Leave this woman alone, for f sake!
I did find the premise of a relationship between an older woman and a younger man interesting.Unfortunately it and the chemistry between the leads are the only aspects of the show that make it somewhat worth watching.
The writing oscillates between surprisingly realistic and restrained to soapy melodrama bullshit, it feels quite inconsistent.
There are scenes I really liked especially at the beginning, but also lots of uninteresting and unnecessary stuff happens to pad the length of the show. As the show went on I started fast forwarding through more and more parts.
The main issue of the story is that Jian Bing is absolutely correct - she should be focusing on herself right after her divorce and balance her life again. And yet! Everyone seems to be pestering her constantly - her ex about work and marriage issues, clients are being awful and into all of this comes Sheng Yang with his absurd childish crush from ten years ago.
And. He. Does. Not. Leave. Her. Alone.
I was sincerely hoping they would not get together in the end, that they become friends, she mentors him or something like that. Because it would be a nice subversion, while still exploring this unusual friendship.
Alas, we get a soap opera romance instead.
I'm a bit annoyed that his strategy of persistently hounding her and constantly doing things for her until she relents is shown to be effective. I guess I wanted more of his character to show through earlier, rather than him just being useful to her.
But the actors do work well together and I mostly enjoyed Bai Bai's performance (which reminded me of Crystal Liu in "Dream of Splendor").
What also hugely drags the drama down are many of the side characters - they are as soapy and annoying as some of the subplots. I super didn't give a shit about the hockey sister, her boyfriend and his dreadful uncle.
And of course the ending is what it is, everyone pairs up exactly as you'd expect.
If they trimmed all the boring side characters and plots and turned this into a 15 episode drama ( and maybe tried to make it less cliched and predictable) I would've enjoyed it more.
In the end it's just sort of average.
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An ok time waster
I didn't like Ning Que as a character, and I didn't like the actor playing him.That and the slow uneven pacing were my main big problems.
The main romance is a bit (ok, at times a lot) uncomfortable.
The fighting is mostly good, but sometimes the CG sucks. And the fights are actually surprisingly rare.
Long Qing is a bitch, but I like him as a character.
Ye Hongye is bae, Bookworm Maniac is a sweet cinnamon bun.
(seriously, the supporting characters in this are better than the main ones.)
I'll watch season 2, but I need a break. This shit is LONG.
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Decent entertainment.
It's competent in most aspects.The hype honestly makes it a worse experience, because you expect something mindblowing and genre breaking.
It's not that.
It's Battle Royale Fall Guys.
It's mostly enjoyable. The social commentary is a bit heavy handed at times, but it's nice to have it there.
It's not that original, it's not perfect.
It's fine.
(random note: The scenes with English speaking foreigners were hilarious. The writing was mostly ok, but it didn't come off as entirely natural. And combined with not-stellar acting it felt odd. I guess like Asian scenes feel in western movies maybe.)
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GBotC continues being good
The formula still works.If you enjoyed the previous series, you'll like Worm Valley.
Most of my other review points still apply - the writing is tight, the story has structure and the pacing is mostly very good. The short length really helps.
There's not a whole ton of character development, because the heroic trio are more iconic than dramatic characters. So Old Hu does his feng shui, Shirley kicks and shoots things and Fatty is greedy and annoying. For the most part it works, but sometimes it was a bit frustrating how one note they could be. (Fatty especially could use SOME development)
The production value is great. I'm not sure this even cost that much money, but it looks excellent - everything from sets, CGI to shot composition are well thought out and executed.
This season we even get wonderful rubber monsters (not a spoiler since they're in the trailer) and more!
The treatment of indigenous people was also mostly ok - they are humanized and act both heroic and villainous depending on character. Cool stuff!
It looks like the story is taking us to snowy freezing Kunlun next, and I can't wait!
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Wife guy saves everything
It's Joy of Life, but a bit different. There, that's the review.It has all the cool actors from JoL, it has the same approach to humour, the characters are nice and the story is competent if a bit predictable.
