This review may contain spoilers
SO many montages ! No romance, but Very Cringy cartoony cat manifestations
If you are here for Ding Yu Xi & you enjoy watching just about everything he does, you might want to rethink watching this. Yes you will get enough closeups to feed any obsession you might have, & yes, he does an admirable job acting, BUT there is no nice way to say that this is a bit of a dud for all reasons Not Ding Yu Xi. Firstly you must set your expectations as there is no romance for his character & really the character that has a whiff of romance in their storyline is really not worth mentioning.
I wonder if Ding Yu XI was tired of being the romantic lead in insipid dramas & wanted to enjoy himself & do action scenes ??
What you need to know is that this tries really hard to sell bromance & present it as a buddy ensemble drama. It focuses on the mysteries that need to be solved in each episode that propel the plot forward as each mystery solves a piece of the over arching puzzle. They mysteries aren't bad, but it's good to know ahead of time what you are getting into.
I did try to like this ,but it was not that entertaining to me.
Where this goes wrong:
One character is a Foreigner & he 's just handsome enough that they don't want you to be distracted by that because they want you to focus on Ding Yu Xi as the male lead, so they give this guy a uni brow, & a hairstyle that will remind you of America's disco era. He is also shackled with a dumb name :Alibaba ( & yes they do seem to indicate that he is from someplace middle eastern) When he speaks his native language, it just dialogue played backwards. He's part of an ensemble of buddies that will eat up way more screen time than they are worth . The group of guys is meant to be a brotherhood of sorts, that provides comedic relief. They are much less than endearing & the humor depends on your personal taste. Ding Yu Xi transforming into a cat doesn't actually happen that often & when it does ,the animation is very colorful but ....it just doesn't work. I'm exaggerating a bit here, but it was awful and the proportions are weird. Thankfully Ding Yu Xi is able to convey dangerous & angry [ cat ] without transforming the majority of the time-which is a huge relief.(honestly& sadly, the CGI cat IS embarrassing)
Another negative is that there are a ridiculous amount of LONG montages, where memories of a character are paraded in front of you & characters don't even have to die for the montages to be thrown in.
I'm not sure that this deserves 8 stars, but it is beautiful looking & then there's Ding Yu Xi & also there are the "mysteries" that get solved that are somewhat interesting [& really the focus of the drama]
***********************
spoilers ahead:
**********************
A big tragedy is that the character that you think is Ding Yu Xi's nemesis really isn't & besides
Ding Yu Xi, that's the character ,(& thier relationship with Ding Yu Xi, ) that you most care about, so when they "off" that character, it taints how you end up feeling about the drama over all.
I wonder if Ding Yu XI was tired of being the romantic lead in insipid dramas & wanted to enjoy himself & do action scenes ??
What you need to know is that this tries really hard to sell bromance & present it as a buddy ensemble drama. It focuses on the mysteries that need to be solved in each episode that propel the plot forward as each mystery solves a piece of the over arching puzzle. They mysteries aren't bad, but it's good to know ahead of time what you are getting into.
I did try to like this ,but it was not that entertaining to me.
Where this goes wrong:
One character is a Foreigner & he 's just handsome enough that they don't want you to be distracted by that because they want you to focus on Ding Yu Xi as the male lead, so they give this guy a uni brow, & a hairstyle that will remind you of America's disco era. He is also shackled with a dumb name :Alibaba ( & yes they do seem to indicate that he is from someplace middle eastern) When he speaks his native language, it just dialogue played backwards. He's part of an ensemble of buddies that will eat up way more screen time than they are worth . The group of guys is meant to be a brotherhood of sorts, that provides comedic relief. They are much less than endearing & the humor depends on your personal taste. Ding Yu Xi transforming into a cat doesn't actually happen that often & when it does ,the animation is very colorful but ....it just doesn't work. I'm exaggerating a bit here, but it was awful and the proportions are weird. Thankfully Ding Yu Xi is able to convey dangerous & angry [ cat ] without transforming the majority of the time-which is a huge relief.(honestly& sadly, the CGI cat IS embarrassing)
Another negative is that there are a ridiculous amount of LONG montages, where memories of a character are paraded in front of you & characters don't even have to die for the montages to be thrown in.
I'm not sure that this deserves 8 stars, but it is beautiful looking & then there's Ding Yu Xi & also there are the "mysteries" that get solved that are somewhat interesting [& really the focus of the drama]
***********************
spoilers ahead:
**********************
A big tragedy is that the character that you think is Ding Yu Xi's nemesis really isn't & besides
Ding Yu Xi, that's the character ,(& thier relationship with Ding Yu Xi, ) that you most care about, so when they "off" that character, it taints how you end up feeling about the drama over all.
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