Does not deserve the hype.

I'll be honest upfront - Nirvana in Fire is not my cup of tea genre-wise, I just dislike palace intrigue dramas.
I was told it also had wuxia elements and it kind of does, but they do not make up for how much I disliked the PI stuff.
It's mostly well acted (by a lot of older actors, I appreciated that), mostly solidly written (though the plot does feel convoluted at times) and the rare fights are ok looking. I think overall it looks a bit dated, but not bad. Just not amazing.
For me personally it just felt long and tiresome in places. It might've started (or at least empowered) quite a few drama tropes I am not a fan of - the sickly character with incurable health problems and a mysterious past, the moral message of patriotically serving the country or a cause even if it means your death, episodes mostly consisting of characters talking in rooms.
To me this did not live up to the hype, plain and simple.

Read More

Fun and short!

So this was alright?
I did appreciate the short length - the formula didn't have enough time to become stale.
It's just not at all what I expected from the title and poster - sure it was wacky at times, but then also surprisingly dark.
It kinda went places I didn't think it would.
Not sure why, but the cast in this was pretty cool and enjoyable.
Perhaps because they had so few episodes it was also well structured, things were set up and later paid off - it felt like a proper story with themes and stuff.
Yeah, I still don't think it lives up to the hype and silly high scores, but it's pretty good overall.

Read More

Satisfying!

At the beginning I could not uderstand why people were not giving this perfect scores - it starts so good!
The premise was interesting and the characters were intriguing and cool.
At the end, I kind of get it and I am not rating it as near-perfect either. Let's break down the pros and cons:
+ Mao Xiao Tong continues to be the most beautiful woman in the world. On top of that she plays a strong swordswoman in this show and that's a bit of a new position for her. She does good.
+ most side characters are well developed and distinct
+ the cast includes many older actors and there are no stiff idols around
+ the fights are super good, very consistently well done. There's very little chi power use and it's limited to a few characters, most fighters can't even fly at all or very well. I do like this low power-level style wuxia more.
+ the story makes sense and the inevitable involvement of political struggles and various country-wide betrayals were not too annoying.
+ I liked that despite being constantly touted as brilliant, the main character was not unbelievably skilled, not some alien-like genius. You can for the most part anticipate the twists and turns, and you can follow the logic behind things. This is actually important and makes these kinds of stories relatable and engaging. Way too many mystery shows based on Brilliant Genius Boy characters will keep telling you how smart they are, rather than showing you and letting you figure things out so you too can feel smart.
+ I LOOOOOOOOVED the twist on the usual couple dynamic where now She is the Tough Badass and He is the Smart Flower. Loved it all the way through, her tossing him around, grabbing his shirt, catching him when he fell down...Inject that shit straight in my veins.
+ I was glad that the protagonist was not yet another one in the growing list of soft boys who only pretend not to be able to do martial arts. Nope, he actually is a weak scholar who can do the escaping technique for a little bit. Nice to see them commit to the bit.

- I was a bit let down by Chen Xiao as the protagonist and his chemistry (or lack thereof) with Mao Xiao Tong. He was...fine. Serviceable. But the high standard of the show would've warranted someone better suited for the role. I know he can be better, his match up with Crystal Liu in "Dream of Splendor" for instance worked a lot nicer.
- No way around this - the show does have pacing issues and it does drag after the first half or so, only to pick up towards the end. We do get to explore and flesh out characters, but there were way too few fights and exciting moments in that section.

All in all - this does a lot of what I want from new-wuxia. Fun characters, plays and twists on tropes, excellent low level fights, not a lot of political bullshit and no traditional tragic endings.

Read More

Surprisingly decent, hoping for another season!

There aren't a lot of ninja around anymore. Not just the shinobi in the fiction of the series, just ninja media in general.
I feel like the last big one was maybe Naruto?
This came out of nowhere and delivered some solid ninja stuff.
It's also funny, which is a bonus!
That said, the pacing was a bit too slow at times, felt like it could've been edited tighter.
And while I kind of get the Britpop music choice, it really didn't work with the show for me.
I do hope they make another season, though I'm not expecting it, considering it's Netflix.

