This review may contain spoilers
So Much Potential, Not Enough Depth
This is my first time watching a Chinese drama in this genre, so I went into it with excitement. And honestly, the first 10 episodes were amazing. I was completely intrigued, the mystery was working, the atmosphere was great, and I genuinely thought I was going to love this.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, the drama started cramming too much into too little time.
The general storyline is actually good—the essence of the story is really good—but it lacked the proper buildup and cohesion to reach its full potential. There were too many characters, cases, mysteries, and storylines introduced one after another without enough time to breathe. Some storylines I simply didn’t care about, while other mysteries I was genuinely interested in never got the attention or payoff they deserved. Cases would become important and then just fade into the background without feeling properly resolved.
That basically sums up my experience watching this: I understood everything, but at the same time, I didn’t understand anything. I was following what was happening, yet somehow still felt confused because the drama rarely gave me time to process one thing before throwing another at me.
My biggest issue, though, was the lack of character depth.
I didn’t feel genuinely connected to most of the characters, which meant that even when characters died, I didn’t really care. The drama wanted certain moments to feel emotional without doing enough beforehand to make me emotionally invested.
Salty was probably the only character I genuinely became attached to because he was given the most focus. Even with Ding Yuxi’s Zhang Haishi, I don’t feel like we truly got to explore Shrimpy. It basically felt like we got five episodes of Shrimpy and then spent most of the remaining drama with Dark Shrimp. So while I enjoyed that side of the character, I never got enough time with Shrimpy himself to become as attached to him as the story expected me to be.
And that leads directly into my biggest disappointment: the bromance.
The entire emotional core of this drama depends heavily on the relationship between Hai Lu and Hai Xia. Yet we basically get around five episodes establishing that they’re best friends, brothers for life, would sacrifice themselves for each other—and then the drama expects that foundation to carry the emotional weight of the remaining 20+ episodes.
It wasn’t enough.
The show kept telling me how important their relationship was instead of giving me enough time to actually experience it. I needed more scenes of them together, more development, more reasons to fall in love with their friendship before everything happened. I couldn’t fully feel their chemistry, and that wasn’t because of the actors. The writing simply didn’t give their relationship the buildup it needed.
I genuinely wonder how much was deleted because sometimes it feels like entire pieces are missing. If they had spent more time developing their relationship at the beginning, everything toward the end could have hit so much harder.
Honestly, this is one of the rare times I wish a drama had been longer. Give me 40 episodes. Let the characters breathe. Let us actually explore Shrimpy. Develop Salty and Shrimpy individually and together. Let their bromance naturally grow so that when the drama asks me to be devastated over their relationship, I already care.
I also think Ding Yuxi was done a little dirty in terms of screen time. He is presented as one of the two male leads, but it never truly felt like a dual-lead drama to me. After his first death, he basically disappears for a huge portion of the story. Even after he returns, the drama still feels much more centered around Steven Zhang.
I’m completely fine with Steven being the focus, but considering how the drama was promoted and how important the two characters’ relationship supposedly is, I expected the story to invest much more equally in both of them.
That being said, the reason my rating will probably remain relatively high is simple:
The casting was phenomenal.
I originally started this for Ding Yuxi, but OH MY GOD, Steven Zhang blew me away.
This isn’t my first time watching him, but he was incredible here. He carried so much of this drama for me. I would absolutely love to see him in this genre again, especially with an even deeper and more complex character, because he was phenomenal.
And I need a special mention for Steven Zhang doing the blade thing with his mouth because that was PEAK. Ridiculously cool. Probably one of the most memorable images I’m taking away from this drama.
Ding Yuxi also surprised me. At the beginning, I actually thought his performance felt quite similar to his usual acting—the same expressions and mannerisms I’ve seen from him before.
And then Dark Shrimp happened.
OH MY GOD.
He absolutely ate that role up. The way he could switch between Dark Shrimp and Shrimpy within seconds was incredible. You could literally see the character change through his eyes: one second they were dark, cold and intimidating, and then suddenly they softened and Shrimpy was back. That transformation alone showed how good he was.
The actors were absolutely not the problem here. If anything, I wish the writing had invested as much into these characters as the actors invested into playing them.
I also really enjoyed the random touches of comedy. They would sometimes come completely out of nowhere, but they worked for me and gave the drama some personality without ruining its darker atmosphere.
And speaking of the darker atmosphere: the horror was surprisingly scary.
