This review may contain spoilers
Complicated but uncompelling
I don't know why I finished watching the show, to be honest. It did so little for me that I am extremely compelled to write this review but unsure where to start.
I guess I'll start with the story. The story centers around how the daughter of a prominent Six Sects family, Cai Zhao, partners with the Demon Sect's leader, Mu Qingyan, to unearth the secrets of her parents' generation and bring peace to the Jianghu. In the process, they lie, scheme against each other, and conveniently fall in love. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this cliche setup, it demands some intricate work on characterization to be compelling.
Unfortunately for "Generation to Generation", the characterization slips on a banana peel and falls flat on its face. The female lead, Cai Zhao, is an extremely flat character. She's an obvious attempt to support China's feminist wave in entertainment and thus has all the qualities of a heroine: righteous, crafty, and admired among her peers. However, her character experiences no real development, depends heavily on plot armor, and is a pathetic imitation of her dead aunt (who everyone blindly idolizes and centers their lives around despite her death THIRTEEN years ago). As an example, Cai Zhao justifies her decision to confront the villain at the end using her aunt's heroism-driven morals despite lacking martial arts capabilities; the show somehow saves her and reframes stupidity as nobility. The male lead, Mu Qingyan, is similarly uncompelling. While he's a genuinely brilliant strategist, he also experiences very little development (the main change is his increasing, unhealthy obsession with our female lead). He's lived a pitiful life, and spends a lot of the time he has with the female lead preaching, faking illness, or treating her like a little kid.
To hide the characterization blemishes, the show also manages to ruin the relationship between them. It is full of unnecessary ups-and-downs. The leads don't definitively get together until they're married on the last episode, and before that there is excessive distrust, heartbreak, and naivety. Neither character grows from these dramatic episodes; they never truly communicate and repeat their mistakes. It is a romance that may be compelling for a thirteen year old girl reading their first forbidden romance but very few others.
Beyond the main romantic relationship, every other important connection stems back to the female lead's dead aunt, Cai Pingshu. While Cai Pingshu is not a bad character, the fact that either idolizing her or obsessing over her undergirds every character's intentions and actions undermines the story's emotional current. It's difficult to truly feel moved by the tragedies a bunch of obsessive and otherwise empty characters face.
Despite its character flaws, "Generation to Generation" still had potential to be a watchable drama. Plenty of C-dramas hide behind beautiful editing and decent acting when they lack reasonable plots and still manage to be successful. Regrettably, "Generation to Generation" faces damning flaws in its execution, too.
As other viewers have mentioned, the editing is quite choppy and the script is unnatural. The script has characters always trying to preach at or prove themselves to the audience; they give long, unnecessary monologues in simple or light-hearted moments. The writing is humorless. There is an aggressive, tacky element to the romantic scenes, and simple/pure scenes lack all subtlety. The CGI is the nail in the coffin; I distinctly recall a baby dragon looking like it the brainchild of Sora AI and "Merge Dragons". Overall, the story's presentation comes off as heavy-handed and inorganic.
I also found the acting to be surprisingly mediocre. I think the one good performance is from Li Yuan as Yin Su Lian, who manages to portray her character with cold restraint until the eruption of anger and protectiveness at the end. Bao Shang'en is quite good at delivering lines of expressively, but her actual performance suffers from stiffness in less dramatic scenes. Zhou Yiran is a brilliant actor, but his performance misses the fact that Mu Qingyan is on the brink of death. His portrayal creates the illusion that Mu Qingyan is healthy to the end (despite the multiple times he was ill in bed), which limits the intrigue of Mu Qingyan and softens the impact of his decline on both the story and the viewer.
While the trailer of the drama was quite good in my opinion, it's probably wiser to find something else to watch if you have the time to spare. As someone who waited for the "climax" and watched it through to the end, I doubt you'll regret not picking this up or dropping it in the middle.
I guess I'll start with the story. The story centers around how the daughter of a prominent Six Sects family, Cai Zhao, partners with the Demon Sect's leader, Mu Qingyan, to unearth the secrets of her parents' generation and bring peace to the Jianghu. In the process, they lie, scheme against each other, and conveniently fall in love. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this cliche setup, it demands some intricate work on characterization to be compelling.
Unfortunately for "Generation to Generation", the characterization slips on a banana peel and falls flat on its face. The female lead, Cai Zhao, is an extremely flat character. She's an obvious attempt to support China's feminist wave in entertainment and thus has all the qualities of a heroine: righteous, crafty, and admired among her peers. However, her character experiences no real development, depends heavily on plot armor, and is a pathetic imitation of her dead aunt (who everyone blindly idolizes and centers their lives around despite her death THIRTEEN years ago). As an example, Cai Zhao justifies her decision to confront the villain at the end using her aunt's heroism-driven morals despite lacking martial arts capabilities; the show somehow saves her and reframes stupidity as nobility. The male lead, Mu Qingyan, is similarly uncompelling. While he's a genuinely brilliant strategist, he also experiences very little development (the main change is his increasing, unhealthy obsession with our female lead). He's lived a pitiful life, and spends a lot of the time he has with the female lead preaching, faking illness, or treating her like a little kid.
To hide the characterization blemishes, the show also manages to ruin the relationship between them. It is full of unnecessary ups-and-downs. The leads don't definitively get together until they're married on the last episode, and before that there is excessive distrust, heartbreak, and naivety. Neither character grows from these dramatic episodes; they never truly communicate and repeat their mistakes. It is a romance that may be compelling for a thirteen year old girl reading their first forbidden romance but very few others.
Beyond the main romantic relationship, every other important connection stems back to the female lead's dead aunt, Cai Pingshu. While Cai Pingshu is not a bad character, the fact that either idolizing her or obsessing over her undergirds every character's intentions and actions undermines the story's emotional current. It's difficult to truly feel moved by the tragedies a bunch of obsessive and otherwise empty characters face.
Despite its character flaws, "Generation to Generation" still had potential to be a watchable drama. Plenty of C-dramas hide behind beautiful editing and decent acting when they lack reasonable plots and still manage to be successful. Regrettably, "Generation to Generation" faces damning flaws in its execution, too.
As other viewers have mentioned, the editing is quite choppy and the script is unnatural. The script has characters always trying to preach at or prove themselves to the audience; they give long, unnecessary monologues in simple or light-hearted moments. The writing is humorless. There is an aggressive, tacky element to the romantic scenes, and simple/pure scenes lack all subtlety. The CGI is the nail in the coffin; I distinctly recall a baby dragon looking like it the brainchild of Sora AI and "Merge Dragons". Overall, the story's presentation comes off as heavy-handed and inorganic.
I also found the acting to be surprisingly mediocre. I think the one good performance is from Li Yuan as Yin Su Lian, who manages to portray her character with cold restraint until the eruption of anger and protectiveness at the end. Bao Shang'en is quite good at delivering lines of expressively, but her actual performance suffers from stiffness in less dramatic scenes. Zhou Yiran is a brilliant actor, but his performance misses the fact that Mu Qingyan is on the brink of death. His portrayal creates the illusion that Mu Qingyan is healthy to the end (despite the multiple times he was ill in bed), which limits the intrigue of Mu Qingyan and softens the impact of his decline on both the story and the viewer.
While the trailer of the drama was quite good in my opinion, it's probably wiser to find something else to watch if you have the time to spare. As someone who waited for the "climax" and watched it through to the end, I doubt you'll regret not picking this up or dropping it in the middle.
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