Read More

Leave this woman alone, for f sake!

I did find the premise of a relationship between an older woman and a younger man interesting.
Unfortunately it and the chemistry between the leads are the only aspects of the show that make it somewhat worth watching.
The writing oscillates between surprisingly realistic and restrained to soapy melodrama bullshit, it feels quite inconsistent.
There are scenes I really liked especially at the beginning, but also lots of uninteresting and unnecessary stuff happens to pad the length of the show. As the show went on I started fast forwarding through more and more parts.
The main issue of the story is that Jian Bing is absolutely correct - she should be focusing on herself right after her divorce and balance her life again. And yet! Everyone seems to be pestering her constantly - her ex about work and marriage issues, clients are being awful and into all of this comes Sheng Yang with his absurd childish crush from ten years ago.
And. He. Does. Not. Leave. Her. Alone.
I was sincerely hoping they would not get together in the end, that they become friends, she mentors him or something like that. Because it would be a nice subversion, while still exploring this unusual friendship.
Alas, we get a soap opera romance instead.
I'm a bit annoyed that his strategy of persistently hounding her and constantly doing things for her until she relents is shown to be effective. I guess I wanted more of his character to show through earlier, rather than him just being useful to her.
But the actors do work well together and I mostly enjoyed Bai Bai's performance (which reminded me of Crystal Liu in "Dream of Splendor").
What also hugely drags the drama down are many of the side characters - they are as soapy and annoying as some of the subplots. I super didn't give a shit about the hockey sister, her boyfriend and his dreadful uncle.
And of course the ending is what it is, everyone pairs up exactly as you'd expect.
If they trimmed all the boring side characters and plots and turned this into a 15 episode drama ( and maybe tried to make it less cliched and predictable) I would've enjoyed it more.
In the end it's just sort of average.

Read More

Another weaker season, possibly the nail in the coffin for this series.

I'm having trouble judging this fairly, because the (AI translated?) subtitles on WeTV were so incredibly bad and incomprehensible.
I barely got why the protagonists went to the coral spiral and it feels appropriate - because it didn't matter in the slightest.
SPOILER - they just find the bone mirror randomly in a place. And after a brief fight with an octopus that's it, they have it and it never comes up again. Why was it important? I don't think it was.
This season was just annoying to me - none of the actors felt like they wanted to be there, they all looked tired of this series.
What do I even write here? Is it objectively horrible? No. Overall it's a bit of a step up from Kunlun - the CG of the ship looks mostly solid (even though it's very obvious) and I get why they did it - filming on the ocean is probably an insurance nightmare.
That said, the pacing didn't feel great. We spend a lot of time on the ship and when we do get into the tomb raiding, it's not actually tomb raiding. This one was more of an adventure movie, but it lacked tension and drive, or a sense of adventure. It just felt like actors running in front of a green screen and on sets.
One of the major problems of many tomb raiding series is the lack of antagonists and obstacles - if you don't have bad guys and tomb traps, what do you place in our heroes' way? Usually it's animals or natural hazards.
And like in Kunlun, the protagonists have to battle "animals" in this one. It's as ridiculous as ever - the mermaids are competently made in CG, but the fights lack any stakes or a real sense of danger. They just attack, because...And the heroes absolutely murder hundreds of mermaids.
Most of the side characters are weak, and the minority ones feel offensive - their dubbing sounds like mentally challenged children. And of course the minority characters die, because of course they do. Even the show acknowledges they always die in this series.
There is some overarching conflict between Shirley and Hu Bayi this season, revolving around his adventuring spirit and how that puts him in danger. But it doesn't really resolve in a satisfying way, she just accepts it after he almost dies yet again.
The show keeps flashing back to Lost Caverns or Worm Valley and I kept thinking how much better the show was then. Stop reminding me!
What happened?!
Was it covid complications? Did the actors just get tired, do they dislike the story?
They do a setup for another season and another adventure to save Duoling's life, but I seriously doubt there will be a sequel.
And if so, I don't think these actors are coming back.
It's just all such a shame.

