DramaloverPanda
More style over substance
One of the first fantasy cdramas I have managed to actually complete in a while that is a decent watch with nice costuming, good acting, and enjoyable comedic moments mixed with mostly likeable characters. This drama has elements that I truly enjoyed like the complex demon Zhu Yan that gets more interesting the more you learn about him as well as Zhuo Yichen and his stoic but righteous heart. These two characters definitely carried the show for me as well as the curiosity to uncover exactly why the antagonists made the choices they did. But there are some things that kept this from being a great drama.
First let me ask why in the world these characters cry so much? Every single episode had multiple characters with tears in their eyes. There are so many ways to express empathy, sympathy, and sadness without needing to cry but because they were directed to have tears at every occasion it cheapened and lessened the emotional impact the truly big moments could have had on the viewer. It was so frequent that I began to wonder how many bottles of artificial tears this production went through by its completion because none of the scenes felt genuine. Seriously, how could you make these strong and incredible fighters that fight and kill demons regularly and have experienced intense and heartbreaking backstories cry at the drop of a hat?!
This production had a habit of dragging out these boring and insignificant moments but then glossing completely over seemingly important developments. For example we got several instances of these drawn out slow motion, multiple camera angles backing away at the end of winded monologues where they try to extent emotional responses to sad revelations but then major fight scenes would skip over any action and just show the end with bodies strewn about and the winner standing tall. They even condensed what seemed to be important moments that would have added gravitas but instead ended up making things feel too easy. Like when Wen Xiao spent 300 years alone growing a branch of a divine tree that they needed but she was in and out within two minutes of screen time. More expansion on this would have truly added weight to the idea that these ingredients they needed to save everyone were nearly impossible to get and were hard fought and won by our protagonists. Instead you are left feeling like it was so trivial. And many more instances like that happened where things were talked up to be so difficult but played out and appeared so easy lessening any impact those moments could have truly had.
Now lets talk about the action, when there is any, where the characters primarily stand and pose while the camera moves and pans in slow motion to get close ups of everyones faces. We get the occasional great movement shots where they are twisting and turning their bodies especially Pei when she fights but they primarily relied on CGI for fight scenes and they often did not last long with main characters very easily knocked down pretty quickly so we just get to watch their faces as they lay or crawl and watch the rest of the fight unfold. In truth this style of editing can be useful and pretty but it also was very repetitive and ultimately made me feel nothing. It did not help that the plot movement began to feel less and less logical as the story progressed. The first half of the drama was interesting and even pretty funny in places but then by episode 20 you see a decline in the story telling where the reasoning and choices began to not logically make sense and instead things were just happening to make the plot convenient and move the story forward. There were many instances where I often felt like I just skipped a scene because something was missing or instead of showing things in real time they chose to only give information in flashbacks or to try and confuse the viewer they would try to make some scenes misleading but that just ended up confusing the narrative.
This may sound like I did not enjoy the drama when in truth I did like it much more than most other CDrama's I have seen as of late but it still falls far below some other dramas that are very similar but have better pacing and more coherent plot movement.
First let me ask why in the world these characters cry so much? Every single episode had multiple characters with tears in their eyes. There are so many ways to express empathy, sympathy, and sadness without needing to cry but because they were directed to have tears at every occasion it cheapened and lessened the emotional impact the truly big moments could have had on the viewer. It was so frequent that I began to wonder how many bottles of artificial tears this production went through by its completion because none of the scenes felt genuine. Seriously, how could you make these strong and incredible fighters that fight and kill demons regularly and have experienced intense and heartbreaking backstories cry at the drop of a hat?!
This production had a habit of dragging out these boring and insignificant moments but then glossing completely over seemingly important developments. For example we got several instances of these drawn out slow motion, multiple camera angles backing away at the end of winded monologues where they try to extent emotional responses to sad revelations but then major fight scenes would skip over any action and just show the end with bodies strewn about and the winner standing tall. They even condensed what seemed to be important moments that would have added gravitas but instead ended up making things feel too easy. Like when Wen Xiao spent 300 years alone growing a branch of a divine tree that they needed but she was in and out within two minutes of screen time. More expansion on this would have truly added weight to the idea that these ingredients they needed to save everyone were nearly impossible to get and were hard fought and won by our protagonists. Instead you are left feeling like it was so trivial. And many more instances like that happened where things were talked up to be so difficult but played out and appeared so easy lessening any impact those moments could have truly had.
Now lets talk about the action, when there is any, where the characters primarily stand and pose while the camera moves and pans in slow motion to get close ups of everyones faces. We get the occasional great movement shots where they are twisting and turning their bodies especially Pei when she fights but they primarily relied on CGI for fight scenes and they often did not last long with main characters very easily knocked down pretty quickly so we just get to watch their faces as they lay or crawl and watch the rest of the fight unfold. In truth this style of editing can be useful and pretty but it also was very repetitive and ultimately made me feel nothing. It did not help that the plot movement began to feel less and less logical as the story progressed. The first half of the drama was interesting and even pretty funny in places but then by episode 20 you see a decline in the story telling where the reasoning and choices began to not logically make sense and instead things were just happening to make the plot convenient and move the story forward. There were many instances where I often felt like I just skipped a scene because something was missing or instead of showing things in real time they chose to only give information in flashbacks or to try and confuse the viewer they would try to make some scenes misleading but that just ended up confusing the narrative.
This may sound like I did not enjoy the drama when in truth I did like it much more than most other CDrama's I have seen as of late but it still falls far below some other dramas that are very similar but have better pacing and more coherent plot movement.
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