Swivla
Fun and beautiful fantasy movie
I really enjoyed this film, it is saturated with high fantasy and wonder. The setting is very much xianxia, with sects of cultivators and flying on swords and the whole works. They really portray cultivator magic much more than most shows in this genre.The main 4 actors are all amazing, giving strong performances and making me want desperately to have more time with their characters.
Unfortunately this is a film and not a show, so the time passes much too quick. Also it seems that this is only a part of the story it is based on, but they never made the rest of the films, so the ending is pretty abrupt and not entirely satisfying.
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Charming Cozy Ghost Drama
This drama was very enjoyable. A lot of it is a very typical ghost drama plotline, there is not anything very unique about the plot. But in many episodes I found that the writing was very well polished, an attention to detail that many dramas do not have. Many dramas just force in a trope even when it does not make sense, but this show seemed to care that everything makes sense. The twists and emotional arcs are very well thought out. The performances are also very good. The side stories are especially rich.One criticism is that the final arc has some odd pacing. I am not sure if it was "bad" pacing, but they make some strange choices to reveal things before going back and showing stuff leading up to it. In a way, a lot of surprises are not a surprise because they show you the reveals so early before building up the tension. I am not sure if those were bad decisions, but I would say this is not a drama where you will be guessing a lot. There is some suspense, but it is pretty light.
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Mediocre Fantasy
Very mediocre drama. Watched ~11 eps, may put it on in the background to see where it goes, but spent more time being confused and frustrated by the writing than enjoying myself.The good:
- As a fantasy production it is pretty decently put together. Not poorly produced, decent effects, decent filming angles etc
- There are some characters with charm, though a lot of this falls apart when the writing muddles their personalities and motivations. I feel like the actors were probably good, but the scenes and arcs that were written for them just failed their characters
- If you want to watch a show with intention to heckle it, turn on comments and there's a stack of people just laughing at it or tearing it apart
The bad:
The writing is really frustrating in its lack of consistency and its lack of respect for character motivations.
The FL:
Her characterization jumps all over the place, is she clever or an idiot, is she strong and willful or a baby. She doesn't feel consistent at all. In theory she starts out as having grown up on the streets among younger street kids who she takes care of, but as soon as she is off the streets she becomes the ultimate spoiled child. There is no sense that she has street smarts, she is completely gullible, and she acts like a total dependent child - there is no sign at all that she used to shoulder all the responsibility for a group of kids. She is shown to have never relied on anyone when she was homeless, but immediately just becomes completely dependent on every man we encounter once the show starts.
To that point, the FL is regularly portrayed as child-like when around any men, while they are almost universally portrayed as interested in her. It really gets to be pretty creepy with the grooming and possessive vibes, to a degree that even many xianxia "cutesy" FL's don't come across this bad.
Eventually as we forget that she was ever a street kid, and accept her new baby persona, the writing still can't stay consistent. Will she suddenly be willful or will she just let people push her around? Will she suddenly inexplicably be competent and powerful or will she just be mowed over? Will she make the absolute dumbest decisions just because the writers need to set up a misunderstanding plotline, or a persecution plotline? It all just jumps all over the place, and it makes it really hard to stay engaged and invested.
The ML:
Is a wooden block at best, but seems to just be grooming and keeping the FL isolated and we are meant to take it as romantic? Ew.
Other characters:
Too many love interests, basically every man we encounter, and almost all of them give no reason to care or root for them. Personally the most annoying is these romantic interests are regularly just totally disregarding the FLs autonomy. Tons of wrist grabbing and talking over her and "pushy flirting" which is really gross.
Basically no women anywhere. The only other woman in this show is the "bully" who also will be portrayed just as inconsistently in power and authority just suddenly ramping up, despite her also being new to the cultivation world.
