I wanted to watch #1 cdrama NIF first but it was not on Netflix, and watched #2 cdrama The Untamed first instead. Was immensely touched and awed by TU, and wanted to find out if NIF is really better. Completed NIF about 2 weeks ago, and while this is no doubt a good show with veterans helming the show, to me, it was just not entertaining, impressionable, nor touched me to the point to want to rewatch.
- Not entertaining. This is a serious drama from get-go. It touches on the serious theme of palace politics between the suspicious emperor and his subjects and princes, and the fight and scheming between the princes to be the crown prince. The pace is slow: (1) The protagonist is heavily injured and moves and speaks slowly; (2) People in the palace also move and speak slowly due to palace etiquette. Only Fei Liu and Mengzhi are fun to watch, and they provide the only rare comedic relief to an otherwise no-nonsense, snail paced drama.
Linky:
The characters all seem so reserved. I don't have any feeling towards the main character. All the stuff that happened to him and his family that is supposed to make you care for him and his revenge plan is just talked about but not shown.
- Not impressionable. While NIF features veteran actors, and they acted well, it is just not impressionable to me. Agree with Linky, i don't have any feelings towards the main character, as the young sunny and energetic Lin Shu is mostly just mentioned in the show. I suspect a number of scenes with the young Lin Shu was cut out, as i only saw close-up of Ni Huang in the last third of the show. What i saw at least 90% of the time is a sick Lin Shu, who is almost always serious, calm and collected. The range of emotions of Lin Shu is very limited.
- Did not touch me. The serious, no-nonsense, somewhat flat storyline, and the limited emotional range of the protagonist Lin Shu unfortunately all mean that there is no explosive moment that touched me so immensely to the point that I would want to rewatch the show. Only a few parts towards the end touched me.
yuyamatsushitafan:
F***ing long series that is over 50+ episodes like this, its sh*t is not condensed.
During my initial viewing I was lazy, so if you're lazy, it's over for you.
You'll find it's boring if you're used to watching 16-20 episodes Korean or other
asian romance dramas.
Frankly, 50 episodes of cdrama is not as daunting as it seems, as each cdrama is about 40 mins, less the starting and ending credits, and thus 1 kdrama episode is about 2 cdrama episodes.
The Untamed, comparatively to me, is a more epic and phenomenal drama that touched me immensely as I followed the TU protagonist through his ordeals from an always sunny, cheerful, sassy and free-spirited youth to the awfully feared and misunderstood patriarch who is forced by circumstance to go against society, practising unorthodox demonic cultivation to fight evil and help the weak. Even the short Yi City arc focusing on the side characters touched me deeply as well. And hearing the OSTs remind me of the exact emotional scenes in the drama.
Olivia Huang:
Just finished this show the other day and I'm so sad its over. This show was truly phenomenal. For everyone else [like me] who couldn't get past the first 12-18 episodes, literally push through it and read the episode recaps if you want to skip watch them. It's kinda like Game of Thrones where it takes time for things to build up for the audience because there was so much backstory before the first episode. It will eventually come together and make sense, and you will start seeing this happen in episode 20!!!
Like NIF, TU may not hook and be confusing for many from the start, but it gets interesting and engages earlier than NIF (20 out of 54 episodes for NIF). The initial episodes contain a lot of details that will eventually stitch together as the show progresses. The key characters are all complex 3D with their respective backstories, making them very iconic and memorable. They may not be veteran actors, but they are a bunch of passionate youths who put in their hearts and souls and brought the complex 3D characters to life, and brought the viewers to naturally resonate with their stories.
TU is a quality production not to be missed. Chinese censorship transcends the BL novel into a critical production to rave about - Chinese culture, music, sceneries, costumes, intriguing plot on society norms, good vs evil, etc, with many quotable quotes.
“At best, you’re the untamed hero; at worst, you offend people wherever you go.”
- by the novel MDZS writer
Do give this a watch as you would to NIF, you would be on an unforgettable, untamed roller coaster ride that is more entertaining, impressionable and emotional than NIF.