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The Taoism Grandmaster chinese drama review
Completed
The Taoism Grandmaster
2 people found this review helpful
by Philip Wong
Jul 21, 2020
46 of 46 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 4.5
Story 6.0
Acting/Cast 4.0
Music 5.0
Rewatch Value 2.0

Written for teens/YA

Not very inspired world building using the more standard xianxia/wuxia tropes without adding anything significant. Pretty much standard hero quest.

Generally male-centric as usual which befits the target audience, one supposes. While it has a "balanced" by numbers gender representation, not so much on the intelligence/power scale of things.

Characters are presumably supposed to be young (late teens/early 20's possibly) and have the cognitive skills of teenagers. Either swing a sword, and if that fails, swing the sword some more. Planning? Ideas? Not so much. Saving their compatriots involve running to be physically close to them, getting caught in the same trap, not analyzing the enemy and just generally not having a plan to proceed. So the IQ level isn't set to be very high.

The main story only makes sense if one doesn't look too closely. Early, it seemed that there was some attempt to offer different perspectives on either side but the execution defaulted to "let's not make it hard to determine good vs evil because our audience is dumb".

Barely adequate acting but the material probably isn't there for any actor to get into it. So mostly saying their lines in the cheesiest method possible. CGI is below average by 2019 standards.

It all boils down to a barely watchable (with fast forwarding) drama that is only good for spending time at home during a quarantine. A drama made with little inspiration or vision in all aspects - acting, character, story, plot, dialogue, cinematography, music.
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