I’d say maybe 20% of the drama is actual horror, and I’m normally not someone who gets scared easily, but OH MY GOD, some of those beasts were genuinely scary. The creature designs combined with the jumpy filming and sudden movements actually got me. I have to give them credit—the horror elements worked.
The fighting sequences and battles were also really fun and easily among the stronger parts of the drama.
Visually, I really enjoyed it too. This was my first Republican-era drama, and the costumes were gorgeous. The cinematography was nice, the OSTs were amazing, and the villains were genuinely strong.
And unfortunately, the ending was underwhelming.
For something that had been building toward such a huge conclusion, I expected a much stronger finale. The drama literally started with this intimidating, memorable monster, so I expected the ending to at least match that intensity—if not completely top it.
Instead, it felt strangely dull.
There was all this buildup surrounding the cave, going underground, the asteroid, the beasts and the larger mystery, and then the actual payoff wasn’t strong enough. I genuinely expected some massive final beast or something that would make the finale feel worthy of everything that came before it. Even the creatures at the end weren’t as memorable as the ones we had already seen.
Even the death didn’t fully hit me. My personal theory is that he didn’t actually die, especially because we never properly saw it and the drama didn’t put enough emphasis on his death for me to completely believe it. And then Haqi appearing again makes me even more suspicious, so I definitely think there’s more going on there.
If there is a Season 2, I’ll probably watch it—but more out of curiosity than because I’m desperately waiting for one.
Ultimately, Archives: The Nanyang Mystery is definitely entertaining and watchable, but it’s not groundbreaking, and it wasn’t what I expected after such a strong beginning. I also think you need a pretty clear mind while watching because there is constantly so much information being thrown at you.
What frustrates me most is that this drama had so much potential. The concept was there. The atmosphere was there. The mystery was there. The cast was phenomenal. The performances were excellent. The horror worked. The action worked. The costumes and cinematography worked. The essence of the story had everything it needed to become an amazing drama.
It just needed tighter and more cohesive writing, fewer unnecessary storylines, better closure for its mysteries, more character depth, and—most importantly—much more time invested in its central relationship.
I started this drama for Steven Zhang and Ding Yuxi, but ironically, by the end, I think I would recommend watching it for Steven Zhang alone. The bromance simply wasn’t given the justice it deserved.
And that’s probably my biggest frustration with the whole drama: it didn’t lack good ideas—it had too many good ideas that were never developed to their full potential.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, the drama started cramming too much into too little time.
The general storyline is actually good—the essence of the story is really good—but it lacked the proper buildup and cohesion to reach its full potential. There were too many characters, cases, mysteries, and storylines introduced one after another without enough time to breathe. Some storylines I simply didn’t care about, while other mysteries I was genuinely interested in never got the attention or payoff they deserved. Cases would become important and then just fade into the background without feeling properly resolved.
That basically sums up my experience watching this: I understood everything, but at the same time, I didn’t understand anything. I was following what was happening, yet somehow still felt confused because the drama rarely gave me time to process one thing before throwing another at me.
My biggest issue, though, was the lack of character depth.
I didn’t feel genuinely connected to most of the characters, which meant that even when characters died, I didn’t really care. The drama wanted certain moments to feel emotional without doing enough beforehand to make me emotionally invested.
Salty was probably the only character I genuinely became attached to because he was given the most focus. Even with Ding Yuxi’s Zhang Haishi, I don’t feel like we truly got to explore Shrimpy. It basically felt like we got five episodes of Shrimpy and then spent most of the remaining drama with Dark Shrimp. So while I enjoyed that side of the character, I never got enough time with Shrimpy himself to become as attached to him as the story expected me to be.
And that leads directly into my biggest disappointment: the bromance.
The entire emotional core of this drama depends heavily on the relationship between Hai Lu and Hai Xia. Yet we basically get around five episodes establishing that they’re best friends, brothers for life, would sacrifice themselves for each other—and then the drama expects that foundation to carry the emotional weight of the remaining 20+ episodes.
It wasn’t enough.
The show kept telling me how important their relationship was instead of giving me enough time to actually experience it. I needed more scenes of them together, more development, more reasons to fall in love with their friendship before everything happened. I couldn’t fully feel their chemistry, and that wasn’t because of the actors. The writing simply didn’t give their relationship the buildup it needed.
I genuinely wonder how much was deleted because sometimes it feels like entire pieces are missing. If they had spent more time developing their relationship at the beginning, everything toward the end could have hit so much harder.
