This review may contain spoilers
Not the grand tale of heroes on an epic quest I was expecting...
The only reason I had fun with this and was able to finish was because the ridiculousness became amusing and I am stubbornly curious. The fast pace helps but don't let it deceive you. A lot of action happens in every episode but it's usually all for nothing. You really have to adjust your lens prescription to enjoy this at all. Watching Xiao Qiu Shui navigate this world is basically like watching someone play a video game. For most of it I was able to numb myself to the bad acting. I also made the excuse that the over the top acting was intentional for nostalgic purposes and to sell the whole novel world setting. I know I'm probably wrong but let me have it lol
This is 40, 40+ min long eps and there's a lot going on at once, all the time. New characters are spit out and disposed of almost every ep. It was hard to form an attachment to most of the characters, including XQS. As a drama about epic legendary heroes...I didn't really feel the grandeur of it at any point. The journey never really journeyed and the brotherhood never struck any sentimental chords in me. This is by no means a mindless or emotionally fulfilling watch. Then I tried to think about it also being a transmigration story, but that aspect of it didn't really work either. The fight scenes were pretty good though. That's where a majority of my good rating comes from.
Cheng Yi is Cheng Yi but his emotional scenes were borderline torture in this one. My feelings towards XQS went from dislike in the beginning to neutral enough to root for him somewhere in the middle. It still blows my mind that as the main character he had the cheapest looking/worst costumes. I liked Li Chen Zhou a lot more. He looked better and was more interesting and entertaining on screen. Then pair him with Zhao Shi Rong and this CP was able to breath some life into the show. Those two brought all the heart and all the feels and I thoroughly enjoyed watching them together. Which confuses me because how does Cheng Yi kill it with his chemistry between his one character's love but bombs the chemistry with the MAIN character's love interest? I'll chalk that up to the bad writing and directing. So I'm not even going to get into how stiff the "romance" was between XQS and Tang Fang. It's better to pretend it never even happened and move on.
I also liked Song Mingzhu. She was a pretty little badass and so loyal to Liu Sui Feng without being cringy. I would've liked Liu Sui Feng more but they completely diminished LSF's character little by little until the end. The drama created all this hype and angst around his big vendetta and rivalry with XQS in the beginning, just to dissolve it and let it fall flat. That was one of the most disappointing pitfalls of this show, amongst many other unresolved plot points.
The OST was good though. I liked Silence Wang's theme song. It was campy but catchy. Zhou Shen's song was good but overplayed so I don't like it anymore. I believe Cheng Yi's track was played during the final scene but I could be wrong.
Unless you're a young kid who just likes to watch nonsense action scenes or a die-hard fan of Cheng Yi's adorable big head, then there's absolutely no reason to watch this.
This is 40, 40+ min long eps and there's a lot going on at once, all the time. New characters are spit out and disposed of almost every ep. It was hard to form an attachment to most of the characters, including XQS. As a drama about epic legendary heroes...I didn't really feel the grandeur of it at any point. The journey never really journeyed and the brotherhood never struck any sentimental chords in me. This is by no means a mindless or emotionally fulfilling watch. Then I tried to think about it also being a transmigration story, but that aspect of it didn't really work either. The fight scenes were pretty good though. That's where a majority of my good rating comes from.
Cheng Yi is Cheng Yi but his emotional scenes were borderline torture in this one. My feelings towards XQS went from dislike in the beginning to neutral enough to root for him somewhere in the middle. It still blows my mind that as the main character he had the cheapest looking/worst costumes. I liked Li Chen Zhou a lot more. He looked better and was more interesting and entertaining on screen. Then pair him with Zhao Shi Rong and this CP was able to breath some life into the show. Those two brought all the heart and all the feels and I thoroughly enjoyed watching them together. Which confuses me because how does Cheng Yi kill it with his chemistry between his one character's love but bombs the chemistry with the MAIN character's love interest? I'll chalk that up to the bad writing and directing. So I'm not even going to get into how stiff the "romance" was between XQS and Tang Fang. It's better to pretend it never even happened and move on.
I also liked Song Mingzhu. She was a pretty little badass and so loyal to Liu Sui Feng without being cringy. I would've liked Liu Sui Feng more but they completely diminished LSF's character little by little until the end. The drama created all this hype and angst around his big vendetta and rivalry with XQS in the beginning, just to dissolve it and let it fall flat. That was one of the most disappointing pitfalls of this show, amongst many other unresolved plot points.
The OST was good though. I liked Silence Wang's theme song. It was campy but catchy. Zhou Shen's song was good but overplayed so I don't like it anymore. I believe Cheng Yi's track was played during the final scene but I could be wrong.
Unless you're a young kid who just likes to watch nonsense action scenes or a die-hard fan of Cheng Yi's adorable big head, then there's absolutely no reason to watch this.
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