Director: David Petrarca, et al.
Writers: John Fusco, et al.
Production Co.: Electus, Weinstein company
Distributor: Netflix
Starring: Benedict Wong, Olivia Cheng, Lorenzo Richelmy, Claudia Kim
In this international era, there will be no better subject to deal with a westerner's adventure in Asia than Marco Polo. Some say that his travelogue was not real but merely a transcription of exotic fables. But let's forget about the historical righteousness. What we want to see is the splendor of the great empire through a merchant's eyes. Since he was not a invader, there's almost (but not completely) nothing to stop this drama to penetrate Asian markets.
It is interesting to see a western character kowtow in front of a Mongolian King (Khan or Khagan) because it generates a subversive relationship between the west and the east. However, west-centric point of view is still observable. And it should be observable because it is basically an American TV drama. However his status is humble and circumstance severe, he is specially cared by Kublai Khan, investigates the hidden conspiracies around the throne, and frequently encounters romance wherever he goes. This is possible because he is an accepted surrogate of the spectator. This is manifested by a number of exotic, erotic, or luxurious sequences strengthened by the Khagan's quotes in the end of the very first episode: "A man who proves his loyalty to me can take whatever he wishes. You may not [...] Look, but do not touch." (emphasis added)
However, the drama does not represent outmoded oriental voyeurism. Frequent representation of naked female body hints commodification of femininity. That commodification being said, it includes a broad range of activities such as prostitution, sexual servitude, negotiation, and espionage. Due to the commodification, a number of main female characters present their fragmented psychology. For example, Episode 6 starts with a flashback revealing how a female servant pretended to be her mistress, Princess Kokachin after her suicide. After opening credit sequence, the main episode shows her being adorned by her guardian. Her image is reflected on a mirror, but due to its crude surface, her reflection is inevitably distorted. This visually represents her ambivalent state. Though she is well treated by the Mongolian monarchy thanks to her noble blood, she is basically captured as a hostage. Whereas she socializes to adjust in the noble Mongolian society, she conspires to avenge her late mistress. Such immobility of her reinforces her relationship with Marco Polo. Laura Mulvey argued in her essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", in accordance with phallocentric psychoanalysis, "woman symbolizes her castration threat by her real absence of penis" so that "she raises her child into the symbolic"(712). Since she cannot transcend from her castrated status, she turns her child as her surrogate to fulfill her desire indirectly. Likewise, Kokachin's immobility is contrasted to Polo's mobility. Although they don't have intimate relationship yet, her gaze to Polo seems to contain jealousy and admiration.
In a larger point of view, the narrative structure is fragmented as well. The narration of the drama is not solely focalized on characters in Mongolian Empire. The narration mingles around Polo, Mongolians, Chinese, and even Muslims (Kublai's ministers). It can be possibly perceived as being dispersed but in a positive point of view, this is a fairly progressive effort to shed light on figures who were overlooked in the great tide of history.
On top of that, what is most significant is the linguistic incorporation of ethnicities and talents. The main players are Native Chinese or Chinese-westerner. Benedict Wong (Kublai Khan) is a Chinese-British, Olivia Cheng (Mei Lin) is a Chinese-American, Zhu Zhu (Kokachin) is a native Chinese. Two performers from other ethnic group were encompassed in this huge entity of "Mongolian" (Rick Yune (Kaidu) is a Korean-American and Claudia Kim (Khutulun) is a Korean). Chin Han, who played a poor capitalist in The Dark Knight, reconfigures a conventionally blamed feckless general-politician to a vicious and mindless but cunning chancellor Jia Sidao. However, this conflation of talents is not the central issue. What is more crucial is the rearrangement of the Eastern world in English. For example, there is a Mongolian character, who is supposed to be called "Bayan" in the native sense, is actually named as "One Hundred Eyes". (This is too silly. It is like translating Thomas Jefferson as "One of the twelve disciples who is son of Jeffer".) Not only their name but also metrics are readjusted in English criteria. In the middle of Episode 6, as Polo makes inaccurate shots, One Hundred Eyes says: "Untrue by a inch, untrue by a mile." I believe this reconfiguration represents Netflix's, or in a larger viewpoint, Hollywood's confidence of its cultural clout. In other words, it swaggers its ability to incorporate and reorganized what has been foreign to it. To be honest, this intimidates me because it hints a stealth inauguration of cultural power game between two big brothers. I have no idea if any of Chinese entertainment products showed such broad inclusion of foreign culture. There were several instances in which some Western characters aids or resists the hero but they were too trivial. Consequently, this drama makes me expect China's next move.
Work cited: Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" in Film Theory & Criticism. Ed. Leo Baudry and Marshall Cohen, Oxford University Press: New York, 2009. 711-722.
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