It feels like such a long time ago since we watched The Crossing Hero. We took a little break from it after Episode 9 to wait for more of the series to be subtitled. We finally got back to the series recently and the story is finally starting to connect and falling into place.
The story turns out to be about world domination. The boss behind the intimidating men in black outfits, referred to as the Black Tuxedo, is revealed to be the Master General of the Ming Dynasty who Peng Ze (Hu Yang) and Xu Xiao Tian (Bruce Xie) served. He’s behind the evil-doings and kidnappings. His goal is the same as Peng Ze and Xu Xiao Tian‘s: to find the Luminous Night Pearl. Peng Ze and Xu Xiao Tian‘s reason for finding this pearl is to obey an order passed down from the Ming Ancestral Hall. The Master General/Black Tuxedo Boss reason is more sinister. Possessing the Luminous Night Pearl as well as two other items, the Dragon Jade Pendant and the Life Turning Instrument (which is an ancient pyramid-looking artifact with mysteriously great power). Once all the three items are put together, the Master General will be able to rule the world.
To look for these items, he has been recruiting men—men with great martial arts skills to act like they’re bodyguards around the world; men like David, a great jewellery thief; men in influential positions like police officer Wu (who’s Zhu Ke Shang‘s superior) as well as officials and police officers all around the world. He controls all these men through the use of a pill called the Lipid of Spirit Orchid. If taken regularly, no harm will come to their health; but once stopped, it will lead to headaches, fevers, internal bleed and ultimately death.
It’s fortunate that all three things are actually in the hands of the good guys. The jade pendant is with Zhang Xian Ting (Nikki Hsieh) who later transfers it to Xu Fei (Larisa Bakurova), a woman who looked to be on the side of Black Tuxedo as she is known to be a secretary for one of the organisation’s people. It turns out, though, she’s actually against them and is only with them to find information on the whereabouts of Old Pa, a locksmith and an elderly man with a distinctive birthmark on one side of his cheek who she calls her father. The Luminous Night Pearl is inside Hong Xiao Dong (Jiro Wang). The Life Turning Instrument is at Hong Xiao Dong’s Detective Agency.
The Life Turning Instrument was brought in by archelogist Professor Sun Yan Jun (Chris Wu). The archeologist is supposedly Hong Xiao Dong‘s best friend, commissioned to help him out with Hong Xiao Dong‘s investigations on the Black Tuxedo. We say ‘supposedly Hong Xiao Dong‘s best friend’ because he comes off as a double agent, supplying information to both Hong Xiao Dong‘s team and the Black Tuxedo boss. It was a bit confusing with Professor Sun Yan Jun because—wow!—we could not be 100% sure of his allegiance. He looked like he was working for Hong Xiao Dong and we were super sure that Sun Yan Jun was on Hong Xiao Dong‘s side despite revealing information to the Black Tuxedo boss. We figured that the revealing of information was an act to make the Black Tuxedo boss trust him, that it was a strategy which he and Hong Xiao Dong cooked up in the background; but then unexpectedly Sun Yan Jun hands over Mo Han (Lorene Ren) over to them. Mo Han is someone he seemed to really like and it shocked us that he would do that to her. We still believed that this was a secret plan devised by Hong Xiao Dong and Sun Yan Jun, but with dramas, you just don’t know if characters will turn, especially characters like Sun Yan Jun who’s listed as a supporting character in the series.
Fortunately, having Mo Han sitting in a room at Black Tuxedo‘s headquarters was a plan Hong Xiao Dong and Sun Yan Jun thought up. The reasoning behind this move is that it’s safer for her to be there than be free (presumably risking kidnapping or an attack).
Xu Xiao Tian is also there. Having been lured by his loyalty to the Ming Dynasty and Black Tuxedo‘s boss’ claims that he plans to revive the dynasty, he’s now the Black Tuxedo men’s new commander. This would be the second time he fell for the words of the baddies, but he’s quickly realising his Master General is a bad guy when he learn’s of Old Pa‘s death who he went to try and save for Xu Fei (who he likes) as well as receiving an order to attack Hong Xiao Dong with a soul-splitting powder called Poisonous Heart-Scattering Powder. He carries out the order (which is done off screen), but may not have used the powder as Hong Xiao Dong secretly gives Sun Yan Jun a sign through Black Tuxedo boss’ CCTV monitors that he’s alright.
We’re almost finished with this series, with only three episodes left to go. The first half of the series was an okay watch. There’s enough in there to keep us going through the episodes. But we think it was only after Sun Yan Jun came in that the series really started to pick up. Not only did things start to happen and connect after that point, but Sun Yan Jun‘s double agent part in the story really made things a lot more interesting. Sun Yan Jun first appears in Episode 15 and ends up taking over the screen between Episode 20 and Episode 26, with Hong Xiao Dong nowhere to be seen! In fact, neither he nor Zhang Xian Ting were anywhere to be seen between those episodes: they only got mentioned, and only appeared a little more in the last two episodes of that block. It was a bit sad and strange not seeing the lead characters appear, but then with Sun Yan Jun taking a lead-like role, it also means Chris Wu galore! So, it’s yay as well!
Sun Yan Jun coming in and taking a lead-like role also resulted in moving Sun Yan Jun and Mo Han to the front of the story, too, developing a relationship triangle between Sun Yan Jun, Mo Han and Zhu Ke Shang (Wang Hao Ming). We like Sun Yan Jun and Mo Han. They’re a lot more interesting than Hong Xiao Dong and Zhang Xian Ting. We feel the main couple don’t really match and wasn’t all that interesting. We also can’t get over the pairing in Princess Stand In (2013) whenever Chris Wu and Nikki Hsieh are in the same scene, probably because the two characters in Princess Stand In (2013) fit so well together, but Hong Xiao Dong and Zhang Xian Ting don’t.
Peng Ze, we love him. He another character that keeps the story going. He assists in cases but also provides the comedic parts in the series. He so cool and funny without even knowing it. Around the last few episodes of this block, he got himself a ‘wife’. She originally had a crush on Sun Yan Jun, but upon seeing Peng Ze, she suddenly developed a huge crush on him, to the point of proposing to him in a library they both went to research.
We’ll be looking forward to seeing how it all ends!!
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