This review may contain spoilers
Laugh now, Cry later | The team who disses and slanders the Best!
"I'm happy that I'm no longer your burden. I've become your armor. But... the fate of the armor is destined to break. Just like how the fate of snow is destined to melt." Pei Siheng/AhengFinished this drama while I am in troubled times and it became an inspiration and motivation for me to move forward and fight for myself no matter what. Thank you for being an unintentional source of motivation and energy. I appreciate it a lot! <3
This drama started like a comical skit on some random comedy bar out there with their outright exchange of subtle yet blunt insults every moment they got. It was such a breathe of fresh air simply because of how good they are in delivering such skits in the most unexpected way.
The editing was insanely on point in making things so hilarious. They're so unseriously serious about it that I cannot stop thinking how much time they spent to deliberate and brainstorm to formulate all those exchange of derogatory ciriticisms the characters delivered through their lines. They truly nailed this show with that alone and I almost died from choking because of the random timing they're being thrown at. Help! Hahaha!—To top it all that, they carried this stint till the final parts of the show which show their dedication to consistency. Impressive!
Although the comedic scenes on this drama are its gems/treasure. I would still say that what made me stayed to watch it till the end is the bond between the characters and how they carefully molded and builded it with time and experience to become unbreakable as it is now. Their selfless sacrifices and togetherness in protecting one another is what brought me to love this story as a whole.
Talking about chemistry and synergy, I feel like all of them has showed great compatibility with one another. It even stood out despite their difference in personality and demeanor. I also just wanna mention how much I love the ending clip of the drama where they are all goofing around having fun and seemingly enjoying themselves. That's such heartearming part for me. <3
Antagonists and main villain - I am really fond of how they depict the "Demons" of this story as a race of living creatures that comprises of good and bad individuals same as humans. That most of the demons who commited crime, have done so for mostly a valid reason and are still morally aware just misguided but are still willing to be redirected into goodness. However, there are also some individuals like the main villain of the story who are beyond saving and deserves an ultimate death! Lol
Climax - The story started to get so draggy and eventually boring towards the climax. It's totally understandable when they set up such hurdles for the main characters but I feel like it's overdoing it when the plot of the story is only focused on saving somebody only for the other remaining people to be involved in a life saving situation as well that will lead to their death. I feel like that's straight obsession to tragedy right there!
Finally, the ending - Hate me all you want but dang this story! I know that it was set up even from the very start that the main character (Zhu Yan) is destined to die but why do I feel like killing 3 other significant characters one after another was unnecessary? I understand that it was done just to heightened the grief and sorrowful vibe of the story but isn't it overly stretching things? Like couldn't they come up with a better scenario that can trigger such emotions without ruining the joyful environment they painstakingly built in the first place? It feels like "A Journey to Love" all over again! Sad!
Looking back now, maybe the reason why they incorporated tons of comical scenes into this drama is to prepare us audience for the tragery it will ended up becoming... They must have foreseen people getting angry and disappointed of the story's ending so they've decided to include as much 'gag' as they can to somehow, hopefully! ease the frustration and pain we might feel towards the ending—I say that it didn't help but only made it feel worse!
Story - 9.5, Everything was almost perfect not until you reach the climax where all the build up becomes draggy and questionable followed by the ending that may seem justifiable and heroic but is in fact traumatic in all angles.
Acting/Cast - 9.5, Acting is good and I am satisfied with the cast! However, I must say that they did Wen Xiao (Chen Duling's character) dirty in this drama. She's a fucking goddess who should be the protector of both race but ended but a damsel in distress who always needs saving. Neo Hou's character here is calm yet extra mischievous. Loving all the shades getting thrown left and right in the most cockily irritating manner. Hahaha! He's annoying but it show how charismatic he is as well. Gonna miss Bai Jiu (Lester Lin) iconic screams and screeches and all the main characters unique personalities. Love them all.
Music - 10, ballad songs used are all so comforting. It has this vibe that can make you fall aaleep like a lullaby and can make you heartbroken when needed. I also like the song they typically use to hype and indicate that the main characters are back and ready to fight again—their fight song!
Rewatch Value - 9.0, I would love to watch it again in the future specially all the dissing amd shades minus the last 10 or so episodes. Those episodes should be scrape out completely.
