Candle in the Tomb: The Wrath of Time

I must say that I dont usually watch this kind of dramas. This is pure action/adventure with a bit of mysticism. However I just finished Eternal Love of Dream and I desperately needed to watch another drama by Vengo. I looked up the list in this website and this one was the one that stood out the most. BEST CHOICE EVER!

I watched the 21 episodes in one day. It's not 5:18am and I am writing this review instead of going off to sleep. That's how good this series is. It's a mix of The Mummy and Idiana Jones, but using Chinese mythology. The characters are awesome, both main and second leads. They are fully rounded and each one has a role to play. You will come to love them, hate them or pity them... but they won't leave you indifferent. Nobody is cartoonist or one-dimensional and even the "villains", if you can call them that, are very human and there will be moments when you empathize with them.

The series takes place during the Republican Era. I knew nothing about it but fortunately you don't really need to know anything about that era to understand what's going on. The drama is self-explanatory. Costumes and music are great. The plot is intriguing, it will make you hold your breath in the right moments. It starts slow. In fact, I skipped most of the first and second episodes. But once Vengo's characters joins the main expedition group and they go down the mountain, that's when shits gets real. I wasn't able to stop, I just had to know what happen next!!!

The acting is fantastic. I began to watch it because of Vengo but everyone acts their roles incredible well. Vengo is awesome, though. He is super handsome and his character is so different from DH Dijun, but he nails it in every scene. He looks so tan in this series!!! He was so pale as DH, but here he has a tan and he also has freckles! He is a pleasure to look at, but what really makes him stand out is his acting. I felt his pain and my heart broke for him.

About the ending. If you are like me and love spoilers, I will tell you that it is a sad ending BUT Vengo's character survives. So there is that.

As I said, this is not your typical romance drama. This is full of adventure, mystery, danger, human emotions and a little bit of flirting. It' fairly short, just 21 episodes, so the pace after the first 2 eps is great and you won't get bored. Please, if you love Vengo and enjoy movies like The Mummy, please watch it. You'll love it. It's in YT fully sub in English.

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Must Watch - Indiana Jones meets Game of Thrones in Republican Era China

I was told The Lost Caverns is an archaeological drama, and after doing some research Candle In the Tomb : The Wrath of Time is the first in the series, chronologically, so I started watching it with zero expectations, and was instantly hooked. I was surprised at how good the sets, scenery, production, action and acting were. The sets and scenery, in particular, are breath-taking. The death toll has to be seen to be believed.

This show pretty much has everything entertainment wise:-
* History of 4 "Tomb Robbing" Clans in the Opening Credits
* Each clan's specialty - geomancy, traps, lock picking, animal affinity
* Super Expensive Sets for the Tombs. They look realistic!
* Traps. Lots of Traps! All Kinds! Poor Stunt Guys must have worked HARD.
* Dangerous bug critters. Numerous small ones and one Giant One. * Special "mythical" animals including "Super Chicken Phoenix" and Dig Dug Pangolins
* Zombies and a Zombie King
* Excessive dynamite use, including in "suicide vests" (not in a terrorist way).
* Michael Bay level of indiscriminate blowing up stuff before using brains and considering maybe don't blow up stuff before getting your own people out first?
* Brotherhood, followed by Game of Thrones level Betrayals, Backstabbing and lots of Death ... and viewers rooting for some people to die because we're bloodthirsty by nature, we hate them and we want them dead like mob spectators.

What I learned from the characters:-
* Handsome ML (*swoon* Vengo as Zhe Gu Shao) with skills and a tragic backstory, will eventually, slowly and surely, win over Xin Zhi Lei (Hua Ling) who is supposed to be the fierce man hater.
* Chen Yu Lou (Pan Yue Ming) acted brilliantly as the Xieling Sect leader who's trying to do the best he can for his men and his "people", yet nothing is good enough for his daddy until loads of blood has been shed.
* Luo Lao Wai (Cao Wei Yu) wow I HATED his character and was actively hoping this paragon of creating a hostile work environment and #1 sexual harasser would die so I could stop hearing his "laugh acting". Except, when he did ... I felt kind of sad.
* I won't name the other characters because it was like Game of Thrones, as SOON as I got attached to them, BAM out of nowhere, they die!! If this were a Korean drama they might have mysteriously survived but no, those types of wounds should be fatal, and the realism is appreciated.

Moral of the story: Tomb raiding is lucrative, BUT dangerous as all heck. Over 200 people must have died to the traps, the critters, the wildlife, the curse(s), the undead and the backstabbing humans infected by the deadly selfishness "treasure fever" who lose all sense of conscience and think killing other humans means a bigger share. Personally I don't think it's worth it, and maybe the high risk is WHY those tomb robbing clans are going extinct.

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