it was only little by little that we learn of their symbiotic relationship, a fact that makes her assassination attempt puzzling. In the beginning she was also adamant that she was not in love with Bo, that their bond was exclusively because she was also a member of their pack, and her actions match that claim. I thought it was refreshing to have a strong female character that’s unmotivated by love in her choices to help a male character, but that soon comes to naught. I don’t know if her character was written this way to emphasis the tragedy – that she herself was unaware of her love for Bo – or if the writers changed tack due to the censorship demands. Either way, it soon becomes painfully clear that she was deeply in love with Bo and goes out of her way to help him and MZX. Did we need a love rival for MZX? Nope. Did we need a love rival who supported instead of did rival things? Certainly not. It is a shame that Yao Ji’s character fizzled out like that because, at least in the beginning anyway, she seemed to be more aware of Chu Kui’s manipulation and was trying to outmaneuver him when all Bo could do is blindly obey. This point really made me wonder if she tried to kill him out of consideration for him, and it is certainly a suggestion that the show planted but failed to resolved. I really thought that at some point the show might sacrifice Yao Ji to jostle Bo’s awakening; nope, instead she docilely kinda became MZX’s sidekick.
One last aspect that we must discuss is the sound design. First of all, sound directors, we do pay attention to your work, okay? So it gets very shocking when we suddenly expect to see the Chitauri as we follow Bo and MZX around in Ancient China until we realise that the sound director directly sampled Arrival from The Avengers. I mean, if you gotta sample something, couldn’t you do it with something less iconic? And who chose the singer for opening theme? I mean I’m sure Jolin Tsai is lovely and fabulous, but she couldn’t carry this song if her life depended on it. And I don’t know what songs with furious male rap and sweet female chorus are called, but they’re just my genre. Like I can’t get enough of ’em. And for that very reason I’m so sad that this lovely song ends up mediocre like this.
I think it abundantly clear that everything about The Wolf is good halfway, and I believe we have the Chinese State Administration of Radio and Television to blame for that. If I understood Xiao Zhan’s announcement properly, the original show was deemed too gory for public audiences. It’s possible, because the show built up to a massive battle in the finale, but the battle never came. Instead we have a solo confrontation in which MZX became uncharacteristically strong and faced off Yan’s army on her own and dies. I mean her fight choreography was quite cool, but structurally, structurally, we are expecting two armies to face off. And her sudden strength came from a secret potion that Yao Ji gave her, the same potion that saved Bo’s life after he fell off a cliff, the side effect of which includes super strength even as it causes your body to deteriorate. Bo has survived the potion for years but MZX has five days before dying because her body was not as strong as his. So many questions, but mainly – where did Yao Ji got that potion? Because she told MZX that she had read about the potion, and then suddenly she was administering it to MZX. If it was so easy to produce this magical potion, why hasn’t Chu Kui fed it to his entire army?
Anyway, if I’m going to discuss the entire show, this post will probably never end. After all, there are 49 episodes in total after being cut down. I don’t mean nothing by this except as a way of working through my frustrations that this series was unfortunately maligned like this. No matter, headcanons are also a perfectly good way to experience a work of art. Let me thank the entire production team for their hard work – I’m sorry you had to see your baby be mangled like this. It’s clear that you guys are good at what you do – keep going. Jiayou!
OtakMonyet 