In my JoL review I wrote:
"Put simply - the show is all about intrigue and plots, with a side of romance and mystery.
Trouble with this - the intrigue is not very clever or engaging, character motivations are shallow or terribly overcomplicated.
....
I wanna watch Fan Xian and his brother run a book shop, or do poetry battles and flirt with pretty ladies. I don't care who his parents were, or what the two princes are secretly plotting."
MHH improves on this, somewhat. There's no mystery and the annoying courtly intrigue only takes over about half way into the drama. Before that we do get the fun characters doing fun things. And yeah, the second half is suddenly about "Serious Matters" and I immediately liked it a lot less.
The main couple has great chemistry and I loved seeing them together.
The show leans heavily into the girlboss thing, but it's more lip service than the plot actually reflecting that girls can do it too. Like there's a whole huge chunk where the wife is not even present (because we need space for another love interest, which is the same thing I complained about in JoL). And in many other episodes she doesn't really do anything clever or competent, she's just there.
It's fine. It's ok to binge and skip the boring parts. It's fun to watch the many wife guys be cute and a bit useless, it's cute to see the main wife guy's dynamic with his cool wife.
The story I could not care less about. Of course there's a big "twist" at the end, because this is Joy of Life But Different (tm). Whatever.
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Flawed, but fun.
The first half is fun and enjoyable, the second unfortunately drags out and shifts in tone towards serious and surprisingly violent.This did NOT need a goofy CGI bossfight.
Over all it's a neat film in the vein of Chinese Ghost Story.
The actors are very decent.
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More Daomu, with all the usual good and bad.
Reunion was pretty good.So it's quite jarring to start watching UN and be back to pre-Reunion Daomu standards.
It's a step up from the previous Lost Tombs, but barely up to Reunion's ankles.
The Actors:
They're mostly good. I wasn't sure about Wuxie and Zhang at first, because they're a switch up of the usual formula - a rather masculine Wuxie (with what looks like permanent 5 o'clock shadow and a massive chin) and a very feminine looking Little Master. But they're both pretty good. This might actually be one of my fav Zhang's, because he actually acts at times and shows some emotions. Fatty's acceptable, Xiao Hua is hot and pouty and Shades is also there. (honestly, Shades' actor is one of the weaker ones and his role is super one note. But I did enjoy his flirting with XH)
The side cast is ok, no real standouts.
The Story:
It's bad. We're used to this, right? Daomu is a mess. It goes absolutely nowhere, there's no resolution to anything, nothing builds up, nothing happens, we get an open ending as usual. No surprises, but it still hurts.
The Production:
It's ok? Maybe weaker than we're used to. Solid CG at times, but much of the tomb raiding feels very cheap, and the fights with the usual animal hazards look super silly. Luckily there isn't much mystic nine intrigue and plotting, but the tomb raiding which I mostly watch these shows for is not that great.
Random notes:
- is Panzi a joke? Is he a joke character? I've not read the books, so someone please tell me. Is the fact we have two characters who are friends named Panzi and Pang Zi a joke?
- there's some fanservice in this one. Oh boy.
- We get Ah Ning and she's handled even worse than in Reunion. I laughed out loud when THAT happened. I guess the book has to be to blame, it's so silly.
That's about it. Another Daomu notch in the ol' belt. Will we ever get to see Palace in the Clouds? Who even knows.
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This review may contain spoilers
They don't make 'em like that anymore.
Firstly - I appreciate that this comes from a time before ubiquitous CG use - it's really quite minimal here.It's shot quite nicely on real sets, real locations, with real stunt people etc.
Compared to the overpolished airbrushed wuxia these days, it's more gritty and closer to realism - people get sweaty, dirty and bloody and not everyone is young and conventionally attractive.
I also have to say that this is probably one of my favourite, if not the favourite Jin Yong story and adaptation. There's no courtly intrigue, no annoying patriotism. Yes, the main theme is of course strife in the jianghu, but that's fine.
It's, in fact, surprisingly anarchistic even - no martial move, no countermove. No party, no enemies.
