Pretty good but not for me
Overall this is a strong short drama. It is better than most short dramas both in production value and the care with which the story is crafted.Side note: I came here for Wang Xue Xi but she is not a large part of this drama.
The best parts of this drama are sidequests showing women living in this world. It is handled with nuance and heart. While this drama is pretty feminist, the characters are not just flat caricatures used to make a point; they are more realistic and vibrantly living their lives regardless of the struggles that are also being portrayed. Keeping that element -- people finding joy in the little things -- while also portraying an unjust system, is a level of nuance that even larger productions fail to explore.
However, I ended up skimming the remaining episodes and dropping this mainly because the main romance fails to distinguish itself from being enemies to lovers tropes. In general I don't like that trope, and this very much portrays a jerk ML who is supposedly "not that bad" but actually he is, yall just horny for jerkheads :( I mean, enjoy if that is your thing, but this is not for me.
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If you're looking for light comedy
Flash review--So the reception on this one is pretty mixed, and I will try to summarize why I think that is, as well as what I personally cared about.
*NOTE: I only watched 3 eps
OVERALL
If you like silly comedy and aren't going to take things too seriously, you may have a lot of fun.
Personally, I am not a big comedy person and have a hard time turning my brain off, so this was not for me. The rest of this review is about what I personally liked/disliked. So like, don't just take my opinion man, there is nothing wrong with liking what you like. Go have fun, hopefully the above review can help you make the decision as to whether its a good fit for you
THE GOOD
Suzy is pretty much good in this, maybe some things could be a bit better but I don't think she is a problem in this.
Her grandmother and the surrounding community are great. Both in being interesting to watch and what the writing does with their setup is interesting and potentially really important portrayal related to mental health and diversity.
The ML is hot. His acting is probably fine but, for me, the writing made him the focus of my problems with this show (See below)
THE BAD
The writing is just sloppy and half-hearted. Especially when it comes to the ML's motivations and behavior as well as the fundamentals of how magic works and what it means for the characters in the story. I had to turn my brain off and then turn my brain off again. And I still dropped it, because it was that pervasive.
The comedy is very ...well, I struggled (and failed) to think of an accurate way to describe it that wasn't mean. I don't want to bully people who like this type of comedy, but my eyes have limits to how much they can roll.
This show doesn't handle any topic with care. The flippant use of cultural stuff around genies is a pretty obvious issue that many people are accepting. But perhaps less talked about is the cartoonish portrayal of an actual mental health condition. It barely reflects the actual Antisocial Personality Disorder, and (as far as I watched) constantly plays it for laughs about the "psychopath". I am still a little hopeful that the rest of the show at least does SOMETHING good with the topic, which may actually be the case from what I saw about the community accepting her and raising her, but the comedy seems to mostly just play it for laughs.
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Mediocre Fantasy
Very mediocre drama. Watched ~11 eps, may put it on in the background to see where it goes, but spent more time being confused and frustrated by the writing than enjoying myself.The good:
- As a fantasy production it is pretty decently put together. Not poorly produced, decent effects, decent filming angles etc
- There are some characters with charm, though a lot of this falls apart when the writing muddles their personalities and motivations. I feel like the actors were probably good, but the scenes and arcs that were written for them just failed their characters
- If you want to watch a show with intention to heckle it, turn on comments and there's a stack of people just laughing at it or tearing it apart
The bad:
The writing is really frustrating in its lack of consistency and its lack of respect for character motivations.
The FL:
Her characterization jumps all over the place, is she clever or an idiot, is she strong and willful or a baby. She doesn't feel consistent at all. In theory she starts out as having grown up on the streets among younger street kids who she takes care of, but as soon as she is off the streets she becomes the ultimate spoiled child. There is no sense that she has street smarts, she is completely gullible, and she acts like a total dependent child - there is no sign at all that she used to shoulder all the responsibility for a group of kids. She is shown to have never relied on anyone when she was homeless, but immediately just becomes completely dependent on every man we encounter once the show starts.
To that point, the FL is regularly portrayed as child-like when around any men, while they are almost universally portrayed as interested in her. It really gets to be pretty creepy with the grooming and possessive vibes, to a degree that even many xianxia "cutesy" FL's don't come across this bad.
Eventually as we forget that she was ever a street kid, and accept her new baby persona, the writing still can't stay consistent. Will she suddenly be willful or will she just let people push her around? Will she suddenly inexplicably be competent and powerful or will she just be mowed over? Will she make the absolute dumbest decisions just because the writers need to set up a misunderstanding plotline, or a persecution plotline? It all just jumps all over the place, and it makes it really hard to stay engaged and invested.
The ML:
Is a wooden block at best, but seems to just be grooming and keeping the FL isolated and we are meant to take it as romantic? Ew.
Other characters:
Too many love interests, basically every man we encounter, and almost all of them give no reason to care or root for them. Personally the most annoying is these romantic interests are regularly just totally disregarding the FLs autonomy. Tons of wrist grabbing and talking over her and "pushy flirting" which is really gross.
Basically no women anywhere. The only other woman in this show is the "bully" who also will be portrayed just as inconsistently in power and authority just suddenly ramping up, despite her also being new to the cultivation world.
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Great lead, terrible show
This show was very disappointing, especially since the female lead just outclasses everything about this production. Her performance is excellent, but everything else about this show ruined any attempt to push through just for her.The direction and the writing are both so flawed that it really became unwatchable. It was actually very odd that every episode begins with a recap "last time on this show" and ends with "next time on this show" (which would spoil the whole next episode), both of which are a level of handholding that I have never seen used since like shows from the 80s or something.
But despite the choice to coddle the viewer with these episode framings; the actual scenes just start abruptly with no explanation of what happened since the previous scene. Many times the show just starts a fight scene and we don't know how the people fighting encountered each other or why they are fighting or where the other people that were present just seconds ago went. The continuity feels completely slapped together.
