This drama is quite decent. The acting of some people was pretty good. The music is pretty good as well. The effects were also pretty good. In one scene, the Male Main Character drives a huge gaping wound on a snake causing blood to spill out all over the character. In another scene, the characters and his team humiliate another team by using water disguised as urine to "water the vegetables." The drama was funny at times. However, this is the best argument I can make for the Director.
If you are unaware, this drama is based off of a novel called Battle Through The Heavens, a wuxia novel. However, to me, this is where the director made the biggest sin; the director chose to modify the story beyond the novel. This was a terrible mistake because the novel was decent by itself. All the director had to do was follow the story and edit out the exe.forbidden-fruit-scenes. The drama would have been great. Instead, the beginning was half-kept and modified. The rest of the drama had pieces of the novel but were modified beyond recognition such as the academy. Also, they messed up the characters. They switched the roles and backgrounds of the characters in the drama which did not sit well with me. The male lead in the novel was a little humble, fiercely protective of those he cared about and hardworking. However, in the drama, the male lead is a little arrogant and the acting was questionable sometimes compounded by the fact that drama can be considered completely different from the novel. Also, because the director decided to change the original story, it was left with many loopholes. At least for me, I could not accept this. The drama was worse than the novel which begs the question of whether the director should have kept the original story or not.
To me, watching this was excruciating. There were times when I wanted to yell at the director for making this drama exist. I did not agree with the director's choice to make the story completely different. I suspect that the budget was not very high hence the decision and the sudden halt. However, because some people have not read the novel, it can be considered decent. For those that have not read and watched either, watch the drama first then the novel. If you read the novel first, you will immediately notice the flaws and dislike the drama.


Yeah, maybe I am being too harsh. After all, it has been a while since I have watched the drama. To me, it is like having to compare an inferior fruit to a superior fruit. You would not notice the inferiority had you had just been given the inferior fruit. I also loosely remember(I maybe wrong) that the distinctions between power levels is almost not mentioned in the drama. Anyway. watch first then read.

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Are you tired of an incompetent king? Are you tired of dumb antagonists? Are you into martial arts? Are you tired of predictable plots? Are you into characters that are well developed? Are you into romance? Are you interested into historical-ish dramas? Well, welcome to Joy of Life! All of the characters have a deep history and it is interesting connecting the dots. The king is very unpredictable, yet he makes very good decisions. He is ruthless. He is the mastermind. As for the main character, he is pretty smart. If you liked how the main character in Nirvana in Fire was smart, then you will definitely like Fan Xian. As for the story, there are many plots twists to keep the audience busy. Hope this was helpful.

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If you watched the first one, you will immediately see how far the second one has fallen. At least in the first one, there was a cute romance, emotional story, and good ending. If not, this is alright for you except I advise against it. The acting in particular for some actors is decent. However, Damian Lau was excruciating to watch. In one scene, he faints but it is so poorly done you can see right through it. It also doesn't help that he is near the beginning of the drama. It is almost as if they took almost all of the good things from the first one and threw it out the window. Overall, if you can survive Mr. Lau, then I guess you are alright. (I didn't finish. I dropped it)

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