1
Action, adventure and a lot of unanswered questions
I watched the first half mostly in the background, because the story was a chaotic mess and the production lacked authenticity. Everything felt staged and over-directed, pushing for surface-level drama and leaving little space for genuine storytelling.
The story takes us on an erratic rollercoaster of emotions jumping from mystery to mystery with a lot of action and comedy on the way, but I wasn’t swept away. There’s very little word-building and contextual explanation, which made many of the dramatic twists seem avoidable and unconvincing (like how could a careless spilling of a single (fake) name lead to a complete destruction of a century-old secret organisation or why was one of the mains tricked to go to a deathtrap region and left to run wild with no supervision). I guess the writers thought the less we know, the better the mystery but it didn’t work for me. Instead, it made the story feel choppy, investigations unfinished and the character motivations very confusing.
The investigation part was peak unintentional comedy. The brotherly duo closed cases with awe-inspiring nonchalance. Why waste time solving puzzles, when you can just spectacularly blow shit up! If only they managed to actually kill someone… Why no one they killed ever stayed dead was the real big mystery of the drama;)
I also had a hard time grasping the emotional ties between the three main characters. On the surface, the two adopted brothers and fellow agents of the mysterious Zhang family are each other’s opposite. Zhang Hailou is a reckless brat who craves danger. Zhang Haixia is the reasonable and calculating brains behind the operation. However, his unwavering loyalty, indulgence towards Hailou (and danger), and self-sacrificing tendencies hint at codependency and emotional complexity that barely gets explored. Their mentor, a centenarian called Zhang Haiqi, loves to be cryptic and unhelpful. I had the hardest time understanding her actions and motivations, because she often seemed to hinder the two instead of aiding them …or more accurately she hindered one of them which seemed counterproductive. I questioned her leadership qualities a lot.
I wish the story included more details about their past, how they met and how their bond changed and grew over the years, with more natural interactions between them. The part of the story where Haixia and Hailou spend three years together cut off from the organisation begged for a deeper exploration of their emotional states - Hailou’s daily caring for Haixia while struggling with guilt and Haixia feeling like a burden to him. This was a huge turning point in their lives, yet it's treated very briefly and only skims the surface. The lack of detailed character arcs is another reason why I never got fully immersed in the story.
I don’t want to go into too many details on this, but I really didn’t like the cinematography and chosen aesthetic. Special effects in the early episodes were bad and were probably responsible for the unnatural lighting that made a lot of scenes lack physical depth. I also didn’t like how the action scenes were filmed. I assume they were going for a stylized, comic book vibe with the speed ramping and freeze frames, but the effect was a disjointed mess.
And who's idea was it to give these beautiful men ghostly faces?! Heavy make-up and dramatic, blue-tinted lighting should never ever go together! It made them look like photoshoot models come haunting and kind of broke my immersion.
Comedy and acting were the two bright spots for me. Zhang Xincheng is brilliant. In goofiness or in sorrow, I always connect with his acting. If you liked him in Young Blood, then you’d like his role here too. Ding Yuxi’s stylish badass persona was really fun, complete with a rakish gaze and indestructible haircut;)
Their chemistry worked better in the explosive moments than in the quiet ones. The reunion in the temple was probably my favourite of their scenes together. I’d love to see them as adversaries in a future drama:)
Jiang Peiyao as Haiqi fit the other two leads with her playful stylized acting. I never warmed to her character, but that’s more on the writers than the actress.
After the first 10 episodes the plot gets more focused and engaging, the stakes heartbreakingly personal, and we finally get some explanations. As to whether those are convincing, you’d have to judge by yourself;) The comedy shines in the second half with verbal sparring between Hailou and Haiqi as they spend more time together, though some scenes are unbearably cringe (almost every moment with the phoenix lady really). The visual side also improved a lot …or my tolerance for it did;)). In any case the sets and locations were more immersive and the costumes gorgeous!
Step by step the board gets set for the final showdown between two surprising opponents, which was intriguing to watch. The tension was rising all the way till the finale… which turned out to be an utter disappointment with a lot of nonsense writing. The way the final confrontation went down was especially underwhelming after such a long build-up and all the heartbreak the writers put these characters through. The last thing I needed at the end was more off-camera secrets and cryptic statements:/
I’d only recommend this drama if you want something light to play in the background or are a fan of one of the actors. Maybe light isn’t the right word, because I saw people in the comments bothered by the amount of death and corpses. There’s definitely a fair amount of murder, tragedy and supernatural monsters, but the overall tone is more in line with adventure comedy than horror.