Read More

What on Earth(s)?!

After 12 episodes I'm dropping this.
The two leads have decent chemistry and are doing ok acting-wise, but this drama is just meandering nonsense.
I'm not sure if it's because of censorship and that the paranormal elements were cut and written around, or if it's meant to be like this. But paranormal or scifi, this show is extremely unclear about where anything is going and why.
Characters travel to places and do things, and act like it's perfectly understandable and logical. But it really feels like one of those dreams where things seemingly happen, but when you wake up you realize it didn't really have a coherent plot or a story you could recognize behind things just...happening.
I just find it tiresome. Which is a shame, because the leads really are easy on the eyes and work well together.

Read More

Very good, despite being a Jin Yong story. ;-P

I loved this, most of the time.
I'm not going to talk about how good of an adaptation it is, because I've not read the story and there are other reviews for that.
I'll say though - some people mention that the characters were altered and "wicked" ones were made more sympathetic. That it "dilutes" the story that was originally much more cynical.
Well thanks for that, thank goodness!
It's a Jin Yong story, so you know it's gonna end tragically, and it sure does. But I appreciated that it was made lighter and less depressing throughout.
I will also say that I still hate the everpresent wuxia concept of heroic sacrifice of life/happiness for duty.
OK, wuxia blasphemy over.
Overall thoughts before a list of random stuff: The show is well done and works on almost every level. Its look is quite striking - contrasty and mostly well and interestingly lit. The fights are well choreographed, but sometimes suffer from overly rapid edits and quick cuts, it's disorienting. The truly important moments deliver the impact. Music is actually memorable. The characters are well defined and most of them complex. The actors have great chemistry and even the child actors for Hu Fei and Xiaomei were very good and entertaining. There's some dodgy dubbing, Peter Ho's character for instance and the two little sons. Most main characters sound very good though.
Random thoughts:
- buddhism is fucking dumb and cowardly
- all this love and all of it unfulfilled, almost like that's one of themes. Still salty about it tho.
- poison girl is bae, in every adaptation of these stories I've watched actually. Loved her.
- Hu Fei has a thing for strong girls who tell him what to do. I can relate.
- Qin Jun Jie actually looks like he could fight, an extremely rare thing for a wuxia protagonist lately. Sad, but we take those.

I'll probably rewatch this someday, because it's genuinely good. But man, I might just turn it off a bit before the very end.

Read More

A decent sequel to a decent movie

I quite enjoyed "Fantasy Magician" and this sequel is also quite nice.
You can really feel the low budget in how the story's quite small scale, not many locations, not many characters etc.
But that's fine - what's there actually looks surprisingly good. The props, costumes even the CG are solid.
The movie's also genuinely scary in places (especially at the beginning), it's well done horror.
Yeah, I'm not sure why I was surprised, but it's pretty neat. (again.)

---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------

Read More

Not for me.

I'm dropping this.
The convoluted premise is just not interesting and Song Yi is not utilized super well.
See, I find she's at her best as a strong confident character, sassiness being appreciated.
Here she just pines and cries all the time.
Like girl, you got arranged-married into a rich family, how awful for you! And your husband even wants to divorce you and give you a ton of money? The horror!
Main dude tries, he's trying so hard I'm surprised he didn't pull a funny muscle in his face. Also his ears are massive.
But yeah, it's just not what I hoped. Definitely not Dream of Splendor, nor Joy of Life/My Heroic Husband.
Pass.

