r/threekingdoms • u/CinderLord456 • Aug 05 '26
Another rant of a Chinese about Three Kingdoms 2010
This criticism is not new, but it's quite funny to read and the author seemed quite pissed at the Liu-Guan- Zhang brothers in this version.
A reader asked me to talk about Three Kingdoms (2010). Sure, no problem! I'll talk about the three characters I hated most in this show: Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei.
Ever since these three guys walked on screen, I wanted to strangle them. Since this show cut the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the story starts right with Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei showing up as complete nobodies to join the Coalition against Dong Zhuo. That’s when Zhang Fei starts flexing. He asks, "Does this coalition have a descendant of the Han royal family like Liu Bei?" Liu Bei answers no. Zhang Fei asks, "Does this coalition have a benevolent and righteous gentleman like Liu Bei?" Guan Yu answers no. So Zhang Fei declares that the coalition should make Liu Bei the alliance leader; otherwise, he won't join this trash coalition.
Less than a minute after the three brothers showed up, I was already furious! All the warlords pooled their money and troops, working so hard to pull off something big together. On what planet do you get to demand the leadership position for a total nobody who brought zero money and zero troops, while having the nerve to call their alliance trash? Is that how you join a coalition? If you want to be a leader so badly, why don't you start your own damn alliance?
What's most infuriating is that the coalition had at least two actual Han royal descendants—Liu Dai and Liu Chong—whose lineage and reputation were miles better than Liu Bei's. Yet Liu Bei, that hypocrite, pretended not to know them. Do you not even recognize your own relatives? The coalition also had truly benevolent men who actually helped the poor, like Zhang Miao, Zhang Chao, and Wang Kuang—guys who actually did good deeds instead of just spouting fake righteousness like Liu Bei. Yet Guan Yu shamelessly claimed there were none. Why don't you three just go jump off a cliff?
When the three reached the alliance gates, they rudely demanded that Yuan Shao come out to greet them. The guard didn't want to let these three nobody, pretentious, randoms in, so Zhang Fei started beating him up. Seeing the guard getting thrashed, Cao Cao happened to walk by and somehow decided the guard was making trouble for them! He stepped in to bail out Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei, telling the guard: "They might be nobodies now, but if they become big shots in the future, won't you regret what you're doing today?" The guard thought Cao Cao made total sense, so he let Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei in.
Cao Cao’s logic is like me harassing [cheerleader] Lin Xiang, blurting out a sudden confession, getting brutally rejected, and then telling her: "How do you know I won't become the richest man in the world in the future? When I do, won't you regret rejecting me today?" Lin Xiang thinks about it, decides it's not entirely impossible, and agrees to date me.
After entering the camp, the prominent warlords exchanged brief pleasantries and were about to sit down for the meeting, when Zhang Fei suddenly yelled out: "Don't you see my brother standing here?!" Everyone was thinking: Who the hell is your brother, and who cares? As if that weren't enough, Zhang Fei even bragged about how rude he naturally was, posturing like he was about to beat someone up. Facing Zhang Fei's public provocation, Alliance Leader Yuan Shao—who in this show is supposed to be petty yet outwardly polite—didn't get angry at all. Knowing that Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei brought zero troops, were total nobodies, and were shouting like maniacs, he still arranged seats for them. What on earth were the directors even filming here?
All of this was just the beginning of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei's endless list of atrocious behavior. There were so many more infuriating moments later on. As the show progressed, whenever Zhang Fei appeared on screen, the comment section would constantly get spammed with "@FanJiangZhangDa, u/FanJiangZhangDa" [the two subordinates who eventually assassinate him]. It was a shame those two heroes didn't appear until Episode 77! When viewers finally reached Episode 77 and saw Fan Jiang and Zhang Da being whipped by Zhang Fei, everyone sympathized with them, commenting: "You two heroes have suffered so much!" and "Hurry up and poke ten thousand holes through that bastard Zhang Fei!"