Overall - 9.0, This could have been a solid 10 only of they didn't turn Wen Xiao into such a pathetic character and if they didn't overly obsess on making the ending into a heart-wrenching and emotional tragedy. They really messed up so bad in that deparment. What a pity!
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This review may contain spoilers
n aguentei
ai vey eu tinha começado esse e tava obcecada, mas no final ja foi meio q dando uma enrolanda e meio q tava mt chato tanto q larguei faltando quatro episódios pra acabar. acho q o grande problema é que tem episódios demais e parece que fica uns 5 episódios enrolando sobre a mesma coisa, depois que o li lun deixa de ser o vilão principal ficou uma chatice só. Youtra q n consegui comprar o casal principal e muito menos gostar da FL, fiquei abismada q ela é apresentada no começo do drama com uma boazuda, q se vira sozinha e q se defende sozinha, mas agora na reta final ela se transformou em uma coitadinha que sempre depende dos outros pra ser salva e que literalmente fica sentada enquanto ver os outros morrer mesmo sendo literalmente uma DEUSA. Ai sabe eu n consigo comprar, eu acho q n vou mt com esse diretor pq tb n curti mt my journal to you, e n acho q vale esse sacrifício todo se todo mundo morre e é um grande final aberto. esse drama parece q faz mt esforço pra parecer uma grande produção e direção sendo q o roteiro é cheio de furos. achei q ia gostar mais pq tem um tom de comédia diferente de mjty e tem mts atores queridos, mas simplesmente não da, eu to bem há um mês tentando terminar isso.Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Simple but beautiful
Fangs of Fortune is a visually stunning drama with an outstanding cast and breathtaking color grading. I’m eager to rewatch it and analyze whether specific colors carry hidden meanings.At its core, this drama follows a simple storyline: a good guy chasing down a bad guy. However, it’s so immersive that you quickly forget the simplicity of the plot. Instead, it feels like embarking on a journey with the characters. We meet a diverse group of individuals, each with different backgrounds, strengths, weaknesses, and personal demons they battled. This dynamic makes the drama captivating—if you love character-driven stories, you'll be drawn in instantly. As the characters progress, we learn more about one another, making you cheer for them along the way. The male lead, a great demon, finds ways to help those who have walked down the wrong path, and together, they overcome one obstacle after another to defeat the bad guy.
What I Loved:
The Cast
I follow many of these actors and actresses, and they portrayed their roles very well!! For once, Neo was exceptional—I’d love to see him take on more roles like this! Cheng Xiao, who always shines in variety shows, looked like she truly enjoyed herself behind the scenes. While I love her cool and composed roles, I do hope she gets a different type of character next time for more variety. As for Chen Du Ling, I watched an interview with her and felt she deserves more opportunities—she seems like such a fun person! Her teasing and playful energy were perfectly showcased in this drama.
The OST (Original Soundtrack)
I can’t praise the OST enough. Each song felt like a story, told from a perspective that belonged to that character. I shed so many tears whenever specific songs played. Initially, I struggled with the frequent song transitions, but by the end, I found several tracks that I couldn’t stop replaying.
The Editing, Colors, and Cinematic Beauty
One scene that lingers in my mind is Ying Lei’s sacrifice to save Bai Jiu. As Bai Jiu sits in sorrow with flashbacks to the past, he sees Ying Lei’s shadow and follows him. Then comes the dramatic song and the stunning golden-yellow color palette—I was completely drawn. The lyrics struck me deeply:
"You’re in front of me, blocking the pain,
Who cries with swollen eyes, with a broken heart,
Walking, stopping, chasing your voice,
I’ll turn into raindrops, an ancient song,
Running towards you, looking for you… find you."
This drama was so visually mesmerizing that I couldn’t help but admire every bit of detail. I’ll definitely be following this director’s work in the future!
The Side Characters
Seeing Ai Mi and Zuo Ye again brought me to tears! I know this isn’t a direct continuation of Journey, but it certainly felt like it. Ryan Cheng’s minor role was a wonderful surprise, and it was fun to see the Gong brothers back in action!
