The Spirealm (2024) poster
8.9
Your Rating: 0/10
Ratings: 8.9/10 from 3,414 users
# of Watchers: 11,466
Reviews: 81 users
Ranked #89
Popularity #1587
Watchers 3,414

Ling Jiu Shi finds himself inexplicably thrust inside a mind-bending reality dictated by an enigmatic Virtual Reality game where he must pass twelve doors to escape. The catch? Each door initiates new mysteries to solve and conditions to abide by. (Source: IMDb) ~~ Adapted from the web novel "Kaleidoscope of Death" (死亡万花筒) by Xi Zi Xu (西子绪). ~~ Two versions: 78 eps/20 min (Original broadcast) || 38 eps/42 min (Re-broadcast) Edit Translation

  • English
  • ภาษาไทย
  • Русский
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Country: China
  • Type: Drama
  • Episodes: 78
  • Aired: Feb 2, 2024
  • Aired On: Friday
  • Original Network: iQiyi
  • Duration: 20 min.
  • Score: 8.9 (scored by 3,414 users)
  • Ranked: #89
  • Popularity: #1587
  • Content Rating: Not Yet Rated

Where to Watch The Spirealm

Viki
Subscription (sub)

Cast & Credits

Reviews

Completed
Pro
80 people found this review helpful
Feb 8, 2024
78 of 78 episodes seen
Completed 14
Overall 10
Story 10
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 10

This series left me with an emptiness and sad feeling after watching the last episode … I already started missing the characters :( I wish it didn’t end.
The actors acted so well and the production was also so good.
I hope the hard work of the cast and the production crew in creating this masterpiece doesn’t go to waste. Thanks a lot guys!
I watched half of the series without subtitles cause I couldn’t stop myself from watching. Even If I couldn’t understand everything at least I could feel it. Lot’s of Thanks to the people who managed to download it before this masterpiece was deleted and people uploaded it for us to watch and also to the people who added subtitles. Thanks to everyone who was involved.

Read More

Was this review helpful to you?
Completed
labcat
52 people found this review helpful
Feb 12, 2024
78 of 78 episodes seen
Completed 4
Overall 9.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 9.0
This review may contain spoilers

Love the story (mostly) and characters, but it is not flawless for sure

Apart from the fact that the series is adapted from a BL work, I see no reason it would be taken down. In fact, suggestions of BL are few and far between even though the relationship between the two main characters approaches the intensity of romance.

I think the story has some basic changes from the original work, but the story in the series is pretty strong overall. It is highly engaging as the characters enter the virtual world represented by one door after another. The progress in the dangers of the different levels of the virtual reality game is also nicely calibrated. But the story would have been much less engaging had it not been for a group of interesting and likable characters that the audience will care about. A case in point is the character, Tan Zaozao, a female actress who starts off being a character one doesn't take seriously but ends up with one we might cry over.

It is a little ironic that a series that toes the line in so many ways is taken down after an hour, with most attributing the cause to censorship. If one has no idea that the series is based on a BL work, one might not even imagine that there is any romance going on between the main characters. No doubt, there is a strong bond between them, but it could either be a strong friendship or romantic interest that never really gets a chance to be expressed. I would even say that one of the major flaws of the series is how it toes the line politically, making it thematically simplistic. In the series, it is none too subtly suggested that America = Capitalist = Evil. (No prizes for guessing which country it is antithetical to.)

As a critique of capitalism, what the characters say may make sense at a certain level. However, it is a different matter to posit that evil Western capitalists will go out of their way to corrupt a virtual reality game (or some sort of game where the line between the virtual and the real is blurred) and fill it with violence. Look, in the series, it is not as though the capitalists can make money when:

1. people who start playing the game have no choice but to continue--they can simply go through any door and be transported to one of the worlds of the game even if they do not wish to play and presumably even if they are too poor to pay to continue playing the game.

2. people who die in the game also die in real life, so they cannot continue playing (even if we assume that they have to pay each time they play)--and it it VERY easy to die in the game.

3. people actually actively discuss the game on the Internet and it is quite possible for the game to gain such a bad reputation that not many are adventurous to even start playing it

4. such a game must take an immense amount of energy to power even if it were technologically possible: which profiteering capitalist will foot the bill?

Another issue here is the pitting of the main characters against the agenda of the evil capitalists. You mean as long as the main characters triumph, the evil capitalists won't be able to replicate an older, corrupt version of the game that can cause people to die?

I suspect the original work is more coherent than this, but alas, it probably runs into censorship issues. But if only someone had the foresight to see that the series would be catapulted to the status of a cult classic because it would be taken down after one hour of release, perhaps a decision could have been made to stay more faithful to the original work.

In the last couple of episodes, the series becomes quite perplexing. It does not make sense to have an "it was all a dream" sort of ending, especially one that ends up being self-contradictory. There are at least three key interpretations we are invited to consider:

1. It was all a "dream"--ok, but why would Ling Jiu Shi's dream reveal to him the names and even personalities of people he sees after the dream and not before, and why isn't Ruan Lan Zhu amongst these people?

2. The game has started earlier than Ling Jiu Shi realizes at first, but when he completes the game, he is transported to maybe 15 minutes after the start of the game. This would mean that all the so-called real-life characters for most of the episodes are game characters. Ok, but why are these characters so similar to random people Ling Jiu Shi later sees around.

3. Ling Jiu Shi is still in the game (not mutually exclusive with 2). Maybe there is a challenge he must overcome. Who knows? He chooses to spend the next 50 years creating a replica of the game (presumably without the awful parts) or basically Ruan Lan Zhu and other people he cares about during the previous 70+ episodes we see him. Ultimately, though, this seems to be an act of self-deception... it it suggested that no matter how real we make the virtual world or "merge" it with the real world, we can escape the fact that our physical bodies age in the real world. That is unless we ditch our physical bodies (die physically) and upload ourselves into the virtual world (which can be sustained by god knows what)... I guess this is one way of achieving a happily-ever-after for our leads. Then again, it is a solution that involves cutting oneself off from the people in a different realm.

I think the series makes things unnecessarily complicated and not quite in a purposeful way. This is where it falters despite being a really engaging series to watch about 95% of the time.

Read More

Was this review helpful to you?

Recommendations

Strange Tales of Jiang Cheng
Love for Love's Sake
19th Floor
The Earth Is Online
Global University Entrance Examination
Stand by Me

Details

  • Drama: The Spirealm
  • Country: China
  • Episodes: 78
  • Aired: Feb 2, 2024
  • Aired On: Friday
  • Original Network: iQiyi
  • Duration: 20 min.
  • Content Rating: Not Yet Rated

Statistics

  • Score: 8.9 (scored by 3,414 users)
  • Ranked: #89
  • Popularity: #1587
  • Watchers: 11,466

Top Contributors

94 edits
89 edits
85 edits
39 edits

Popular Lists

Related lists from users
Best BL Drama
309 titles 2628 voters 609 loves 39

Recently Watched By