1
This review may contain spoilers
A, Are you sure you're not a bit bored? B. It gets ridiculous and doesn't improve.
Love Cheng Yi. I even rewatched Stand By Me as I awaited this drama. But sigh, having a hard time being excited about this drama. Even Deep Lurk was more compelling (but I dropped it, there are few Ming Guo era dramas I will watch to the end)
It's refreshing that CY gets to be playful and naive vs. most past roles conveying stoic angst, but the comic relief is just plain stupid and goes way past the punchline, and the obsession over an inanimate object does not make for a driver of the story. The antagonist characters are exceedingly one note, and, CY cries and whines a bit too much so far--perhaps it will be that this is the point--to show a character arc from lame/naive to true hero....which is why I keep watching. I also figured that his pastel costuming to the point of being very feminine was to show a too obvious transition from naive to mature.
Also I am amused that recent production gossip is that Cheng Yi is too old to play young man roles and that Wu Lei was selected instead--sorry but I disagree-- CY is ageless and he plays younger fine.
Oddly while not that compelling, I don't find myself wanting to speed up the video or to skip scenes (well wait I just did with the mourning), and every dialogue seems stretched out (ex: He's dead. Did you say he's dead? Yes, Dead, What, he's dead? Dramatic pause, What do you mean dead?...and it goes on).
Additionally the OST became over used and utterly obvious to confirm the emotion of the scene---super heavy and long--again-for clear sad portions, and plucky for the comedic (or trying to be funny) scenes. And the fights are okay tho' the reasons to fight are at a drop of the hat.
So for those of you loving it, great, for those seeking more compelling/sophisticated story and fight scenes, highly recommend Side Story of Fox Volant or the recent The Legend of the Female General.
B. SPOILERS (and rant) I don't usually keep adding to a review but as I arrived at ep 26, this story's downhill got crazier than the Hawaiian slide scene in Chief of War (ep. 5). The story looses any sense of logic at this point. Not only is there a new character who comes out of nowhere because ML says he does, that character can supposedly remain hidden as a spy in the "evil gang' and yet never gets suspected despite all the times he spends with ML. And the loser eldest brother role is SO single minded, one wonders if the actor said to him "is my character really this lame?". And well, so far every single female character's portrayal is pre-AI robotic--think Dalek from Dr. Who. Of course this lends to the zero chemistry between ML and the Tang heiress FL. Plus Guli Na Zha has a role that could have been edited out and wouldn't be missed so far.
The final straw that made me add to this is suddenly in ep 27 he receives all this power from masters (again, handily explained by ML: 'it's in the story I read" yet rationally there is zero reason for these masters from both sides to dump their power on a kid who walks into the end of their fray. And rather than asking why one of them has his father's sword sheath, he asks about the emblem on it. And of course, being this story is lame, get's no valuable answer but the dialogue/scene goes for minutes. Plus the once silly pair he encountered now has the skill and power to destroy the Power Gang bases--huh? Might have been a scene I missed where he says the story makes it so (snicker).
Oh yeah, and does it even make sense that supposedly ML "wrote" the story and yet half the time it's about what he read--so even if scratch your head and think ok...he was able to modify the game story with this own character settings and scenarios, but then the system didn't like it, and some works and some doesn't then gosh how lazy it is to weave threads of it's in/it's mine/it's broken story to move forward. At least Love Game In Eastern Fantasy made sense (until the ending in the game to wrap it up)
All that said, even I can't explain to myself why I am still watching this. yI think I still want to see what Cheng Yi is up to and because there's nothing else new to view at the moment.
Wrap up: The totally illogical story points continue to the end-one minute it can't be done and a few scenes later, viola, second try-no problem. And OMG while CY dies tragically often in his dramas, he actually dies twice in this one. And what the heck he's in swishy pink as his final outfit? And yet I still watched to the end without being compelled to speed it up or fast forward...
It's refreshing that CY gets to be playful and naive vs. most past roles conveying stoic angst, but the comic relief is just plain stupid and goes way past the punchline, and the obsession over an inanimate object does not make for a driver of the story. The antagonist characters are exceedingly one note, and, CY cries and whines a bit too much so far--perhaps it will be that this is the point--to show a character arc from lame/naive to true hero....which is why I keep watching. I also figured that his pastel costuming to the point of being very feminine was to show a too obvious transition from naive to mature.
Also I am amused that recent production gossip is that Cheng Yi is too old to play young man roles and that Wu Lei was selected instead--sorry but I disagree-- CY is ageless and he plays younger fine.
Oddly while not that compelling, I don't find myself wanting to speed up the video or to skip scenes (well wait I just did with the mourning), and every dialogue seems stretched out (ex: He's dead. Did you say he's dead? Yes, Dead, What, he's dead? Dramatic pause, What do you mean dead?...and it goes on).
Additionally the OST became over used and utterly obvious to confirm the emotion of the scene---super heavy and long--again-for clear sad portions, and plucky for the comedic (or trying to be funny) scenes. And the fights are okay tho' the reasons to fight are at a drop of the hat.
So for those of you loving it, great, for those seeking more compelling/sophisticated story and fight scenes, highly recommend Side Story of Fox Volant or the recent The Legend of the Female General.
B. SPOILERS (and rant) I don't usually keep adding to a review but as I arrived at ep 26, this story's downhill got crazier than the Hawaiian slide scene in Chief of War (ep. 5). The story looses any sense of logic at this point. Not only is there a new character who comes out of nowhere because ML says he does, that character can supposedly remain hidden as a spy in the "evil gang' and yet never gets suspected despite all the times he spends with ML. And the loser eldest brother role is SO single minded, one wonders if the actor said to him "is my character really this lame?". And well, so far every single female character's portrayal is pre-AI robotic--think Dalek from Dr. Who. Of course this lends to the zero chemistry between ML and the Tang heiress FL. Plus Guli Na Zha has a role that could have been edited out and wouldn't be missed so far.
The final straw that made me add to this is suddenly in ep 27 he receives all this power from masters (again, handily explained by ML: 'it's in the story I read" yet rationally there is zero reason for these masters from both sides to dump their power on a kid who walks into the end of their fray. And rather than asking why one of them has his father's sword sheath, he asks about the emblem on it. And of course, being this story is lame, get's no valuable answer but the dialogue/scene goes for minutes. Plus the once silly pair he encountered now has the skill and power to destroy the Power Gang bases--huh? Might have been a scene I missed where he says the story makes it so (snicker).
Oh yeah, and does it even make sense that supposedly ML "wrote" the story and yet half the time it's about what he read--so even if scratch your head and think ok...he was able to modify the game story with this own character settings and scenarios, but then the system didn't like it, and some works and some doesn't then gosh how lazy it is to weave threads of it's in/it's mine/it's broken story to move forward. At least Love Game In Eastern Fantasy made sense (until the ending in the game to wrap it up)
All that said, even I can't explain to myself why I am still watching this. yI think I still want to see what Cheng Yi is up to and because there's nothing else new to view at the moment.
Wrap up: The totally illogical story points continue to the end-one minute it can't be done and a few scenes later, viola, second try-no problem. And OMG while CY dies tragically often in his dramas, he actually dies twice in this one. And what the heck he's in swishy pink as his final outfit? And yet I still watched to the end without being compelled to speed it up or fast forward...
Was this review helpful to you?