What I Didn't Love:
The ending felt unnecessarily dragged out, a pace I didn’t not expect. I also disliked how Ying Lei wasn’t acknowledged as part of the main group. When they mentioned "the five"—Zhou Yuan Zhou, Wen Xiao, Zhuo Yi Chen, Pei Si Jing, and Bai Jiu—I was heartbroken that they didn’t say "six." Ying Lei always felt like an integral part of the team.
Final Thoughts:
I highly recommend Fangs of Fortune if you’re looking for a visually captivating drama with alluring aesthetics and a simple yet emotionally engaging story. Just be sure to have plenty of tissues ready!
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An incredible story that lets you feel every emotion with its stillness
This drama is a journey that teaches the importance of bonds between people (and demons), while also pondering on the nature of evil and the value of personal choices. While watching this drama, I often pondered about the ways experiences shape us into who we are, and I must say, I had ample time to do so.I gave the story a rating of 9, because in the end, it was a very strong and emotional story that never tried to lie to the audience about its core. Surely, there are many twists that leave you stunned, but the story knew what it wanted to tell, and it told exactly that. It promised, and it delivered.
When I had to rate the acting in this drama, I hesitated a lot, as I had a lot of mixed feelings. I believe two of the actors in the main cast have carried the drama on their shoulders, making up for the lakings in others. Hou Ming Hao's portrayal of Zhu Yan was incredible, his character captured my attention from the moment he appeared on screen, and he dominated every frame he was in. The other actor who made a major contribution is Lester Lin (Lin Zi Ye), yet I absolutely cannot even begin to describe what impressed me in his work so much here without revealing any spoilers. He had a difficult role to play, and he performed it perfectly.
I was not as impressed with the other members of the main cast. My honorable positive mentions would be Xu Zhen Xuan and Cheng Xiao - their characters were memorable, and their acting was solid. As for the remaining two... I believe this was Chen Du Ling's weakest role out of what I've seen. Compared to TTEOTM and Journey to love, and even Lotus Casebook, she was just not it. I watched FoF before I wached the other three, and I was genuinely impressed by her performance in them, as my first impression of her acting came from FoF.
Tian Jia Rui also deserves a comment from me here. I believe he remembered that he can actually use his facial muscles to portray his character's emotions by episode 10. Or rather, he started using expressions other than blank stare and frown to play his character, which was a welcome change.
The music was a highlight of the drama, with ending song being the perfect balm for your soul after emotionally charged moments that this drama has in abundance. Seeing actors perform their adorable dance while in character outfits was a real joy.
So here we come to the rewatch value. Surely the story is amazing, the music is incredible, and you can disregard Tian Jia Rui's poker face without much effort, but there is one aspect where this drama really loses its rewatch value - framing and pacing.
Throughout the entire show I had a feeling I am watching a comic where every panel is a GIF, so now I actually have to wait for the entire GIF to play before I can move to the next panel. There is a neverending supply of long shots with no action happening in them, other than characters doing one thing. Some thing. Any thing. But one per shot. Every emotion is felt and shown for several seconds while the world stands still and lets the character to feel it and the viewer to absorb it. Action scenes sometimes become a turn-based RPG, where everyone just stands and waits while someone is performing their moves. I believe that if you watch FoF on 2x speed, it becomes an action drama. But as it is right now, it is a comic/manhua that forces you to look at every panel for longer than it deserves.
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Amazingly beautiful and very well directed
I waited a long long time for this drama to be out. OMG WOW! It was definitely worth the wait!Everyone has played their roles very well and the little details in the acting and story was very well designed. All the intricate details were amazing. This drama is definitely different from the spoiled princess dramas out there and all the palace power struggles....all same story line. This drama is definitely different and it's a good different.
Neo Huo has played his role extremely well and the chemistry between all of them are in synchrony which makes puts the drama in a different class of its own.
Very well played 👍
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Worth a watch
*Cinematography*:Spectacular rich, sombre set design. This is the thing I loved most about GJM's works, whatever other criticisms I have for his directing. If you're kind of not into the light airy colours lots of period dramas use and loved the dark tones of My Journey to You's aesthetic, then this is for you. Colours aside, GJM seems to really know what kind of shots and scenes he's going for. Nothing is tonally out of place. Everything could be a wallpaper. I'm not kidding when I say this drama is worth a watch based on cinematography alone.