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Decent comedy but weird choices to make her a groomer
Maybe not bad, but not my tastes. Personally I found it too heavy on the comedy, it might even be considered slapstick. But if you like a lot of comedy and only a splash of romance then maybe you will like this, if you can overlook the next issue.People trying to reduce this to an age gap show are missing a fundamental issue. The gap isn't the issue, the problem is the grooming that is heavily emphasized and treated as romantic. She was literally his teacher and idolized by him. They emphasize how much he has put her on a pedestal because he was going through such a rough time in school at the time and was super vulnerable. This is not a background part of the plot, it is a core part of his character that dominates multiple episodes. This is actually text book grooming, so to give it the kdrama sparkle of romance is really uncomfortable.
Weirdly they also just show her desperately clinging to men, at least from what I could see, she just clings to whoever is in front of her, which made it hard to feel like the character had any dignity or the prospective romance had any value, since she's just willing to settle for anything.
Beyond those issues show was decent, the characters and acting are good, and the broader plot about the historical preservation people is really interesting.
Though I found it weird that his character is supposed to be a devoted historical reenactor type, but has a modern haircut? I am by no means an expert, and even I expected him to have his hair tied up on the top of his head, especially wearing that hat, it was jarring to have short hair under it.
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Interesting premise, great lead, mediocre writing
The good:- Zhao Lu Si is always a joy to watch perform. She definitely is the best thing about this show.
- The setting and concept are interesting and not very common. Combining the early 1900s with fantasy has tons of potential for a fun an interesting story
- Focusing on healing magic / skills is interesting. While there is some fighting, this is a rare chinese fantasy that isn't just focused on wuxia or xianxia themes, it develops its own fantasy ideas.
The bad:
- The writing is very bad. Plotlines don't have internal consistency. Scenes make no sense, or are clearly forced just to have a specific story beat whether they work or not.
- The characters are dumb and not very likable. With maybe the exception of the 2 leads, especially the antagonistic characters or just peripheral characters are just really annoying. It goes beyond "they are making trouble for our MCs" and more to a degree of "why is everyone letting them be clearly and overtly evil and then acting like they're not. This gets back into the above point about continuity consistency. Every bad thing someone does is immediately forgotten about for no clear reason.
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Very weird to frame as a romance
The age gap for the actors is very concerning, but also the age gap within the plot is also very uncomfortable. The basic premise that a 15 year old has been essentially living in isolation for her whole life, means that her mental age is even lower than her physical age. A full grown man swooping in and developing a relationship with such an inexperienced child is really disgusting to portray as a romance genre show.Beyond that, the actual plot starts with some interesting supernatural ideas, but it jumps away from them very fast and then it loses the thread on most of the interesting plot points.
It is really a shame that this drama made so many bad choices, because Jang Hee Jin gives a strong performance, but it is not enough to warrant giving this drama a full watch
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Only if you really want to watch fantasy
Overall I would say that this was not very good. You would have to really really just want to watch a fantasy show to watch this.The good:
Honestly there is not much. One lead female actor tries to give a good and dignified performance, and does really well. The other lead female actor gives a fun and charming performance, and does really well. They both do well but just are not enough to salvage the rest of the show being so rough.
The bad:
Personally my main issue is that the main character seems like something a 14 year old boy would think is cool. Just a lot of unearned swagger, and everything always works out for him just because.
The other main issue, and the one that probably everyone will struggle with, is the pacing. The story is indecypherable for multiple episodes. We bounce between character arcs without any real idea of who they are or why we should care. The story momentum randomly seems like its picking up and then just flounders and resets, multiple times. If you watch on Viki and turn on comments, you will just see a stream of people being frustrated and giving up on the show over the course of the first 6 episodes.
The other thing about the writing is that plot points are written exceptionally badly. Like really badly, to the point I was regularly confused how it even made sense that a character would say or do things. Do not expect any character's to behave in any consistent way, or to do things that make sense.
Beyond those main issues, there are more issues, just generally very bad and cheap looking costuming. The fights are not filmed well. These points I personally did not care about that much, and would have forgiven if the story was better, but alas failing on all fronts really has me questioning how much I have to just want to watch a fantasy show to stick with this one.
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