It heavily explores the idea of transgressing boundaries - there's the (fairly common) theme of orthodox parties vs. "evil cults" and what it really means to be/do evil. There's some queer subtext in the concept of male soulmates from opposing factions leaving society altogether and living together in seclusion. (they "play music together", sure they do. :))
And the main McGuffin of the whole story - the Purity Skill Book/ Mallow Journal (or Sunflower Manual as translated elsewhere) - is all about crossing the boundaries of gender. I appreciate that despite a lot of visible disgust over the "self-castrated" villains, Dongfang Bubai is actually portrayed by a woman and it's made quite clear she's different to the others.
(I'm using "she/her", because in my mind she's clearly a trans woman - at least in this adaptation. "I'd rather be a woman than the emperor." and so on.)
Unlike Yue Buchun who transgressed for power and prestige, and Lin Pingzhi who does it for revenge, she seemingly just...transitions. Girl really just wanted to leave the jianghu behind and spend her days doing embroidery. (and spoiling her scheming mediocre boyfriend)
Ultimately even in defeat she's shown sympathy and we understand her love was real, and her end tragic.
Finally - I'm glad that while sympathetic characters die, it's not a complete tragedy in the end. (as is so common in wuxia and Jin Yong stories.)
Oh and the music is an absolute banger.
I'm glad to have this on DVD, it's worth revisiting.
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This review may contain spoilers
Satisfying!
At the beginning I could not uderstand why people were not giving this perfect scores - it starts so good!The premise was interesting and the characters were intriguing and cool.
At the end, I kind of get it and I am not rating it as near-perfect either. Let's break down the pros and cons:
+ Mao Xiao Tong continues to be the most beautiful woman in the world. On top of that she plays a strong swordswoman in this show and that's a bit of a new position for her. She does good.
+ most side characters are well developed and distinct
+ the cast includes many older actors and there are no stiff idols around
+ the fights are super good, very consistently well done. There's very little chi power use and it's limited to a few characters, most fighters can't even fly at all or very well. I do like this low power-level style wuxia more.
+ the story makes sense and the inevitable involvement of political struggles and various country-wide betrayals were not too annoying.
+ I liked that despite being constantly touted as brilliant, the main character was not unbelievably skilled, not some alien-like genius. You can for the most part anticipate the twists and turns, and you can follow the logic behind things. This is actually important and makes these kinds of stories relatable and engaging. Way too many mystery shows based on Brilliant Genius Boy characters will keep telling you how smart they are, rather than showing you and letting you figure things out so you too can feel smart.
+ I LOOOOOOOOVED the twist on the usual couple dynamic where now She is the Tough Badass and He is the Smart Flower. Loved it all the way through, her tossing him around, grabbing his shirt, catching him when he fell down...Inject that shit straight in my veins.
+ I was glad that the protagonist was not yet another one in the growing list of soft boys who only pretend not to be able to do martial arts. Nope, he actually is a weak scholar who can do the escaping technique for a little bit. Nice to see them commit to the bit.
- I was a bit let down by Chen Xiao as the protagonist and his chemistry (or lack thereof) with Mao Xiao Tong. He was...fine. Serviceable. But the high standard of the show would've warranted someone better suited for the role. I know he can be better, his match up with Crystal Liu in "Dream of Splendor" for instance worked a lot nicer.
- No way around this - the show does have pacing issues and it does drag after the first half or so, only to pick up towards the end. We do get to explore and flesh out characters, but there were way too few fights and exciting moments in that section.
All in all - this does a lot of what I want from new-wuxia. Fun characters, plays and twists on tropes, excellent low level fights, not a lot of political bullshit and no traditional tragic endings.
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Surprisingly decent, hoping for another season!
There aren't a lot of ninja around anymore. Not just the shinobi in the fiction of the series, just ninja media in general.I feel like the last big one was maybe Naruto?
This came out of nowhere and delivered some solid ninja stuff.
It's also funny, which is a bonus!
That said, the pacing was a bit too slow at times, felt like it could've been edited tighter.
