3
5
minarii
bulgaria but mentally lost
Ancient Detective surprised me so much and I mean it in the best way possible. I started it because of the short amount of episodes (and the good looking actors) with no expectations, but it turned out to be one of the best dramas I've seen in 2020 so far.
First of all, let me start with the production of the drama because damn, the director and the crew need some praise and they have my respect. They managed to turn a low-budged webdrama into a high-quality production. Every scene of the series is shot so beautifully and it's simply aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The camera work, the effects, the zooming of certain things was so on point. It shows that the production team tried their best to make the drama appealing to the viewers. Even though the story has its flaws, the directing made up for it. I'm totally impressed.
The plot itself was okay. Not the most excellent I've seen, but it was entertaining enough and it was well-thought. The drama revolves around the male lead, who is a detective, solving mysterious cases and I personally enjoy watching detective dramas. However, the murder cases here weren't really that impressive? I mean, yeah, they made me curious who might be the killer, it was fun to watch Jian Bu Zhi finding clues and then discovering the truth. But it wasn't as exciting as I wanted it to be. And that's the reason why I lowered my rating, since for a detective drama, the cases and the excitement you get from them is the most important thing.
The drama overall has a slow pace which I didn't mind at all, since the characters were all interesting enough. However, despite the slow pace, I feel like some things happened way too fast. And by some things, I mean the two romance stories. The couples were cute, but nothing more. I couldn't get emotionally attached to them, hence I didn't care enough what will happen to their relationship in the future.
But the bromance made up for the weak romance. Jian Bu Zhi and Zhao Wo Huan's interactions were one of my most favourite things about this drama. And they were later joined by my absolute favourite character Ye Xiao Xiao and everything got 1000x better.
The acting was decent, especially if we consider the fact that the lead actors are not that experienced yet. It was not well-balanced though, for example Tim Yu (Jian Bu Zhi) and Wang Yan Yang (Zhao Wo Huan) were outstanding, their peformances were brilliant, while Rachel Wang (Zhan Shi Qi) and Miranda Ma (Ming Yue) were not that good. You know, Shi Qi was supposed to be a brave assassin and a strong female lead, but I did not get that vibe of her. And Ming Yue could have been such an interesting character, but the actress looked as if she was annoyed all the time. She basically had the same expression throughout the whole series. And she was supposed to be a mute and she had to express her emotions without talking, using the expressions of her face and she was so bad at it.
Overall, Ancient Detective is a very entertaining show which has its shortcomings, but it's worth watching despite of them. It has some nice twists at the end and it makes you want to watch more. So I'm definitely looking forward to the second season if there'll be one. I highly recommend it to people who are fan of both wuxia and mystery/detective dramas, Ancient Detective will exceed your expectations for sure.
First of all, let me start with the production of the drama because damn, the director and the crew need some praise and they have my respect. They managed to turn a low-budged webdrama into a high-quality production. Every scene of the series is shot so beautifully and it's simply aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The camera work, the effects, the zooming of certain things was so on point. It shows that the production team tried their best to make the drama appealing to the viewers. Even though the story has its flaws, the directing made up for it. I'm totally impressed.
The plot itself was okay. Not the most excellent I've seen, but it was entertaining enough and it was well-thought. The drama revolves around the male lead, who is a detective, solving mysterious cases and I personally enjoy watching detective dramas. However, the murder cases here weren't really that impressive? I mean, yeah, they made me curious who might be the killer, it was fun to watch Jian Bu Zhi finding clues and then discovering the truth. But it wasn't as exciting as I wanted it to be. And that's the reason why I lowered my rating, since for a detective drama, the cases and the excitement you get from them is the most important thing.
The drama overall has a slow pace which I didn't mind at all, since the characters were all interesting enough. However, despite the slow pace, I feel like some things happened way too fast. And by some things, I mean the two romance stories. The couples were cute, but nothing more. I couldn't get emotionally attached to them, hence I didn't care enough what will happen to their relationship in the future.
But the bromance made up for the weak romance. Jian Bu Zhi and Zhao Wo Huan's interactions were one of my most favourite things about this drama. And they were later joined by my absolute favourite character Ye Xiao Xiao and everything got 1000x better.
The acting was decent, especially if we consider the fact that the lead actors are not that experienced yet. It was not well-balanced though, for example Tim Yu (Jian Bu Zhi) and Wang Yan Yang (Zhao Wo Huan) were outstanding, their peformances were brilliant, while Rachel Wang (Zhan Shi Qi) and Miranda Ma (Ming Yue) were not that good. You know, Shi Qi was supposed to be a brave assassin and a strong female lead, but I did not get that vibe of her. And Ming Yue could have been such an interesting character, but the actress looked as if she was annoyed all the time. She basically had the same expression throughout the whole series. And she was supposed to be a mute and she had to express her emotions without talking, using the expressions of her face and she was so bad at it.
Overall, Ancient Detective is a very entertaining show which has its shortcomings, but it's worth watching despite of them. It has some nice twists at the end and it makes you want to watch more. So I'm definitely looking forward to the second season if there'll be one. I highly recommend it to people who are fan of both wuxia and mystery/detective dramas, Ancient Detective will exceed your expectations for sure.
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