Eerie, Horror, with Di Renjie Guesses his Password
If there is a museum dedicated to atmospheric Chinese mysteries, The Tang Mist belongs in the exhibit titled "The Illusion of Deduction." It serves as a fascinating case study in how far striking cinematography and gothic horror aesthetics can carry a narrative before the audience realizes the legendary detective is essentially just guessing.And to be fair, the illusion holds. At first.
On the surface, the show delivers a potent dose of eerie, horror-adjacent dread. The opening sequence—featuring 42 young women dying with unsettling smiles—is a masterclass in Chinese-style gothic horror, backed by striking cinematography and a genuinely superb opening animation. The pacing is brisk, resolving each mystery in about two episodes, with roughly ten minutes of actual new plot content per installment. Feng Shaofeng’s portrayal of a middle-aged Di Renjie is dignified, his voice anchoring the character. And, to my relief, no forced romantic subplots are derailing the crime-solving.
There is a distinct line between being charmed by a spooky facade and being actively drained by a hollow core. The Tang Mist manages the rare and impressive feat of being both visually arresting and intellectually vacant.
The issue is that the writing eventually stops functioning on even basic detective logic.
Di Renjie is supposed to be the Chinese Sherlock Holmes. Yet, instead of rigorous, methodical deduction, he solves cases through sudden, convenient "flashes of inspiration" or dramatic exclamations of "I know!" The script bends over backward to validate his genius without actually making him earn it.
Almost the entire cast is one-dimensional, offering no depth nor emotional resonance. I get it. Given the short 10-minute core episodes, there's no time to develop the characters. Wu Zetian, despite her minimal screen time, is reduced to a caricature, literally, saddled with ugly makeup and styling that serve no narrative purpose other than to distract.
And then there is the historical world-building.
The show throws around supernatural dread, bloody deaths, and eerie Jiangnan folklore with absolute confidence, while possessing zero percent of the historical discipline required to ground it. It is bizarre to watch women casually strolling alone outdoors in bright red clothing in the middle of the night, and they were eventually murdered. This isn't just a minor oversight; it directly contradicts the strict, well-documented curfew systems of the Tang Dynasty.
At times, it feels like the writers vaguely remembered "ancient China" but forgot the actual rules of the era.
Condensing mysteries into ten-minute chunks of actual plot per episode makes the show feel less like a cohesive narrative and more like a beautifully edited highlight reel. The gothic aesthetic is fantastic, but it becomes a veneer. Great historical storytelling feels tactile and grounded. It has grit, uneven shadows, and lived-in textures. Instead, the atmosphere here feels like a haunted house ride: thrilling for a minute, but entirely artificial once you step off.
Eventually, the facade cracked for me.
I realized I was no longer watching a brilliant detective unravel a complex conspiracy. I was watching well-lit actors wander through a gothic-themed escape room where the detective just guesses the password, and the script aggressively applauds him for it.
The production team bets that if the gothic aesthetics are eerie enough and the opening animation is gorgeous enough, audiences will happily forgive almost anything—they are so wrong.
Was this review helpful to you?
It's actually nice.
Feng Shao Feng, of course, did a lovely job of his take on Di Ren Jie. I just wish that the plots weren't that "fast-forward" because each sub-plot has quite a story to tell. Overall, this drama is satisfying with actors delivering their given roles. If they are to create S2, please don't rush the plot. Let it have the right pace and not make the guilty ones of the crimes that obvious.Was this review helpful to you?
Strong Story, Light Character Development
Not bad. It's a straightforward drama with minimal character development.The fast-paced structure makes it easy to binge, as each episode introduces a new case while steadily moving the main story forward. However, this also means some cases feel underdeveloped, with clues often presented too directly and twists that are fairly easy to predict.
My overall impression was likely influenced by how refined and character-driven STOTD was. Compared to that, this drama puts less emphasis on character arcs and instead focuses more on its central mystery. Even so, it remains engaging throughout, and that choice works well within its shorter format.
Was this review helpful to you?
For me, this is the complete package. It has a strong narrative, and the execution is both engaging and artistic, giving the story so much flair. The cinematography is captivating, from the picturesque color story to the creative camera angles, and the soundtrack has been wonderful throughout. This has been an unexpected but very welcome surprise. I can't praise it enough.
Was this review helpful to you?
Great acting skills, direction and high production quality
The visuals of the entire series are very pleasant, with no jarring filters or color grading. The overall Chinese eerie atmosphere is captured well, and many scenes are beautifully and meticulously crafted (like Zhuang Luobai in red in the snowy white field). It's clear the director has a great eye.In terms of the plot, I think the fast pace is both a strength and a weakness of the show. Perhaps because it's a Chinese drama with limited runtime per episode, there are no drawn-out romantic subplots or mundane family scenes. Each episode quickly introduces a case and moves the plot forward, making it incredibly satisfying to binge-watch. However, for the same reason, some cases don't have enough time to build up details, causing many clues to be handed to you directly. This makes some plot twists quite easy to guess.
Overall, the flaws don't overshadow the merits. I personally really enjoyed this series and hope there will be a second season and hope that make the episodes longer, maintain this production quality and improve the suspense in script writing
Was this review helpful to you?
Started out well, ended up dark, depressing and emotionally vacuous
By the time this ended, I disliked almost everything about the drama.Starting out incredibly well, it turned into just a vacuous cesspool of depravity, evil and narcissism, with nothing good coming from any of it.
Feng Shao Feng's performance as the iconic Di Ren Jie, and who was initially portrayed interestingly, turns into a truly arrogant, lecture-y and constantly-berating-others caricature, while Li Yu's always-shouting-at-high-volume Duan Shi Si is annoying as hell, and the other bland two might as well not even have been there, as mostly useless as they turn out to be.
There is also no chemistry between any of the leads who, IMO, did not seem like a team at any point during the entire story.
The cases themselves are dark, depressing, nasty and without much redemption.
For me, for dramas like this to work, there has to be some goodness comes out of the evil occasionally, or it ends up being just a debauched slash-fest with no substance, which this turned out to be.
Like one of the main characters said at the end about all the people in town just going about their business as if they had no part in the mess - De Ren Jie lecturing them was pointless. Just as pointless as this drama.
And it's why Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty, with its humor and its cases sometimes working out for the best, works and this one doesn't.
From the drama deliberately being titled 'Season 1', I'm presuming there will be a Season 2. I doubt I will be watching it. Not unless the plot is markedly different, as I'm not interested in something this dark with no conceivable goodness or redemption to it.
Not if it's the same self-indulgent, emotionally empty, and ultimately bland and draggy mess.
Eventually gave it a 7 out of 10 as the cinematography and set design is gorgeous, the opening animation is beautifully created, and I loved the ending theme (even if it is, apparently, AI-generated? Disappointing as well, if true.)
Was this review helpful to you?
Boring as Hell!
I just watched the first 4 short 17 min. episodes of this series. Episodes that felt like 60 minutes each. I don't know who directed this series but the actors were dreadful, robot-like, uninteresting. The stories were like in Tang Dynasty, a lot of characters implicated in a series of murders, too many characters for my taste, and after two or three episodes, you just don't remember what had happened in the first place.Music, horrendous and loud, too loud. Sometimes I couldn't hear what the actors were saying. I really had the intention of finishing the series, but after 4 episodes, I felt like staring at the ceiling was more interesting
Was this review helpful to you?
