Wu Assassins review – Netflix fantasy original

Dan Wild

Miniseries started flourishing in the 1950s. Now Netflix is breathing new life into the genre. I’m not a fan of spoilers. But I’ll reveal that this series is 10 episodes. The length of a miniseries generally varies from five to fifteen episodes, 25 to 45 minutes in length. Producers have the flexibility to develop plot and …

Once upon a time in Lingjian Mountain review

Dan Wild

Updated: 16/10/20 It takes a while to say the title (从前有座灵剑山) and this series takes a while to get going, but its quirkiness shines through. So did the warm, interesting characters, and sumptuous scenery and costumes. A big downside is the soundtrack editing and limited music often drowning out dialogue. And the cardinal sin of …

The Legend of the White Snake review (2019 TV series)

Dan Wild

I recently watched The Legend of the White Snake and it’s one of the best Chinese fantasies I’ve seen so far. At 36 episodes the length is just about right. It’s one fault – and something has to be done about this as it is also a problem in Ice Fantasy and Ashes of Love – is the …

The origins of John Polidori and The Vampyre: Byron’s greatest work

Dan Wild

I really started becoming fascinated with the Shelley-Byron circle during my English honours year at the University of Sydney. My mother read me the poems of Shelley as a teenager and I had already encountered William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge at school. The first wave of English literary romantics were interesting enough. Wordsworth with …