#(btw i was playing with relight this whole time

[zekessanctuary]

Yan Jie movie recap: 神算子蔣敬 / Inn on Fire (Divine Mathematician Jiang Jing)

Today, I’ll be recapping 神算子蔣敬, aka Inn on Fire (aka Divine Mathematician Jiang Jing). And by recapping, I mean more like fangirling and squealing aimlessly. SO! Onto the squeeing recap. Oh and I must mention that I watched this movie without any English subtitles which means I actually don’t know what is entirely going on in the story (LOL). 

Other recaps:  杀出太平镇 / Killing Taiping Town

In this movie, Yan Jie plays a character named Jiang Jing. The story takes place in 12th century Song Dynasty China and starts off with a stormy night. Although it’s hard to see his entire face, I can instantly recognise it’s him. Probably due to having spent far too long studying his face. 

Since I don’t understand what he’s saying to himself in this scene, I’m going to guess from what he’s doing that he’s either an exiled General or he’s escaped from his duty due to some terrible incident just before this. I think he’s on the run because later, we find out that he’s a wanted man with a bounty on his head. 

Gotta mention this scene though when he’s pouring wine: he’s lifted the wine bottle SO FAR UP ABOVE those wine bowls that the liquid is barely going in!! LOOK AT THEM SPLASH RIGHT OUT LMFAO and yet he just continues pouring the wine from one bowl to another. LOL what is there left to drink now?! Just sad, sad rain. 

Moving on, he’s removed his armor (omg why did he have to just stop there) and now dresses like a commoner. Enters an inn and asks for more wine. I really wasn’t so sure about this haircut at first - I mean, those... bangs... do they really go with that ancient Chinese style hair? But throughout the movie I got more and more used to it, and it doesn’t take away his cuteness so in the end I liked it. 

Turns out a couple of the other inn guests are there for the bounty on his head, a fight ensues and whoa THOSE SPINNY SPIKE THINGS flying out of Jiang Jing’s abacus! Dat 3D. 

Look at my Handsome Assassin (yes I still sometimes call him Handsome Assassin because of his role in Nirvana in Fire) pose as he holds his... abacus weapon. I mean, I did think it was a strange choice to choose an abacus as your primary weapon, but after googling it turns out this was based on some historical character who really did fight with an abacus. So. Yeah. Besides, he IS the Divine Mathematician after all, and the ancient calculator is therefore mightier than the sword. 

Back to the story. It turns out the enemies got to him anyway with their hidden blades so Jiang Jing drops his precious abacus and spews blood. Honestly he gets injured SO MANY TIMES in this film, I think I’m just going to gif every scene of him getting hurt now because apparently I enjoy watching my Handsome Assassin suffer: 

While he’s being tied up by the innkeeper lady after re-entering consciousness, I’m busy checking out his magnificent manly jaw and chin:

I’m guessing at this point that innkeeper lady wants the hefty bounty reward too, hence her capturing him. But! Due to Jiang Jing’s quick wits and dexterity, he blows out the single source of light in the room, i. e. the candle she holds close to him, and turns the table around by literally swapping his position with the innkeeper lady during those moments of darkness. He relights the candle and now she’s sitting all tied up where he was mere seconds before!

And he cockily throws a nut into his mouth. Everything in the previous sentence was intentional. 

Tons of other story stuff happen but I’m skipping details now as I’m mostly just focusing on his prettiness. Because honestly I’m struggling with following it due to lack of subtitles lmao.  AWWWW LOOK AT HIM HERE HE’S SO CUTE AAHHSADKJFLSKADJF;K

Innkeeper lady totally has the hots for Jiang Jing. She’s filling his wine bowl in this next scene, gets him super drunk and watches him with this hungry expression lmao:

Ooooo she makes a move while he’s barely holding it together. Nice juicy lips on Yan Jie, btw. 

Some bad guys charge in at this point, a fight breaks out and Jiang Jing appears to have some kind of ability to disable movements so all the enemies become frozen: 

However, boss of the bad guys is still conscious, he says something that angers Jiang Jing, probably that his motor disabling skills do not work cos the rest of the bad guys ended up moving anyway, so Jiang Jing’s face goes from:

to: 

Innkeeper lady gets captured and taken hostage by this point, so for a brief moment Jiang Jing lets his guard down and is beaten down a second time:

Unfortunately, the bad guys kill the innkeeper lady, much to Jiang Jing’s grief. But! TURNS OUT THIS WAS ALL A DREAM ANYWAY. Jiang Jing wakes up from his drunken slumber and leaves innkeeper lady, probably realizes that if he hangs around her his enemies would kill her too if he gets caught. 

