Pursuit of Jade (逐玉 / Zhu Yu) | 40 episodes | Netflix, iQIYI | MDL 9.1 | Adapted from the web novel by Tuan Zi Lai Xi
The word “Pursuit” attracted me to this drama because I loved the American movie “Pursuit of Happiness” (2006). A desperate single father trying to get three meals on the table while earning enough to support his family. Sometimes, words attract me to a drama.
Chinese drama titles are ingenious — like their names for rooms. In my Tambraham community, kitchen is *samaiyal arai*. But I’ve forgotten those interesting Chinese room names. This drama became a kind of search for them.
The drama starts with Fan Changyu finding Xie Zheng embedded in snow. The pin from her hair falls on his hand, and everything perks up for me.
Actually, the writer didn’t pursue with the hairpin as something the mothers of the lead roles exchanged — that Xie Zheng as a babe in cradle had played with it once, and then his mother gives it to her expectant mother and her friend. In the hope of agreeing to a marriage with her son and the unborn daughter.
I felt the rise of inspiration when I saw the extra credit if the past had been different. So it ties the first scene where Fan Changyu’s pin warms up and awakens Xie Zheng buried in the snow. That would be nice. But then it wouldn’t be the writer’s.
Still, the mystery of the backstories was well placed. The relationships of the characters are done well. I liked the fact that it takes a village to help a child grow or break so much that they harden up.
So, the place Lin’an was well structured to provide deep insight into Fan Changyu’s character and aspirations. It played off her naïveté, which is maintained until the end, even though the character undergoes so much turmoil and hardship. At least it is not a pail-on of difficulties.
The interesting thing about the relationship between the two leads is the fact that their love for each other outweighs the difficulties they face together. Fan Changyu is clueless that Xie Zheng is a popular fearless general who is assumed dead in the martial world. The slight and constant friction between the leads to keep his identity a secret was done well.
What stayed with me the most: Fan Changyu is clueless about the world’s desire for money, wealth, and power. At every instance when Xie Zheng asks her what does she wish for is mundane and almost an insignificant desire when he is capable of more. This stems from the fact that he had been surrounded by power hungry ministers plotting against each other and currying favour with the King. While the innocence of Fan Changyu can be seen in her desire or only aspiration is to raise pigs and to slaughter them for her family to live on.
The absence of extravagance in her life style and Xie Zheng growing up being a vegetarian becomes a meat eater. I don’t have a backing to prove the theory of his conversion. Given that Chinese do eat meat so a general at that must be a Non-Vegetarian to start with; but not so in this drama.
You understand that the falcon also is feed vegetables but falls in Fan Changyu’s trap because of the leftover meat pieces for lure. This, then, is looped back the Master of the lead and his friends who does not eat meat or fish. They act uncomfortable in the presence of meat remembering their teacher’s advice. The master’s vegetarianism is passed on to bird which are reared by the fellow students.
Fan Changyu doesn’t harden. She remains herself even with her aspiration after she achieved moderate success. The fact that she still wished to return to her home in Lin’an speaks for her broadened view of the world after going to the capital.
I loved the falcon as a character with high flying spirits and humanlike flaws. He was well trained and was a strappy falcon at that!
The falcon was portrayed as sharp flight but landing problems — it falls for the smallest food lures. Xie Zheng comments about it and taps its head in playful reprimand. Fan Changyu, without knowing, traps the creature — much like its owner is willing to be trapped by her.
The story’s arc was well done — a motif that drove the plot along.
I have yet to finish the drama, but I’ve noticed something. The way female characters are portrayed has an inherent quality of moving away from the stereotypical female where the male lead carries the entire drama.
I usually like a drama to be well-balanced with supporting characters. Sometimes, I am not watching the main leads but the side roles and supporting roles, because some actors will steal the show with just a few moments on screen.
The massacre of Lin’an was the hardest to watch.
The second son and heir, Sui Yuanqing played by Lin Muran, was so scary — and if it did that to me, then he is an excellent actor. His stage presence was appealingly frightening, though I have seen more senior actors who could make you frightened enough to hide in your mother’s *mundanai* (*Amma oda mundanai* — the loose end of a sari, where a child hides her face).
That is the actor’s craft: to frighten a grown woman back into her mother’s fold.
Pursuit of Jade was the pin that played the main role in opening the portals of the drama. But the fact that buying a female a hairpin is often seen as an act of affection between intended to marry couples and the vague reference that a husband alone has the right to stick a pin his wife’s hair is my understanding. More a sanctimonious act of clean line between what is culturally allowed and not allowed.
Itinerant Storyteller 