Nirvana in Fire info

[thuviaptarth]

It looks like there is some interest in Nirvana in Fire due to vidukon_cardiff's excellent Ancient Chinese Boyfriends vidshow and in particular bingeling's amazing premiere, Cycles to Gehenna (not in the linked playlist because it's not on YouTube; available in Vidukon's online playlist if you're a member).

Why You Might Like It

Nirvana in Fire is a tightly plotted, gorgeously shot, beautifully acted 54-episode Chinese drama about a disgraced military genius who returns to court in disguise after years in exile, in order to:

• obtain justice for his wrongfully executed army and family;


• restore order and good government to the country of Da Liang;


• have many emotionally fraught and politically suspenseful conversations with former friends and family members, most of whom do not know who he is. (He has been so drastically transformed by a mysterious illness that he is now played by a different and much hotter actor, you just gotta roll with it.)

People ship him with:

• his former best friend, the Emperor's least favorite son (see: talitha78's Forget the Past, also appearing in Ancient Chinese Boyfriends);


• his former fiancee, a beautiful warrior princess;


• his new BFF, a mischievous scholar with great status in the ancient Chinese underground, who is only in like three episodes but is such a scene stealer that this is hard to remember;


• Many, many other characters, dude has chemistry with everybody.

(I have classed my vid about him as him/justice and him/really complicated plots, which I feel are  also entirely valid canonical ships.)

Other notes:

• It makes two people sitting in a room, or in a jail cell, having a conversation the most suspenseful thing you have ever seen.


• I think a large part of its appeal for me was that it's about the restoration of the justice and good government, a profoundly consoling fantasy at this moment. (Because it's set in Ancient Fantasy China, "good government" means replacing a paranoid, self-centered absolute dictator with a benevolent, just absolute dictator, but hey. And there is actually a lot of focus on the importance of installing good public servants in general -- it's not enough to have a better Emperor, you need better officials and bureaucrats for a just society.)


• The cast of thousands is largely male, but the female characters we do get are complex and differentiated, and two middle-aged women in particular get pretty amazing arcs. (If you have a Consort Jing vid song you're not planning to use, feel free to pass it on.)

In my experience, people tend to finish and then start it all over again, because it is a different but still amazing experience to rewatch the entire series with a new understanding of both the relationships and the political plotting.

Barriers to Entry

• It starts with a truly terrible CGI scene.


• The first episode is extremely confusing. Like a lot of historical cdramas, it starts in medias res and has a cast of thousands. My advice is to just assume that anyone who's important will show up again and be explained in time.


• That said, it's probably helpful to know that, in the first episode, the guy with long hair in white who wakes up from a nightmare is not the same as the guy with the long hair in white who has a sword practice solo bit and then does a lot of paperwork.


• People tend to take a few episodes to get hooked; most say it really kicks in for them either around Episode 4 or Episode 6-7. (I was gone by Episode 2, though. It's the scene with the Great-Grandmother. You'll know it when you see it.)

How to Find It

In some places, you can stream this legitimately on Viki; unfortunately the license was pulled from the US last year. There is a dubbed version available, but I do not recommend it.

I haven't been able to get access to the Viki stream with my regular VPN, but the VPN built into the Opera browser works.

Less legitimately, if they haven't been yanked yet, you can find streams at:

• YouTube


• Daily Motion

Until Mega takes it down:



I put up a mostly 1080p batch (3 episodes are 720p) on Mega. These have English soft subs and no Chinese hard subs

• Episodes 1-37 with key 4FDuUN6CIHghNVJQGOz12w


• Episodes 38-54 with key fIoW_sd_6opbkuG3PGK4Ow

I also put them up on a trial Dropbox account, but am not publicizing the address because I ran into download limits on the first day. If you're having trouble with the Mega downloads, PM or email me your email address and I'll send you a link.

On Season 2

Nirvana in Fire 2: The Wind Blows in Changlin is a sequel series set about 60 years later, featuring the descendants of the original cast. It is not as good as the original, and not a necessary part of the story. "Season 1" is a complete series that tells a complete story on its own.

Comments

[inkstone]

Oh, excellent! Thanks for the links. I tried picking this up after I finished The Untamed (I'd tried a few years ago but bounced off Episode 1 like so many people because it was A Lot) but found it was no longer available on Viki.

[thuviaptarth]

Awesome! I'm glad you're giving it another shot.