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This review may contain spoilers
Great Acting, Nice Mysteries, Where Was ZQL at the End?
This was on my watchlist. I just didn't expect it to literally come out of nowhere. The acting was top-notch, even though the choppy editing could've been done without. I was very impressed with DYX and his Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde switches on a dime. But everyone in general in the lead cast even the creepy antagonist did a good job. The costumes, the stunts and wire work, the CGI including the monsters and things, sets and OST's were great.
I feel this was a domino effect story they started off with these two adopted brothers who went to solve mysteries after being made official members of the archives from the mysterious Zhang family. So this was a combo of Mystic Nine and The Lost Tomb series from what I understood. I'm not as many people know a source material reader so to me it's just coming in as a viewer. But ZHL made the colossal mistake of being arrogant and spilling some secrets which caused the domino effect of the archives being discovered, and people within the archives being hunted and killed by the warlord. I think the story is incredibly engaging, especially toward the end when you find out that absolutely everything is connected from that very first case of twilight grass to what the warlord was really after or who rather. I feel insanely bad for ZHX because he was sort of like the sacrificial lamb in the entire thing, and even though he faked his death, he still didn't know the entire truth that the thing was a poison, and that the second part would erode his mind and turned him into Mr. Hyde, and he fought the bloodlust to the end. I still blame to an extent ZHQ for not telling ZHX the entire truth of the fake death and also keeping a lot of secrets from ZHL. But as ZQJ said at the end, "it's the one that's left that suffers the most" though I think given everything it's not the last we have seen of ZHX and ZHL knows it.
The only thing I didn't really understand was why ZQL only popped up when pretty much everything was over and why he didn't step in to help when he knew so many people were essentially dying due to things that he could get rid of or control and it didn't need to necessarily be a monster until the very last episode with the meteorite and those Kraken looking tentacles that came out of it. At least he brought ZHQ back to life, which is what essentially they were looking for but again why wait so long?
Given what Wu Xie said at the end and the note from Xiao Ge about “working together before” plus that snake that followed both bros around inside the hypnosis and finding out about the meteorite through that hypothetical 3 way convo, this makes a ton of sense more than the stab and done. ZHX who went through so much to just die like that, when I watched it that morning (after not sleeping all night) even then it didn’t make sense to me. I don’t believe he’s dead either; I think he’s in that suspended animation state waiting for a cure. Furthermore, just like ZHL said all adopted orphans into the family are special because their hearts are on the right side, not the left and when he stabbed ZHX, he stabbed his right side. Even at the very end of them fighting ZHL through words and actions let ZHX know he hadn’t given up on him (as he had explained to the two with him and the snake charmer dude as well as continuing with what ZQS had told him that we had the flashback too in episode 29. Though he wasn’t acting like everything was normal, he now understood the why and treated him like two different ppl sharing a body). Because of the world they’re in that’s where my head’s at plus I think Shifu knows it too. The all knowing look she gave ZHL on that boat at the end was a bit too obvious. The medicine formula dark shrimp burned wasn’t the real one (flashback was twice to drive the point home) and she either has it or memorized it as we know she’s good at that so other than Zhang blood they need the other ingredients. Whether we’ll actually see it or not is a different matter. Though the writer did leave a lot of little cryptic notes saying that there will be a possible season two I just hope it's with the same actors.
Would I recommend it? I 100% would recommend this if you love this franchise and universe despite the choppy editing and sadness for the life of ZHX I think it was executed very well and he did it very well. I don't want to tell the entire story because then what's the point of watching? I'm sure there are other reviews that have done that and mine are a lot shorter now so please watch and make up your minds for yourselves.
I feel this was a domino effect story they started off with these two adopted brothers who went to solve mysteries after being made official members of the archives from the mysterious Zhang family. So this was a combo of Mystic Nine and The Lost Tomb series from what I understood. I'm not as many people know a source material reader so to me it's just coming in as a viewer. But ZHL made the colossal mistake of being arrogant and spilling some secrets which caused the domino effect of the archives being discovered, and people within the archives being hunted and killed by the warlord. I think the story is incredibly engaging, especially toward the end when you find out that absolutely everything is connected from that very first case of twilight grass to what the warlord was really after or who rather. I feel insanely bad for ZHX because he was sort of like the sacrificial lamb in the entire thing, and even though he faked his death, he still didn't know the entire truth that the thing was a poison, and that the second part would erode his mind and turned him into Mr. Hyde, and he fought the bloodlust to the end. I still blame to an extent ZHQ for not telling ZHX the entire truth of the fake death and also keeping a lot of secrets from ZHL. But as ZQJ said at the end, "it's the one that's left that suffers the most" though I think given everything it's not the last we have seen of ZHX and ZHL knows it.
The only thing I didn't really understand was why ZQL only popped up when pretty much everything was over and why he didn't step in to help when he knew so many people were essentially dying due to things that he could get rid of or control and it didn't need to necessarily be a monster until the very last episode with the meteorite and those Kraken looking tentacles that came out of it. At least he brought ZHQ back to life, which is what essentially they were looking for but again why wait so long?
Given what Wu Xie said at the end and the note from Xiao Ge about “working together before” plus that snake that followed both bros around inside the hypnosis and finding out about the meteorite through that hypothetical 3 way convo, this makes a ton of sense more than the stab and done. ZHX who went through so much to just die like that, when I watched it that morning (after not sleeping all night) even then it didn’t make sense to me. I don’t believe he’s dead either; I think he’s in that suspended animation state waiting for a cure. Furthermore, just like ZHL said all adopted orphans into the family are special because their hearts are on the right side, not the left and when he stabbed ZHX, he stabbed his right side. Even at the very end of them fighting ZHL through words and actions let ZHX know he hadn’t given up on him (as he had explained to the two with him and the snake charmer dude as well as continuing with what ZQS had told him that we had the flashback too in episode 29. Though he wasn’t acting like everything was normal, he now understood the why and treated him like two different ppl sharing a body). Because of the world they’re in that’s where my head’s at plus I think Shifu knows it too. The all knowing look she gave ZHL on that boat at the end was a bit too obvious. The medicine formula dark shrimp burned wasn’t the real one (flashback was twice to drive the point home) and she either has it or memorized it as we know she’s good at that so other than Zhang blood they need the other ingredients. Whether we’ll actually see it or not is a different matter. Though the writer did leave a lot of little cryptic notes saying that there will be a possible season two I just hope it's with the same actors.
Would I recommend it? I 100% would recommend this if you love this franchise and universe despite the choppy editing and sadness for the life of ZHX I think it was executed very well and he did it very well. I don't want to tell the entire story because then what's the point of watching? I'm sure there are other reviews that have done that and mine are a lot shorter now so please watch and make up your minds for yourselves.
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