1
1
This review may contain spoilers
From Boy to Man
I am more impressed with Xu Kai than ever before after watching this drama. Even waiting a little while to gather my thoughts, I am still at a loss for words in regards to his skills.
Let’s go through the production. Fir the most part the scenery, stunts, buildings and battles were well done. There were a few wobbly swords, a couple of pre-sword strike dye pouch bursts, and awkward extras in the battle scenes, but not in every scene, so they were negligible. The Candyland trees on the plains were a bit much, but they did lend a bit of sweetness to the story between the leads. And the fake horses with the yellow eyes were laughable - and it’s obvious that they are used because a lot of the up-close scenes looked like they were on rocking horses.
The rest of the scenery was beautiful and each location added depth to the scenes rather than detracting from it.
There are a few characters that were so annoying I almost fast forwarded through the scenes they were in. Tge Emporer and his sons were like watching clowns crawl out of a smart car in front of an oncoming train. Cringey bad characters.
Lady Gu (aka the silk stalker stuck in her imaginary world was just as unpleasant as the ML’s father and siblings. She feigned her purity of heart, while colluding with her father the traitor to eliminate the FL. As if her crazy self was even qualified to be something she couldn’t handle. Her annoying maid had a voice like a mosquito and was just as whiney.
Now that they’re out of the way, I can talk about the story.
The script writer did a very good job setting up scenes and the profession from one to the next. The transitions were smooth without a lot if repeat from the previous episode in the first few minutes.
The characters were all brought to life by each actor (even the annoying ones). I was also surprised to see that Liu Yuning had such a small roll, however, he pulled the quirky character off in his usual professional way. He should have had more screen time!
No on to Xu Kai’s performance. It didn’t matter if the scene called for martial arts, war scenes, or anything else for that matter. His eyes, facial expressions and movement was flawless. In one scene where he was angry that emotion was not only on his face, but his neck started turning red. I the last could of episodes, he was heart broken and it was all over his face, in his voice and reflected in his voice. There were two particularly poignant scenes where his body was shaking with fear and his crying was powerfully portrayed. So much so that I had tears streaming down my face and not just sitting in my eyes. He also did fabulously with the martial arts stunts.
The FL was an excellent choice for thar roll. She was tough being a general in the army, but put her in a beautiful silk dress and she carried off the sweet girl who could turn into a sword bearing guardian of the underdogs. She was an excellent actress for this role. She too performed extremely well in the martial arts scenes.
The music was pretty good. I am certain I heard Xu Kai’s singing voice several times.
Overall, this was a great drama, and well worth the 40 episode watch. It will be on my watch again list, that’s for certain.
It’s worth the cringey characters. Watch it, you won’t be disappointed!
Let’s go through the production. Fir the most part the scenery, stunts, buildings and battles were well done. There were a few wobbly swords, a couple of pre-sword strike dye pouch bursts, and awkward extras in the battle scenes, but not in every scene, so they were negligible. The Candyland trees on the plains were a bit much, but they did lend a bit of sweetness to the story between the leads. And the fake horses with the yellow eyes were laughable - and it’s obvious that they are used because a lot of the up-close scenes looked like they were on rocking horses.
The rest of the scenery was beautiful and each location added depth to the scenes rather than detracting from it.
There are a few characters that were so annoying I almost fast forwarded through the scenes they were in. Tge Emporer and his sons were like watching clowns crawl out of a smart car in front of an oncoming train. Cringey bad characters.
Lady Gu (aka the silk stalker stuck in her imaginary world was just as unpleasant as the ML’s father and siblings. She feigned her purity of heart, while colluding with her father the traitor to eliminate the FL. As if her crazy self was even qualified to be something she couldn’t handle. Her annoying maid had a voice like a mosquito and was just as whiney.
Now that they’re out of the way, I can talk about the story.
The script writer did a very good job setting up scenes and the profession from one to the next. The transitions were smooth without a lot if repeat from the previous episode in the first few minutes.
The characters were all brought to life by each actor (even the annoying ones). I was also surprised to see that Liu Yuning had such a small roll, however, he pulled the quirky character off in his usual professional way. He should have had more screen time!
No on to Xu Kai’s performance. It didn’t matter if the scene called for martial arts, war scenes, or anything else for that matter. His eyes, facial expressions and movement was flawless. In one scene where he was angry that emotion was not only on his face, but his neck started turning red. I the last could of episodes, he was heart broken and it was all over his face, in his voice and reflected in his voice. There were two particularly poignant scenes where his body was shaking with fear and his crying was powerfully portrayed. So much so that I had tears streaming down my face and not just sitting in my eyes. He also did fabulously with the martial arts stunts.
The FL was an excellent choice for thar roll. She was tough being a general in the army, but put her in a beautiful silk dress and she carried off the sweet girl who could turn into a sword bearing guardian of the underdogs. She was an excellent actress for this role. She too performed extremely well in the martial arts scenes.
The music was pretty good. I am certain I heard Xu Kai’s singing voice several times.
Overall, this was a great drama, and well worth the 40 episode watch. It will be on my watch again list, that’s for certain.
It’s worth the cringey characters. Watch it, you won’t be disappointed!
Was this review helpful to you?
