atleeing

Summary: At first, the Netflix description hooked me: baker by day, demon hunter by night. I thought, “Wow, that’s fascinatingly different!” Unfortunately, the title and description are about all the action you get from this drama. From the dry dialogue to the lackluster ghost busting to the low budget acting (mostly with supporting roles), I can’t stomach any more of it. There’s folks out there who are more patient than myself and I commend them. But I can’t do it, I just can’t! Therefore, this review is incomplete since I could only finish up to Episode 8. Even after taking a break to watch a different drama, it still gave me the same feeling…Snoozefest.

Details: The premise of the show got me really excited and Episode 1 delivered some action (with special effects) and plot development but the storyline sort of dwindled after that (despite a few interesting ghost backstories). Then there was a spark of romance between the leads with the Zhong Kui making every excuse he could to be near Meng Hsin-yu (which was really sweet), then that also dwindled. Then there was a possible romance between some supports and that was sabotaged by the annoyingly overbearing and arrogant best friend Li En-hsi. Only the budding romances between the leads and between their supports kept me watching as far as I have. The attempts by the supposed expert exorcist team to chase the villain seemed to always fail without much clues available. Also, the side stories just made things confusing to me as I was still struggling to figure out where exactly the story was headed (which was probably nowhere). Also, many of the humorous moments weren’t that funny to me, but that could be a cultural thing.

I hate to be so critical of a show, as a lot of work went into making it. But I also can’t overlook a flat storyline and dialogue that falls short of its namesake. Rather than The Devil Punisher, it should be called, “Chasing Ghosts, Maybe.”