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Xiao Mingming was a wuxia novel writer who was facing confrontation from his colleague at the office. Frustrated about going forward with his novel progress, he stayed up at night to work on the novel using an AI software and at some point he somehow woke up as the novel’s protagonist, Xiao Qiushui. Although XMM wrote XQS emerging to be a top warrior at the early age of 20, he realized he had transmigrated into XQS’s body before all the many cheat-powerups he wrote for the protagonist happened. The AI software made contact with him and gave him some quite ridiculous tasks, which sound impossible to achieve with his mediocre martial ability, in order for him to exit the novel world. With that, he embarked on his journey to initially find a way out but eventually found himself treading the road to find his self worth.

It is hard for me to admit that this time, Cheng Yi falls short from my expectation, as Mysterious Lotus Casebook had been my first show of his and he was superb there. MLC set the bar very high, which tJoL failed to reach even halfway.

First off, I feel that the supposedly familial relationship between ML and his “storybook” family lacked substance that it made me fail to relate to the deep attachment that ML somehow grew for them in that short time that he spent with them after his transmigration, especially when ML was well aware that he was in a mere storybook and trying to get out. The sentiment just looked too fake, same goes to the camarederie that they try so hard to emulate among the youth gang that ML led (dang i forgot the name they made for their group). And since i could not relate to the relationship the screenwriter tried so hard to force down the viewers’ throats, I find all those crying and grief by most of the characters look fake too, their unconvincing crying ability only made it look worse. And it really gets on my nerves when ML turned into a crybaby after his fallout from his brothers. He cries at almost everything when it comes to his family, and those flashbacks that supposed to conjure up the lamentful feeling on the viewers? - Epic fail. Screenwriter tried too hard, showed those flashbacks too repetitively and eventually failed miserably to reach to the audience. Though I can’t speak for others, at least i can speak for myself as a viewer.

The most useless character without any depth is probably the first bro Xiao Yiren. It is quite a shame that the screenwriter decided to paint him as a dense and brainless little fellow when his background made him up to be quite a remarkable person who is supposed to be one of the most eligible bachelors out there. For an elder brother who was supposed to be a role model for his younger siblings, he has no respect and trust for his brothers at all, and would rather believe an outsider than his own blood. He is so gullible and yet showing so much shortfused temper when XQS admitted he was the one who took Liu Siufeng in. I mean, how is he any different than XQS with Liu Siufeng? Did he forget that he was ready to bring in the Sword King into the bunker? That little brother of his literally died to prevent him from doing this and now he was all worked up because the break-in happened anyway as if XQS wanted it to happen? For someone who was supposed to be intelligent and wise as a young leader of a sect, he showed none of this. Their brotherhood isnt convincing even in the earlier episodes as I mentioned before. He kept getting duped and influenced over and over again like an oblivious little puppy who had just ventured out into the world. This, when it was written that this character was supposed to be the most experienced of Jianghu among the three brothers. Oh what an absolute joke. This character is just one of many who acts incoherent to their written background, like the screenwriter got fedup halfway and said “to hell with it,” and then went on to write in blindfold. I am particularly disappointed with Crazy Yan because he also fell into the screenwriter’s ‘to hell with it’ syndrome when this character plumetted steadily from top fighter to top loser with unremarkable and very forgettable ending. Gosh Crazy Yan couldve been so much more with greater impact. But nope. The screenwriter said ‘to hell with it’ so to hell it goes.

I also find the supposedly subtle romance between Tang Fang and XQS to be too unreal. I just don’t see the spark. And that marriage promise between them looked lame and corny instead of comical that the screenwriter intended. Basically the whole plot of this show is too messy and all over the place with characters behaving incoherently against their written predisposition. The screenwriter failed to create comedic scenes that it ended up being slapstick and forced. There’s also too much chivalry speeches before fighting and useless draggy scenes that my fast forward button had to work overtime and my thumb constantly on overdrive. Everything didnt seem to work into becoming the scenes they were supposed to be, it’s simply an epic failure.

The premise looked too similar to the cdrama ‘A Dream within A Dream’ that i felt the screenwriter was trying too hard to copy its style, but this time the end product seemed to be of Grade D when ADwAD had been Grade A, especially when they started to show signs of possible other modern person transmigrating into the storybook (like how the screenwriter went into the story to rectify the plot in ADwAD) on episode 26. Like for real? I don’t watch much of novel transmigration drama so I am not sure if this is a common trope, but the similarities between the two that I’ve seen is just too cringy when one failed too miserably.

I think ML and FL are particularly lousy at crying scenes, especially ML with his supposedly overdone red eyes, like he sprayed too much onion juice into his eyes before the take. And this didnt look great when he’s supposed to cry (fakely) every few episodes that i began to label him a crybaby. Honestly Cheng Yi should stick to cold and aloof type of characters, he’s great with those - Li Chenzhou was awesome, and avoid characters that have more than two crying scenes until he learn to cry convincingly. The only one who looked good at crying here is the one who played Xiao Xueyu, i can really feel her devastation when she realized her third brother might have perished, but thats just about it. The rest of the cast failed miserably, they should go back to acting school specifically to learn how to cry. Other than the lack of substance, this unconvincing crying is also why I could not feel the sadness when characters started dying. Unlike A Journey to Love’s pointless and unnecessary character massacre that left me bawling at each death even when on rewatch, the character deaths here on TJoL seem pointless and “meh”. I failed to feel for them, sorry.

Poison trope is abundant here. People keep getting poisoned left and right but none of it really do anything but make people faint or deplete neili (but they regain them shortly after since they had no problem fighting with inner strength). And of course when any of the mainleads gets poisoned, stabbed, sliced or crushed, all they suffered was fainting which theyd just get up and start kicking again after a good night sleep. After episode 20, i contemplated on dropping this title so many times, the only thing that kept me going was the curiosity of the real mastermind in the mask.

Such a lengthy negative review, is there anything positive at all? Well the fight choreograph is good, hat’s off the the action choreographer team! All the hand-to-hand combat and swordplay turned out to be impressive and not boring. They look fierce and yet also graceful. I especially love ML’s swordplay cuz he looked formidable with every swing like he really trained hard for it. Same goes to rest of the cast. If only they tried as hard at crying too.

Oh and before i get accused of being a hater or biased for this review, to be honest, of all the casts, i only recognized Cheng Yi from Mysterious Lotus Casebook. Although i have seen Eleanor Lee in Fake Princess I didnt recognize her until I saw the list of casts when her character made an appearance while I was watching (I like to look up the casts in accordance to character appearances to see if i have seen them in other drama). So you can’t say I am biased against the show or any of the casts because Cheng Yi actually left a deep impression on me for his performance in MLC, and I was more satisfied of Eleanor’s performance on Fake Princess than her co star, so I actually started watching this title with a pretty high expectation. Being an objective viewer, I cant possibly rate any higher when the show doesnt match even the baseline of my expectation, even if it had my favourite actors on it (Cheng Yi isnt my fav actor, but i have rated low for some series starred by my fav actress Zhao Liying).

So that’s it. You might like this if youre a Cheng Yi fan, but if you’re not, oh well don’t put too much expectation before watching and maybe you won’t be as disappointed as me.