Deity of Love (2022)

Typical Mini-Drama: Some Good Points, Some Bad

After finishing Deity of Love, I was reminded of the good and bad things about the mini-drama format.

The plot is a typical wuxia plot in that it involves sectarian fighters for justice and the well-being of the people. This quality manifests itself as a struggle between the demon-hunters and their demon prey. There are a romantic MC and 2MC, and many of the plot devices and tropes typical of the genre [falling-down kiss, jealous "sister", etc] are used. Given that they had under 150 minutes total run time, the playwrights did a fairly decent job of creating a plot that held together and ran from start to finish without any major holes. Most of the others, like how specific characters became connected to each other, are left to the audience's imagination and don't really detract from the overall progression of the story line.

In terms of the characters and the actors portraying them, I'd say this was a mediocre performance. The male and female lead weren't awful, and had one or two moments when they made the drama interesting; the romantic moments were muted without being overly "wooden" in appearance. The performance by the rest of the cast was very uneven. There were several moments when the demon-hunter roles were seriously overacted, and the 2nd ML seemed to suffer from a personality disorder, but for the limited scope of the work most of it was okay. The role that in my opinion was portrayed in the most interesting way was that of the villain, who was ironically just about the prettiest actor in the entire drama [lol].

In terms of production values .... well, it's a mini-drama by Tencent. I don't think one can expect too much. Costuming and setting was relatively standard, and some of the graphic effects were .... weird. But none of it was absolutely horrible. My biggest complaint is that the lighting / film quality was lower than it had to be. The film quality gave me the vibe of one of those old kitschy Power Rangers videos from years and years ago.

Nevertheless, there were some things I genuinely liked about Deity of Love. First, I actually liked the "tropiness" of the plot, mainly because the short format made it difficult for the writers to be too repetitious about it, but also because there's a certain guilty pleasure in knowing what to expect. Even the typical standard Chinese plot outcomes worked for me because they present what I like to think of as an appropriately Chinese world view. The writers actually were able to stick in a plot moment or two that really were unexpected and thus add some suspense even for the most experienced viewer.

I also liked the actors were also not too pretty. I'm not saying they were unattractive - on the contrary. They just looked like real people you might encounter in life rather than godlike beings. This works for me since the story is meant to be a gritty tale of good overcoming evil. And making the villain the most physically attractive character actually works to highlight the theme of the drama [yes, it did have a theme ... lol] . I appreciate that the writers tried to make the story about more than the typical fight for good and evil,

All in all, this was a satisfactory and satisfying quick watch for those who just want a little wuxia "fix" without having to invest 24 or 36 hours of one's time.

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