Brought Down to Normal: Due to the increasing amount of machinery in Hong Kong, Yan slowly loses her ability to transform into a fox and is (permanently) trapped in human form.Blood-Splattered Innocents: Liang, after Tsiao-Jung gets her head chopped off.Bittersweet Ending: Yan's original body is gone but thanks to Liang she can now transform into a fox like before and now hunts any British colonialists who do harm.She gets her wish fulfilled - after suffering from Unwilling Roboticisation and then Liang redesigning her new body. Be Careful What You Wish For: Yan express her wish to be able to turn into her real form once again and prowl over the roofs of Hong Kong, climbing to the highest tower.Liang, who after the time skip is muscular and sexy and Yan, who is also really sexy after the time skip) or at least more or less normal, the villains (especially the governor and the surgeons who performed the forced cyborgization, including having shitty teeth) look ugly as hell. Beauty Equals Goodness: Protagonists and (most) background either look really good (e.g.Attempted Rape: At the end of the short, Yan is about to attack some thugs who are attempting to gang-rape a woman.In this case they hear the voices of men obsessed by their beauty, which spirit hunters mistake for bewitching them. Asian Fox Spirit: Huli jing, Chinese fox spirits, are alleged to feed on the yang of men.Alternate History: The story is set sometime during the late 19th (or early 20th) century in Qing Dynasty China / British Hong Kong, except that it contains huli jing (and implicitly other magical beings) coexisting with super-advanced steampunk technology.All There in the Script: Liang's father is named Renshu according to the credits.In the short, he's Adapted Out and his line is given to a random Englishman, but it also means Liang has to learn everything himself. In the story, he's the one giving Liang "praise" for his engineering skills, but then helps him to get proper training, even if only for personal profit. The governor is only mentioned in passing in the original story - it's his son that uses and abuses Yan.Adapted Out: The survey engineer planning railway and the owner of the Peak Tram are both absent.A minor plot point of the British being Flat-Earth Atheists is also ommited. These include the explanation as to why magic is dying (British railroads are damaging the chi pathways), a scene where colonialists destroy a Buddha statue (which makes the focus on the Buddha statue when Yan murders the Governor more significant) and why Huli jing answer people who call for them (being foxes they have hypersensitive hearing).
Adaptation Distillation: The original short story wasn't terribly long to begin with, but certain elements are trimmed down.Matthew Yang King voices Liang while Elaine Tan voices Yan. Based on the short story of the same name by Ken Liu. "The old magic may have been gone from the world, but I could make new magic from their machines."ĭuring the British occupation of Hong Kong, a Chinese spirit hunter's son forms a bond with a shapeshifting huli jing.
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