*Music*: absolutely amazing, almost every song is playlist-worthy. Liu yuning's been deployed once again and producing masterpieces as usual.
*Story*:
Well right off the bat the casting is amazing. You won't EVER catch an actor slipping in their acting, not even when they're the background of a shot. If they act off, it's because their character is up to something. That's how good they are.
As for the actual writing, it's too early to judge them on character arcs yet. What I'll say is that these characters are written as organic human beings with understandable motivations. So no awkward dialogue, caricatures, etc. On the other hand, the 'elite team' that the main cast is supposed to be feature some people who just. can't. fight. So you need to stretch your imagination a bit there. The good of this is that the show generally lets every character be useful, even if you're sometimes left to wonder if they should be running around fighting demons at all.
Thematically, the show does a great job giving it's antagonists understandable philosophical perspectives that conflict with the heroes'. However, it does 'cop-out' too many times by giving them convenient resolutions instead of letting the clash of ideas run its course. So while the heroes have been challenges ideologically pretty much every arc, they've not changed much. Another thing is, while the show is very good at show not telling for establishing personalities, lore, backstories, you name it, it kind of drops the ball on thematic content and prefers to deliver them through long, rambling monologues copiously inserted between climactic fight scenes.
Some very minor points: this show delivers it's lore in bits and pieces (no intro infodump here). This can be fun or confusing depending on how you see it. Next, I really like how demon characters get demon names. Like not titles but mythological names. It isn't something I see often and suits them way more than 'The ___ king of demons'.
Also, even though the plot is technically 'investigations' of demon crimes, it's not really a crime solving show so don't go into it with that expectation. It has the crime show aesthetic of morbid atmosphere and corpses and running into creepy places, but it delivers them to the bad guy's lair without much piecing together clues because that's not what this show is about. Most twists (and there are plenty) are delivered via dialogue, not figured out by the main 'detectives'.
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Too grey,Arty,Corpses' make up . Dullness overload
Really good acting and story line but the director is obsessed with his own "artiness" so much so it destroyed vewer's enjoyment.Every single frame is like a painting with beautiful scenery and art form sometimes with beautiful music and camera work but hey, 40 minutrs every single episode can kill my endurance .
Everything becomes "flat"with flat speech,flat voice,flat grey light to the point my brain dies and I feel depressed. Everyone speaks in whispery flat voice.
To fit the grey dull "arty" pictures,the actors have ugly overly white thick pasty make up which destroyed their natural beauty again totally depressing the viewers. They look like corpses
So my rewatch rating is zero and I will recommend watching it if you want to cultivate endurance of boredom and depression watching corpses talking in exactly the same tone for 30hours
The diector need to reflect and stop being so Artym this is a drama not a painting so totally one dimensional
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One Of The Best If 2024
I am all in with this drama. I see some people are disappointed because it has humor and wanted it to be dark the entire show. You HAVE to have the relief from the darkness to enjoy it when you are traveling through it. Genius director and script writer(s). Episode 9 had me so enthralled that I got irritated at my dog for wanting to go outside to relieve herself. Thankfully I can push pause and miss nothing. The title is misleading because I thought this was about vampires and almost didn't watch it. I can't rave about this drama too much. The guest actors are so great to watch. The leads and 2nd leads including the young boy, make this drama worth your time. I have laughed, I have cried and I want more episodes than just 2 per day. Don't miss this one.Was this review helpful to you?
Dated "hetero love " that shoul have been a BL love
Disclaimer: I am a huge BL story lover and 90% of the vitriols that came out of the tips of my Twitter fingers are straight out of frustration 😆.Let me start by saying that I didn't press play on this drama with high hopes. But I'm a fiend and a drama addict, and was looking for my next hit, so I said why not? Well...that will learn ME!!!!! Chiiiiile, besides mayyyybe Neo, the cast are pretty known for their stoneface acting right? So what did I expect from this mess, I don't know. But the acting was so bad that even I, a known Asian drama addict and CDrama apologist and simp, can't vouch for this one. And the fact that some of y'all are on here giving this mess a 10 means that they are worst CDrama simps than me. Because, why? How?!
