m5m

Overall, a fantastic, classic wuxia ... until the final episodes. More on that later. First I just ant to laud a few key points that I liked. This show has so many strong elements starting with a script that create very real, very complex characters who, with the possible exception of the villainous She Wan Chen, were not 2-dimensional cartoon cutouts. Most of the characters in this drama were multi-layered, often involving sides of white right along with sides of black and of course, lots of grey. In particular, the 'love triangle' dynamic involving Miao Renfeng, Nan Lan and Tian Guinong was both angsty and heartbreaking to watch unfold, but also brilliant drama as all three characters show both good and bad sides. Renfeng may be pure heroic of purpose, but he was a negligent fool of a husband who broke his promises to his wife in favor of promises to dead people long gone. That was the first betrayal of their relationship. His essential abandonment and refusal to prioritize his wife and child pushed the insecure Nan Lan right towards his 'best friend' / hidden enemy, Tian Guinong. Who psychotically, obsessively coveted anything and everything that Miao possessed. Some viewers hated Nan Lan for 'cheating' on Miao. But in prioritizing his quest for the truth about the deaths of Hu Fei's parents over his promises to his wife, Miao was actually the first to, "cheat". He abandoned her again and again for months at a time, leaving her alone, vulnerable and scared. And while it was one thing to do in their first years together, once she had a child to care for, it became a ridiculously dangerous and awful thing to keep doing to Lan and Roulan. So she, like any mother, was attracted to the idea of the stable, secure home that Tian promised her. And Tian didn't just woo her with promises. He legitimately acted so sincerely nice and caring to both Lan and her child that she had zero reason to think he was anything but sincere towards her. Literally until late, near the end of the series when she finally sees the truth of the evil deeds that Tian has done, she had no reason to think he was anything but a good man. And I think he DID really love Lan and even, for a time, Roulan. But his love was less than his evil psychosis. On the other story arc, Hu Fei is a bit of a strange character. He starts off as a street smart clever child able to survive alone even after his "uncle" is killed ... but when they time-skip to the 'present day' storyline he immediately acts like a naive, overly-trusting idiot who keeps stumbling blindly into trouble. He only very, very slowly grows more smart and cautious and is a bit irritating to watch make the same dumb mistakes again and again. But he's wonderfully nice and pure of heart and a fantastic fighter and so easy to root for. The two women in his life are both complex, loving him dearly but both chained by the script writers with their own 'noble idiocy' drama tropes that unfortunately, get carried out all the way to the end of the show and never released. Ziyi hid her relationship with her father and her commitment to the agenda of her nutcase 'master' all the way to the end until it was too late. And Ling Su hid her poisonous fate until it, too, was too late.

And this brings me to my biggest complaint about the show. Yes, I understand that the source material is a very old story that purposely ended ambiguously with only two likely outcomes, both being unhappy for one reason or another. So sure, the original source material ("The Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain") did not have a 'happy ending'. So I guess that meant the writers of this show felt compelled to also not have a 'happy ending'. Fine. But the problem with the final couple of episodes isn't just that the show ended with so many unhappy fates for so many characters. The problem was that almost every single one of the 'bad fates' was pointless. There was nothing gained plot-wise or thematically by the deaths of Ma Chun Hua, Miao Renfeng, or Cheng Ling Su. And there was absolutely no point to having Yuan Ziyi tonsured to the life of a nun. Each of these fates was awkwardly contrived and forced upon the story almost as if to purposely trigger the viewers. Yes, the show teased some of these fates from early on so they weren't pulled out of nowhere at the last second. But to tease these dumb fates doesn't validate that they made sense story-wise. Ziyi becoming a nun was based on classic drama trope false-guilt and false commitment to crazy teachings pounded into her head by that nutcase "All-Knowing Nun" that were abslutely logically stupid and made no sense to anyone with half an ounce of rational thinking. It just made no sense. Renfeng staying outside the doors just to get shot to pieces made no sense. He wasn't saving anyone by doing so. And so on. So the whole thing felt at the end like the writers forced all these 'bad fates' purely for the sake of doing so.

And jeez I didn't even get into wondering WTF happened to the twins and Xiaomei at the end of the show? The fates of those three were completely glossed over by the writers. Just ridiculous.