Side-Project: Legend of Eight Immortals 1985 (八仙的传说)

by CSarracenian

MKV (softsubs) (recommended to watch with VLC or MPC-BE player)
Torrent: 1 2
Direct Download: 1

YOUTUBE LINK

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Greetings and Happy Lunar New Year!

One of our contributors, Sarracenian, has made another new English subtitles for the movie Legend of Eight Immortals, a Chinese fairytale movie. Like with the previously released Hua Tuo and Cao Cao and Romance of a Calligrapher, he asked us to help with the release of this project.

To keep ourselves active and to give you all something to watch, we gladly share this movie with all of you. Hope you enjoy!

A Word from Sarracenian:

Hello!

Worked on this translation during a holiday in December. Unlike the prior two films, this is more of a jolly fantasy/fairytale movie than a period-drama, it has a lot of the same charm and style as those previous two films.
Legend of Eight Immortals 1985 is very similar in line with some of the public broadcast kids films from back in the day, like BBC or some of the Swedish Astrid Lindgren adaptations.

While in terms of Chinese gonzo fantasy films, it’s no Zu Warriors of the Magic Mountain or Encounters of the Spooky Kind, its still a cute and charming film I find, and shares some of the strengths as the prior two historical films I’ve subbed.

This RAW is probably as high quality as I can have, however it doesn’t seem to have gone through much restoration, so that green line is just stuck permanently there unfortunately.

This film features the Eight Immortals, popular folklore figures, a group of folk trickster gods in similar veins to Anansi or and Kokopelli, or the Seven Luck Gods, which are the Japanese equivalent. Tons of stories and idioms feature them, most prominently Eight Immortals Cross the Sea, The Flying Sword 飛劍記, and Journey to the East 东游记 as well as many modern things, such as apparently the Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon.

Extremely ubiquitous in the East, esp. Taoist parlances, but probably not especially well-known in the west.

The Immortals, or xiān 仙 or alternatively translated as “celestial” or “fairy” (or “adepti” if you are a Genshin Impact fan lol) are basically a class of divinities in Chinese mythology; generally regular people who reached demigod-like status through self-mastery and spiritual cultivation and/or great acts worthy of worship, another extension of the very Chinese or general pan-East Asian ideals of meritocratic practice and self-mastery.

Thus they tend to be the more approachable and human kind of demigods. If you’ve seen any Chinese-language media featuring a heavy fantasy element, you’ve probably encountered the xiān. From Journey to the West adaptations to Sword and Fairy to Heaven’s Official Blessing, they all would feature the xiān in some manner.

Hope you enjoy the film!

Side-Project: Romance of a Calligrapher / 笔中情 (1982)

MKV (softsubs) (recommended to watch with VLC or MPC-BE player)
Torrent: 1 2
Direct Download: 1 2

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Greetings!

While we are working on the next batch of Three Kingdoms, one of our contributors, Sarracenian, has made English subtitles for the movie Romance of a Calligrapher, set in the Jin dynasty, after the events of the Three Kingdoms. Like with the previously released Hua Tuo and Cao Cao, he asked us to help with the release of this project.

To keep ourselves active and to give you all something to watch, we gladly share this movie with all of you. Hope you enjoy!

A Word from Sarracenian:

Hello, this the 2nd film I’ve subbed by myself now, on a film Nobody Else will ever pick up hahaha.

Romance of a Calligrapher is a very traditional kind of historical romance, a nice and pretty movie all about old-school Chinese literary culture, and unlike many of its peers this film also has a fairly strong sense of historical authenticity with its costuming and visual design. Not to mention a historically authentic film set in the Jìn dynasty too, which is even rarer.

Jìn Dynasty is quite appropriate, since it is also the period of the “魏晋风骨 / 魏晋风度”(lit. Wei-Jin Style/Wei-Jin Elegance”); a cultural movement lifestyle that was all about freedom of self-expression and passion, subversion of traditions and overall high-minded and spiritual attitude towards life. Very bohemian times, roughly spanning the late 2nd century to the 6th century CE.

There are enough historical films about wars and politics ’till the cows come home, even within Chinese historical movie genre, so I wanted to share one that is all about the rather than the 武. A perfect holiday film, if I do say so myself.

Unfortunately, as with Hua Tuo and Cao Cao, the available RAWs are still not the best in terms of quality and colour-grading, though its by no means completely unwatchable.
And yes, unfortunately the best RAW file I can find does have that watermark stuck on there, because I guess the encoder has something to prove (then again so do I, so hey glass houses) Thankfully the imagery of the film does still come across really well.

I hope you enjoy the translation, and share this film forward!

Side-Project: Hats and Headwear in the Three Kingdoms 1994 and their history / “What is this Furniture in 1994 RoTK?”

One of our contributors Sarracenian has subbed two educational videos about by 是椰果啊 on bilibili and released with their permission.

The videos detail the history of various hats and headwear in the 1994 Romance of the Three Kingdoms, many never before explained into English.

The second video explains the history of an furniture item called “píng jī” 凭几, a commonly seen but unnamed part of the 1994 series’ production design.

Both videos showcase the high research quality of the 1994 RoTK series, and we hope we can share some of this cultural knowledge and history to all of you.

Side-Project: Hua Tuo and Cao Cao-movie (1983)

MKV (softsubs) (recommended to watch with VLC or MPC-BE player)
Torrent: 1 2 3
Direct Download: 1

YOUTUBE

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Greetings!

Today we are trying something new; One of our contributors, Sarracenian, has made English subtitles for a Three Kingdoms-based film, Hua Tuo and Cao Cao. As a fellow Three Kingdoms enthusiast, he asked us to help with the release and advertisement of this project, which we gladly obliged!

Hope you can enjoy this side-step into a new but familiar territory!

A Word from Sarracenian:

This my first foray into doing subbing by myself, done purely out of love for Chinese history and period dramas, and wishing to share this underrated movie to everyone.

The film is, imo, easily one of the best Three Kingdoms related films made, and is likely the first truly “modern” cinematic take on the titular Late Han Dynasty/Three Kingdoms era characters, explicitly drawing more from history rather than the popular folklore like Romance of the the Three Kingdoms.

While the film seems pretty humble by today, it still stands out as a great character piece, and also also holds up as one of the historically authentic depictions of the Han Dynasty China.

Its props, set design and costuming can all be traced to real historical research and archaeological excavations on the Han Dynasty China.
In fact, few historical productions even today can boast as much almost devotion to the historical source material as this film does.
(Link to reference gallery: https://imgur.com/gallery/tQxE3P0)

Unfortunately the RAWs that are available are not the best in terms of quality and colour-grading, as film preservation is still something not many figured out and this film is essentially “Abandonware” now, so you will have to bear with me.

I hope you enjoy the translation, and share this film forward!

Japanese advert of Hua Tuo and Cao Cao