This review may contain spoilers
Drama vs Book (to explain some of the film makers decisions)
As dramas go, it's not half bad, though horribly prolonged. Still I got hooked ngl. But as something that had complex and nuanced source material to take from, it's a disgrace.
Either for sake of Chinese censorship or Xiao Zhan's image they sanitized the plot A LOT. No more gory and horrible subjugation of Shark/Mermen people. In drama it has to be always 50/50 situation. Instead of Shi Ying killing every Merman in sight just for the sake of eliminating the Sea Emperor. In drama we have this walking saint that wants peace and had to experience personal loses from the hands of the enemy to finally be willing to kill a man that was already willing to sacrifice himself for what? Peace of course. Not the book Ying, not the book Yuan either.
Zhu Yan was irritating and insufferable? That's because in drama they decided she couldn't start her training at 9 years old, so they infantalized her teenage self to the point of absurdity. They chose the most child-like actress they could find and prolonged this period by 20 additional subplots, and exposed poor us to the grown up Zhu Yan but with child like adoration for her teacher, for 10 episodes running around and repeating fraze that in the book happened only once and was actually quite adorable. While in the book 19 yo Zhu Yan was fearless, arogant, quick to anger, very entitled, but at the same time a wonderful force of nature.
As the book doesn't contain material for 40 episodes they added quite a lot. With what was changed I'd say maybe 20% remained from the original plot. On the surface key points are still there, but in reality it is already a different story whatsoever. Most of what was added were artificial mechanics to remove any moral ambiguity from Shi Ying's, Zhu Yan's or Zhi Yuan's actions. We cannot have them just go around and fight each other, can we?
Gods forbid they actually feel hate or have any bad thoughts.
The entire cast of side characters was simplified for comedic purposes. Where in the book they all had redeeming qualities and authentic depths. I won't even mention the crime that was committed against poor ChongMing. There is more and more.
It's a shame because the book is not only great but also wrote in a manner that would beautifully translate to the screen, if only someone decided to do it justice.
Either for sake of Chinese censorship or Xiao Zhan's image they sanitized the plot A LOT. No more gory and horrible subjugation of Shark/Mermen people. In drama it has to be always 50/50 situation. Instead of Shi Ying killing every Merman in sight just for the sake of eliminating the Sea Emperor. In drama we have this walking saint that wants peace and had to experience personal loses from the hands of the enemy to finally be willing to kill a man that was already willing to sacrifice himself for what? Peace of course. Not the book Ying, not the book Yuan either.
Zhu Yan was irritating and insufferable? That's because in drama they decided she couldn't start her training at 9 years old, so they infantalized her teenage self to the point of absurdity. They chose the most child-like actress they could find and prolonged this period by 20 additional subplots, and exposed poor us to the grown up Zhu Yan but with child like adoration for her teacher, for 10 episodes running around and repeating fraze that in the book happened only once and was actually quite adorable. While in the book 19 yo Zhu Yan was fearless, arogant, quick to anger, very entitled, but at the same time a wonderful force of nature.
As the book doesn't contain material for 40 episodes they added quite a lot. With what was changed I'd say maybe 20% remained from the original plot. On the surface key points are still there, but in reality it is already a different story whatsoever. Most of what was added were artificial mechanics to remove any moral ambiguity from Shi Ying's, Zhu Yan's or Zhi Yuan's actions. We cannot have them just go around and fight each other, can we?
Gods forbid they actually feel hate or have any bad thoughts.
The entire cast of side characters was simplified for comedic purposes. Where in the book they all had redeeming qualities and authentic depths. I won't even mention the crime that was committed against poor ChongMing. There is more and more.
It's a shame because the book is not only great but also wrote in a manner that would beautifully translate to the screen, if only someone decided to do it justice.
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