5
41
2
1
3
1
1
1
This review may contain spoilers
A NDBT (哪都不通) storyline
‒Short Review‒
Season 2 returns the main cast in Zhang Chulan and Feng Baobao and perhaps even ups the ante in terms of visuals, CGI, action choreography. However, the magic of S1‒seamlessly blending humor, action, and heart into a story with intrigue and great characters‒was missing. Instead, the show often felt like a frustrating, disjointed mess that struggled to blend together multiple stories, angles, and new characters. Only in the beginning and the very last episode did the show feel like S1, where the narrative was able to pull together into a coherent story. Given how this season was somehow higher rated on Douban compared to S1, I suspect much of the narrative issues may be due to a creative team that had to balance the expectations of the manhua and donghua fans, rather than crafting a ground-up adaptation of the story that was shown.
As a TV-only enjoyer, there seems to be several different themes and story lines for this season. There's the Chen Duo storyline of who she is, what happened between her and Liao Shu, and also the the effort to capture her. There's Ma Xianhong's village, his special cauldron, and the effort to bring him under NDT jurisdiction. There's mystery to the other NDT temps. And also, there's the tension with NDT HQ. In addition, there's a small arc about ZGQ. Either the show needed to prune some of the story lines or use a different narrative structure to main the focus and cohesion that's needed. Instead, we got a story that struggled to build tension and focus, much less maintain it. In contrast, S1 worked so well partly due to the core story about ZCL, and later on FBB. I rewatched a bit of S1 again for comparison, and the humor and story difference is just night and day.
What I Liked
- Production value, decent CGI
- Action sequences
- The returning characters from S1, and the new ZGQ
- Vicky Chen's Chen Duo
What I Didn't Like
- The storytelling
- New character casting/acting (I suspect too much emphasis was placed on visual resemblance, rather than acting and behavior that's most organic to the story)
- New character story (the little backstory we got for them was shallow and awkward, difficult to care about them)
- Humor (forced and disrupting to the mood/tensions of the story, and the humor just wasn't as sharp)
‒Category Ratings‒
- Overall - 7 (generous 7)
- Plot - 6.5
- Theme / Concept / Impact - 7.5
- Acting - 7.5
- Visuals - 8
- Audio / Music - 8
- Rewatch - 7
- Cultural/Topical Accessibility - 8
- Subtitle quality - 8
Season 2 returns the main cast in Zhang Chulan and Feng Baobao and perhaps even ups the ante in terms of visuals, CGI, action choreography. However, the magic of S1‒seamlessly blending humor, action, and heart into a story with intrigue and great characters‒was missing. Instead, the show often felt like a frustrating, disjointed mess that struggled to blend together multiple stories, angles, and new characters. Only in the beginning and the very last episode did the show feel like S1, where the narrative was able to pull together into a coherent story. Given how this season was somehow higher rated on Douban compared to S1, I suspect much of the narrative issues may be due to a creative team that had to balance the expectations of the manhua and donghua fans, rather than crafting a ground-up adaptation of the story that was shown.
As a TV-only enjoyer, there seems to be several different themes and story lines for this season. There's the Chen Duo storyline of who she is, what happened between her and Liao Shu, and also the the effort to capture her. There's Ma Xianhong's village, his special cauldron, and the effort to bring him under NDT jurisdiction. There's mystery to the other NDT temps. And also, there's the tension with NDT HQ. In addition, there's a small arc about ZGQ. Either the show needed to prune some of the story lines or use a different narrative structure to main the focus and cohesion that's needed. Instead, we got a story that struggled to build tension and focus, much less maintain it. In contrast, S1 worked so well partly due to the core story about ZCL, and later on FBB. I rewatched a bit of S1 again for comparison, and the humor and story difference is just night and day.
What I Liked
- Production value, decent CGI
- Action sequences
- The returning characters from S1, and the new ZGQ
- Vicky Chen's Chen Duo
What I Didn't Like
- The storytelling
- New character casting/acting (I suspect too much emphasis was placed on visual resemblance, rather than acting and behavior that's most organic to the story)
- New character story (the little backstory we got for them was shallow and awkward, difficult to care about them)
- Humor (forced and disrupting to the mood/tensions of the story, and the humor just wasn't as sharp)
‒Category Ratings‒
- Overall - 7 (generous 7)
- Plot - 6.5
- Theme / Concept / Impact - 7.5
- Acting - 7.5
- Visuals - 8
- Audio / Music - 8
- Rewatch - 7
- Cultural/Topical Accessibility - 8
- Subtitle quality - 8
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