anopinion
Pittsburgh, PA
Most disappointing drama of the year
The Worm Valley was one of my most anticipated dramas of 2021 having watched both its predecessors. Tomb raiding plus a good production crew is a sure-win formula in general, so I was shocked that it failed so spectacularly. I actually extended my WeTV subscription specially for this but still I did not finish the series, and that tells you how bad it is.I have seen many domestic reviews of this series saying how it is a departure from the original novel and due to censorship there are scenes which cannot be filmed and the excitement level took a huge drop because of all these restrictions. I am not concerned about these things. I will admit that I have read the novel before, but I cannot remember anything from it so I am looking at things without bias.
The biggest issue about this show is pace. The show spent about 8 episodes getting into the tomb. Mind you, the length is just 16 episodes. Literally half the time was spent dilly-dallying on things which are not supposed to be the focus. What was more outrageous was that the tomb exploration itself was lame. One episode fighting an invincible worm and another episode fighting a cluster of monsters, with very basic background digging and puzzle solving. There is no excitement at all. It drained my interest in the lore, and the fights were just run and gun.
The next thing which bothered me was how deliberate the jokes were. They were so not funny that it became awkward watching all these scenes. The romance subplot was another thing that turned me away. Hu Bayi and Shirley Yang should not making long eye contact inside a crashed plane. The romance subplot should be subtle and natural. This is NOT a romance drama! There is no need and no place for inconvenient, cringeworthy tropes. These are recurring scenes in the drama and I had to fast forward through all of them.
I am not sure what happened, because the show is wrong on so many levels. It is perplexing because I had so much faith in the cast and crew. Unfortunately, the drama was a huge let down. I still have my fingers crossed for the sequel though.
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Solid production and story
The crew behind Strange Tales of the Tang Dynasty is renowned for their control of pace despite lackluster material. With SToTD, the theme itself is interesting, so it makes the drama a pretty good watch. However, there is something left to be desired when it comes to maintaining the pace of the drama, and the characterisations are also very dated.The drama is more Detective Dee than Justice Bao, which is a minus from my point of view, because the deduction and mystery solving isn't that inspiring. There's no real eureka moment, and you really don't get the feeling that the characters are all that smart. The explanations are there, but there is no real logic or connection, and thus no sense of realisation when the truth is revealed. Most of the time the focus is on the backstory of the villains rather than anything else. The pace and tempo really makes this drama, because it's comparatively fast (though not that packed), and you don't really think, you just whizz past everything and listen to what the show is trying to say. Unfortunately, towards the end when the drama is trying to tie up loose ends, the lack of a true compelling overarching theme really hurts and everything starts to unravel.
On the acting, I watched Yang Xuwen in Condor Heroes and he was exactly the same in this drama. I don't really think it throws people off since technically he's not the focal point, but I do sometimes wonder if the show could have been that bit better if they cast a more solid actor who didn't seem like a knucklehead all the time. Yang Zhigang I thought was fine. What really bothered me was how they felt that love lines were necessary. The female lead was so poorly written, obsessed with love, and only got a bit better towards the middle when they could find value in her artistic ability. They figured that they need to add a love interest for Su Wu Ming as well, which was so uncalled for. The girl could have just been the martial arts expert. This is very typical of early to mid 00s Chinese dramas though, so I guess some may like it. I didn't like the characterisations of the Crown Prince and the Princess too, but I think there are some restrictions on how they can portray historical characters so that cannot be helped. I must commend the actor who played the triplets because he was very good, so that's that.
All in all, it's a solid drama and it's a surprisingly solid production. From the costume to the colours, they are all well designed and thought out. I'm always curious why the top actors seem to get shit production whereas no-namers like Yang get cast in something like this, but I guess that's life.
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