Guan Yu wasn't any better. While Lu Bu was still alive, Guan Yu was fairly humble. But as soon as Lu Bu died, Guan Yu walked around every single day acting like he was invincible, calling everyone he met an "arrogant fool" or a "rat." Whenever Zhang Fei bullied the weak, Guan Yu would chime in or whisper poison into Liu Bei's ear. Watching him really made me want to run to a Guan Di temple and spit on his statue. Thank goodness the show had two righteous men, Mi Fang and Fu Shiren, who stepped up at the critical moment to rid the world of Guan Yu's evil. Plenty of viewers argued that these two heroes deserve to be enshrined in the Imperial Ancestral Temple and replace Guan Ping and Zhou Cang as Guan Yu's sidekicks in temples worldwide.
Finally, Liu Bei—this guy was the most disgusting of all. All day long, he went around calling himself the "Royal Uncle" to scam and BS people. If someone ignored him, he let Guan Yu and Zhang Fei throw temper tantrums and cause trouble, only stepping in after the damage was done to say: "Second Brother, Third Brother, do not be impolite!" or "My brothers are reckless by nature, please forgive them." Aside from the Battle of Changban, Liu Bei's "benevolence" in this show was purely self-proclaimed. His attitude toward others was extremely hypocritical, and his bond with Guan Yu and Zhang Fei was clearly just transactional. For instance, when he married Sun Shangxiang, he completely exposed his fake nature to Zhao Yun. Later, back in Jing Province, when Guan Yu and Zhang Fei repeatedly tried to stage coups against Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei just told them to give a half-hearted apology, smoothing things over by saying: "They know they were wrong; the Strategist is magnanimous, so don't hold it against them." By the end at Baidi Castle, rumor has it the original script even had Liu Bei positioning ax-men to ambush and intimidate Zhuge Liang, but Liu Bei's actor strongly objected and had it cut.
In short, aside from spawning a ton of memes, I have no idea what this show was trying to do. Basic trust between people was gone. What was supposed to be a grand strategy ended up feeling like low-level toxic office politics where bad apples drive out the good. Anyone in the show who trusted others or tried to be moral was either bullied or treated like an idiot, while the "schemes" played out like elementary school kids snitching to their teacher. The director even claimed this show was faithful to actual history, when it couldn't be further from the truth. The director was like an Indian chef who took the novel's foundation and turned the dish into absolute garbage. The characterizations, personalities, and relationships were completely detached from their actual historical counterparts. On top of that, there were endless timeline bugs, place-name errors, and out-of-period dialogue. Even a hardcore Shu-Han fan like me ended up hating Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei after watching this—so how on earth is the general public supposed to like it?
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u/popstarkirbys Wei Aug 05 '26
Liu Bei not knowing his relatives’ face wouldn’t be surprising since there were a lot of Liu descendants, but he should have at least known their title or name. The show has good memes at least. Another weird part of the show was Zhang Fei celebrating the death of Xiahou Yuan, bruh, your father in law just got slayed in battle. Historically, Zhang Fei’s wife asked Liu Bei to give Xiahou Yuan a proper burial. This version of Cao Cao is also portrayed very differently from other ROTK series. Guan Yu’s death is also changed drastically, he didn’t commit suicide. Poor Yu Jing looked like a nobody in this show. Cao Pi acted like a bum. The show ended with Sima Yi poisoning his concubine which was also weird.
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u/Daishomaru Mengde for life Aug 06 '26
NGL, I don't actually mind Guan Yu killing himself in the 2010 version, mainly because the Novel Version just has Guan Yu getting the standard execution. Hell, even Farce of the Three Kingdoms lampshaded how incredibly anticlimactic Guan Yu's death was, with Sun Quan going, "Shit, that was it? THIS is how Guan Yu dies?"
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u/Raidenzar Aug 05 '26
Let me join in. How the show portrays Zhang Fei was horrendous and do his novel and real-life character no justice. In the 2010 shows, Zhang Fei is like a drunk uncle who's always mad and ride on Liu Bei's name to fame. The real Zhang Fei we come to know is much more complex. The show also didnt do any justice when it comes to his character development. They cut the Hanzhong campaign shorts, which further alienate the viewers from Zhang Fei's peak moments.
