Battle through the Heaven (2023)

Watch at your own risk

This show is totally unbearable. After watching 4 episodes, I became bored and was on the verge of yawning. Then, I skipped most of the episodes and only watched the ending. Thank goodness it was a happy ending.

The leads, in my opinion, are miscast. I didn't even feel the chemistry between them and the fact that the ML has a baby face which made the FL has some sort of different age gap from him.

The plot is either a prequel or a fresh spinoff in the BTTH universe. Fortunately, I haven't watched season 1 before so I won't mention that one.

Acting is really, really bland as if I'm reading an uninteresting newspaper article. And the fighting choreography... don't get me started at it. They only did some sorts of wiring and twirling here and there without any direction.

Will never rewatch it anymore. Overall 5 stars out of 10. To me, it have been a decent score rather than those 1 stars. I'm sorry but I can't find any memorable parts of the show. Try to look elsewhere or watch the leads previous/future projects which are far better than this.

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Not as good as BTTH Season 1

Now you understand why Wu Lei and Jelly Lin, plus the rest of supporting cast from Season 1 did not return for Season 2 of Battle Through The Heaven (BTTH). This is a low to medium budget drama, which relies heavily on special effects (FX), computer generated imagery (CGI), wireworks and fighting choreography to make the drama a roaring success. Unfortunately this C-drama does not tick all the boxes – the fighting scene particularly was horrible. The fight scene in the first 20mins of Ep 1 when the Female Lead was chasing after the Male Lead, and they got into a scuffle, gave the signals of what to expect from this sequel. My heart sank – this is not the series I was expecting after a brilliant BTTH Season 1.

I like the leading lady (FL) – Ding Xiao Ying - ever since I saw her in Doulou Continent Season 1. She is a relative newcomer with a lot of potential. The male lead (ML) is unknown to me – a pretty face with questionable acting skill. At least Wu Lei could act. All the other characters in Season 1 were better than those cast in Season 2. Baron Chan as Medicine Sage was better; Medusa too. The interaction and adventure among students at Jianan Academy during Season 1 was engrossing and highly entertaining. The same could not be said about Xiao Yan and his adventures at Jianan Academy in Season 2. The story line was bland. They even include a sickly Xiao Yan’s brother story line, which does not contribute anything to the overall plot. In short the acting, choice of actors, FX, CGI and the story-line makes this series unbearable to watch.

If you have watched BTTH Season 1, BTTH Season 2 will be an utter disappointment. If you watch it as a standalone series, it could be bearable if you don’t have other things to do.

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As a stand alone drama: okay-ish. As a loosely based story on the previous drama: trash

Edit: dropped in the 19th episode. All edits are marked.

My notes app was the most used app while I watched Battle through the Heaven (BTTH) and simultaneously rewatched Fight Breaks Sphere (FSB, we know it as BTTH as well but for the matter of this review, I'll use FBS to differentiate) because I didn't remember many of the things referenced in BTTH... I didn't want to compare these two too much but you can't have one apart from the other since BTTH is based on FBS.

But first, let's judge BTTH as a stand alone drama. It is pretty much your standard drama centered around the martial arts world. It is not exceptional, but it is also not too underwhelming. I liked that we were getting into things and stuff right away and we did not wait for the plot to unfold develop for ages. One of the main evil characters is eliminated in the first half of the drama, I have been missing such element in many other dramas. One thing I couldn't buy is Xun'er portrayed by Ding Xiao Ying, edit: I think a different actress (switching her with Xiao Yixian actress for example) would be a better pairing with He Luo Luo (end edit). If you don't know anything about FBS, you'll be able to enjoy BTTH. And if you did watch FBS like me and enjoyed it, you could still enjoy BTTH if you watch it with an open mind. Don't compare and think about the differences too much and it'll be fine. But, I am the person who was not fine and I did have to compare FBS to BTTH. Edit: I had to drop it in the 19th episode, because the cherry picking of FBS was.... Ugh (end edit.)

When I saw that there will be another BTTH, I was really excited and I thought this was going to be a new season, where they would pick up on the cliffhanger from FBS iykyk. I was WRONG. BTTH is loosely based on FBS. The writers cherry picked characters and events and just went with it. Which is not a terrible thing to do if you pick the right stuff, discard some things, adjust it and go, I was just a little disappointed (who out of us who watched and loved FBS wasn't, am I right). What I liked about this cherry picking was: Xiao Yan (XY) and Yao Chen's relationship, I enjoyed the chemistry between them far more here than in FBS. The playfulness, the jokes, the genuine kindness. I have to say that I loved Yao Chen in BTTH far more than in FBS (he was my fav in FBS). We got rid of the Soul Clan pact XY accidentally picked up in the medicine making competition in FBS and it gave us load of space to work it.

