Uneven Story. Great Visuals, but Heavy on CGI. Good Actors Underutilized, Except for Chang Huasen.
WATCH THIS IF:--You enjoyed the donghua (anime) version of the same story called "Tale of Dark River". From what I hear, Blood River tracks pretty closely to what happens in the donghua, at least for the first maybe 10 episodes. BR also has a very anime look to it.
--You love CGI-dependent fight scenes. Many of the fights require CGI to make, for instance, building-height demons fight each other. Not my thing, but no judgment if you love this.
--You love dramas full of pretty people. This is a very pretty cast, the men and the women.
--You're an enormous Gong Jun fan who's happy just to see him onscreen doing anything. No shame in that!
--You're open to being wowed by Chuang Huasen in a "bad guy" role that I hope makes him a star. His is the most interesting, charismatic, emotionally complex performance in BR. I might've stopped watching without him.
--You're willing to suffer through several rough or "suboptimal" episodes early on to get to greener pastures in the middle and a bigger payoff at the end.
DO NOT WATCH THIS IF:
--You're hoping to see GJ in top acting form. WoH remains his best performance so far, by far.
--You're watching for Peng Xiaoran, who has very little screentime in an underwritten role (what a waste).
--You need a consistently strong story from beginning to end.
--You can't watch things that are very dark visually. This didn't bother me, and it does gets brighter about a third to half-way through, but some people have trouble seeing what's going on or enjoying such dark/dim visuals.
--You are a Blood of Youth purist who needs Blood River to line up 100% (I haven't seen BoY yet, but from what I hear, BoY and BR mostly line up, but some stuff in BR suggests things should have turned out differently in BoY).
--You want a strong ML/FL romance (zero chemistry, painful to watch).
--You're hoping for a strong BL romance. The two MLs have way more chemistry than the ML & FL, and this has BL overtones throughout, but I wouldn't call this a BL really.
--You'd be too frustrated by having 100 characters you can't keep track of (it gets better maybe halfway).
MY REACTIONS:
I loved Gong Jun in Word of Honor and hoped in Blood River he'd prove that WoH wasn't a fluke. That didn't happen.
Instead, he plays everything with no emotion (except at the very, very end). As a viewer, I can't emotionally connect with and care about a character if they have no emotions. Bad choice for the star and main attraction.
The first third of the series (maybe 9-10 episodes) was too much of everything for me. Too big, too fast, too crowded, too explicit, too pretty. Fight scenes fly by. A million characters are introduced and almost as many forgotten. The CGI budget for the 1st few episodes seems larger than the GDP of some small nations. I like beautiful people, but it's odd to have an assassin organization where everyone looks scouted by a modeling agency.
What bothered me most though in the first third of BR was the weak writing. Cramming too much setup into too few episodes leaves no time for things to unfold naturally, and I hate it when characters explain things in forced ways just to get the info out. I almost abandoned BR then, but Su Changhe (played by Chang Huasen) had me hooked, so I kept going.
In the middle third, things slow to what I consider a normal pace. New characters slow to a relative trickle, so you're finally following along. Even before then, fight scenes rely less on CGI and display more of each characters' fighting skills, which I prefer. You also get more backstory so you understand things better.
Fast forward to the last few episodes. Surprisingly, I'd grown pretty attached to some of the main characters and even some minor ones I didn't notice or like early on. I even cried at one scene! Part of that was I'd invested so much time watching that I ended up invested in some of the characters too. But also, the struggle of these characters made more sense by the end.
Looking back, the premise of the series was a good one. I'm glad I didn't abandon BR, though I don't think I'd rewatch the whole series, just specific scenes I like. I do wish they'd put less time/money into visuals/special effects and more into the writing, pacing, and character development. Plus, they should've done a better job directing GJ!
By shifting their focus to storytelling essentials, this could have been a 9-star rating, especially with so much going for them with a solid cast, big budget, and the original novel author as the screenwriter.
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