yarih22

A solid watch

Wasn't that great. The plot was all over the place and there was little coherence to the overall themes. But for a short series, it's impressive enough and the actors are talented, the story is compelling despite being frustrating at times (like at one point it just felt like we are told han dao & yan shiyi are smart but they just sum everything up as "everybody's a suspect" which is just not very smart also overall the writing could've been better). BUT the reason I've rated this 7 and not 6. Is because of the happy ending 😭 like this so refreshing. SO REFRESHING. In all the cdramas I've watched, if two girls or two boys have queer subtext, then they're doomed to die, kill each other, or suffer immeasurably or have a very ambiguous ending. Sure, in Blades amid Blossoms MANY people die but at the very least the sismance + bromance survive. Which is shocking. Verily so.

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a disappointment

i would like to start this review by saying i love blood river. moreover the production quality, the CGI, setups and styling are all just beyond gorgeous. the aesthetics all line up and the cinematography and OSTs are immaculate. most of the characters, despite their flaws, are likeable more or less.

and the thematic quality of BR is just competent, clean and slices with such clarity that i would personally say that Blood River, thematically alone, can be ranked higher than even WoH or FoF. it has very striking metaphors and the questions it keeps asking, "How many people must die for us to the reach Others Shore?" "What does it take to step into the light?" "What do you become if you stop killing if you have only been ever a weapon?" are precise and resonating. You can immediately empathize with the characters on that.

also the acting is good. as some others noted, gong jun's performance seems off at times but imo it's pretty decent and the flaws are not very noticeable. the cast's acting is good. especially chang huasen's. he brings so much life into changhe's character.

but. the story stumbles and limps at times. we start immediately strong with the patriarch dying and many factions fighting for the sword, then SMY and SCH dismantling the forces behind Blood River and then the pacing pivots to domesticity that is a relief but feels very slow and out of place and then back to great epic fights and pacing in Wushuang City and drops to domesticity again and it's just. The pacing is a mess.

Moreover, I want to say that the found family of Blood River is told time and again that it's important to SMY and SCH but we don't feel any investment for that family, we don't even feel like they're family until episode 20 or so. Beyond Su Changhe, Su Muyu and Bai Hehuai, it's safe to say the remaining cast are cardboard cutouts. They exist thematically to represent the family, and they have their own arcs which makes them likeable — I love MXU and MQY — but not very developed. It's frustrating. Moreover a bunch of characters keep coming in to the point you can't even remember their names. Like in Wushuang City alone we met so many characters, expand too much on them and all of them disappear.

Now, let's talk about Su Muyu and Su Changhe. And a little about Bai Hehuai.

SMY: I don't dislike Su Muyu but at one point I really wished he'd just die — because despite the expectations that he's a misunderstood assassin, it felt like he was beloved by all and respected by all, universally attractive, everyone magnet-ed into following him to death. Every time he faces a death situation he comes unscathed, makes a new technique, or powers up unexpectedly. It's frustrating. Moreover, he doesn't exactly suffer from his choices, his actions doesn't have consequences, the consequences always land on other people related to him but never on himself. He was too centralized, too developed while other characters writing felt lacking. Additionally he's just a tiring MC to have. Even his flaws don't create friction; bad at cooking, doesn't save up money. Compare that to how Su Changhe is allowed to be wrong, to suffer from consequences, to make wrong decisions and feel the weight of them.

BHH: She's a decent character but at one point she was reduced to SMY's "waiting at home" figure and a symbol for SMY'S journey - his light, his home, his dream of ordinary life, rather than a person. And when they remember to give her autonomy and relevance to the plot, it's late and rushed. It's late and rushed when they introduce Night Crow and how this all is also BHH's responsibility. Moreover, her romance with SMY feels so OFF and stiff. Other than lack of chemistry, they lack friction. Their arcs never oppose, their ideologies never clash, there's no friction (not sexual, but moral, ideological, personal) between their characters.

SCH: my biggest problem. he's the best character and the highlight of BR and he's immediately more likeable than SMY or BHH. The fact he's so good is why it's disappointing when his arc is undercut. We get hooked into his character because he's ambitious, he wants something for himself, he wants change. He's not passive. He craves that sunlight. Everyone could rest, everyone could find peace within a normal life but SCH can't. Him being patriarch is not just a title, it's because he has the ambition that SMY lacks. Their different ideologies clash and create friction and chemistry that is interesting. Su Changhe is such a complex character. He holds resentment, indifference, recklessness, menace, loyalty, devotion, ambition, lethality. But then his character folds inward for the sake of Su Muyu. He defers and submits way too easily to whatever Su Muyu decides, he starts existing in scenes to do things by Su Muyu's will or for Su Muyu's convenience. His case is like fingers getting broken and reset into smaller shapes so they can hold one hand more proper; his existence in domestic and ordinary scenes feels restless, he tries to adapt to SMY's world but he's simply not fit for that normality. He gets reduced from a best friend, an equal, to a lackey. And when they remember too late to give him agency and autonomy by shoving that revenge arc and his faux "betrayal" in our face, it's too rushed. And even after that, he still is waiting to follow SMY's decisions. This really undermines his ambition and his role as the Patriarch. SMY is the one leading here. This takes Su Changhe's devotion for Su Muyu, a profound and complicated facet of him, and twists it into Su Changhe's self-erasure. I think the two of them had so much potential to be explored. Especially in terms of holding each other accountable. I'd loved a scene where SMY just crashes out because in the end it's Su Changhe's ambition and decisions that caused so much bloodshed and because the Other Shore they promised their family is just not what they promised. Or Su Changhe crashes out and accuses Su Muyu of leaving of being too ideological and saying Su Muyu is the only one who steps into the sunlight but Changhe himself gets left in the shadows alongside the rest of blood river. But it never comes. The narrative instead settles for convenient state of rest to not let their devotion coexist with their differences. Also Su Changhe low-key had an existential purposelessness going on: he doesn't know what he wants anymore, now that SMY stepped into the light, Su Changhe tries and fails because people will only ever think of him as the Undertaker, so Su Changhe gives up and instead goes back to saying "I'm vile I'm ambitious and greedy and violent" and "We're assassins, death is ro be expected" because he goes back to familiar patterns of the old blood river because he feels lost in the new one. It really is just like he said, if he left blood river he wouldn't know where to go, if he stopped killing, he wouldn't know who he is. Moreover he sort of emotionally withdraws from SMY the last few episodes not because their relationship matters any less but because Su Changhe does not fit nor is able to hold the side of SMY's world that has entered light, and he doesn't pretend to.

also the ending was frustrating as well. many bad people are not yet dead, more cliffhangers and a voiceover timeline skip narration. after getting invested for 38 episodes that what we get?

i thought Blood River would be a new favorite. It set up so much high expectations and only half delivered. They should've invested more effort in the writing and the script honestly.

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