This review may contain spoilers
Too contrived
I wanted to drop this series several times, but persisted to the end mainly because I like Bai Lu. But honestly, it probably wasn't worth it. The ML was not my favorite, although his acting was good. The real problem with this series was the storyline. There were strangely 4 different stories in the series, the first 10 episodes or so, then the Mo River story arc, then the part after the Mo River arc and then 500 years later the finale arc. Having so many different story arcs in which the actors portrayed different characters entirely was hard to follow. The characters would fluctuate wildly between good and evil. And worst of all, the plot felt very contrived as many Xinxia series do, but this was worse than usual. So many weird magical artifacts used to fill in plot holes and illogical actions by the characters and situations created simply to achieve an outcome to mess with the viewer's emotions. Overall, I would just recommend that you best avoid this series altogether unless you want to stagger through a nonsensical mess that can't seem to stick with one storyline.Was this review helpful to you?
Revenge drama with political intrigue
Felt like a pretty standard revenge drama, similar to the Legend of Zhang Hai in many ways in that the main character uses their intelligence rather than their fighting ability and it is their love interest who does the fighting. Felt like a big budget series with amazing sets, costumes and overall production value. The plot dragged at times, but overall was engaging enough to keep me interested. For those expecting a romance, there is definitely some of that, but not as much as you would see in a series more focused on it. This is mainly going to be a revenge drama, the romance is secondary.I would say that they had some unusual casting choices though. I really liked the ML actor. They aged him up so that the 12 year or so age difference between him and FL wasn't as obvious, but the similar situation in which the emperor was 29 and his consort was in her 40s was quite a bit more apparent. It was a bit jarring to see the FL looking like she was in her mid-30s playing a character that should be around 21 at most. The acting from the FL was good, but she just doesn't look the part. I really liked the Tong'er maid character played by Ai mi. She's going to be a star someday.
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Succeeds more than it fails
I would say that the best part of this drama is the interaction between the main characters. Their little "team" of investigators each with their own skillset, working together to solve cases was by far the best part of the show. The middle part of the series kind of devolved into a palace political intrigue plotline, but for the most part, the series involved the main characters solving cases that ultimately led them to the conclusion.In terms of the weak areas, I would say that the biggest has to be the acting. I am someone who almost never complains about the acting in shows, but this time I have to make an exception. Zhang Linghe has really improved by the time he got to Pursuit of Jade, but here, he looked like someone mechanically reading his lines with some occasional overly dramatic facial expressions. But almost all the characters were guilty of having exaggerated facial expressions, and I can only assume that it is something asked of them by the director. The show suffered a bit from looking low budget at times, but overall I did enjoy it and watched it to the end, mainly because I enjoyed the close camaraderie between the main characters.
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This review may contain spoilers
An entertaining short series
The first thing to know is that this is a short series in which each of the 28 episodes is only about 22 minutes long. Despite it being a short series, they manage to cram everything into it that you would expect to see in a longer series, including even a romance arc for the supporting characters. I thought that the FL was very good, the ML was kind of stiff, but that is the personality of his character. The plot was okay for me, it felt like you could see the eventual ending coming from a mile away. The ending was a disappointment for me, felt a bit contrived to get the eventual outcome. For me, it didn't seem like the FL even needed to make the sacrifice that she did. Couldn't she have lived her life to the end and then made the sacrifice on her deathbed? It's not like the villagers would know the difference, they seemed like they were in stasis.Was this review helpful to you?
