The Kings Avatar 16 Review of the Live Action Episode (Quanzhi Gaoshou)

In the previous episode, Ye Xiu managed to get his fabled 1000 Machine Umbrella upgraded as a legendary weapon and sorted the awkward relationship issue with Chen Guo.  She now no longer feels like she has just met her idol – sure she thinks he is a master gamer, but she’s less awkward around him now.

We still have the problem of people now knowing who he is.  That will only get worse as more people find out (including his friends). It also looks like there will be no reconciliation between two old friends who are now enemies.  Tao Zuan and Ye Xiu did not part well at their last meeting and the proverbial bridges have been burned.

The scene is now set for Ye Xiu to go off and do his own thing.  He now has the freedom to consider all sorts of options to return to Glory.

Summary

Now that Ye Xiu had his modified weapon and clarified the situation with Jiashi, he felt free to begin the creation of a new Glory fighting/raiding team.  This episode was about starting that process.  There were a couple of key people that needed to be engaged to help him and this episode is how Ye Xiu managed to do that – he did it badly and with a certain air of arrogance and underhanded behaviour.  That may just have been the poor writing of the episode because, as we know, this version of Ye Xiu is quite different from the Manhua and the animated version.

I’d love to say that this episode was full of action and intrigue but alas, it wasn’t.  It wasn’t particularly funny to watch and the drama wasn’t even particularly intense, it was another filler episode but it was still pretty good. The thing that you will take from this is that certain key figures were engaged and once in place, Glory would have a new team of challengers headed by Ye Xiu.

If you need a recap of the story so far, all the previous episode reviews are here: Kings Avatar Live Action News & Reviews Thread.

Key Players Appearing In This Episode

Name:  Ye Xiu ID:  Lord Grim (Jun Mo Xiao) Class:  Un-Specified Guild:  Unassigned (sometimes plays as member of Lanxi Pavilion).  Once known as God Ye Qui when he was with Excellent Era (jiashi).  He currently works for Chen Guo who does not know he was once known as the Fighting God Ye Qui.

Name:  Chen Guo ID:  Chasing Haze Class:  Gunner Guild:  Unassigned. Manager Happy Internet Cafe (pet name of GuoGuo by Tang Rou).  Her idol is the Fighting God Ye Qui and she has only recently learned that he is Ye Xiu in real life. She is a very enthusiastic supporter and player of Glory although we rarely see Chen Guo win a match.

Name:  Tang Rou ID:  Soft Mist Class:  Battlemage Guild:  Unassigned. Tang Rou is affectionately called Xiao Tang (Little Tang) by Chen Guo. She originally thought that Glory was boring but was beaten by Ye Xiu in a duel and has vowed to get even.

Name:  Bao Rongxing (nickname Baoxi) ID:  Steamed Bun Class:  Ranger/Brawler Guild:  Unassigned. Works in a warehouse. Unusual way of playing but quick and agile fighter with a good sense of spacial awareness.  His ambition is to game professionally. He also has the nickname amongst his friends of Baoxing

Name:  Qiao Yifan ID:   Ashen Moon Class:   Assassin Guild: Tiny Herb (Wei Cao). Considered a very weak player and not usually picked for any team activities.  Poorly respected by team colleagues but not the Team Captain who thinks he has potential.  He also has a really good friend (Gao Yingjie) who believes in him and tries to support him where possible.

Name:  Luo Ji ID:  Mei Guang Class:  Cleric Guild:  Unassigned.  He is a paying member of the VIP room in the Internet Cafe who uses his time to create very detailed strategies for completing dungeons (even low level ones). They are very useful to new and experienced players.

Name:  Su Mucheng ID:  Dancing Rain Class:  Gunner Guild:  Excellent Era (Jiashi).  Childhood friend and staunch ally of Ye Xiu and his biggest supporter.  She is a exceptional Gunner who is rated as the best in the game.

Name:  Chen Yehui ID:  The Darkness Class:  Battlemage Guild: Excellent Era (Jiashi).  All round scumbag.   Rarely wins his battles and although considered a good solo player, does not do well in a team.  He bares a grudge against Ye Xiu who once threw him out of the team for selfish play.