Along the lines of the jarringly poor continuity, the character motivations are also handled with similar lack of care. Characters take inexplicable actions that make no sense for their character for seemingly no reason other than the writers need to move the story to some specific plot beat, usually with some contrived conflict. To some degree, many shows do this, but this show does it to a degree that feels like it has no respect for the audience's intelligence.
Ultimately, I keep wanting to push through because the main character is such a pleasure to watch, and the core concept of good and bad "heart" cultivators is really interesting, but in the end the quality level was just too low.
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Decent comedy but weird choices to make her a groomer
Maybe not bad, but not my tastes. Personally I found it too heavy on the comedy, it might even be considered slapstick. But if you like a lot of comedy and only a splash of romance then maybe you will like this, if you can overlook the next issue.People trying to reduce this to an age gap show are missing a fundamental issue. The gap isn't the issue, the problem is the grooming that is heavily emphasized and treated as romantic. She was literally his teacher and idolized by him. They emphasize how much he has put her on a pedestal because he was going through such a rough time in school at the time and was super vulnerable. This is not a background part of the plot, it is a core part of his character that dominates multiple episodes. This is actually text book grooming, so to give it the kdrama sparkle of romance is really uncomfortable.
Weirdly they also just show her desperately clinging to men, at least from what I could see, she just clings to whoever is in front of her, which made it hard to feel like the character had any dignity or the prospective romance had any value, since she's just willing to settle for anything.
Beyond those issues show was decent, the characters and acting are good, and the broader plot about the historical preservation people is really interesting.
Though I found it weird that his character is supposed to be a devoted historical reenactor type, but has a modern haircut? I am by no means an expert, and even I expected him to have his hair tied up on the top of his head, especially wearing that hat, it was jarring to have short hair under it.
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Interesting premise, great lead, mediocre writing
The good:- Zhao Lu Si is always a joy to watch perform. She definitely is the best thing about this show.
- The setting and concept are interesting and not very common. Combining the early 1900s with fantasy has tons of potential for a fun an interesting story
- Focusing on healing magic / skills is interesting. While there is some fighting, this is a rare chinese fantasy that isn't just focused on wuxia or xianxia themes, it develops its own fantasy ideas.
The bad:
- The writing is very bad. Plotlines don't have internal consistency. Scenes make no sense, or are clearly forced just to have a specific story beat whether they work or not.
- The characters are dumb and not very likable. With maybe the exception of the 2 leads, especially the antagonistic characters or just peripheral characters are just really annoying. It goes beyond "they are making trouble for our MCs" and more to a degree of "why is everyone letting them be clearly and overtly evil and then acting like they're not. This gets back into the above point about continuity consistency. Every bad thing someone does is immediately forgotten about for no clear reason.
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Very weird to frame as a romance
The age gap for the actors is very concerning, but also the age gap within the plot is also very uncomfortable. The basic premise that a 15 year old has been essentially living in isolation for her whole life, means that her mental age is even lower than her physical age. A full grown man swooping in and developing a relationship with such an inexperienced child is really disgusting to portray as a romance genre show.Beyond that, the actual plot starts with some interesting supernatural ideas, but it jumps away from them very fast and then it loses the thread on most of the interesting plot points.
It is really a shame that this drama made so many bad choices, because Jang Hee Jin gives a strong performance, but it is not enough to warrant giving this drama a full watch
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Only if you really want to watch fantasy
Overall I would say that this was not very good. You would have to really really just want to watch a fantasy show to watch this.The good:
Honestly there is not much. One lead female actor tries to give a good and dignified performance, and does really well. The other lead female actor gives a fun and charming performance, and does really well. They both do well but just are not enough to salvage the rest of the show being so rough.
The bad:
Personally my main issue is that the main character seems like something a 14 year old boy would think is cool. Just a lot of unearned swagger, and everything always works out for him just because.
The other main issue, and the one that probably everyone will struggle with, is the pacing. The story is indecypherable for multiple episodes. We bounce between character arcs without any real idea of who they are or why we should care. The story momentum randomly seems like its picking up and then just flounders and resets, multiple times. If you watch on Viki and turn on comments, you will just see a stream of people being frustrated and giving up on the show over the course of the first 6 episodes.
The other thing about the writing is that plot points are written exceptionally badly. Like really badly, to the point I was regularly confused how it even made sense that a character would say or do things. Do not expect any character's to behave in any consistent way, or to do things that make sense.
Beyond those main issues, there are more issues, just generally very bad and cheap looking costuming. The fights are not filmed well. These points I personally did not care about that much, and would have forgiven if the story was better, but alas failing on all fronts really has me questioning how much I have to just want to watch a fantasy show to stick with this one.
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Yucky
The writing for the plot was very poor, the situations were completely contrived and did not make sense at all. You might think with "revenge" in the title that the FL would be strong or find her strength, but she is a damsel at best, and more honestly she is just continually a victim. This show has a very weird and gross worldview where it wants to portray a man's love as inherently violent and disregarding consent, and the entire experience is really disgusting.Was this review helpful to you?
Too much misogyny
Tried to push through but dropping this because there is just way too much misogyny for my tastes. At first it's the 2nd ML and I think to myself "okay maybe this is just to illustrate that he isn't a good fit for her". But even then it KEEPS going on for way too long, and she's not even portrayed as being bothered it? And while this keeps going on, we introduce the actual ML and he's JUST AS BAD. Just constant groping against her will, and ignoring and overruling her decisions, just really unpleasant stuff to watch and especially to have it be presented as romantic. Strangely the FL is portrayed as strong and independent, but any time a man shows up that all is just forgotten.Was this review helpful to you?
