What does Veeky Forums think of Marco Polo? Is it worth watching?

Did you only watch the first half of season 1? That part is pretty bad. Once the show becomes about Kublai it's great no matter how inaccurate it is because Benny Wong does such a fucking great job

It's one of those shows that captures the dramatic aspect of the era without being at all based in fact. I liked watching it, I'm a sinoboo, but you will not emerge from the experience any smarter about history.

It's a great show, but it isn't even close to historically accurate. If you are looking for entertainment definitely watch it, if you're looking for history find a good book instead

The martial arts is one of the best parts about the show. The best part in the whole series is when Thousand Eyes starts doing Mantis style when fighting Jia Sidao and Sidao gets noticeably assmad about it.

Pretty sure there's another thread about it rn.

It's a fun time. don't expect to understand anything new about the era though. the kung fu is alright.

It's not even close to historically accurate, but then again Marco's writings weren't really either. You can tell the writers made the loosest interpretation possible in order to make the plot engaging and well-paced. Great set design, costumes, music etc on top of it. I will say the Templar subplot is pretty retarded though.

I'll be pissed if the actor who plays Kublai doesn't stay on board for next season, he really can't be replaced.

>next season
about that

It just got canceled.

>Great set design, costumes
kek
its literal conan the barbarian tier

Fuck

Don't you knock Conan the Barbarian. It had awesome set and costume design for pulp fantasy.

Oh for fuck's sake.
Maybe HBO will still pick it up like was rumored a while back?

Was it really cancelled?

The show could have been so much more if they had just gone with Genghis and his sons.

fugg

The show is shitty outside of Benedict, but it's too bad this is cancelled because it's the only such show.

That's what the news says. I think the first half of season 1 did irreparable damage because people just couldn't sit through that shit when it pretended to be a worse GoT.

why would they cancel one of their most popular series while continuing to shit out dozens of dime-a-dozen shows every few months?

But they gave him tons of screentime in season 2. They stopped pretending Marco was the main character.

Because it costs $100m per season. You can produce all those dime a dozens for less money.

The storyline with the arab son, who also liked to be pissed on or whatever, was painfully bad.

>show could have been so much more if they had just gone with Genghis and his sons

This.

thats literally the problem user, its nice but it just doesn't fit

Thanks for reminding me to finish this long ass drama. I think I'm halfway through and she's not even the fucking empress yet.

The show seemed to be more about showing off attractive asian pop stars than real substance.

It is one of those shows that just somehow does it for me

It is silly. Really silly. Marco goes around pretending he's a main character, waving his big golden dick around, kids are all painfully awkwardly written, women can comfortably beat men twice their size, and sex is absolutely everywhere. Oh, and Prester John actually fucking exists

But all the characters are 100% serious about everything. pointless characters just walk around spouting "wise" words, Marco is supposed to be some sort of lyrical wordsmith, and Benedict Wong as Kublai is one of the best performances I have ever seen in a TV show (granted, I don't watch tv that much).

It is this weird grey area between serious and silly, and it just works somehow

>>show could have been so much more if they had just gone with Genghis and his sons

imdb.com/title/tt4076190/

Thanks. Girls look hot af in Medici

A shame we will never get the other two movies.

can westerners tell me something?
why does everyone in your historical movies wear brown leather?I thought its what europeans usually wear, but since i seen it here too it seems not the case, is it a sort of to go to historical colour scheme?

real european medievals wore wool shirts dyed bright colors. ubiquitous brown leather is a modern meme that probably came about because it just looks vaguely rural and primitive

Can anyone provide some good reading on Genghis? I've only read "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" and want more.

HAHAHA CRUSADERS IN CHINA!? You're kidding...

Yeah i don't actually believe that.

Ohhhh no no no, he's actually being serious user, there was actually an army of crusaders in the 2nd season.

I'm not sure but I think they didn't reich "proper" China but where defeated somewhere in mongolia/turkestan but doesn't matter a crusader army east of Samarkand even Bagdad just no

It has fuck all to do with history but I like it and do recommend it on entertainment value alone

Not him but that is a very good analogy. Conan was very operatic, you can almost call it a balet, and that worked in its favour. Here the style and the tone don't exactly work well.

It was prester John wasn't it?

Historically or technically accurate does not draw sufficient audiences to sustain a program.

>Game of Thrones
>Vikings
>Marco Polo
>The Borgias

Entertaining but sadly inaccurate.

