This review may contain spoilers
A tad disappointed but was entertianed
This show was *not* bad. In fact, production and acting wise it was pretty solid. However, the plot? Not for me. The slivers of romance and my enjoyment of all the actors faces (esp. Jospeh’s) is really what kept me, and my own burning curiosity to see the ending. Being able to foster said curiosity out of me is credit to the show because I usually just don’t care enough.
Let me break down what I enjoyed:
- **The actors**. Literally everyone was impeccable and felt truly like the character(s) they were playing.
- **The sliver of romance.** It truly is not a lot of romance as I would say this is more a fantasy action than romantasy by any means. But the two main pairs that have a romance do not hold back. You get some fated mates, some “enemies to lovers” to close proximity to “fake dating”. A nice range of tropes with a questionable but classifiable “happy ending” for both. I actually get it a 9 for *both* the pairings because they were equally the main characters. It was a 9 and not a ten bc of the said questionable happy endings.
- The general pace of the plot. I think the reason I was able to finish the show was that it maintained a solid tempo. Anytime I was getting sick of a storyline, the storyline changed to something new.
Time to highlight what didn’t work:
- The synopsis does not set the viewer up for what is to come. It only covers Xiao Wei and the Dragon Deity's power but it should have focused on trying to defeat Jiu Ying. I don’t think saying it up frount would have been a spoiler as the show has so many twists its hard enough to keep up. I genuinely started the show thinking we would spend 29 episodes in Wei Manor and was getting a bit confused by the shows tempo as we got closer to finding Xiao Wei.
- I have to say the synopsis doesn’t lean into romance but the trailer and tone of the show seem, not light hearted but not so serious either so I did expect more romance and levity overall. As such, the show was doomed to be a hit for me. I am not a fan of being given a show I wasn’t expecting lol
- The show overdoes red herrings. In an effort to impress the viewer with plot creativity, the show actually just achieved frustrating me and also becoming a bit redundant in its “plot twists”.
- 9.9x out of 10 I am not a fan of time travel because the show usually just ignores its own plot holes and causes more of a headache than less. While the show did a decent job with the time travel for the whole Lu Wu Yi & Ji Ling’s stuffed fox, it also just felt overwhelming and unnecessary. It was romantic enough but we’re told she *cannot* change the future, but then to prevent him from committing suicide she conveniently could by cutting her tail which was conveniently “fixed” by Ji Ling STILL “committing suicide” by giving her his dragon scale which is conveniently resolved by the DEAD Chi Wen’s last power giving energy to a special rock which is conveniently fast tracked by the ALSO *supposedly* DEAD star stone and idk what else.
- See how conveniently everything unfolded? I am a happily ever after girl so I don’t mind convenient plot solutions but with all those conveniences, why the heck did the show end with 3 out of 4 of the main lead forgetting EVERYTHING that happened in the show? Two of whom randomly land in a different timeline.
- Also circling back to the time travel, the secondary time travel makes less sense because if Jiu Ying was killed back in time before Lu Wu Yi is part of the nine-tailed fox clan, then how does Wu Shi Guang still end up as the 10th dragon deity–everything we watched has been undone and we have 0 real knowledge of the “actual” timeline that happened in the show. We see You Chi
alive again and more serious, but that’s it. Does that mean You Chi’s father isn’t dead because that whole situation didn’t happen? Does that mean Wu Shi Guang never had the sliver of Jiu Ying’s essence in him? If so, why does he remember everything that technically didn’t happen?
See what I mean? The show tried so hard to *be* and instead it was just a snake eating it’s own tail (pun intended bc Jiu Ying is a snake). I enjoyed it at face value but with all the twists and turns that led to dead ends, it’s clear this show wanted to appear intellectual to some degree. If you like fantasy, and don’t mind the headache involved in keeping up with everything, I would recommend, otherwise, eh.
Let me break down what I enjoyed:
- **The actors**. Literally everyone was impeccable and felt truly like the character(s) they were playing.
- **The sliver of romance.** It truly is not a lot of romance as I would say this is more a fantasy action than romantasy by any means. But the two main pairs that have a romance do not hold back. You get some fated mates, some “enemies to lovers” to close proximity to “fake dating”. A nice range of tropes with a questionable but classifiable “happy ending” for both. I actually get it a 9 for *both* the pairings because they were equally the main characters. It was a 9 and not a ten bc of the said questionable happy endings.
- The general pace of the plot. I think the reason I was able to finish the show was that it maintained a solid tempo. Anytime I was getting sick of a storyline, the storyline changed to something new.
Time to highlight what didn’t work:
- The synopsis does not set the viewer up for what is to come. It only covers Xiao Wei and the Dragon Deity's power but it should have focused on trying to defeat Jiu Ying. I don’t think saying it up frount would have been a spoiler as the show has so many twists its hard enough to keep up. I genuinely started the show thinking we would spend 29 episodes in Wei Manor and was getting a bit confused by the shows tempo as we got closer to finding Xiao Wei.
- I have to say the synopsis doesn’t lean into romance but the trailer and tone of the show seem, not light hearted but not so serious either so I did expect more romance and levity overall. As such, the show was doomed to be a hit for me. I am not a fan of being given a show I wasn’t expecting lol
- The show overdoes red herrings. In an effort to impress the viewer with plot creativity, the show actually just achieved frustrating me and also becoming a bit redundant in its “plot twists”.
- 9.9x out of 10 I am not a fan of time travel because the show usually just ignores its own plot holes and causes more of a headache than less. While the show did a decent job with the time travel for the whole Lu Wu Yi & Ji Ling’s stuffed fox, it also just felt overwhelming and unnecessary. It was romantic enough but we’re told she *cannot* change the future, but then to prevent him from committing suicide she conveniently could by cutting her tail which was conveniently “fixed” by Ji Ling STILL “committing suicide” by giving her his dragon scale which is conveniently resolved by the DEAD Chi Wen’s last power giving energy to a special rock which is conveniently fast tracked by the ALSO *supposedly* DEAD star stone and idk what else.
- See how conveniently everything unfolded? I am a happily ever after girl so I don’t mind convenient plot solutions but with all those conveniences, why the heck did the show end with 3 out of 4 of the main lead forgetting EVERYTHING that happened in the show? Two of whom randomly land in a different timeline.
- Also circling back to the time travel, the secondary time travel makes less sense because if Jiu Ying was killed back in time before Lu Wu Yi is part of the nine-tailed fox clan, then how does Wu Shi Guang still end up as the 10th dragon deity–everything we watched has been undone and we have 0 real knowledge of the “actual” timeline that happened in the show. We see You Chi
alive again and more serious, but that’s it. Does that mean You Chi’s father isn’t dead because that whole situation didn’t happen? Does that mean Wu Shi Guang never had the sliver of Jiu Ying’s essence in him? If so, why does he remember everything that technically didn’t happen?
See what I mean? The show tried so hard to *be* and instead it was just a snake eating it’s own tail (pun intended bc Jiu Ying is a snake). I enjoyed it at face value but with all the twists and turns that led to dead ends, it’s clear this show wanted to appear intellectual to some degree. If you like fantasy, and don’t mind the headache involved in keeping up with everything, I would recommend, otherwise, eh.
Was this review helpful to you?