How bad was it, you've asked? Let me count the ways:
1. BAD ACTING: The biggest culprit being Cheng Xiao, of course. God gave that girl a very pretty face and hyperflexibility in every muscles in her body EXCEPT on the face. Her face muscles STAY in one position, meanmugging...dassit. She can serve a good cunty look and nothing else 😆. So, she always looks mad even when she's smiling, or crying, fighting, sad, flirting, kissing, you name it! I don't get why she hasn't improved all these years after her debut. Mah Gawd!! Even Suzy from the K-Drama side improved. Why isn't this girl getting acting lessons? And then you add Chen Du Ling and Tian Jia Rui to the mix?! And that's how the legendary trifecta of no emotions yet always angry looking adults acting like teenagers was created, children.
The point is, none of these actors should have been main. Neo is not the most skilled or versatile actor, but he shines when he is surrounded by other really good actors or a veteran supporting cast. So it made no sense that they expected him to carry that whole show on his back, while the other people were just standing there looking bored or just blank. Like shit was happening, high stake plot points were happening and Chen Du Ling was just blankly standing there... 😑just existing lol. It's almost as if once the camera changed focus from one actor to another, we're supposed to forget that the other actors exist lol. Everybody is fighting around you and you're just standing ther bored?!...gurl, wha?! Also, these are characters who have suffered insurmountable trauma that requires a lot of work from the actors to portray, but the majority of the time they just look bored, slightly annoyed, or ready to pop a vein trying to look "sad" lol. Ugh, it was soooo bad. Anyways, next!
2. Scriptwriting, Romance, and Female Characters Treatment: like I said I'm an apologist. I love me a cheezy Asian Drama, bad CGI and wonky ass writing included. Not despite, but because 🤭. IFYK! So what they have plot holes? Tchuippssss! If you get the gist of it, who cares...right?! Wellllll ☝🏾yes, but with limits. Although, I'm expecting Tyler Perry's level of writing, also don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. This drama was obviously written by a gay man who thinks that's how straight people act when in love. But I'm like "heeeeeh...that's not what this means in heterosexual, sorry girl!". Oooooor, written by a gay man who wanted to write a "love story" about two dudes lusting after each other (my favorite kinds 🤪) and remembered that China doesn't allow BL anymore. So they split the love interest character into two different characters, one as a girl and the other one as a man. And it could have worked, but again...unfortunately for this man, he doesn't understand the essence of a good romance. And that's been his stumbling block even during his Ice Fantasy era. He does the opposite of what straight male directors do, which is equally as bad. Good romance is not having a male character fawn over a woman for no good imaginable reason while she stays stoic and cold. That's stalking and annoying. Like walk us through them falling in love and bonding and what makes them special to each other. They may not know but we the viewers need to know. Are we suppose to crack the screenwriters brain open to understand why the main leads love each other? And also, all of the male characters have better romance and romantic moments with each other than the leads. The fan vidoes and art tells you all you need to know. The girls looked like beards, while the boys were doing the nasty behind their gf back on the dl lol. It was so weird.
Also, the scriptwriting makes everything feels forced. Whatever happens to "show don't tell." The whole time I was told you how to feel about these characters. So, everything felt forced because the majority of the time they looked like they either about to pop a vein or bored. So how am I supposed to feel anything? I'm blaming both the script and the acting on that one. Like I said, there were no range between all 4 fours actors. Between the 4 of them I only saw 5 emotions top. And that's because Neo brought all of the 3 emotions he knew how to act on screen 😆.
3. Hijinks, Music, and the big bad: everything about this drama felt like you were being manipulated into feelings certain emotions. None of it felt genuine. They use the music like american sitcoms use laugh tracks, copiously and unironically to let you know that now is where "we laugh" , "here come the fighting. and how would you know that some cool martial arts move is about to happen? well we have to let you know with our cool heavy metal rock fusion song", "laugh now dumb audience that's why we have the quirky music. Laugh puppets laugh"...so freaking weird!! And then that little boy and his weird homoerotic fetish with his "gege"...he is a child!!! What's with Edward Guo and his penchant with having younger sibling (really realy young sibling) express some type of very weird possessive almost sexual in nature feelings for their brother figure or "gege". Like I get it, they are not related...but ewwww! Also...why was he always screaming?!! My nerves were grated!