Read More

Dull. (still)

EDIT:
I originally dropped this after 3 episodes. Now I've finished the whole show.
(I'm leaving my original review below the line)
What do I say about this? It's still not great.
It's definitely been overhyped and at best it's sort of slightly above average.
The story is functional - you see where it's going from the beginning and it does indeed get there pretty much as you expect. Which is not a bad thing necessarily, it's just a bit predictable.
The bits I enjoyed the most were the case investigations. Sadly, there are two issues with that:
1) The cases are of fluctuating quality, and many of them are solved in a way you cannot do yourself. Because as in other badly done mystery shows - the show witholds crucial information from you and it is only presented at the very end, when the detective is explaining how he figured it out. That's just lazy and uninteresting.
2) The show insists on being a wuxia story about Big Things, and it constantly gets in the way of the fun.
My main problem with this show and why I still rate it fairly low is the premise and the main protagonist.
I am sick, so sick and tired of these Very Special Boys With A Mysterious Past. Li Xiangyi is VERY similar to the characters in "Love in Between", "Blood of Youth" and even "Nirvana in Fire" and "Word of Honor" to some extent - a soft sickly boy with lovely long hair and flowy robe and a fur lined cloak. And he used to be a powerful martial hero, the most specialest of them all, a real genius. But now he's sickly and disabled and look at the poor bunny, so cute.
And I get that this is a trope that people (especially lady fans of these idols/actors) like. I do not. It's tired now. I've seen it.
I think the story would've worked much, much better with older characters and actors.
So yes - I still put a lot of fault with Cheng Yi. He is older than Joseph Zeng, but it doesn't feel like it. They're too close in age and vibe. And he doesn't have the acting ability to pull this kind of character off, especially in the really dramatic moments. His serious delivery feels fake and flat.
In short - the only way we know he's this super special boy is because everyone keeps talking about it. He doesn't have that kind of charisma to make me believe it.
Joseph Zeng is mostly fine, he does the same thing in most of the dramas I've seen him in. He's like an ok piece of toast. Nothing you'd sing the praises of, but fine to eat.
The villains are kinda terrible. I get that the mustache-twirling evil-laughing villain is a genre thing, but they feel a bit out of place in a modern style drama. That said, I think Rain Wang is just bad, and she wasn't helped by the weird dubbing they did for her character.
The only person whose acting I enjoyed fully was Xiao Shun Yao - his Di Feisheng doesn't change a lot, but he pulls that subtle transition off pretty well. And at all times he FEELS like someone who could seriously hurt people, I believe when he fights.
Speaking of fights - they left them all for the ending, which was odd. They're...fine I guess. The bigger mass battles were a surprise, because the show had been so stingy with fights up to that point. They're all very modern wuxia cdrama in style - lots of flowy stuff, CG energy blasts and not a lot of blood. Compared to something like Sakra, or oldschool 90s wuxia it feels super sanitized. I wasn't impressed, but it wasn't offensively bad either.
In summary - this is a very run of the mill modern wuxia with all the typical flaws, or a mostly decent detective show ruined by also being a modern wuxia drama.
Don't believe the hype, but you might still enjoy some of it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original rating: 3.5*
This is dull, incredibly dull. Just boring as hell.
I have to remind myself that cdrama hype is largely caused by fangirls looking forward to watching shows with their beloved idol/s.
Some episodes in this is just incredibly forgettable, entirely derivative and uninteresting.
The actors are bland as chalk bread, except for the main guy who's straight up bad. He's a bad actor, stop giving him roles where he's supposed to speak.
The premise, the story, it's all cliches piled on cliches, nothing cool or intriguing happens, the fights are not entertaining.
Just another super mediocre/bad wuxia drama.

Read More

Amazing fights and visuals, disappointing otherwise

It was a surprise for sure.
1) The movie looks shockingly good. Yes, it was supposedly made for cheap, there are some instances of visibly lacking CG. But the way it's lit, shot, coloured etc. - amazing. Stuff is clear, visible, intentional, pleasant to the eye. Looks a lot like a 90s movie, but with a wider palette.

2) It's, unfortunately, a black tanktop vanity project for Donnie Yen. The guy cannot pass for a man in his 30s, effectively half his real age. Yen also does not have the acting range needed for this kind of character.
The funny/lighthearted parts are not that funny or lighthearted and the serious moments are awkward, feel extremely long and overly pathos-filled. (for an example, time the wine-bowl scene. That could've easily been edited down some, with more of an emotional impact.)

