El Señor del Águila de las Nieves (2023)

Smart Demons + Stupid Humans = Extraordinary Mess

Watched this to see Xu Kai act but just like in a previous series of his; his and everyone else's acting was great but the story itself was a hot mess. Wish he or whomever chooses for him, chose better. The only reason this even got a 6.5 and not lower was because of the literally only 3 pros. Otherwise, it was like the mighty morphin power rangers and mortal kombat took LSD and spit this out.

Pros: Leads chemistry, the actors hard work which included great fight scenes, and costumes (except for the Halloween store costume lion for Uncle Tang), and good OSTs. No other pros.

Cons: Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for smart antagonists but not when the protagonists are so ridiculously idiotic. Just about everyone was led by the nose by the demons the ENTIRE show. Even when our ML told them otherwise, the Elders still chose to believe evil people. The amount of times the good guys failed to understand something very simple made you want to run your face into the wall. The entire series made a ton of no sense because the bad guys were running the show while the good guys were just walking around like zombies and talking in circles.

Did just about everyone really deserve to die; KYY's death in the last episode was pointless and meaningless. Some really did die as heroes but what made much of it senseless is that if they put two and two together sooner and made it 4 instead of 7, they could have made things happen sooner and survived. It made me feel like whoever the writer was, had no clue how to write a novel or one that's understandable or cohesive. Ji Rong staying alive and even her death at the hands of probably the show’s stupidest character, made me feel like I lost brain cells. DXY warned his brother and the two elders something was fishy about her from nearly the beginning and yet both uncles died because of her.

The sets and CGI looked very cheap. The words chucked up on the screen each time a new magic trick was used was eye roll worthy. Welcome to the 90s and not in a good way! Situ Hong's ruthlessness was completely ignored and his death and that of the weird random cultivator that at first clung to XY was completely pathetic. Both were sucked dry for big bad demon God that most of the time sounded like an alien cat that sucked in a helium balloon. We were all expecting a fight between him and XY but yeah, why bother?

Demon Ao Lan turned himself into a psychedelic Venus flytrap to try and kill XY in the last episode and it had me laughing. Little Shop of Horrors that was filmed in the 1970s had better CGI than this mess. I shed a tear for Shifu sacrificing himself at the end as out of all the guardians, he was the only one that infiltrated the demon clan and didn't do too poorly. Yes, happy ending for leads and the maybe 3 other living people but what did I watch for 40 episodes?

Would I recommend? No way. Even if you are a fan of the leads or anyone else, please find something else. Leads chemistry is not enough to hold this thing together.

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Beautiful actors and a waste of potential

By episode 12, the leads are getting romantic and I still don't think I've seen one deep conversation between the two. Do they even know anything about each other? The showrunners just thought they could make two beautiful people stand next to each other for enough scenes and that was enough to lead this cast. The story encompasses so many characters yet fails to fully flesh any of them out in order to make the audience care. Xu Kai looks good as always, but this performance is nothing you haven't seen from him already if you're a fan of his work.

That being said, I'm still gonna finish it

UPDATE - As of episode 24, the show has failed to progress the lead relationship in any sort of mature way. It feels like the characters we were initially introduced to are just dressing for the plot salad the writers are putting forward. This is all at the expense of intelligent characters; people seen as elders make foolish decisions - often costing their own lives - almost every episode, its hilarious. I'm only watching for the pretty actors at this point.

Also they do this really weird low-quality production thing where the actor's hair will be messed up in one shot and in the middle of the sentence they cut back and the character has perfect hair again. Really noticeable and entirely annoying.

SECOND UPDATE - Show feels more compelling plot-wise after episode 30, but I have now accepted that if I haven't cared about the main leads and their relationship so far, its not going to get any better, only more annoying. Definitely not recommending this show to any romance enjoyers, but generic fantasy drama enjoyers can still find this show entertaining at points I'm sure. Xu Kai needs better fantasy roles idk how he gets stuck playing the same character in every costume drama.

*SIGH* FINAL UPDATE - That was the climax we were waiting for? Felt incredibly underwhelming and undeserved. The last chunk of this drama is driven by its plot only, none of these characters feel smart or stupid enough to be making the decisions we see on screen, making them feel entirely hollow, cardboard characters. This show technically has a "happy" ending but I just feel dead inside I can't muster any emotion for these characters. Beautiful actors though, will have to see them in more deserving roles because anyone in this cast should take the drama off their portfolio/resume LOL.

All in all, I can't recommend this drama to anyone unless they love Xu Kai obsessively, love spear action, or love to put something on in the background while they sleep. The story is not worth 1/2 your attention span.

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