This review may contain spoilers
Only for visuals and vibes,nothing else!
Okay....lesson learned,never watch a GJM drama for plots...like never. Its always some pretty actors with some pretty cinematography and visuals with some pretty music in the background... But the main core of the drama,the story.... better not talk about that.
I didn’t start Veil of Shadows with lots of hope or anything. Already saw what happened with Fangs of Fortune which was such a eye pleasing yet one of the most frustrating dramas i've ever watched. Same with MJTY. Maybe there wasn’t anything else to watch at that time,so i started VOS...and yeah,same thing again.
The story is simple. There's a dragon deity who is actually not real,only pretending on behalf of the og dragon deities for centuries,for the real and last dragon deity to come and take the throne. Meanwhile there's millennia old nine tailed foxes, a very old villain who doesn’t have any form of body and some other characters. Interesting,right?? Yeah,it was....for the first couple of episodes. But my goodness the way everything got ruined,confusing and blundered in the midway..... Confusions after confusions, plot twists after plot twists...and those plot twists was'nt even some mind-blowing earth bending or anything, it was just wtf just happened???? They made this simple story so confusing, at some point it became head scratching level frustrating, like WHAT IS HAPPENING AND WHY IS THIS HAPPENING????
If i talk about actors,all of them did really good. I have seen Tian Jia Rui in MJTY and FOF,this young boy has real talent and acting skill. He didn’t disappoint, both Ji Ling and Dragon deity was portrayed good and lively. His back story as the blind fox,how he became the false dragon deity and sacrificed his whole youth only to perform his duty and later made those puppets to live that little bit of youthfulness....okay this bit was sad and extremely touching and TJR did so well.
This is my first time seeing Ju JingYi... so i can't say much about her acting,but she was believable as the cunning shrew nine tailed fox who later fell in love with Ji Ling. But their love story was really rushed. The had chemistry but it couldn’t properly bloom cause of the absurdity that was happening around them.
About Joseph Zheng and Chen Duling...This was the couple I adored. But unfortunately, they didn’t get that much screentime as I expected. Joseph was supposed to be the hero of the story beside the dragon deity...but his becoming a real dragon deity was so underwhelming... He never got a real HERO scene in the whole drama. And Chen Duling....girl can act. She was beautiful, both as a fox or in human form. And their story in the star stone arc was my most favourite, both of them were like really living as an old couple who are in love. They played it beautifully. But its unfortunate, after that arc ended,we never got that love and affection back from them....they were just..there,almost used like a plot device.
The one that surprised me most was YanAn...i first saw him in FOF, but his screentime was short,but he showed the glimpse of his talent. But here as Li Jie and six eye butterfly demon,he was fantastic. His dilemma,his sadness,his protectiveness towards Ji Ling and his evil arc as butterfly demon and also his backstory everything he carried gracefully.
But the arc that made me almost bang my head against the wall was the star stone arc. Listen,time travel is one of the trickiest thing to ever execute on drama,if you miss one tiny little part,the whole story falls apart. So,if you dont know how to write it,just dont write it,and also dont try to be smart by making it overly complex.But here they used it multiple times,not only in star stone arc,but also later with Lu Wuyi...completely forgetting about any kind of consequences or butterfly effects. Plotholes were everwhere,frustrations and confusions were the only thing left.
And idk what this directors fetish with killing every possible character in the drama. And in VOS,he even outdid himself,almost every character died at least once and then even before you done mourning for them,they came back to life. Our lead couple was probably in a competition how many times each can die in the name of self sacrifice and then come back like nothing happened.
However,visually or musically it was not on the level of FoF,but still if you want to watch good cgi or pretty actors,watch it. Ending is bittersweet,so yeah,thats one way better than FOF.
I didn’t start Veil of Shadows with lots of hope or anything. Already saw what happened with Fangs of Fortune which was such a eye pleasing yet one of the most frustrating dramas i've ever watched. Same with MJTY. Maybe there wasn’t anything else to watch at that time,so i started VOS...and yeah,same thing again.
The story is simple. There's a dragon deity who is actually not real,only pretending on behalf of the og dragon deities for centuries,for the real and last dragon deity to come and take the throne. Meanwhile there's millennia old nine tailed foxes, a very old villain who doesn’t have any form of body and some other characters. Interesting,right?? Yeah,it was....for the first couple of episodes. But my goodness the way everything got ruined,confusing and blundered in the midway..... Confusions after confusions, plot twists after plot twists...and those plot twists was'nt even some mind-blowing earth bending or anything, it was just wtf just happened???? They made this simple story so confusing, at some point it became head scratching level frustrating, like WHAT IS HAPPENING AND WHY IS THIS HAPPENING????
If i talk about actors,all of them did really good. I have seen Tian Jia Rui in MJTY and FOF,this young boy has real talent and acting skill. He didn’t disappoint, both Ji Ling and Dragon deity was portrayed good and lively. His back story as the blind fox,how he became the false dragon deity and sacrificed his whole youth only to perform his duty and later made those puppets to live that little bit of youthfulness....okay this bit was sad and extremely touching and TJR did so well.
This is my first time seeing Ju JingYi... so i can't say much about her acting,but she was believable as the cunning shrew nine tailed fox who later fell in love with Ji Ling. But their love story was really rushed. The had chemistry but it couldn’t properly bloom cause of the absurdity that was happening around them.
About Joseph Zheng and Chen Duling...This was the couple I adored. But unfortunately, they didn’t get that much screentime as I expected. Joseph was supposed to be the hero of the story beside the dragon deity...but his becoming a real dragon deity was so underwhelming... He never got a real HERO scene in the whole drama. And Chen Duling....girl can act. She was beautiful, both as a fox or in human form. And their story in the star stone arc was my most favourite, both of them were like really living as an old couple who are in love. They played it beautifully. But its unfortunate, after that arc ended,we never got that love and affection back from them....they were just..there,almost used like a plot device.
The one that surprised me most was YanAn...i first saw him in FOF, but his screentime was short,but he showed the glimpse of his talent. But here as Li Jie and six eye butterfly demon,he was fantastic. His dilemma,his sadness,his protectiveness towards Ji Ling and his evil arc as butterfly demon and also his backstory everything he carried gracefully.
But the arc that made me almost bang my head against the wall was the star stone arc. Listen,time travel is one of the trickiest thing to ever execute on drama,if you miss one tiny little part,the whole story falls apart. So,if you dont know how to write it,just dont write it,and also dont try to be smart by making it overly complex.But here they used it multiple times,not only in star stone arc,but also later with Lu Wuyi...completely forgetting about any kind of consequences or butterfly effects. Plotholes were everwhere,frustrations and confusions were the only thing left.
And idk what this directors fetish with killing every possible character in the drama. And in VOS,he even outdid himself,almost every character died at least once and then even before you done mourning for them,they came back to life. Our lead couple was probably in a competition how many times each can die in the name of self sacrifice and then come back like nothing happened.
However,visually or musically it was not on the level of FoF,but still if you want to watch good cgi or pretty actors,watch it. Ending is bittersweet,so yeah,thats one way better than FOF.
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