3) The story is whatever. The more wuxia/series movies I watch, the more I realize I don't enjoy Jin Yong/Jin Yong-style stories. It is what it is, I'm sure fans of the book are outraged about stuff.

4) The fights however, are incredibly good. Excellent, thrilling, fucking cool as hell. If you looked at the 90s wuxia and imagined a logical evolution with advances in filmmaking, this is what it would be.
No notes.
(also goes to show what you can do on a budget if you have real martial artists instead of celebrity idols in your cast)
Whatever the fuck the new Kung Fu Cult Master did with the flashy CG bullshit, this is the opposite of that.

5) Minor point, but I really enjoy this "gritty" portrayal of the jianghu people. Everyone's wrinkly, greasy and rugged. The costumes are very different looking and quite lovely.
It's not quite The Blade, but it's miles and miles from the usual "wuxia" you see in cdramas nowadays.

Overall: Meh, but watch it for the fights.

Read More

Not as good.

It's mid, in most ways.
Not amazingly good, not too boring or super terrible.
Mid.
The story's super average - you've heard it all before. I am honestly getting quite tired of protagonists with mysterious non-commoner past and I hate how so many wuxia have to steer their story into politics and courtly intrigue.
I hate courtly intrigue! The scheming princes, the power hungry eunuchs, the troubled emperors and forgotten consorts.
Good grief, shoot me now, I can't take it.
For the most part the story seems to have a clear goal and an endpoint and the pacing forward is not bad. But towards the end it slows down and almost stumbles into the ending head first, trips over its own feet and stops suddenly.
It felt quite awkward.
The characters are fine. You've seen it all before, every single character is a stereotype. But they're ok.
The acting is serviceable, with the older actors carrying the young ones quite often. Ao Rui Peng was too cartoony and weird for me, I didn't care for Lei Wu Jie.
Li Hong Yi held a single note for the entire show and it was ok? He's a pretty guy and the script didn't ask much more from him.
Liu Xue Yi seems to have had fun? Question mark? Wuxin as a character is used weirdly, mostly not being present and having his own story arc in the background. Also cartoony as a performance, but a much better actor than Ao Rui Peng.
Neither of the two female leads convinced me, or grabbed me in any way.
Tang Lian was also there.
Shout out to Cui Peng as Luo Qing Yang, who gave an incredibly strange performance and I had to laugh every time his weirdo sulky face was on screen.
Last honorable mention goes to Hu Wei, who looks like he was animated by Pixar. Very cute tho.
A good wuxia has to have cool fights.
The Blood of Youth does have fights, sure.
OK, I won't talk around it - I hate this stuff. Not just the heavy use of CG, I dislike how uninteresting it is and how low stakes it feels.
There's no tension, there's no context for anything. How strong is this character? Who the F knows, I guess I'll wait for them to tell me.
The main problem is that everyone already starts quite strong and every single character that comes later is even stronger.
But there's no difference in any of the fights, the environment doesn't matter, nothing matters.
The characters will conjure up some CG effects, point their weapon or fingers against the opponent and stand there.
That's it. Every single fight ends up as a finger contest with magical auras clashing into each other. No clever use of techniques, or the battlefield, no smart cooperation between characters. No, just point at the enemy and hope you're stronger.
This kind of power creep is a common problem in anime, compare the fights at the start of Naruto to many later ones in Shippuuden. And here it's like that from the very beginning.
Overall I didn't hate it, but it's nowhere near as good as people claim.

Read More

boring CGI mess

What a letdown.
The main problem is that the story is a) just kinda dumb and bad, and b) too condensed.
The protagonist is entirely bland (Good grief, is Raymond Lam ever a charisma black hole!) and none of the relationships get enough space, so any character development is impossible to believe.
All the twists, betrayals etc. are meaningless, because I feel nothing about any of the characters. (except for the princess, because she's hot)
And where the old KFCM worked - the crazy fun fights - just does not work here.
The fights are bland, fake looking and worst of all - boring.
It's just forgettable.

Read More