And I thought it is because of my elevated taste of fighting scene. Finally other people who think that the fighting scene is atrocious. It is not only how the opponent is standing still, the choreography bothering me, too. And the fact that Shrek brings hidden weapon while the opponent only uses their soul power. I heard that this drama is to promote something about youth. Do they want to promote cheating here?
With lots of will-power and fast forwarding, I watched to episode 21 today. But, I just cannot go on. So I skipped immediately to episode 37 and another atrocious fighting scene graced my eyes. I think I will just wait until the final episode and then watching clips of the previous episodes that I have missed. Sorry, but watching this drama feels like a chore.
Now let me list my grievances:
1. Xiao Zhan and/or Wang Juan interpretation of Tang San is a kind and naive boy. And while I know that this is the first time Xiao Zhan doing voice dub, I truly hope someone in his side to teach him or to revise him. His voice dub for Tang San makes this character sounds dumb.
2. The actor acted as Master; Calvin Chen, just fails in exuded enough charisma. Yu Xiao Gang in this drama feels like stupid and unsure person, mirroring his two spirit ring condition.
3. Xiao Wu is annoying.
4. Fighting scenes are ugly. Battle strategy is bad. Choreography is wooden.
5. The voice actor acted as Tang San mother in the dream space doesn't sound motherly at all. It sounds like witch woman bewitching her prey. This is coming from someone who are very familiar with chinese drama for her entire life. Believe me, this evaluation doesn't come from someone who are foreign with mandarin.
6. Wang Juan added a brother for Dai Mu Bai and a sister to Zhu Zu Qing. I hope that we will get some emotional line here but nope. It is just another spiteful sibling relationship. Why bother added them then? Wang Juan added sob story practically everywhere but he failed in developing ones that might be very much acceptable to original fans.
7. The BGM is very bad. Like they are not even trying to find a suitable music for certain scene.
CGI in this drama actually is good enough. But good CGI could never save bad directing and messy plot while the vise versa will work. And I am agree with the evaluation of some user here that the drama fails in lining up the power hierarchy to the audience. Watching Er Ming, I don't feel any trepidation at all. The spider (that become Tang San 3rd spirit ring) felt like pest and killed so easily.
This Wang Juan, I hope will never ever touch a xuanhuan genre again in his life.