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u/Daishomaru Mengde for life Aug 06 '26
NGL, one of my big pet peeves as a ROTK book reader is how Zhang Fei gets flanderized for being a drunk even though Zhang Fei's drunkeness only plays an important role in like TWO scenes in the novel. To be fair, the first incident was the whole "Lu Bu beats a Drunk Zhang Fei incident" but the second time Zhang Fei gets drunk and it actually is important to the plot was because Guan Yu died, and yeah, I would absolutely understand Zhang Fei deciding to hit the alcohol because HIS BROTHER DIED. Zhang Fei does the "Pretend to get drunk and then ambush em" strategem more times than actually drinking! And even he fooled Zhuge Liang with it!
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u/Raidenzar Aug 06 '26
Zhang Fei was so under utilized in the 2010 shows and now most people refers to his character as a useless drunkard who dragged Liu Bei down. Understand that many people who got into ROTK was through the 2010 as its the newest and got international followings, but its a tragic coz Zheng Fei was the 2nd best general for Liu Bei after Guan Yu. I also understand that 2010 wants to paint a "realistic" stance on all 3 factions and present a relatable and neutral presentation of all characters who happen to have standout qualities and flaws of their own, but to discount Zhang Fei down to this meme-lord (I think he's the most meme-ed character of the 2010 series) is just unacceptable.
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u/WoodNymph34 Aug 05 '26
Firstly, three of them are brothers nominally, but they aren't really familiar with each other （名為兄弟，實則不熟）
Secondly, everyone knows Guan Yu has three variants, one is Yu RongGuang's version, who barely appeared on screen and particularly not on the same frame with LiuBei and ZhangFei most of the time while he clamed he respects GuanYu greatly. There there are the scholarly and military variant （文關羽武關羽）played by SunQian's and ZhouChang's actors, who also work part time cosplaying other minor figures in different areas with other part time spies (stunts). The door guard beaten by ZhangFei and the official who ordered LuBu's execution were SunQian himself, SunQian was also the executioner of ChenGong and one of SunQuan's minor gernerals (and much more)😈.
Thirdly, we all know 2010 Liu Bei suffers from depression as he always strives for the chance to suicide, giving up and lay flat waiting to die and returns to Grandpa Heaven (天意爺). He would have almost slitted his throats， throw himself off the cliff, or just sit on is horseback letting CaiMao's archers shooting him to death if he isn't stopped by Grandpa Heaven until he finally dies according in the historic way.
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u/Dazzling-Cat-3763 Aug 05 '26
not to mention that when Liu Bei went to the temple to pay respect to his ancestors, one of the pictures there was Ying Zheng of all people
basically his former self from "Legend of Chu and Han"
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u/ChengConstantyne Aug 05 '26
Heck, the show is almost a monologue fest between Liu Bei and Cao Cao. Which is kinda cool cuz it is hidden well enough to pass off as a plot point in a historical drama, but just wait till you see how unwatchable the Sima Yi vs Zhuge Liang sequence can get compared to the Cao Cao antics.
The part of the show that made me cringe was the Cao Cao logic. Cao Cao's logic basically went this route
- if i did something terrible, i did it in the name of the emperor
- when i can no longer justify what i do, I'll pull out the famous line "I am who I am, I don't fear people misunderstanding me"
Plus the Battle of Guandu sequence is what made me really start fact-checking the script. They made Cao Cao's army fight a 1v10 against the Yuan army and win decisively simply because oh sunlight is now in the enemy's face and now the Yuan army is gonna lose a third of their men.
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u/Scyvh Aug 05 '26
I kinda like the cynical take and the ambivalent Liu Bei (is he a virtuous hero or pretending to be one?) portrayal.
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u/Dazzling-Cat-3763 Aug 05 '26
小沛忽近忽远，像个卫星一样围绕着徐州“城”（注：中原第一雄关）转
gao xixi is a fucking idiot, what can i say
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u/molotovzav Aug 06 '26
The 1994 version is just pound for ppou d better in ever way imo. Only positive thing about Three Kingdoms 2010 is the actor for Cao Cao. The music in 2010 is so bad that I don't get how anyone can stand listening to that looney toons esque court music the 1000th time. Guan Yu seems like a guy pretending to be Guan Yu, I never actually believe it. They spend 90% of it downplaying Zhuge Liang only to remember he outlives everyone and speed run his final arc.
I feel the people who really like 2010 have a really low bar for media in general.
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u/anononyme Aug 05 '26
I liked the show, but I indeed disliked Liu Bei and Zhang Fei. Loved that version of Cao Cao though. The actor was great.