Honestly, this is one of the rare times I wish a drama had been longer. Give me 40 episodes. Let the characters breathe. Let us actually explore Shrimpy. Develop Salty and Shrimpy individually and together. Let their bromance naturally grow so that when the drama asks me to be devastated over their relationship, I already care.
I also think Ding Yuxi was done a little dirty in terms of screen time. He is presented as one of the two male leads, but it never truly felt like a dual-lead drama to me. After his first death, he basically disappears for a huge portion of the story. Even after he returns, the drama still feels much more centered around Steven Zhang.
I’m completely fine with Steven being the focus, but considering how the drama was promoted and how important the two characters’ relationship supposedly is, I expected the story to invest much more equally in both of them.
That being said, the reason my rating will probably remain relatively high is simple:
The casting was phenomenal.
I originally started this for Ding Yuxi, but OH MY GOD, Steven Zhang blew me away.
This isn’t my first time watching him, but he was incredible here. He carried so much of this drama for me. I would absolutely love to see him in this genre again, especially with an even deeper and more complex character, because he was phenomenal.
And I need a special mention for Steven Zhang doing the blade thing with his mouth because that was PEAK. Ridiculously cool. Probably one of the most memorable images I’m taking away from this drama.
Ding Yuxi also surprised me. At the beginning, I actually thought his performance felt quite similar to his usual acting—the same expressions and mannerisms I’ve seen from him before.
And then Dark Shrimp happened.
OH MY GOD.
He absolutely ate that role up. The way he could switch between Dark Shrimp and Shrimpy within seconds was incredible. You could literally see the character change through his eyes: one second they were dark, cold and intimidating, and then suddenly they softened and Shrimpy was back. That transformation alone showed how good he was.
The actors were absolutely not the problem here. If anything, I wish the writing had invested as much into these characters as the actors invested into playing them.
I also really enjoyed the random touches of comedy. They would sometimes come completely out of nowhere, but they worked for me and gave the drama some personality without ruining its darker atmosphere.
And speaking of the darker atmosphere: the horror was surprisingly scary.
I’d say maybe 20% of the drama is actual horror, and I’m normally not someone who gets scared easily, but OH MY GOD, some of those beasts were genuinely scary. The creature designs combined with the jumpy filming and sudden movements actually got me. I have to give them credit—the horror elements worked.
The fighting sequences and battles were also really fun and easily among the stronger parts of the drama.
Visually, I really enjoyed it too. This was my first Republican-era drama, and the costumes were gorgeous. The cinematography was nice, the OSTs were amazing, and the villains were genuinely strong.
And unfortunately, the ending was underwhelming.
For something that had been building toward such a huge conclusion, I expected a much stronger finale. The drama literally started with this intimidating, memorable monster, so I expected the ending to at least match that intensity—if not completely top it.
Instead, it felt strangely dull.
There was all this buildup surrounding the cave, going underground, the asteroid, the beasts and the larger mystery, and then the actual payoff wasn’t strong enough. I genuinely expected some massive final beast or something that would make the finale feel worthy of everything that came before it. Even the creatures at the end weren’t as memorable as the ones we had already seen.
Even the death didn’t fully hit me. My personal theory is that he didn’t actually die, especially because we never properly saw it and the drama didn’t put enough emphasis on his death for me to completely believe it. And then Haqi appearing again makes me even more suspicious, so I definitely think there’s more going on there.
If there is a Season 2, I’ll probably watch it—but more out of curiosity than because I’m desperately waiting for one.
Ultimately, Archives: The Nanyang Mystery is definitely entertaining and watchable, but it’s not groundbreaking, and it wasn’t what I expected after such a strong beginning. I also think you need a pretty clear mind while watching because there is constantly so much information being thrown at you.
What frustrates me most is that this drama had so much potential. The concept was there. The atmosphere was there. The mystery was there. The cast was phenomenal. The performances were excellent. The horror worked. The action worked. The costumes and cinematography worked. The essence of the story had everything it needed to become an amazing drama.
It just needed tighter and more cohesive writing, fewer unnecessary storylines, better closure for its mysteries, more character depth, and—most importantly—much more time invested in its central relationship.
I started this drama for Steven Zhang and Ding Yuxi, but ironically, by the end, I think I would recommend watching it for Steven Zhang alone. The bromance simply wasn’t given the justice it deserved.
And that’s probably my biggest frustration with the whole drama: it didn’t lack good ideas—it had too many good ideas that were never developed to their full potential.
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