The story takes us on an erratic rollercoaster of emotions jumping from mystery to mystery with a lot of action and comedy on the way, but I wasn’t swept away. There’s very little word-building and contextual explanation, which made many of the dramatic twists seem avoidable and unconvincing (like how could a careless spilling of a single (fake) name lead to a complete destruction of a century-old secret organisation or why was one of the mains tricked to go to a deathtrap region and left to run wild with no supervision). I guess the writers thought the less we know, the better the mystery but it didn’t work for me. Instead, it made the story feel choppy, investigations unfinished and the character motivations very confusing.
The investigation part was peak unintentional comedy. The brotherly duo closed cases with awe-inspiring nonchalance. Why waste time solving puzzles, when you can just spectacularly blow shit up! If only they managed to actually kill someone… Why no one they killed ever stayed dead was the real big mystery of the drama;)
I also had a hard time grasping the emotional ties between the three main characters. On the surface, the two adopted brothers and fellow agents of the mysterious Zhang family are each other’s opposite. Zhang Hailou is a reckless brat who craves danger. Zhang Haixia is the reasonable and calculating brains behind the operation. However, his unwavering loyalty, indulgence towards Hailou (and danger), and self-sacrificing tendencies hint at codependency and emotional complexity that barely gets explored. Their mentor, a centenarian called Zhang Haiqi, loves to be cryptic and unhelpful. I had the hardest time understanding her actions and motivations, because she often seemed to hinder the two instead of aiding them …or more accurately she hindered one of them which seemed counterproductive. I questioned her leadership qualities a lot.
I wish the story included more details about their past, how they met and how their bond changed and grew over the years, with more natural interactions between them. The part of the story where Haixia and Hailou spend three years together cut off from the organisation begged for a deeper exploration of their emotional states - Hailou’s daily caring for Haixia while struggling with guilt and Haixia feeling like a burden to him. This was a huge turning point in their lives, yet it's treated very briefly and only skims the surface. The lack of detailed character arcs is another reason why I never got fully immersed in the story.
I don’t want to go into too many details on this, but I really didn’t like the cinematography and chosen aesthetic. Special effects in the early episodes were bad and were probably responsible for the unnatural lighting that made a lot of scenes lack physical depth. I also didn’t like how the action scenes were filmed. I assume they were going for a stylized, comic book vibe with the speed ramping and freeze frames, but the effect was a disjointed mess.
And who's idea was it to give these beautiful men ghostly faces?! Heavy make-up and dramatic, blue-tinted lighting should never ever go together! It made them look like photoshoot models come haunting and kind of broke my immersion.
Comedy and acting were the two bright spots for me. Zhang Xincheng is brilliant. In goofiness or in sorrow, I always connect with his acting. If you liked him in Young Blood, then you’d like his role here too. Ding Yuxi’s stylish badass persona was really fun, complete with a rakish gaze and indestructible haircut;)
Their chemistry worked better in the explosive moments than in the quiet ones. The reunion in the temple was probably my favourite of their scenes together. I’d love to see them as adversaries in a future drama:)
Jiang Peiyao as Haiqi fit the other two leads with her playful stylized acting. I never warmed to her character, but that’s more on the writers than the actress.
After the first 10 episodes the plot gets more focused and engaging, the stakes heartbreakingly personal, and we finally get some explanations. As to whether those are convincing, you’d have to judge by yourself;) The comedy shines in the second half with verbal sparring between Hailou and Haiqi as they spend more time together, though some scenes are unbearably cringe (almost every moment with the phoenix lady really). The visual side also improved a lot …or my tolerance for it did;)). In any case the sets and locations were more immersive and the costumes gorgeous!
Step by step the board gets set for the final showdown between two surprising opponents, which was intriguing to watch. The tension was rising all the way till the finale… which turned out to be an utter disappointment with a lot of nonsense writing. The way the final confrontation went down was especially underwhelming after such a long build-up and all the heartbreak the writers put these characters through. The last thing I needed at the end was more off-camera secrets and cryptic statements:/
I’d only recommend this drama if you want something light to play in the background or are a fan of one of the actors. Maybe light isn’t the right word, because I saw people in the comments bothered by the amount of death and corpses. There’s definitely a fair amount of murder, tragedy and supernatural monsters, but the overall tone is more in line with adventure comedy than horror.
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