This review may contain spoilers
abuse but frame it as an epic romance ✨
what if I were a genocidal tyrant who wanted to wipe out your clan and you were a naive and innocent girl who accidentally freed me from my prison and you endured my violence and rage bc you're a Good Woman™️and you dedicated yourself to rehabilitating me and loved and defended me and were willing to die for me and chose me over your people even though I was still planning to commit genocide on them👉🥺👈
EXCRUCIATING endurance test that I forced myself to undergo due to how popular this show is and my attempt to find the appeal. There are some kernels of interesting ideas here but the show is entirely too devoted to this abusive romance story and Dongfang Qingcang being rehabilitated through "the power of love" to actually explore any of them. Orchid is also infantilized to an insanely uncomfortable degree - she has baby voice and behaves like a literal toddler - which is another layer of discomfort to their romance, but honestly it's very easy for that objection to fade into the background after the first ~third of the show because DFQC is just so aggressive and cruel literally all the time. And then the fact that every time I see someone complaining about the romance it's because "Orchid is annoying"?????? Like we didn't sit through 20-something episodes of DFQC choking her, repeatedly threatening her (and people she cares about), sexually assaulting her (most of those kisses were literally not consensual!), just being generally angry and mean and yelling at her and calling her stupid.... Like, sure there are some moments they have in isolation that are nice, but then as soon as you think of the context of the previous episodes any "soft" moments they have become incredibly nauseating. This is literally one of the most blatantly misogynistic pieces of media I have ever seen and the audience reaction to it boggles my mind.
other notes:
- gorgeous costumes. I loathe DFQC but I can't lie, I am obsessed with literally every outfit he wore. his whole aesthetic was just *chefs kiss*
- not enough sword fights for a xianxia :(
- acting: at the start I was pretty impressed by Dylan Wang's performance but DFQC is just angry and screaming so much that it got really old. Like what is impressive about a dude raging out for 36 episodes? I don't think anyone in the cast was bad, but no one really stood out the way Dylan did and. again. his role got old. Those scenes in the first ~10 episodes or so where he was confused and/or irritated by experiencing Orchid's emotions after centuries of repressing his emotions were pretty funny (and basically the only humorous scenes that got a laugh from me) and tbh I think those were the scenes that showed off his talent the best too.
- music: probably a solid third of the soundtrack irritated me to no end. That horrid discordant music that kept playing during villain scenes literally activated my fight or flight response every time I heard it. There's another third of the soundtrack that I actually really liked, but the music felt like it rarely matched the tone of the scenes and that romantic ballad from the opening credits kept being used at the worst moments
- Changheng I love you I'll never stop loving you 💗💗
EXCRUCIATING endurance test that I forced myself to undergo due to how popular this show is and my attempt to find the appeal. There are some kernels of interesting ideas here but the show is entirely too devoted to this abusive romance story and Dongfang Qingcang being rehabilitated through "the power of love" to actually explore any of them. Orchid is also infantilized to an insanely uncomfortable degree - she has baby voice and behaves like a literal toddler - which is another layer of discomfort to their romance, but honestly it's very easy for that objection to fade into the background after the first ~third of the show because DFQC is just so aggressive and cruel literally all the time. And then the fact that every time I see someone complaining about the romance it's because "Orchid is annoying"?????? Like we didn't sit through 20-something episodes of DFQC choking her, repeatedly threatening her (and people she cares about), sexually assaulting her (most of those kisses were literally not consensual!), just being generally angry and mean and yelling at her and calling her stupid.... Like, sure there are some moments they have in isolation that are nice, but then as soon as you think of the context of the previous episodes any "soft" moments they have become incredibly nauseating. This is literally one of the most blatantly misogynistic pieces of media I have ever seen and the audience reaction to it boggles my mind.
other notes:
- gorgeous costumes. I loathe DFQC but I can't lie, I am obsessed with literally every outfit he wore. his whole aesthetic was just *chefs kiss*
- not enough sword fights for a xianxia :(
- acting: at the start I was pretty impressed by Dylan Wang's performance but DFQC is just angry and screaming so much that it got really old. Like what is impressive about a dude raging out for 36 episodes? I don't think anyone in the cast was bad, but no one really stood out the way Dylan did and. again. his role got old. Those scenes in the first ~10 episodes or so where he was confused and/or irritated by experiencing Orchid's emotions after centuries of repressing his emotions were pretty funny (and basically the only humorous scenes that got a laugh from me) and tbh I think those were the scenes that showed off his talent the best too.
- music: probably a solid third of the soundtrack irritated me to no end. That horrid discordant music that kept playing during villain scenes literally activated my fight or flight response every time I heard it. There's another third of the soundtrack that I actually really liked, but the music felt like it rarely matched the tone of the scenes and that romantic ballad from the opening credits kept being used at the worst moments
- Changheng I love you I'll never stop loving you 💗💗
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