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Fahnat

The Sad State of Historical Dramas

Rating: 2 votes, 3.00 average.


Whend it comes to this topic it saddens me to see what it has become.
I can't consider myself a great connoisseur of this subject but i miss the old type of the 90s and early 2000s Asian series.
I don't believe there is many historical series in the west, mostly we fall in the film category,
with many amazing ones like Waterloo, Gettysburg, Lawrence of Arabia, Zulu, and others.
It's not like there isn't western historical series, but they fall into something that i truly despise.
A show where it focus the majority of it's time to sappy love stories and made up characters,
remembering from time to time that it's a historical show and thows a bone to the audience.
It really reminds me of Novelas that due exactly that whend they portray historical stories.
They never put any battles and the supposed main character becomes a ancillary for the made up main character.
That's why the pinacle of historical series are the Asian Dramas.

Ironically, they have less drama than the western shows, not now, however.
I first came up with 1994's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, still one of the best in my opinion.
The way they come up with the characters and focusing on battles and armies is awesome.
Altough it hurts it towards the end, because i always feel fatigued by the last episodes.
After that i found some South Korean dramas, like Age of Warriors and Emperor Wang Gun.
The production quality is lower but they followed the chinese example of focusing on the battles and armies.
Better yet they balance the personal stories so that you don't feel fatigued of the battle scenes, even if their shows are longer.
Last i came up with the Japanese Dramas about the Sengoku Period, like King of Zipangu, Mori Motonari, Takeda Shingen, and others.
Probably the best in overall quality of production and storytelling, but shy away of showing big battle scenes.
Only the main important ones get a look, while other conflicts are shown by generic setting with samurai fighting.
I like them alot and would love to see that continue, but unfortunately that era came to an end.
A while ago i try and find some new shows to watch, but got disapointed by what i saw.
It's like the western shows now, but with martial arts! That's better right? Well...no

There's also the modern tropes that i hate, like the once vibrant colors that the characters use to have in their clothes is over.
Now everyone uses black colored clothes and even the footage gets darker, trying to be greadier i guess.
Also most character look like teenagers and very effeminate. Relying on jackie chan like martial arts and not realistic battles.
It's unbearable to watch, and it's truly a shame because i really wanted to get to watch more time period being covered like the way of old.
I guess this is made to attract the female and young adult audience, which might give the shows more audience.
But it takes away from what it was supposed to be shown, a dramatized version of a time period filled with war.
I don't mind, for example, many exagerated battles, and many times, bad battles scenes in Age of Warriors.
They make up many thing to give more substance to the time period their covering, but it serves the war torned era.
It stills is filled with the historical tensions and atmosphere of conflict and political turmoil.
The new shows are nothing more than sappy novelas with martial arts thrown together.

By the way, if you know of good western historical series i would love to know.
Don't need to be english ones either. It's cool to find out shows made throughout europe.
For example, i found a Romanian film about Vlad Tepes that i found to be somewhat good.
There is also the hope for something over to what i am hoping with a new show being made by J.Stephen Robers from Real Crusades History
called Knights of the Cross, where he will tell the story of the Third Crusade, and from what i know of him, he can deliver a good historical show.
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