Anyways, let me wrap this up lol. I think I have said enough...although I would love to expound more on how eyerollingly mediocre or dated the story itself was...I think I have said what I needed to say and even what I didn't need to say lol. This is not a good drama, regardless of the veneer. It's not unwatchable 🤷🏾♀️. Some may even enjoy it, but it was not for my pallate.
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Too depressing for me
I am probably 1 out of 100 people, but Fangs of Fortune didn’t work for me. And I really wanted to like it - I had been looking forward to it for several months - but unfortunately I couldn’t.The main reason FoF didn’t work for me is that I could not handle its everyone-and-everything-is-doomed vibe - the story is packed with heartbraking events with very few comedic moments that interrupt all the pain and that give the viewer time to breath. If you are into emotional pain, heartbreak, angst and desperation, FoF will be a feast for you and my following complaints regarding storytelling (pacing and character development) will merely be a little nuisance. But for me this drama was simply too depressing to enjoy.
Storytelling-wise my biggest complaint is about the pacing of this story because something about it was off. There simply wasn’t a rhythm I could flow with - I perceived the whole drama as a mere succession of more or less connected events without narrative arcs to guide a viewer through it.
Apart from that, I also had issues with the character development or better the lack of it. At some point I felt that the lead characters had morphed into a collective of more or less interchangeable units that were all willing to sacrifice themselves for the whole entity. I assume the story provided the moments where those characters reached the emotional turning points where they formed a deep bond of love but for me these moments where either so fleeting that they never stuck with me or they drowned in an ocean of heartbreak. Therefore, the bonding of the lead characters was something that I just had to accept eventually without emotionally understanding it from a storytelling perspective. FoF relies heavily on the self sacrificing trope and the majority of the characters have martyr syndrome. However, I felt that for very few of them their martyrism is based in the narrative.
So, why did I torture myself and hate-watched all 34 and 1/2 episodes instead of dropping FoF eventually? The answer is Hou Ming Hao. He‘s magnetic. I have no better explanation. He pulled my gaze to the screen and locked it there, so I had to watch every single episode of FoF, no matter if I wanted to or not.
And there is one thing that I loved about FoF - the closing credits. This madness of letting the actors, fully in costume but NOT in character, break the fourth wall while performing a happy group dance appeals to my taste.
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i wanted to love it but i couldn't tolerate Wen Xiao anymore too much fake crying
I only started watching because of clips from instagram. not just edits by fan pages but the official iqiyi clips made it look cool. it started off good and a catchy OST song. however Wen Xiao got on my last nerve after awhile. i can handle 1 character in a demon hunting group that can't really protect themselves but 2 of them in a small group is too much, especially since damsel in distress cries all of the time. i quit because i couldn't take her fake crying anymore. if your going to cry at least make it convincing and it would make you slightly more tolerable. honestly if your going to write a placeholder to pass the restrictions of Censorship Female lead at least make her a tolerable character with an actress with good acting skills so people didn't wish that you scraped her whole character to make the show watchable or even pretty good. and figured out from the pros how to make a bromance that passes censorship. yeah all of the people that loved her might have done reviews on this platform but there's plenty of people who think that the character is poorly written and the acting by Chen Duling is subpar.Was this review helpful to you?
Visually Stunning but Emotionally Flat
I really wanted to love Fangs of Fortune, but after 20 episodes, I had to drop it.Let’s start with the good: the production is undeniably beautiful. The set design, costumes, and especially the dance number at the end of each episode were genuinely a highlight for me — elegant, haunting, and one of the most creative touches I’ve seen in recent dramas.
But beyond the aesthetics… the story just didn’t hold up.
The pacing was slow and bloated, with too much talking and not enough actual plot movement. Characters would stand around explaining things for ages, yet I still felt emotionally disconnected from most of them. The romance didn’t develop naturally and felt rushed or flat. Even the fight scenes — though stylish — lacked impact because I wasn’t invested in what was at stake.
By episode 20, I realized I was watching out of obligation, not enjoyment. The mood and tone were dramatic, but without the depth or tension to back it up. Honestly, it felt like a case of style over substance.
I’ll give credit where it’s due: the OST was lovely, the vibe was immersive, and the visuals were strong. But for me, that wasn’t enough to carry the whole drama.
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