A Touch of Green

[Eumerin]

What is it?

‘A Touch of Green’ is a Mandarin-language series from The Republic of China (Taiwan) currently airing on Netflix (at least in the US), based on a short story written in 1971.  The series ads focus on the aviators, who are part of the Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF) following the end of World War 2.  The unit is flying P-51s (the Nationalists started receiving the D model and the virtually identical K model starting in 1945), and there are some decent shots of the familiar Mustang, but wearing ROCAF livery (the roundel is a blue circle containing a white sun).  Unfortunately, having seen the first few episodes, I can report that if you’re looking for lots of action shots of Mustangs in flight, you’ve come to the wrong series.  Yes, we do see some instances of (almost certainly CGI) Mustangs in flight.  And there are shots of the Mustangs on the ground – both parked and taxiing.    But the war’s over, and there’s no more fighting.  Instead, the focus is on the women in the lives of some of the veteran pilots.  Those veteran pilots (along with some of the newer pilots) are important characters in their own right.  But they’re supporting characters who are dealing with survivor’s guilt after seeing too many of their fellow pilots die during the War.  Meanwhile, the women try and get on with their lives while simultaneously worrying about their husbands or boyfriends (with good reason, as an early episode shows; flying is dangerous, even during peace time).

 

The Civil War leading to the Communist take-over apparently resumes in one of the later episodes.  But even then I doubt there will be much air combat.

 

Should you watch?

 

I would imagine that most people here will be looking at a potential series with an eye toward the possible adventures of the combat pilots in a military squadron.  If that is your primary reason for interest in a series like this, then this series is not for you.  A few episodes in, there has been a single flashback to an instance of combat.  And exciting is not a term that would be used to describe that particular scene.  Aircraft depicted so far are the ROCAF Mustangs, and a pair of indistinct Japanese fighters in the flashback scene- probably Zeroes, though it was difficult to make out any details.  The series could provide some ideas if a player wanted to paint up some ROCAF Mustangs.  But I don’t know how accurate the livery is to real life.

 

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