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This review may contain spoilers
Adventures in a world with demons : From a great start to a weird ending.
Since her childhood, Duan Ban Xia has been able to see demons. This ability leads her to meet a demon hunter named Jiu Xuan Ye. Together, they set out to find Ban Xia's presumed dead father, while solving many unusual cases.
What I like:
- Acting : Overall, all the actors did a really good job interpreting their characters. However, I really wanted to point out two actresses who did a marvelous job portraying their characters : Song Zu Er (Duan Ban Xia) & Zhang Zi Xin (Feng Wu Niang).
SZE was amazing as Ban Xia. She can act and made a lovable interpretation of her character. The angsty scenes were superbly done and you can feel it to the core when she's crying.
My favorite arc was definitely the puppet arc and it's mostly thanks to Zhang Zi Xin who did an amazing job interpreting the puppet demon. All the nuance and complexity of the character was really well portrayed. Besides, her mannerisms as puppet were so believable and creepy.
- The growth of Ban Xia : She starts from a timid and vulnerable to a fierce and strong character at the end. She sticks to her beliefs and dares to defend them against all. For me, she has one of the most satisfying growth in dramaland. And the portrayal of SZE makes her character even more likeable.
- Chemistry between the leads : It's the type of drama where you'll smile for every little intimate moments they have together. You won't see a lot of kisses - the kisses were bad anyway - but the eye contacts and their little gestures made up for everything. The slow build-up of their relationship was everything for me, as I could understand why they fell for each other.
- CGI : They were good and the addition of a few little details were nicely done (the strand of grey fur for example on the leopard).
What I didn't like/could be better:
- Second leads story : I really like them as individual characters. As a CP, it lacks sparks and the short amount of screentime they had together didn't make it better.
- Some arcs were more interesting than others. There are some inconsistencies in the arcs because they switch between interesting and boring arcs. The owl demon and the snake demon arcs were quite boring and felt more like fillers for the leads story.
- Rushed last arc & weird ending : The last arc felt so over the place. The tone has drastically changed in the last arc compared to the other arcs. At some point, I was questioning myself if I was watching the same drama I had been watching for almost 2 weeks. The arc was so rushed. 6 eps was clearly not enough to develop such a big portion of the story. So everything was underdeveloped to give us "a conclusion". And the ending… it was inconsistent with the rest of the story too. The whole drama revolves around the search for coexistence between humans and demon. And at the end, it concludes with a demon and human can't coexist… It feels like we did a 180° turn and it gave me a bad taste in the mouth.
I heard the screenwriter wrote the ending completely differently but iQiyi decided to use AI and changed the ending… what a crazy choice🤦🏻♀️
Overall : I really enjoyed the drama for most of the part. Some cases were really interesting and the acting was good. Unfortunately, the last arc and the ending was not up to the rest of the story.
What I like:
- Acting : Overall, all the actors did a really good job interpreting their characters. However, I really wanted to point out two actresses who did a marvelous job portraying their characters : Song Zu Er (Duan Ban Xia) & Zhang Zi Xin (Feng Wu Niang).
SZE was amazing as Ban Xia. She can act and made a lovable interpretation of her character. The angsty scenes were superbly done and you can feel it to the core when she's crying.
My favorite arc was definitely the puppet arc and it's mostly thanks to Zhang Zi Xin who did an amazing job interpreting the puppet demon. All the nuance and complexity of the character was really well portrayed. Besides, her mannerisms as puppet were so believable and creepy.
- The growth of Ban Xia : She starts from a timid and vulnerable to a fierce and strong character at the end. She sticks to her beliefs and dares to defend them against all. For me, she has one of the most satisfying growth in dramaland. And the portrayal of SZE makes her character even more likeable.
- Chemistry between the leads : It's the type of drama where you'll smile for every little intimate moments they have together. You won't see a lot of kisses - the kisses were bad anyway - but the eye contacts and their little gestures made up for everything. The slow build-up of their relationship was everything for me, as I could understand why they fell for each other.
- CGI : They were good and the addition of a few little details were nicely done (the strand of grey fur for example on the leopard).
What I didn't like/could be better:
- Second leads story : I really like them as individual characters. As a CP, it lacks sparks and the short amount of screentime they had together didn't make it better.
- Some arcs were more interesting than others. There are some inconsistencies in the arcs because they switch between interesting and boring arcs. The owl demon and the snake demon arcs were quite boring and felt more like fillers for the leads story.
- Rushed last arc & weird ending : The last arc felt so over the place. The tone has drastically changed in the last arc compared to the other arcs. At some point, I was questioning myself if I was watching the same drama I had been watching for almost 2 weeks. The arc was so rushed. 6 eps was clearly not enough to develop such a big portion of the story. So everything was underdeveloped to give us "a conclusion". And the ending… it was inconsistent with the rest of the story too. The whole drama revolves around the search for coexistence between humans and demon. And at the end, it concludes with a demon and human can't coexist… It feels like we did a 180° turn and it gave me a bad taste in the mouth.
I heard the screenwriter wrote the ending completely differently but iQiyi decided to use AI and changed the ending… what a crazy choice🤦🏻♀️
Overall : I really enjoyed the drama for most of the part. Some cases were really interesting and the acting was good. Unfortunately, the last arc and the ending was not up to the rest of the story.
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