And while I kind of get the Britpop music choice, it really didn't work with the show for me.
I do hope they make another season, though I'm not expecting it, considering it's Netflix.
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This review may contain spoilers
Another weaker season, possibly the nail in the coffin for this series.
I'm having trouble judging this fairly, because the (AI translated?) subtitles on WeTV were so incredibly bad and incomprehensible.I barely got why the protagonists went to the coral spiral and it feels appropriate - because it didn't matter in the slightest.
SPOILER - they just find the bone mirror randomly in a place. And after a brief fight with an octopus that's it, they have it and it never comes up again. Why was it important? I don't think it was.
This season was just annoying to me - none of the actors felt like they wanted to be there, they all looked tired of this series.
What do I even write here? Is it objectively horrible? No. Overall it's a bit of a step up from Kunlun - the CG of the ship looks mostly solid (even though it's very obvious) and I get why they did it - filming on the ocean is probably an insurance nightmare.
That said, the pacing didn't feel great. We spend a lot of time on the ship and when we do get into the tomb raiding, it's not actually tomb raiding. This one was more of an adventure movie, but it lacked tension and drive, or a sense of adventure. It just felt like actors running in front of a green screen and on sets.
One of the major problems of many tomb raiding series is the lack of antagonists and obstacles - if you don't have bad guys and tomb traps, what do you place in our heroes' way? Usually it's animals or natural hazards.
And like in Kunlun, the protagonists have to battle "animals" in this one. It's as ridiculous as ever - the mermaids are competently made in CG, but the fights lack any stakes or a real sense of danger. They just attack, because...And the heroes absolutely murder hundreds of mermaids.
Most of the side characters are weak, and the minority ones feel offensive - their dubbing sounds like mentally challenged children. And of course the minority characters die, because of course they do. Even the show acknowledges they always die in this series.
There is some overarching conflict between Shirley and Hu Bayi this season, revolving around his adventuring spirit and how that puts him in danger. But it doesn't really resolve in a satisfying way, she just accepts it after he almost dies yet again.
The show keeps flashing back to Lost Caverns or Worm Valley and I kept thinking how much better the show was then. Stop reminding me!
What happened?!
Was it covid complications? Did the actors just get tired, do they dislike the story?
They do a setup for another season and another adventure to save Duoling's life, but I seriously doubt there will be a sequel.
And if so, I don't think these actors are coming back.
It's just all such a shame.
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This review may contain spoilers
Very good, despite being a Jin Yong story. ;-P
I loved this, most of the time.I'm not going to talk about how good of an adaptation it is, because I've not read the story and there are other reviews for that.
I'll say though - some people mention that the characters were altered and "wicked" ones were made more sympathetic. That it "dilutes" the story that was originally much more cynical.
Well thanks for that, thank goodness!
It's a Jin Yong story, so you know it's gonna end tragically, and it sure does. But I appreciated that it was made lighter and less depressing throughout.
I will also say that I still hate the everpresent wuxia concept of heroic sacrifice of life/happiness for duty.
OK, wuxia blasphemy over.
Overall thoughts before a list of random stuff: The show is well done and works on almost every level. Its look is quite striking - contrasty and mostly well and interestingly lit. The fights are well choreographed, but sometimes suffer from overly rapid edits and quick cuts, it's disorienting. The truly important moments deliver the impact. Music is actually memorable. The characters are well defined and most of them complex. The actors have great chemistry and even the child actors for Hu Fei and Xiaomei were very good and entertaining. There's some dodgy dubbing, Peter Ho's character for instance and the two little sons. Most main characters sound very good though.
Random thoughts:
- buddhism is fucking dumb and cowardly
- all this love and all of it unfulfilled, almost like that's one of themes. Still salty about it tho.
- poison girl is bae, in every adaptation of these stories I've watched actually. Loved her.
- Hu Fei has a thing for strong girls who tell him what to do. I can relate.
- Qin Jun Jie actually looks like he could fight, an extremely rare thing for a wuxia protagonist lately. Sad, but we take those.
