Unbelievably Beautiful, Robust Story
This is the most beautiful drama I have ever seen. The money spent on scenery, sets, costumes, music, CGI must have been astronomical!
The beauty of the costumes and CGI is BEYOND THIS WORLD. I can only imagine being able to create such beauty back in the day when the folks in charge had thousands of slaves to sweat and strain for thousands of hours to achieve such effects. No kidding! I have never seen outfit after outfit covered in sparkling beads, layers, and jewel-toned colors. A true level above all the other wonderful costumes I have ever seen. I don't know how they made all the costumes and accessories given that, I think, they need multiple copies to film in them day-after-day. They absolutely have to win an award for costuming in this, especially considering the different costume themes needed for the different "segments" of the drama.
Re the CGI, the trend for purple, pink, blue, and sunset jewel tones that I noticed in "Love You Seven Times" (an underrated gem) was continued here to its fullest. Stunning! And the sets as well were creatively planned, visually extremely interesting, and jammed with lovely colors, textures, and items. I could practically yank out my eyeballs and not be sad for the rest of my life from having seen enough beauty to last.
The OST music was to die for. I was singing along because the songs were so good (such as "Under the Moon"). Another one, "Flowers Fall With No Trace," has this plaintive wailing tone combined with a bit of a rapping driving energy that is incredible.
Oddly, the only visual area where they were a bit light was the make-up. In one "segment," for instance, in the world of the Outlanders, actors seemingly didn't wear any foundation/base at all, with their real skin flaws showing through: very unusual!
The story was typical in a few basic aspects (such as under-cover villains), but putting it all together it was immensely entertaining, had multiple segments with different characters and focuses, and more than enough life-and-death drama to fill two shows.
Beyond the main stars (Bai Lu is all you really need, right, since she is SO GOOD), all the other actors, including well-know character actors, were all quite good.
There were a few areas where I did think the drama fell a bit short: the evilness and the emotional scenes.
The evil characters really didn't seem that mean to me. Yes, they did bad things, but their manner did not seem all that menacing or ugly, so I couldn't really feel the horror. One villain was, I think, supposed to be creepy and "slick" in his elegant and calm evil, but it just felt flat to me. Felt the same way about the other main key evil guy. Just not evil enough. And the terrible world-wide impacts of the evil guys didn't seem too evil or we didn't see them. In fact, the ML also didn't seem "heavy" enough to me. I could have used a bit heavier, more grounded, more adult feeling from him to match the larger-than-life feeling of the female lead. Maybe they thought that would make the drama seem too comic-book-like, but I could have used just a bit more here and there. (I think about the drama "Till the End of the Moon" and the sharp and grounded presence of Luo Yun Xi.) A bit more hissing, ranting, and cruelty from the villains, please.
The hardest part I had with the drama were the emotional scenes. They were excessive and left no stone unturned; every single relationship and nuance was worked through in exhaustive detail, EXCEPT the scenes where the ML and FL were going through the process of falling in love and then the love scenes between them. Yes, there were a lot of heads-resting-on-shoulders scenes, but joy, amazement, curiosity, intrigue, all the emotions a "person" goes through while falling in love happen off screen or not at all. There is also no flirting, teasing, stomach-fluttering, line-crossing sexiness, and no physicality except for hugging and kissing, some great and some not-so-great.
And I want to give a shout-out to Dai Lu Wa for being so good at playing the 2FL role. Yes, she is stunningly beautiful and the role/character is a heart-wrenching and pitiful one, so it would be hard NOT to like her, but she played it very well.
So very beautiful and immersive, the highest-quality production I have ever seen. Far and above any others in production values.
The beauty of the costumes and CGI is BEYOND THIS WORLD. I can only imagine being able to create such beauty back in the day when the folks in charge had thousands of slaves to sweat and strain for thousands of hours to achieve such effects. No kidding! I have never seen outfit after outfit covered in sparkling beads, layers, and jewel-toned colors. A true level above all the other wonderful costumes I have ever seen. I don't know how they made all the costumes and accessories given that, I think, they need multiple copies to film in them day-after-day. They absolutely have to win an award for costuming in this, especially considering the different costume themes needed for the different "segments" of the drama.
Re the CGI, the trend for purple, pink, blue, and sunset jewel tones that I noticed in "Love You Seven Times" (an underrated gem) was continued here to its fullest. Stunning! And the sets as well were creatively planned, visually extremely interesting, and jammed with lovely colors, textures, and items. I could practically yank out my eyeballs and not be sad for the rest of my life from having seen enough beauty to last.
The OST music was to die for. I was singing along because the songs were so good (such as "Under the Moon"). Another one, "Flowers Fall With No Trace," has this plaintive wailing tone combined with a bit of a rapping driving energy that is incredible.
Oddly, the only visual area where they were a bit light was the make-up. In one "segment," for instance, in the world of the Outlanders, actors seemingly didn't wear any foundation/base at all, with their real skin flaws showing through: very unusual!
The story was typical in a few basic aspects (such as under-cover villains), but putting it all together it was immensely entertaining, had multiple segments with different characters and focuses, and more than enough life-and-death drama to fill two shows.
Beyond the main stars (Bai Lu is all you really need, right, since she is SO GOOD), all the other actors, including well-know character actors, were all quite good.
There were a few areas where I did think the drama fell a bit short: the evilness and the emotional scenes.
The evil characters really didn't seem that mean to me. Yes, they did bad things, but their manner did not seem all that menacing or ugly, so I couldn't really feel the horror. One villain was, I think, supposed to be creepy and "slick" in his elegant and calm evil, but it just felt flat to me. Felt the same way about the other main key evil guy. Just not evil enough. And the terrible world-wide impacts of the evil guys didn't seem too evil or we didn't see them. In fact, the ML also didn't seem "heavy" enough to me. I could have used a bit heavier, more grounded, more adult feeling from him to match the larger-than-life feeling of the female lead. Maybe they thought that would make the drama seem too comic-book-like, but I could have used just a bit more here and there. (I think about the drama "Till the End of the Moon" and the sharp and grounded presence of Luo Yun Xi.) A bit more hissing, ranting, and cruelty from the villains, please.
The hardest part I had with the drama were the emotional scenes. They were excessive and left no stone unturned; every single relationship and nuance was worked through in exhaustive detail, EXCEPT the scenes where the ML and FL were going through the process of falling in love and then the love scenes between them. Yes, there were a lot of heads-resting-on-shoulders scenes, but joy, amazement, curiosity, intrigue, all the emotions a "person" goes through while falling in love happen off screen or not at all. There is also no flirting, teasing, stomach-fluttering, line-crossing sexiness, and no physicality except for hugging and kissing, some great and some not-so-great.
And I want to give a shout-out to Dai Lu Wa for being so good at playing the 2FL role. Yes, she is stunningly beautiful and the role/character is a heart-wrenching and pitiful one, so it would be hard NOT to like her, but she played it very well.
So very beautiful and immersive, the highest-quality production I have ever seen. Far and above any others in production values.
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