Timeskip, he’s now doing some stuff with some officials to catch the bad guys. There’s a scene where he’s looking back with the weirdest expression on his face. LMFAO YAN JIE WHAT IS UP WITH THIS FACE?!

Oh my god my retelling of this story is all over the place. Jiang Jing returns back to innkeeper lady, they have some kind of disagreement then the bad guys enter AGAIN and Jiang Jing has to fight them again. This time he incorporates some waterbending shiz though, look at those super smooth fluid movements: 

And as always, the boss of the bad guys is the last one to deal with. Go on Jiang Jing, show him who’s really boss by beating him with your ancient calculator!! 

Unsurprisingly, Boss Bad Guy throws out a dirty trick and poisons our hero. Jiang Jing attempts to dodge it but to no avail, he then tries to steady his hand for one final blow... 

... before he passes out deliciously: 

dear god why HAVE I MADE THREE GIFS OF JUST HIM COLLAPSING wtf is wrong with me

Moving on swiftly, there is a whole crazy scene later at a campfire where Jiang Jing wakes up to find his innkeeper lady friend is also captured by the bad guys and the Boss Bad Guy wants to bang her, but in the previous fight, right before Jiang Jing faints from the poison, his last second move gave the Boss Bad Guy erectile dysfunction so Boss Bad Guy gets all mad and starts strangling Jiang Jing who laughs his ass off at him *breathes*

YEP THAT ALL HAPPENED. We can safely know that Jiang Jing didn’t actually get strangled to death here because the reward to bring him back alive is much higher. 

Anyhow, Boss Bad Guy also has a boss, we’ll call him Boss Boss Bad Guy. He shows up (well he’s been showing up throughout the entire movie, I just haven’t bothered to even mention him until just now), kills Boss Bad Guy (probably for being useless) and has a final fight with Jiang Jing in the inn (hey that rhymes). At this point, innkeeper lady has escaped to find help. 

So Jiang Jing vs Boss Boss Bad Guy/Ancient Calculator vs actual weapon:

Oh I somehow managed to capture this face of Boss Boss Bad Guy in the middle of the fight: 

Terrifying.

At some point in the fight, our hero finally realizes his abacus isn’t really that great for beating up corrupt officials so he bends and breaks it, causing its little spinny spike things (remember those?) to shoot out and severely injure Boss Boss Bad Guy. However this isn’t enough to take down the resilient villain, plus at the same time the spikes have smashed open most of the wine bottles around the inn. The entire room is now flooded with alcohol and the two resume their fight: 

Jiang Jing eventually gets overpowered as Boss Boss Bad Guy who ties him up with a chain, it feels like all hope is lost here: 

But then! In the nick of time, innkeeper lady brings back help from another group of people - I really didn’t understand who they were, perhaps more officials? Possibly. Anyway, so Boss Boss Bad Guy goes out to greet them and is met with a rainfall of arrows. The new arrivals shoot more fire arrows at the inn and, well, upon touching the alcohol-filled inn, the whole building gets set on fire. 

WAIT WHAT

BUT

Jiang Jing is still in there! All tied up!!  But nope, he somehow crawls his way out and hides safely inside a well just outside the inn, because later we see him climb out next morning. Let’s just forget about the fact that he was all tied up in chains eh:

Yaaaay he lives!! He finds a horse and manages to locate innkeeper lady in the middle of the desert. She pretends to be annoyed with him but he playfully grabs her and lifts her onto his horse, much to her excitement (look how happy she is!) and the two ride off romantically into the sunset. 

THE

END. 

My god, this is probably one of the worst things I’ve ever written (so far). There are 2 more to go, might as well rename this to Yan Jie’s movie butchering rather than recaps. Up next, 杀出太平镇 / Killing Taiping Town!

#yan jie #言杰 #延桀 #神算子蔣敬 #jiang jing #chinese movie #chinese cinema #divine mathematician jiang jing #recap #inn on fire #martial arts