Beautiful, ambitious, and emotionally exhausting—but somehow, I couldn't fully connect with it.
I really wanted to love Fangs of Fortune more than I ultimately did.
On paper, this drama had almost everything I usually enjoy: fantasy, demons, mythology, a morally gray male lead, a found-family dynamic, beautiful cinematography, strong character relationships, and a story that looked much darker and more ambitious than the usual fantasy romance.
And yet, somewhere along the way, I realized I was watching the episodes without really feeling them.
This is a difficult drama for me to rate because I can absolutely see why it received so much praise. Visually, it is stunning. The costumes, cinematography, color palette, action sequences, CGI, and overall artistic direction are easily among its strongest points. The OST also fits the atmosphere beautifully.
And then there's Hou Minghao as Zhao Yuanzhou.
He was probably my biggest reason for continuing. Zhao Yuanzhou is such an interesting character—powerful, unpredictable, emotionally complicated, and carrying so much loneliness underneath his playful exterior. His relationship with Zhuo Yichen and the rest of the group became much more compelling to me than the actual romance.
The found-family aspect was also one of the best parts. Watching these very different people slowly become a team gave the story some genuinely beautiful moments.
But despite all that, I struggled with the storytelling.
The pacing felt uneven, and there were moments when the drama seemed to stretch emotional beats longer than necessary. There was so much tragedy, suffering, sacrifice, and crying that eventually I became emotionally numb instead of more invested. Ironically, when everything is constantly trying to make you feel devastated, the emotional impact can start to wear off.
I also found myself becoming more interested in certain individual characters and relationships than in the larger plot. Li Lun, for example, had such strong "final villain" energy that I genuinely thought he was being positioned as the ultimate antagonist—only for his story to end much earlier than I expected.
And Wen Xiao... unfortunately, she was probably my weakest point with the main cast. I kept waiting for her to become the kind of strong female lead I usually gravitate toward, but her character never connected with me as strongly as the others did.
What surprised me most, though, was my own reaction.
I wasn't bored because the drama was necessarily bad. I think I was simply burnt out.
I've been watching C-dramas almost nonstop lately, jumping between different platforms and different genres. By the time I got deeper into Fangs of Fortune, I noticed myself wanting to scroll through my phone or watch a short mini drama instead of immediately starting the next episode.
And that's probably why I don't want to judge this drama too harshly.
Maybe I watched it at the wrong time.
Because I can recognize how beautiful and carefully constructed it is while also admitting that I wasn't emotionally present enough to appreciate it the way many other viewers did.
So no, I wouldn't call Fangs of Fortune a bad drama.
Quite the opposite. I think it is one of those dramas where I can understand the high ratings even though my personal experience didn't completely match them.
For me, the strongest parts were Zhao Yuanzhou, the group dynamic, the mythology, the visuals, and the emotional relationships between the characters.
The weakest were the uneven pacing, overly prolonged emotional beats, and a story that eventually became more exhausting than absorbing for me.
Maybe with a different mood, a different watching pace, or simply less C-drama burnout, I would have connected with it more.
For now, though, I'll remember it as:
A beautiful drama that I admired more than I loved.
On paper, this drama had almost everything I usually enjoy: fantasy, demons, mythology, a morally gray male lead, a found-family dynamic, beautiful cinematography, strong character relationships, and a story that looked much darker and more ambitious than the usual fantasy romance.
And yet, somewhere along the way, I realized I was watching the episodes without really feeling them.
This is a difficult drama for me to rate because I can absolutely see why it received so much praise. Visually, it is stunning. The costumes, cinematography, color palette, action sequences, CGI, and overall artistic direction are easily among its strongest points. The OST also fits the atmosphere beautifully.
And then there's Hou Minghao as Zhao Yuanzhou.
He was probably my biggest reason for continuing. Zhao Yuanzhou is such an interesting character—powerful, unpredictable, emotionally complicated, and carrying so much loneliness underneath his playful exterior. His relationship with Zhuo Yichen and the rest of the group became much more compelling to me than the actual romance.
The found-family aspect was also one of the best parts. Watching these very different people slowly become a team gave the story some genuinely beautiful moments.
But despite all that, I struggled with the storytelling.
The pacing felt uneven, and there were moments when the drama seemed to stretch emotional beats longer than necessary. There was so much tragedy, suffering, sacrifice, and crying that eventually I became emotionally numb instead of more invested. Ironically, when everything is constantly trying to make you feel devastated, the emotional impact can start to wear off.
I also found myself becoming more interested in certain individual characters and relationships than in the larger plot. Li Lun, for example, had such strong "final villain" energy that I genuinely thought he was being positioned as the ultimate antagonist—only for his story to end much earlier than I expected.
And Wen Xiao... unfortunately, she was probably my weakest point with the main cast. I kept waiting for her to become the kind of strong female lead I usually gravitate toward, but her character never connected with me as strongly as the others did.
What surprised me most, though, was my own reaction.
I wasn't bored because the drama was necessarily bad. I think I was simply burnt out.
I've been watching C-dramas almost nonstop lately, jumping between different platforms and different genres. By the time I got deeper into Fangs of Fortune, I noticed myself wanting to scroll through my phone or watch a short mini drama instead of immediately starting the next episode.
And that's probably why I don't want to judge this drama too harshly.
Maybe I watched it at the wrong time.
Because I can recognize how beautiful and carefully constructed it is while also admitting that I wasn't emotionally present enough to appreciate it the way many other viewers did.
So no, I wouldn't call Fangs of Fortune a bad drama.
Quite the opposite. I think it is one of those dramas where I can understand the high ratings even though my personal experience didn't completely match them.
For me, the strongest parts were Zhao Yuanzhou, the group dynamic, the mythology, the visuals, and the emotional relationships between the characters.
The weakest were the uneven pacing, overly prolonged emotional beats, and a story that eventually became more exhausting than absorbing for me.
Maybe with a different mood, a different watching pace, or simply less C-drama burnout, I would have connected with it more.
For now, though, I'll remember it as:
A beautiful drama that I admired more than I loved.
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