Too much cutesy act from this female lead
A lot of people love this show, and a few people hate it. I think these polarized reactions have to do with some very different opinions on the Little Orchid character.
I personally did not like Little Orchid, and I did not like the show that much. Little Orchid is supposed to be young, naïve, and innocent. I admit my personal preferences are factoring in here, but still I think my issue is less with this premise and more with how she is presented.
Orchid’s presentation is very childlike. There are other ways to present such a character that are less over-the-top cutesy. To me, it came across as a cute act, which I found quite annoying. If she were actually 5 years old, I may be less annoyed, but unfortunately she doesn’t look like a child, and even with fairy-time-warped age I think her mental state should be past the toddler phase.
People also complain about her voice. To me, it’s less her voice than the way she uses it. Her tones and cadence are drawn out to match the cute act. I’ve heard Esther’s voice in other contexts and had no problems with it.
I’ve come to realize that this style is fairly typical of Esther, and as people say, “if you don’t like her then don’t watch her shows”. Actually, when she is not doing the cute act (eg in the body swap or Xilan goddess contexts of this show) I think she is fine. Also nothing against Esther herself, she seems like a lovely person outside the show. I just am not a fan of the cutesy acting style. Maybe it’s what they were going for with the Little Orchid character, in which case, I don’t like this character.
I found that, because I did not like Little Orchid, I couldn’t really get behind anything in this show. I couldn’t understand why two guys were so obsessed with her, and unfortunately this meant I spent a lot of the show rolling my eyes. I also couldn’t get behind her CP because I never saw what DFCQ liked about her. If you take out rooting for them and fawning over them, there isn’t that much left to keep a person interested. There were side characters with their own stories, some of them interesting enough, but they weren’t developed enough to carry the show.
Add to this a good deal of nonsense. Sloppiness in xianxia is not new, but this one is on the more extreme end of having a lot of unexplained plot devices that seem like they should be important. What’s going on with those destiny books, why do they require fixing, why are they so important, how exactly does “fate” work in this show, what even is a goddess, what is this primordial spirit thing, on and on… I’ll admit I might have just missed it, I didn’t analyze that carefully. But I’m the audience, world building shouldn’t be MY homework.
It wasn’t quite a visual feast, either. It wasn’t all bad, some pretty shots and good CGI, but also quite a few scenes relying on bad CGI. I felt sorry for actors having to pretend, e.g. like they’re struggling against a strong force. If the force didn’t look so fake, I wouldn’t be sitting here thinking about how they’re filmed.
I watched this show despite knowing it might not be my thing, because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I finished it because it wasn’t quite bad enough to drop, and it really does have a lot of hype. It was entertaining enough, but I think it’s hard to really get into a show when you can’t make yourself care about the characters. I just sort of slogged through it. In some senses it was nice because I got more sleep and took care of the rest of my life better, relative to when I’m watching a show I really like and stay up too late binging.
ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS
It has a happy ending, but it’s not satisfying enough for many fans, because you only get to see the happy part for about 10 seconds. Typical Cdrama. For me, I thought it was so deus ex machina, like I could not see how it would ever work out for our characters and then the scriptwriters just pulled a random miracle out of nowhere- it was a bit lame.
They do attempt to tie up some of the side stories by showing what happens to a few of the more prominent side characters. This is better than nothing, but as I cared about these characters more, I still felt unsatisfied by their half-baked resolutions.
I personally did not like Little Orchid, and I did not like the show that much. Little Orchid is supposed to be young, naïve, and innocent. I admit my personal preferences are factoring in here, but still I think my issue is less with this premise and more with how she is presented.
Orchid’s presentation is very childlike. There are other ways to present such a character that are less over-the-top cutesy. To me, it came across as a cute act, which I found quite annoying. If she were actually 5 years old, I may be less annoyed, but unfortunately she doesn’t look like a child, and even with fairy-time-warped age I think her mental state should be past the toddler phase.
People also complain about her voice. To me, it’s less her voice than the way she uses it. Her tones and cadence are drawn out to match the cute act. I’ve heard Esther’s voice in other contexts and had no problems with it.
I’ve come to realize that this style is fairly typical of Esther, and as people say, “if you don’t like her then don’t watch her shows”. Actually, when she is not doing the cute act (eg in the body swap or Xilan goddess contexts of this show) I think she is fine. Also nothing against Esther herself, she seems like a lovely person outside the show. I just am not a fan of the cutesy acting style. Maybe it’s what they were going for with the Little Orchid character, in which case, I don’t like this character.
I found that, because I did not like Little Orchid, I couldn’t really get behind anything in this show. I couldn’t understand why two guys were so obsessed with her, and unfortunately this meant I spent a lot of the show rolling my eyes. I also couldn’t get behind her CP because I never saw what DFCQ liked about her. If you take out rooting for them and fawning over them, there isn’t that much left to keep a person interested. There were side characters with their own stories, some of them interesting enough, but they weren’t developed enough to carry the show.
Add to this a good deal of nonsense. Sloppiness in xianxia is not new, but this one is on the more extreme end of having a lot of unexplained plot devices that seem like they should be important. What’s going on with those destiny books, why do they require fixing, why are they so important, how exactly does “fate” work in this show, what even is a goddess, what is this primordial spirit thing, on and on… I’ll admit I might have just missed it, I didn’t analyze that carefully. But I’m the audience, world building shouldn’t be MY homework.
It wasn’t quite a visual feast, either. It wasn’t all bad, some pretty shots and good CGI, but also quite a few scenes relying on bad CGI. I felt sorry for actors having to pretend, e.g. like they’re struggling against a strong force. If the force didn’t look so fake, I wouldn’t be sitting here thinking about how they’re filmed.
I watched this show despite knowing it might not be my thing, because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I finished it because it wasn’t quite bad enough to drop, and it really does have a lot of hype. It was entertaining enough, but I think it’s hard to really get into a show when you can’t make yourself care about the characters. I just sort of slogged through it. In some senses it was nice because I got more sleep and took care of the rest of my life better, relative to when I’m watching a show I really like and stay up too late binging.
ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS
It has a happy ending, but it’s not satisfying enough for many fans, because you only get to see the happy part for about 10 seconds. Typical Cdrama. For me, I thought it was so deus ex machina, like I could not see how it would ever work out for our characters and then the scriptwriters just pulled a random miracle out of nowhere- it was a bit lame.
They do attempt to tie up some of the side stories by showing what happens to a few of the more prominent side characters. This is better than nothing, but as I cared about these characters more, I still felt unsatisfied by their half-baked resolutions.
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