Name:  Yu Wenzhou ID:  Swoksaar (aka Su Ke Sa’er) Class:  Warlock Guild:  Blue Rain (Lan Yu).  Very highly respected player and venerable team captain of Blue Rain.  Accomplished tactical player known as one of the Four Tactician Masters in Glory

Name:  Huang Shaotian ID:  Troubling Rain Class:  Swordsman Guild: Blue Rain (Lan Yu).  Vice-captain of Blue Rain.  Is sometimes used as a weapon to disorientate his opponents with his quick speech and aggressive, antagonistic banter.

Name:  Xu Boyuan ID:  Blue River Class:  Swordsman Guild:  Blue Brook aka Lanxi Pavilion (I think this is an affiliate of Blue Rain Guild on the 10th Server as they have the same logo).  Team Captain. A well respected player. One of the top swordsmen on the 10th Server.

Name:  Xi Zhou ID:  Bound Boat Class:  Cleric Guild:  Blue Brook aka Lanxi Pavilion (I think this is an affiliate of Blue Rain Guild on the 10th Server as they have the same logo). Vice Captain.  Friend and of Xu Boyuan. Can sometimes seem disrespectful, but is always there to support and carries out Xu Boyan’s requests, usually without question.

Name:  Wang Jiexi ID:  Vaccaria Class:  Witch (possibly Warlock or Wizard class since the non-female-gender use of the word Witch has not been used in this way since the 16th Century) Guild: Tiny Herb (Wei Cao). Wang Jiexi is the very highly respected Captain of Team Tiny Herb. he is famous for unorthodox play style and is often referred to as the Magician.

Name:  Han Wenqing ID: Desert Dust Class:  Striker. Guild:  Tyranny.   He is the Captain and a very respected player in the professional Glory player community.  He is older than most of the other players (by about a year  🙂 ) and was also considered Ye Qiu’s true rival amongst the professional Glory players.

Name:  Jiang You ID: Crowd Lover Class:  Elementalist. Guild:  Tyranny.   He is the Team Leader of the guild on the 10th Server and manages the team called Tyrannical Ambition.  He is frightened of Han Wenqing (isn’t everyone!?)

The Kings Avatar Episode 16 Review

Despite the relatively ‘down’ sounding summary above, the opening to the episode was really cool.  As you remember, Ye Xiu had made a statement (as Ye Qui) to the press to say that he wasn’t coerced into leaving Jiashi, it was his decision.  As we can imagine, not many would understand why.  Ye Qui was at the top of his game, the idea of leaving the most successful guild (one that he had helped build) when they were doing so well, is downright silly!

Then, his old friends and sparing buddies (captains and lead players from other guilds) see him upgrading his weapon by taking one of the most complicated and difficult quests in the game.  They considered this unusual and wanted answers.  The show opens with a battle of the top of the Tower of Babel, a place called the Field of God – just after Ye Xiu had completed his weapon upgrade quest.

So dude, wotz the real story?

Yu Wenzhou (Swoksaar), Huang Shaotian (Troubling Rain) and his other friend and rival, Han Wenqing (playing his Striker, Desert Dust) all descended on him to both test his upgraded weapon and to get answers.  They are soon joined by Wang Jiexi (playing his Witch, Vaccaria).  There is some banter about Ye Xiu not being welcome at the summit but everyone knows they are all friends and just before Ye Xiu leave, Huang Shaotian asks what was the real point of his press statement?

Ye Xiu’s cagey reply was that there was no point to the statement, he just didn’t want to let an old friend down – that may have been a reference to Ye Muqui rather that Tao Xuan.  He probably didn’t want to start a media battle with Jiashi and thought that the best way to diffuse the situation would be to simply say that he left and that there were no hard feelings (even if there were).  To be honest, this is a little ambiguous, maybe it’s meant to be that way.  Ye Xiu says goodbye to his friends on the Field of God and leaves the game.

As he logs off, he tells himself that he will be back soon.

Yep, the Captain is really….

