This review may contain spoilers
Beautiful visuals with garbage storyline
GJM is great at making every shot look pretty, but when it comes to writing a script and creating well-thought-out characters, he has absolutely zero talent.
Let's start with Zhu Yan / Zhao Yanzhou - the character is either bipolar, or a hypocrite of the highest order. He blames Li Lun (his alleged friend of 30,000 years) for killing humans while he himself has absolutely no problem exploding a man's heart just to prove a point. He puts humans on a pedestal while he doesn't care about demons at all. He is lying, manipulative, gaslighting coward with a sense of grandeur. He lives through a traumatic experience, but instead of being proactive and making up for his mistakes, he chooses to spend 8 years wallowing in his own trauma and then turns his victimhood into a weapon and an excuse for every single bad action taken afterwards. In fact, he is so passive that if not for Li Lun's scheming, he would never have gotten a chance to atone for any of what he did. He is positioned as the hero of the story, almost a messiah, but in reality he is a pathetic coward who wants to be suicided by another hero's hands and does nothing to pay for his mistakes.
(Sidenote - Neo did a great job with the garbage script he was given, and judging by interviews, he had a much better grasp at what ZYZ should really be than the director ever did).
Wen Xiao - the first episode she's in portrays her as a quirky, charming, smart and brave, but starting with episode 2 she makes a 180 turn and becomes weak, useless, and turns into a damsel in perpetual distress, there only for the sake of others saving her. Which is such as SHAME, because her character had so much potential!!
Zhuo Yichen- perhaps, the most well-written and flashed out character in the whole story. The only one whose actions more or less make sense. Saving grace of the whole show. The only complaint I have is how fast he forgave ZYZ for what he did.
Li Lun - I can't even call him a villain, to be honest. The whole premise rests on him killing some humans in a situation where, truthfully, going berserk is totally justified. He gets chastised, mortally wounded by ZYZ, betrayed by him again, and abandoned. Then, the said friend spends most of the show antagonizing him and theatrically offering his new human friends more compassion than Li Lun has ever received from him. It gets so bad in the end that another character dies because of ZYZ's cowardice and inability to make amends. The whole story arch would've made more sense if Li Lun killed ZYZ's friend, but he did not, so ZYZ's antagonizing him comes off as ZYZ's own attempt at portraying himself as a hero at Li Lun's expense, which in turn cancels out any of his attempts at atoning for his sins. What's worse, in the end ZYZ again does NOTHING to make amends, and it is ZYC who gets through to Li Lun and stops his spiraling out.
Side note- Li Lun is the driving force behind the whole show. If he weren't scheming and planning his "revenge", the main lead would have nothing to do, which to me is another huge problem with the script.
What pissed me off the most- the sheer amount of unnecessary queerbaiting. GJM spent so much time putting queerbaiting and innuendos in the show while forgetting to actually write a decent script; it's unforgivable.
The "romance" between ZYZ and WX is not fleshed out; more time is spent on trying to hammer down the idea of ZYZ and ZYC being "soulmates".
Another pet peeve of mine is the amount of crying. I'm sorry, but if you have one or more characters shedding tears every episode, it completely negates the impact.
I need to commend the cast for doing a marvelous job with the trashy script they were given. Brilliant performances and commendable attempt at making the story palatable. I wish they had more input in the show, perhaps the storyline could've been salvaged.
Soundtrack is also very well done, beautiful songs by beautiful singers.
The visual line of the show is gorgeous, but too many plot holes and awful characterisation that don't make sense overshadow it.
P.S. There is no happy ending like others have claimed on this website- in the extra episode, there is a teaser that maybe... but in reality, it has been stated before in the show that in a situation like that, a demon cannot come back to life. The screenplay also says he does not. To be honest, the whole exposition of the last 2-3 episodes (including an extra one) seems to serve only one purpose- pain and suffering fetish, most of which is completely unnecessary.
Let's start with Zhu Yan / Zhao Yanzhou - the character is either bipolar, or a hypocrite of the highest order. He blames Li Lun (his alleged friend of 30,000 years) for killing humans while he himself has absolutely no problem exploding a man's heart just to prove a point. He puts humans on a pedestal while he doesn't care about demons at all. He is lying, manipulative, gaslighting coward with a sense of grandeur. He lives through a traumatic experience, but instead of being proactive and making up for his mistakes, he chooses to spend 8 years wallowing in his own trauma and then turns his victimhood into a weapon and an excuse for every single bad action taken afterwards. In fact, he is so passive that if not for Li Lun's scheming, he would never have gotten a chance to atone for any of what he did. He is positioned as the hero of the story, almost a messiah, but in reality he is a pathetic coward who wants to be suicided by another hero's hands and does nothing to pay for his mistakes.
(Sidenote - Neo did a great job with the garbage script he was given, and judging by interviews, he had a much better grasp at what ZYZ should really be than the director ever did).
Wen Xiao - the first episode she's in portrays her as a quirky, charming, smart and brave, but starting with episode 2 she makes a 180 turn and becomes weak, useless, and turns into a damsel in perpetual distress, there only for the sake of others saving her. Which is such as SHAME, because her character had so much potential!!
Zhuo Yichen- perhaps, the most well-written and flashed out character in the whole story. The only one whose actions more or less make sense. Saving grace of the whole show. The only complaint I have is how fast he forgave ZYZ for what he did.
Li Lun - I can't even call him a villain, to be honest. The whole premise rests on him killing some humans in a situation where, truthfully, going berserk is totally justified. He gets chastised, mortally wounded by ZYZ, betrayed by him again, and abandoned. Then, the said friend spends most of the show antagonizing him and theatrically offering his new human friends more compassion than Li Lun has ever received from him. It gets so bad in the end that another character dies because of ZYZ's cowardice and inability to make amends. The whole story arch would've made more sense if Li Lun killed ZYZ's friend, but he did not, so ZYZ's antagonizing him comes off as ZYZ's own attempt at portraying himself as a hero at Li Lun's expense, which in turn cancels out any of his attempts at atoning for his sins. What's worse, in the end ZYZ again does NOTHING to make amends, and it is ZYC who gets through to Li Lun and stops his spiraling out.
Side note- Li Lun is the driving force behind the whole show. If he weren't scheming and planning his "revenge", the main lead would have nothing to do, which to me is another huge problem with the script.
What pissed me off the most- the sheer amount of unnecessary queerbaiting. GJM spent so much time putting queerbaiting and innuendos in the show while forgetting to actually write a decent script; it's unforgivable.
The "romance" between ZYZ and WX is not fleshed out; more time is spent on trying to hammer down the idea of ZYZ and ZYC being "soulmates".
Another pet peeve of mine is the amount of crying. I'm sorry, but if you have one or more characters shedding tears every episode, it completely negates the impact.
I need to commend the cast for doing a marvelous job with the trashy script they were given. Brilliant performances and commendable attempt at making the story palatable. I wish they had more input in the show, perhaps the storyline could've been salvaged.
Soundtrack is also very well done, beautiful songs by beautiful singers.
The visual line of the show is gorgeous, but too many plot holes and awful characterisation that don't make sense overshadow it.
P.S. There is no happy ending like others have claimed on this website- in the extra episode, there is a teaser that maybe... but in reality, it has been stated before in the show that in a situation like that, a demon cannot come back to life. The screenplay also says he does not. To be honest, the whole exposition of the last 2-3 episodes (including an extra one) seems to serve only one purpose- pain and suffering fetish, most of which is completely unnecessary.
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