This review may contain spoilers
Fun to start, but soon gets lost in too many characters and too much exposition
Chulan, is a university student with an awkward nerdiness , who has an extraordinary super power that’s tied to the mysteries of the Outsiders and his deceased grandfather’s past . He unassumingly ends up on an interesting journey to learn the truth behind it all. However, this story quickly detours into gladiator for super humans. Power struggles between the Outsider sects, random scenes with random story threads that are never followed up and young male eye candy who seemed to mainly be around to satisfy the pretty boy quota - Huo Ming Hao and Bi Wen Jin.
The story did sprinkle in little nuggets of information here and there that slowly revealed some of the truths Chulan sought. We did learn the powers and practitioners behind the 8 supremes. Got the names of a couple of the 36 thieves, though we never learned what they did. Or perhaps I missed it in all the silliness and exposition. The Jiashen Calamity was the main mystery of the story. With people killing and deceiving to learn the truth about it, keep it secret or prevent it from happening again, but we never learned what the hell happened in the calamity, who caused it and why? Who were Chulan’s parents? I found it to be a gaping oversight that there was no insight as to who they were and where they were. It was like he fell out of the sky to become Zhang Hauyi’s grand son.
That aside, Chulan’s bond with Bao Bao was endearing. Some of the adventures could be fun and the side stories could at times be engaging, but there were too many characters. Most of whom added nothing to the story and whom I didn’t care about. Huo Ming Hao is promoted as the lead in much of the promo pics etc. for the show but in reality he’s barely seen and is a supporting character at best. Such a shame considering his charisma and talent. That’s not to take anything away from Peng Yu Chan who is very good as the lead. This show is not bad, just okay. The story could’ve been tighter, better. The ending was left open to facilitate the 2nd season which I guess is needed to finally tell the story behind the Jiashen calamity. However, after meandering plot threads and hit or miss contrivances that was this 1st season I’m not intrigued enough to watch a 2nd season of this show.
The story did sprinkle in little nuggets of information here and there that slowly revealed some of the truths Chulan sought. We did learn the powers and practitioners behind the 8 supremes. Got the names of a couple of the 36 thieves, though we never learned what they did. Or perhaps I missed it in all the silliness and exposition. The Jiashen Calamity was the main mystery of the story. With people killing and deceiving to learn the truth about it, keep it secret or prevent it from happening again, but we never learned what the hell happened in the calamity, who caused it and why? Who were Chulan’s parents? I found it to be a gaping oversight that there was no insight as to who they were and where they were. It was like he fell out of the sky to become Zhang Hauyi’s grand son.
That aside, Chulan’s bond with Bao Bao was endearing. Some of the adventures could be fun and the side stories could at times be engaging, but there were too many characters. Most of whom added nothing to the story and whom I didn’t care about. Huo Ming Hao is promoted as the lead in much of the promo pics etc. for the show but in reality he’s barely seen and is a supporting character at best. Such a shame considering his charisma and talent. That’s not to take anything away from Peng Yu Chan who is very good as the lead. This show is not bad, just okay. The story could’ve been tighter, better. The ending was left open to facilitate the 2nd season which I guess is needed to finally tell the story behind the Jiashen calamity. However, after meandering plot threads and hit or miss contrivances that was this 1st season I’m not intrigued enough to watch a 2nd season of this show.
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