The CGI was pretty good in both, but BTTH wins this one. We had some new characters, but I'd have appreciated even more new characters or recurring characters from FBS. Chance to bring back at least Lin Xiuya since we traveled a lot in BTTH and elder Hai was missed. Especially elder Hai when we had Xiao Yixian back (little medicine doctor in BTTH). I wanted to say that I liked that BTTH did not clench into FBS but in case of XY and Xiao Yixian, copying this story wasn't executed well by the actors. What boggled my mind here was, the writers mentioned the beast flame in BTTH which XY acquired in FBS when he met Xiao Yixian and in BTTH XY does not even mention having the flame in eps prior to ep12. Cherry picking the FBS plot done badly here.

Now, onto more plot holes. TL;DR: I HAVE QUESTIONS. First of all, how and why did Yao Chen get into the spatial ring, and how did the spatial ring find XY? By getting rid of the heroes went far north to fight Soul Hall backstory completely, how was the spatial ring created? How did XY acquire the mystical ruler in BTTH when it was an item of Soul Hall and he acquired it after fighting a Soul Hall member? XY was a pharmacy shop apprentice and learned to refine medicine, even got accepted into the alchemists guild and used his skills in FBS. But in BTTH we are thrown into the middle of things and the only background of XY's skill is seemingly medicine elder. In my opinion, another thing which didn't make sense was using Bai Shan and Bai Cheng. Bai Shan was the more powerful one in FBS, has his pride and stuff and in BTTH they made him into this not so powerful power thirsty dummy blinded by his ambition. Then, when XY fell into the Blazing Qi Tower, why was the Snake Queen not able to control the python? Also, she made XY the temporary Snake King in FBS, so he should've been able to control the python too. Edit: As I later learned in BTTH, XY wasn't made into temporary Snake King, only later in the plot (end edit).

If I should describe FBS with one word, it would be grand. The filming locations, the amount of characters, the CGI, the plot, the music were simply grand. To surpass this grandness is certainly not an easy task and BTTH would not be able to do it, unless the writers would carry on the plot precisely and if the production cost would be the same if not even higher. In terms of loosely based stories and spin offs, BTTH is slightly above the average in my opinion. And lbr, the bar is quite low here. If definitely could've been better, but as I said, it is difficult to follow up on such a staple martial arts drama like FBS.

Last edit: at first, I wanted to say that I liked that BTTH writers didn't try to clench too hard on FBS. Episodes 15-19 made me change my mind definitely. Placing Yan Xiao identity into a completely wrong place and even the medicines making competition.... It honestly felt like they made BTTH into a plagiarized version of FBS. Just no. I was dedicated to watch it until the end and try to not have a bias, but I can't. Also, a big pet peeve of mine, XY in BTTH is a reckless dumbass who unintentionally made Xiao Yixian fall in love with him while not publicly acknowledging his relationship with Xun'er. Just why was he so oblivious to what his kind words and live saving actions would do to Xiao Yixian. Hence the score deduction from 7.5 to 6.5.

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Fängt den Charme des Romans ein

Ich habe den Roman gelesen, verfolge den Anime und kenne auch die Version mit Leo Wu.
Ich bin der Meinung, dass hier ein Stück Kulturgeschichte einstanden ist. Es ist sehr nahe am Roman, fängt den Geist des von Tian Can Tu Dou Geschriebenen ein und stellt die Figuren relativ genau nach. Das kann man von der Version mit Leo Wu nicht sagen, zum Beispiel war das Schikanieren von XY in der Akademie völlig übertrieben.
Kritisch ist in diesem Drama nur der etwas steife und hölzerne Einstieg. Man merkt, dass die jungen Schauspieler noch nicht ganz in ihre Rolle gefunden haben.
Das Schauspiel, die Musik und die Effekte bilden eine hervorragende Einheit. Obwohl ich die Handlung kannte, war es an keiner Stelle im Drama langweilig. Gerade auch die Qualität der Computeranimierung war gelungen, wenn auch dezent.
Und mal ehrlich, war kann mit so einem Ruler elegant kämpfen. Darüber habe ich mir schon beim Lesen des Romans den Kopf zerbrochen. Dafür sind die Kampfszenen nicht die schlechtesten.
Die Kostüme sind originell und vielseitig.
Eine klare Empfehlung zum Schauen von mir.

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