I'll probably rewatch this someday, because it's genuinely good. But man, I might just turn it off a bit before the very end.
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Amazing fights and visuals, disappointing otherwise
It was a surprise for sure.1) The movie looks shockingly good. Yes, it was supposedly made for cheap, there are some instances of visibly lacking CG. But the way it's lit, shot, coloured etc. - amazing. Stuff is clear, visible, intentional, pleasant to the eye. Looks a lot like a 90s movie, but with a wider palette.
2) It's, unfortunately, a black tanktop vanity project for Donnie Yen. The guy cannot pass for a man in his 30s, effectively half his real age. Yen also does not have the acting range needed for this kind of character.
The funny/lighthearted parts are not that funny or lighthearted and the serious moments are awkward, feel extremely long and overly pathos-filled. (for an example, time the wine-bowl scene. That could've easily been edited down some, with more of an emotional impact.)
3) The story is whatever. The more wuxia/series movies I watch, the more I realize I don't enjoy Jin Yong/Jin Yong-style stories. It is what it is, I'm sure fans of the book are outraged about stuff.
4) The fights however, are incredibly good. Excellent, thrilling, fucking cool as hell. If you looked at the 90s wuxia and imagined a logical evolution with advances in filmmaking, this is what it would be.
No notes.
(also goes to show what you can do on a budget if you have real martial artists instead of celebrity idols in your cast)
Whatever the fuck the new Kung Fu Cult Master did with the flashy CG bullshit, this is the opposite of that.
5) Minor point, but I really enjoy this "gritty" portrayal of the jianghu people. Everyone's wrinkly, greasy and rugged. The costumes are very different looking and quite lovely.
It's not quite The Blade, but it's miles and miles from the usual "wuxia" you see in cdramas nowadays.
Overall: Meh, but watch it for the fights.
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Probably worth it if you like wuxia and have the time.
edit: I saw this pointed out in another review and remembered I also wanted to say this.This series treats almost all female characters pretty badly. Either they're portrayed as awful people (cold, hateful, bitter and bitchy), or they're "the few good ones" and their cool fighting abilities suddenly vanish. (of course, how else could they be saved by the male protagonists?)
The "awful" women also tend to change their personality entirely once they fall for a man.
And listen, I do enjoy a tsundere who will punish the protagonist for being a snarky little shit. So there were a few characters that did this kind of thing and I liked that.
But overall the women in this show are not handled well.
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As many other cdramas this is way, way too long for its own good.
The show has issues with pacing at the beginning and towards the end.
The overarching story is stretched too thin and it just doesn't support itself over 44 episodes.
You very quickly realize what has to happen at the end and then you're just expecting it to happen. Everything in the middle is supposed to be character development and a few training arcs.
But there's not that much development and not that much training. Some of the smaller story arcs are fun, but aren't amazing on their own and do little for the overall plot.
There is some nice foreshadowing, establishing of characters and setting them up for future events.
The fights are not as common as you might think and they vary in coolness.
Having only seen one other adaptation of Handsome Siblings (the 90s HK movie which is wildly different), I can't say if the issues I see lie with the material being adapted, or the adaptation.
There are a few uncomfortable plots and characters, but nothing too terrible.
I have to say one of the most villainous things one of the main characters ever does is chew with his mouth open. All the time.
Truly, the evilest man alive.
It's not awful, but I expected something better from a classic of the genre.
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Very meh.
This season took forever to properly get into the mystery and thus the first half, to first two thirds dragged a lot.The characters were all miserable and not much happened, only for everything to be resolved in the last few eps.
It's not a terrible mystery, but I wish it got going sooner.
The new De Guo is not great (especially his over-dubbing) and although I'm not attached to the old actor, this one didn't do it for me.
Zhang Ming En keeps convincing me he's not good enough of an actor to pull off a main role. I liked him in Mystic Nine, but whenever he gets more space he reveals his lack of range. Charlene Chen looks visibly bored most of this season. Cici Wang is...there.
Just generally it was not a super enjoyable watch.
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