Unsolved Cases of Kung Fu: Portrait of Beauty (2020)

Worst Wuxia Drama of The Year

The production team has gravely assaulted the intelligence of the viewers and I’m a sucker for completing this lowly rated drama; all I had wanted was to find out who the super villain was. This drama has the same vibes and settings of a wuxia drama in the old days: bad plot, bad script, bad acting, bad screen play, bad camerawork, bad special effects, bad props, etc. I suspect that it was made years ago, only to be released now. Plot holes are everywhere making the whole drama leaking like a sieve. The beautiful posters of the main characters are really misleading, directly telling us don’t judge a book by its cover.

What I Like:
• A strong male lead character Chu Yun Xiao (Cai Jun Tao) who is strong and intelligent. He can fight with his fan and hit his opponents’ accupoints rendering them unable to move. These are very typical technics in a wuxia story.
• A genius doctor Leng Xing Chen (Zhang Nan) who can cure all ills.

What I Don’t Like:
• Super bad plot and bad writing. In trying to make the plot more fascinating, instead the poor script and screen writings have made the twists and turns even more frustrating to watch. The writers don’t even bother to cover the plotholes, and simply brush them over hoping viewers won’t notice. What looks like a mystery in the beginning with all the killings turns out to be inconsequential. The logic is bad and the actions are simplistic. The characters keep repeating their lines, saying the same words. At times, they're dumb like hell, at times they can see the future.
• Bad acting. The facial expressions of the actors are totally incoherent. The actors are unnatural, stiff, and overact. Most characters are not developed properly and are inconsistent, making them frustrating to watch.
• They use the same actor to play mother and daughter, they don’t even bother to make the mother look slightly older than the daughter.
• Camerawork is everywhere and haphazard.
• Fighting scenes are inconsistent. Sometimes Chu Yun Xiao can fight against hundreds of people and disarm them all; other times he can’t even fight a lowly servant even he’s not hurt himself. This inconsistency applies to many supposedly skilled martial art heroes who vow to fight and to protect, later end up dead or captured.
• The carelessness in dubbing is glaring – viewers can hear background voices of workers, script flipping sounds, some dialogues are inaudible, the mouth/voice not synching.

My Verdict
Watch at your own peril. Not recommended. Multiple times I had wanted to kill my TV. Don’t let your TVs or computers suffer the same fate as mine (my TV still survives).

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Good basic story that isn't delivered all that well

It may be worth noting that a number of the characters in this series seem based on the characters in Gu Long's Chu Liu Xiang novels, but the names have been modified. The protagonist, instead of Chu Liu Xiang, is now Chu Yun Xiao. Those who have been acquainted with Chu Liu Xiang may just be able to enjoy the series more than those who start watching with a blank slate.

The series starts somewhat abruptly, without spending time for the exposition of the main character. This is one of the instances of having a protagonist that the audience may not care much about. Perhaps those who know Chu Liu Xiang would have a different reaction. Other aspects of the production also make the series less engaging than it could have been. For instance, the dubbing isn't very good--it's not that the voice actors are bad, but this is one of those series that keep bringing to my consciousness that dubbing has been done.

The characterization also seems a little haphazard. We know Chu Yunxiao is really close to his two buddies, but we don't see why. One of his buddies, Hu Wan Hua, isn't a very consistent character, but not in the sense that there is character development. Ji Xuan Yuan, the other buddy, is more consistent (and probably the most likable of the characters). Chu Yun Xiao himself switches from being frivolously flirtatious to being faithful and devoted in love. Chu's love interest, the female physician, Leng Xing Chen, also vacillates between being jealous and being understanding when she sees Chu with other ladies whom he has no interest in.

The weaknesses above are rather unfortunate because they get in the way of what is overall quite an interesting story. Although the revelation of the identity of one of the villains in the last episode doesn't come as a surprise (we can practically see it coming starting from Episode 1), there is a nice revelation about how and why he has become villainous. It is just that the delivery of a nice story in concept may leave quite a lot to be desired. The pacing is fast, which is not a bad thing, but it is also so hurried towards the end that there are loose ends that are not tied.

If you can overlook the shortcomings of the series, it may well be worth a watch. However, it is probably necessary to moderate your expectations.

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