In the Internet Cafe, Chen Guo is still contemplating what to do about ‘securing’ Ye Xiu so that he doesn’t feel like leaving.  She wondered what she could do to help.  She suggested to herself that she could be a team boss, she rather liked the idea but doesn’t think that it will be something Ye Xiu would consider. In the meantime, she lets it become known to Bao Rongxing, that Ye Qui is actually Lord Grim.

New Year, New Start

Later that day, Ye Xiu meets the beautiful Su Mucheng to get some pictures for an ID (I’m not sure what its for but ‘The Challenge’ was mentioned).  They also discuss the trails of setting up a guild and Ye Xiu tells her that he has an idea for a Boss but that he hasn’t discussed it with her yet.  I think Su Mucheng has guessed the person he has in mind but isn’t confident she will accept – in fact Su Mucheng thinks he is day-dreaming.  They laugh.

It”s Chinese New Year and Ye Xiu thinks that the new year signifies a new start.

Next day at the Gamer Training camp, Wang Jiexi is reviewing the results of his new players training.  He notices that although Qiao Yifan did not take the final test, he practices a lot. He is chatting about this to Ye Xiu who is there to ask Wang Jiexi if it is ok for him to poach Qiao Yifan for his new team. That seems a little premature to me, I mean, he hasn’t at this point asked Qiao Yifan if he wants to leave Tiny Herb – I guess we are led to assume that he does, but still it seems a bit rude to be making such decisions without his consent.

Thanks for letting me get rid of him

Wang Jiexi agrees and thanks Ye Xiu.  It seems that Qiao Yifan has not settled properly in the Tiny Herb guild and is grateful that Ye Xiu is able to give him another chance. They head out to The Happy Internet Cafe where he is introduced to Chan Guo.  He is there to help Ye Xiu persuade her to become a new member of the team – indeed, to help persuade her to set up the new guild and become it’s boss!

The next scenes are about him trying to get her to persuade him that she should be the Team Boss.  The whole dialogue was implausible and a little poorly written.  I don’t think it was poor translation – the basic premise is to goad Chen Guo by daring her to become the boss and chastising her because they don’t think she is capable. This is a bloody stupid premise that would always be ultimately disrespectful to the future boss of the guild.

The New Boss

Chen Guo agrees to create a Guild and be it’s boss.  She studies hard, does all the paperwork and manages to get 300 members relatively quickly. She is offered the next stage, to undertake the Guardian Mission so that she can begin to build a team.

She accepts and skips off to tell Ye Xiu who is seated across the room. What she didn’t realise is that the mission has a two hour time limit and it it isn’t completed within that limit the guild must disband.

That’s a bit harsh for any game, never mind Glory – it’s only a game guys! 

Get the Guardian – NOW!

Ye Xiu explains this to her and he immediately organises a team to undertake the quest.  Chen Guo isn’t part of the team, I guess she is a bit too embarrassed.  They do however, manage to get quite a lot of players to help fight the boss. All the core team are there, Qiao Yifan, Su Mucheng, Bao Rongxing, Tang Rou and a few Noobs who recently joined the guild.

The fight starts off well but it becomes apparent early on that the new members of the guild aren’t playing very well.  In fact, considering they are elite players (geared and experienced) they should be playing a lot better than that.  Tang Rou suggests, “Are they missing intentionally?”

The rest of the team consider this.  Alas, since the Guardian is not being hit by all the players, it is free to move around and this causes even more problems.  The Guardian must be contained if they are to have any chance to gradually grinding down it’s health.  Ye Xiu tells the team to quit trying while they re-think before attempting another attack.

Lost Because of Noobs

The core players are dejected and upset that the overall attempt failed so miserably. We, on the other hand find that the noob players are actually top players from the other guilds who are intentionally ruining the chances for downing the Guardian by playing badly.  Among these shameful characters are the obvious ones such as Chen Yehui ( from Jiashi) and Jiang You (from the guild, Tyranny) but also people who shouldn’t be there such as  Xi Zhou and Xu Boyuan who had been helped by the core players to get achievements and dungeon kills.

Xu Boyuan certainly isn’t happy about it, but he is prepared to scupper any chances of a competitive guild being formed – no matter how ungentlemanly his actions are.

