This series had some fun moments and a cast that played well off of each other. However, if you look beyond the surface there’s not much to this series. The premise was strong. A king from a beastly kingdom needs a princess from a human kingdom to save his life and subsequently his people, with the requirement of love between the savior and the one to be saved being included in this very cliché story setup. For this reason, the beastly king kidnaps the princess and off the story goes…well sort of.

The show spends a lot of time setting up the relationship between Qi Pan and Kui Mu Lang, but not much else. We only see Qi Pa’s kingdom very briefly before she is kidnapped and there’s no insight into how the kingdom works who is on the royal court? Is there a royal court? Who are Qi Pa’s friends etc. We see her parents who of course want her to find her soulmate and that’s it. After she is kidnapped we don’t see how her kingdom is dealing with the kidnapping of their princess, only the royal guard looking for her when it becomes convenient to the story.

In the Beast kingdom, we do learn why many, not all, have beastly features, but beyond that, no insight into the inner workings of the monarch and the society it serves. Kui Mu Lang, the king, only has one right hand man and apparently no royal guards as people can access the palace grounds and the king (and Queen’s) quarters at will, to do nefarious things. Kui Mu Lang had powers but apparently no one else in the kingdom did. This was never explained. Did he have powers because he was the king? Or did he have powers because it was convenient to the story? Additionally, there were individuals who tried to kill the king numerous times, but when caught received a punishment of planting trees, copying the laws of the kingdom numerous times or no punishment at all. Odd.

Moreover, though the beastly city appears to be your typical Chinese kingdom, Daxia which is Qi Pa’s home seems to be a mix of modern experiences and historic Chinese customs. For Qi Pa mentions haute couture, makeup sets, high heels, having jet lag etc. while still dressing, for the most part, like a princess from the 16th century. Very strange. Additionally, when the audience did see the palace grounds for Qi Pa’s home, there was no one around. Just her and a couple characters, who seemed to only be around to prop her relationship with Kui Mu Lang. When she returned after going missing, there were no scenes of her reuniting with her family and when she decided to return to the beast kingdom, she did not inform anyone, but left her kingdom without a word.

There were a couple of antagonists in this series, Kui Mu Lang’s brother (Jing Mu) and some mystery man. Both spent the series failing at their nefarious schemes while Jing Mu whined like a 2-year old about no one paying attention to him. The endgame of their nefarious schemes wasn’t revealed until the last episode and even when revealed it still made little sense considering the mysterious man spent most the series mustache twirling and vowing to make Kui Mu Lang pay while Jing Mu whined.

Despite the storyline and world building for this series making absolutely no sense, the actors did the best they could with the material and seemed to have fun. Chen Zhe Yuan was pretty hot and looked good with Wu Xuan Yi. All of the couples had nice chemistry and worked well. With the leads being most interesting together when Qi Pa was interacting with Kui Mu Lang in his wolf/beast form. The series had a few really good scenes. Specifically, when Qi Pa and beastly Kui Mu Lang were arguing or angsty and there were some scenes that were funny. However, overall, the story was a disaster and execution just okay. Would I watch this again, nope. But I wouldn’t say it was a complete waste of 30 hours due to the actors being fairly charismatic which made the series, at times, entertaining.