lilmeow

I think you have to really like romance to like this show. I figured this out after accidentally reading a bunch of comments where people were gushing about things that I was rolling my eyes about.

Basically, this is not one for fans of intricate plots, nuanced characters, meaningful conflicts, subtlety, or anything of the sort. It is remarkably light on plot- it’s basically just power struggles in the human realm and power struggles in the Spirit realm. The villain is lame and delusional, many characters are caricatures, and so many plot elements are just cliché.

The FL is the boss in this show, the supremely powerful sovereign of the spirit realm, but actually very lonely. Into this gaping emotional void steps our ML. Although he is the most capable among humans, as a mortal he should still be insignificant to her. However, he is such a total sap for her that he worms his way into her heart.

The romance gets played up right from the beginning, all flowered up and sparkly even before you think there should be anything there. He really should be beneath the FL, and she does seem to be the badass and in-control type, yet here she is flirting her days away. Said flirting includes things like “accidental” half-naked sightings and random, unnecessary physical contact, and of course those scenes with long gazes and slow motion that are simply forced into the plot before there’s any real connection.

So if you like romance, I suppose you might get a hit out of these “heart-fluttering” scenes. But if you want a properly built up and meaningful relationship, this is not it.

However, after I understood that the point of the show is to play up some epic romance, then I stopped cringing about it so much, took it easy, and actually almost enjoyed some of it. It wasn’t bad to watch at accelerated speed while doing other things (like exercise), and halfway through I switched platforms to WeTV which has user comments floating across the screen. I found these sometimes snarky comments to be excellent company and they helped me take the show less seriously, otherwise I might have exploded in frustration if I actually immersed myself.

Given all this, I do think the show goes through some phases of being more genuine or interesting. Duan Xu (the ML) grew on me after I realized that being shamelessly audacious is just part of his personality. I found his perpetual and somewhat tone-deaf cheerfulness in the Void arc to be quite endearing. There are also some side characters I like. Jiang Ai, for instance- her loyalties are unclear but I thought it sweet to see her giving He Simu love advice like a gal pal would. My favorite character is Fengyi, who is super cute and funny. It’s fun to watch the three devoted members of the shipping club- Jiang Ai, Fengyi, and Chenying- do their best to get the main couple together. Several side couples are also neatly paired up, which I felt pretty good about. I enjoyed watching the side characters and their relationships get some development in the 20s of episodes. And there are some decently heartfelt moments towards the end, like He Simu at her parents’ grave.

That said, at its core this show is an epic romance. The entire premise is built around it, and all the plotlines are feeding into it. Actually He Simu’s character is pretty inconsistent- sometimes badass, sometimes self-aware, and sometimes a transparent, lovestruck girl. It’s like they couldn’t decide which classic romance scenes they wanted her to play out, so they just rotated through them. But Duan Xu, he is fulfilling somebody’s fantasy of the perfect boyfriend, because he is SO devoted to her. Clearly she matters more to him than anything, he would give do anything for her. This overly romantic and idealistic kind of devotion is completely in line with the vibe of the show, and I think the target romance-loving audience might like it. But I prefer more realism.

As for the world-building, this imaginative world features spirits floating like jellyfish and the Spirit Lord riding on her staff. The CGI is pretty good and there’s a lot of great imagery, so it’s rather evocative and sparks the imagination.

But upon closer examination, the mechanics of the spirit world make little sense and are quite arbitrary. The idea of obsessions might have been a good theme, but it’s too open-ended and complicated to be a guiding rule (eg how does “collecting obsessions” actually work? If obsessions are keeping spirits alive, how can their society even function? How does He Simu, born a spirit, fit into all of this?) It’s not the first time I’ve seen this concept in Chinese lore (that ghosts are the lingering spirits of the dead who can’t let go) but I think it’s the kind of thing that’s best left vague. Start world-building around it and you’ll find more holes than you can patch.

The whole thing about the five senses is also not consistently executed and enforced. If you look at He Simu’s actions, she doesn’t seem to actually be missing all her senses all the time; she just selectively doesn’t have them when and in ways that fit the plot.

Acting-wise, I don’t think this is Dilreba’s best role. It was just too extreme, whether she is trying to be badass or cute or worried or whatever. Towards the end she has some better expressions. For Arthur, I have a hard time taking him seriously when he is trying to be stern and tough, it might just be his baby face (sorry Arthur). But I liked him better as his character evolves away from that archetype. My favorite performance is Ding Jiawen as my favorite character, Fengyi... I have seen him in other shows before but this is his most endearing role yet.

For production stuff, I thought the CGI is pretty good- it’s not the realistic type, but instead the pretty type- and costumes are nice. The cinematography seems very idol-style and there are many scenes that seem meant to just capture Dilreba’s best side or her looking like a queen. For the music, there are two songs in the OST that I really like (along with their instrumentals), and they are used well, so that I actually felt emotional at the proper moments despite not being that into the show. I wasn’t that into the rest of the OST or the BGM.

Overall... it is an idol drama with all the idol drama vibes, focused on some idealized and epic romance. Definitely appeals to some people but not to me, but I still made it through by watching with half attention while reading snarky comments.

ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS





There are two endings to this show. A 6-minute “episode 41” rewrites part of the last episode to be the “happy ending” that many people want, accomplished via a deus ex machina miracle.

Actually, I didn’t think that the original ending is that sad or bittersweet. The ML does die, but he comes back as a jellyfish and follows her around as she explores the world, presumably to take form after some amount of time. I always thought this is a big plot hole in all these Chinese stories that allow those who can’t let go to come back as ghosts... just doesn’t seem like such a bad deal to achieve immortality this way.

Of the side character deaths, there is only one that made me upset. Fang Xianye dies in a lame way for no good reason. He is already forgotten by the end. None of the side stories get much wrapup, which is pretty disappointing (what EVEN is going on with Fengyi’s maid, what is she even doing here).

Chenying is the other upsetting death but he comes back as a spirit. Simu gives up her Spirit Lord spot to him... ok, given how much she hated her job, why is she subjecting this poor kid to it? Who even let that child on the battlefield in the first place?