And while we are on the subject of ungentlemanly, that stupid git, Ye Xiu seems to be talking the failure of the attempt out on poor (but still lovely) Chen Guo.  She tries to be positive about the next attempt, but Ye Xiu looks sullen and upset with her.  Even when she offers to quit being the boss (because it seriously looks like that’s what he wants) he is nasty and tells her that she only does things by half because it’s easy (presumably that means it’s easy to quit and harder to do something about it).

She is embarrassed by his words and leaves.

Second Attempt

At that point, Ye Xiu is joined by his chief tactician, Luo Ji and he is handed some notes.  Ye Xiu immediately announces that the second attempt is ready to start. They all get ready and Ye Xiu announces that although they are new to this dungeon, they are familiar from the previous attempt.  They should just relax and follow his lead and they will succeed.

The spies from the other guilds snigger.  Their intention is to continue to miss until the attempt fails again, for the final time. Chen Yehui scoffs at Ye Xiu’s words, “Succeed, are you kidding!” he says while the microphone is off.

Still Hitting The Wall

Sure enough, the fight goes pretty much the way it did last time.  this time however, the Guardian is contained.  Su Mucheng is able to pin it down with expert gunfire and the rest of the core team continue to attack.  Unfortunately, the continuous missing shots from the other players just keep hitting the wall and that means that the attempt is surely doomed to failure.

The core players frantically mash the keyboard and get out as many hits as possible but the wall still seems to be taking the most damage.  So much so in fact that the wall collapses and hits the hapless Guardian on the head and kills it – just in time.  Apparently, this was the plan all along.  luo Ji was able to make a number of calculations and was convinced that if t he Guardian was kept in the same position, that the wall would take such a pounding and collapse possibly killing the Guardian.  Personally, it seemed like a long shot (lol, who am I kidding, killing a dungeon boss by shooting the walls for a win!  Yeah, that’s never gonna happen  🙂 ), but it paid off nonetheless.

Ye Xiu turned around to face the other players, and thanked them, particularly the undercover players for their hard work in attacking the wall.  He asked them if they wanted him to kick them out or if they wanted to leave the guild themselves?  All left – except Xu Boyuan.  It’s difficult for him, he wants his own team to be successful but he also likes hanging out with, and playing with, the Ye Xiu team.

Celebration Minus the Boss

The core players of Ye Xiu’s team celebrate their win with hearty glasses of orange juice. They are joined by one of their star players, Su Mucheng.  They discuss how the team was able to win and it Ye Xiu confessed that the calculations that Luo Ji came up with significantly influenced the tactics. Everyone cheers for their win and the achievement that the Guild is now secure.

All except the boss, Chen Guo who walks the streets outside feeling inadequate and forlorn.

And on that depressing note the show ended.  Another great episode but probably the most poorly written so far.  I really liked the fight with the Guardian and even the unbelievable silliness of the way they won was entertaining.  But poor character writing spoiled it and leaving the ending on a depressing note seems pointless.  I guess that’s all about the drama.

Conclusion

I’m not as happy about Ye Xiu being such an asshole in this live action version of the saga.  It is irritating sometimes and for me, it seems to spoil the show.  Maybe it’s the realism of the gaming community.  Hardcore gamers, especially the really good ones, are not typically good communicators, they are usually arrogant and difficult to get along with.  The Butterfly Blue manhua story, was all about a personable, supportive hardcore gamer that nurtured rather than tortured his colleagues and fellow gamers. It’s hard to get behind this version of Ye Xiu. I wonder sometimes, if the writers of this show forget one of the key reasons why the manhua and animated versions were so popular. 

Some parts of the show were great, other parts were stupidly written and badly characterised.

I’d therefore rate this a still pretty good but not brilliant 6.2.  what did you think? You can let us know what you think by clicking on the Users tab in the review block at the top – right of this page (you don’t need to register) – we’d love to see what you thought of the show.

See more details of this on the Kings Avatar thread of the Sci Fi forum

The pictures, story, news details and everything else about the Kings Avatar Live action TV series are copyright Tencent Penguin Pictures, Linmon Pictures and Phoenix Entertainment. All rights reserved.

This article is copyright Tony Fawl and not for reproduction without the authors express permission.