I thought the trebuchet thing was stupid as hell and one of the only times "hurrr I'm the western guy and the hero" thing actually bothered me along with the SJWs but apparently it was not complete bullshit

>Increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress, Kubilai Khan sent word to Abakha Khan, his nephew ruling the Mongol domain in Persia. In response, two Persian Engineers, Ala-ud-Din and Isma'il, skilled in the construction and employment of siege machinery arrived in China in late A.D. 1272. They oversaw the construction of new hinged counterweight trebuchets, versions of which had already been used successfully in the wars of the Middle East for at least the previous hundred years.

>In the Travels, Polo claims that his father and uncle had provided the designs for trebuchets at the siege of Xiangyang; this is highly unlikely, since they were not engineers and were not in fact in China during the siege. (Most scholars think the khan got Persian engineers to build them.)

Also apparently the strong warrior woman that don't need no man is also based on real life accounts. That really surprised me.

>Marco Polo described Khutulun as a superb warrior, one who could ride into enemy ranks and snatch a captive as easily as a hawk snatches a chicken. She assisted her father in many battles, particularly against the Yuan Dynasty of her cousin the Great Khan - Kublai (r. 1260-94).

>Khutulun insisted that any man who wished to marry her must defeat her in wrestling and forfeit horses to her if they lost. She gained 10,000 horses defeating prospective suitors.

It's typical leathershit.

Avoid if you like real history

Does it even matter that if got cancelled?

With netflix making it's own shit now we've already got like 3 more historical series to start.

I liked the Crown and next season looks like it'll go hardcore into Suez and I'm looking forward to the Medici one that just came out.

I HATE how all history shows need to ape Game of Thrones. Everyone is greasy and dirty and there's expliclit sex and violence and all the plots are about backstabbing.
Its so HORRIBLE

It makes the show feel more """""""realistic""""""

Nope. Straight up crusaders, sent by the pope

[spoiler]Prester John was the big reveal of the season 2 finale[/spoiler]

Not that I disagree with you, but
>Everyone is greasy and dirty
Doesn't apply to Marco Polo

I enjoyed the few episodes I watched.

Watched for the guy who played the Khan in this. One of my favourite nonwhite actors. Hilarious fucker. He was really good in this too.

Wasn't and still not compelled to watch any more though.

agreed. I did a bit of extra's work on GoT and they put half a bottle (no seriously) of vaseline in my hair. I can't help but see the vaseline in every fantasy or bad historical series now.

>that episode where they get into a pool and play Marco Polo

I thought it was ok. Tried being too many things though and ended up not excelling in any of them.

Only watched season one, nope out when i heard about crusaders in season two.

I remember reading a review that called it "the most beautiful show you'll ever fall asleep to". That about sums up the first season. It gets a bit more entertaining, but I wouldn't watch it if you were after historical accuracy.

The writing can also be pretty bad when they want to move the plot forward. Worst example in my opinion was when Kublai sent Marco to spy on the Song - up to that point, he was noticed everywhere and everyone remarked on him being a foreigner and standing out. For some reason, he just blended right in when he needed to be a spy, and you'd have the one European guy in China, who was a member of Kublai's court, would have been pretty well known to his enemies.

>It's pretty much the opposite of historically accurate, but I like it.
This

It's nonsense but wickedly fun nonsense.

>the arab son
He was Persian from the Qara Khitai.

Several things really. Bright colors today are considered garish so we imprint our norms on history. What said about it looking primitive, because people assume that dyes were extremely complicated/expensive so only a few from back then used them. And because works that actually have survived from back then have long had their paint/dye disintegrate or wash out, leading people to the assumption that they didn't use colors (people assumed for the longest time that Greco-Roman marble architecture was kept bare because that's how they found it, and was only relatively recently that we figured out they painted the shit out of their columns and statues)

If you enjoyed that then you should check out Weatherford's other book about the women of the empire.

She's also why their wrestling shirts have bare chests, they want to make sure the person they're fighting doesn't have tits.

>That stance

i went in with low expectations and its "alright"

Its obviously only vaguely historically accurate and using polo as a spy is laughable. The chinese kung fu killing a hundred people is also stupid.

But I think they got the mongol "way of life" pretty decent.

Anyways, its an action semi historical drama and i got what i came for. The costumes and scenery are also pretty good.

DESU m8 I doubt any Chinese up until like the 19th century would be able to distinguish an Italian from a lighter skinned Iranian, and there were plenty of those in China since at least the Sassanians.

Song china would still be suspicious of any Iranians walking about. He could probably pass in yuan china territory because it would be swarming with nonchinese.

>Game of Thrones
I mean, that one is entirely fantasy.

good books on mongols?

This pretty much sums up every point I was gonna make. I do like the kung fu though just for the entertainment value.

>Song China
>Marco Polo

lmao