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This review may contain spoilers
Visually Amazing but Storytelling Confusing!
There is no way to deny Veil of Shadows is one of the Chinese drama that has most beautiful cinematography. The characters' designs were all well made. The costumes are beautiful. The soundtracks are also very nice and fit into the mysterious gothic background cinematoghy.
The story is actually interesting. It has this vibe of Painted Skin which it is based on. In my opinion, it is not told well. The storytelling uses,"show first, reveal later! And oh twist!", so often that its really difficult to go in depth emotionally connecting with the story because for me, I just simply lost track both on story and characters'motivations (Because characters play cunning most of the time). There's just non stop feeding in that "cool make me lost track on the taste.
The fantasy themes such as demonic power themes are very nice. However, the show repeatedly use time looping, characters role playing others in other past timeline. Especially this role playing people in the past, is something new for me, and I am not so convinced into this fantasy element theory. Nevertheless, I do like how this theory was used to develop Wu Shiguang and Wu Wang Yang romance bonding. It's such a pity that their story was sidelined later.
Ji Ling and Lu Wuyi loved each other so much. They protected each other at all cost. The drama indeed has a lot of their scenes and some are quite repeated. The drama indeed is showing their deep love but I just cannot emotionally connected to their romance despite the fact that I was initially interested in them because I like this dynamic of him being innocent , naive and attracted to her, while she's a little cunning but also attracted to him. Their past of them meeting at the valley, with him bringing her flowers and her giving him rasberries was repeatedly shown as her memory. They do have cute scenes in that star stone time loop where they role play as other couple too. With all the scenes being shown I still feel there's skipping something to them being having such deep bond. Because this couple also has to hold having to destroy each other. Ji Ling was given the responsibility of the role of Chi Wen, ninth dragon, by Chi Wen to kill this evil force, 9 head snakes, Jiu Ying, or wait until the 10th dragon appeared who is of course Wu Shiguang. And Lu Wuyi was made by Jiu Ying to hold some of himself inside her, when got killed, he can use Wuyi's body. So she needed to be destroyed or else main villain, Jiu Ying will use her to destroy the world.
The ending is questionable. It is happy end but it skipped explaining things especially how Wu Shiguang did to time loop and bringing back Wu Wangyang and other 9 tail foxes back to life (after Wangyang and others sacrificed themselves to protect pillars of the world for not collapse), and also how did weasel demon, Youchi come back to life after sacrificing. Its like timeloop was changed and some happenings are deleted. But its not shown well. So Wu Shiguang was very powerful but why it took him too much strength to get rid of the villain, even Ji Ling spirit that came back was more powerful? The viewers really need to make up things on their own to the story.
As for Ji Ling, he was actually already dead but his soul can still come back after some theory add up and his soul go inside the time loop crystal to rid of Jiu Ying putting the thing inside that can permanently seal part of his in her. Ji Ling succeeded and get rid of villain in that time loop. The ending shows Ji Ling and Lu Wuyi in another timeloop of life that they are just normal people who met and fall in love again. So I take that as happy end because main characters reunited and happy at end of drama. As for why and how did that happen, the drama do not tell and left to viewers to just think on their own. (This kind of thing was done and twisted in drama that for some viewers this ending not something to be trusted) For myself, I think about a lot of symbolisms and theory use, i cannot really find strong substance in it. It just seem to go just randomly on whatever it wants to. Just like when the last timeloop, villain was slained and get rid of. Some dead characters such as Youchi come back to life but not others, I cannot really find substance on how and why that is. That left me with unserious confused impression 🤡🙄, which is my overall rating to the drama is not so high. I give it 6/10.
Even that so I will still recommend this one to anyone who enjoy Guo Jingming previous works (visual is guaranteed) and to fans of Ju Jing Yi and Tian Jia Rui. Maybe you will probably connect with it than I do.
The story is actually interesting. It has this vibe of Painted Skin which it is based on. In my opinion, it is not told well. The storytelling uses,"show first, reveal later! And oh twist!", so often that its really difficult to go in depth emotionally connecting with the story because for me, I just simply lost track both on story and characters'motivations (Because characters play cunning most of the time). There's just non stop feeding in that "cool make me lost track on the taste.
The fantasy themes such as demonic power themes are very nice. However, the show repeatedly use time looping, characters role playing others in other past timeline. Especially this role playing people in the past, is something new for me, and I am not so convinced into this fantasy element theory. Nevertheless, I do like how this theory was used to develop Wu Shiguang and Wu Wang Yang romance bonding. It's such a pity that their story was sidelined later.
Ji Ling and Lu Wuyi loved each other so much. They protected each other at all cost. The drama indeed has a lot of their scenes and some are quite repeated. The drama indeed is showing their deep love but I just cannot emotionally connected to their romance despite the fact that I was initially interested in them because I like this dynamic of him being innocent , naive and attracted to her, while she's a little cunning but also attracted to him. Their past of them meeting at the valley, with him bringing her flowers and her giving him rasberries was repeatedly shown as her memory. They do have cute scenes in that star stone time loop where they role play as other couple too. With all the scenes being shown I still feel there's skipping something to them being having such deep bond. Because this couple also has to hold having to destroy each other. Ji Ling was given the responsibility of the role of Chi Wen, ninth dragon, by Chi Wen to kill this evil force, 9 head snakes, Jiu Ying, or wait until the 10th dragon appeared who is of course Wu Shiguang. And Lu Wuyi was made by Jiu Ying to hold some of himself inside her, when got killed, he can use Wuyi's body. So she needed to be destroyed or else main villain, Jiu Ying will use her to destroy the world.
The ending is questionable. It is happy end but it skipped explaining things especially how Wu Shiguang did to time loop and bringing back Wu Wangyang and other 9 tail foxes back to life (after Wangyang and others sacrificed themselves to protect pillars of the world for not collapse), and also how did weasel demon, Youchi come back to life after sacrificing. Its like timeloop was changed and some happenings are deleted. But its not shown well. So Wu Shiguang was very powerful but why it took him too much strength to get rid of the villain, even Ji Ling spirit that came back was more powerful? The viewers really need to make up things on their own to the story.
As for Ji Ling, he was actually already dead but his soul can still come back after some theory add up and his soul go inside the time loop crystal to rid of Jiu Ying putting the thing inside that can permanently seal part of his in her. Ji Ling succeeded and get rid of villain in that time loop. The ending shows Ji Ling and Lu Wuyi in another timeloop of life that they are just normal people who met and fall in love again. So I take that as happy end because main characters reunited and happy at end of drama. As for why and how did that happen, the drama do not tell and left to viewers to just think on their own. (This kind of thing was done and twisted in drama that for some viewers this ending not something to be trusted) For myself, I think about a lot of symbolisms and theory use, i cannot really find strong substance in it. It just seem to go just randomly on whatever it wants to. Just like when the last timeloop, villain was slained and get rid of. Some dead characters such as Youchi come back to life but not others, I cannot really find substance on how and why that is. That left me with unserious confused impression 🤡🙄, which is my overall rating to the drama is not so high. I give it 6/10.
Even that so I will still recommend this one to anyone who enjoy Guo Jingming previous works (visual is guaranteed) and to fans of Ju Jing Yi and Tian Jia Rui. Maybe you will probably connect with it than I do.
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