1Beyond All That Drama
Who Rules The World - more style than substance
In a Nutshell:
In this drama, society is divided into two parallel but distinct paradigms; the mainstream political world, and the martial arts world also known as Jianghu. Our main characters, Bai Feng Xi and Hei Feng Xi are the top two fighters in Jianghu. Their names sound similar, but are written in different Chinese characters. Bai means white and Hei means black, which in the source novel is meant to represent their contrasting personalities. Bai Feng Xi and Hei Feng Xi share a friendly rivalry and have known each other for many years. She nicknames him Black Fox for his calculating and cunning persona. He describes her as a troublemaker due to her maverick behaviour and unashamed love for eating and drinking. The mainsteam society is ruled by the Emperor of the Dadong empire. This empire is made up of six States which have their own responsible governing body. Bai Feng Xi and Hei Feng Xi have alternate identities in the mainstream world which they keep as a guarded secret. The story begins when a mystical token controlling all six States is declared missing. Hei Feng Xi and Bai Feng Xi become caught up in the search for the token and the subsequent power struggle, as each State attempt to conquer one another to ultimately claim dominion over the entire empire.
The Highlights:
Zhao Lusi and Yang Yang are terrific in this drama, with their endearing portrayal of the main characters and sizzling onscreen chemistry. As an actress known primarily for lightweight comedic roles, Zhao Lusi surprisingly fits the “as beautiful as she is lethal” character of Bai Feng Xi like a glove. She steals the show with her versatility and acting chops, as she effortlessly brings to life the elegance, charisma, playfulness, and wittiness of Bai Feng Xi. Yang Yang also shines in his portrayal of the calm and strategic Hei Feng Xi. He plays the different shades of the character well, with measured intensity. All his scenes with Zhao Lusi are on-point and the off-the-cuff banter between their characters was incredibly fun to watch. The evolution of their relationship from friendly rivals to falling in love unfolds naturally and nothing felt forced or overly sweet to give you a nauseating toothache. The self-deprecating scenes about cliched plots in romantic novels was also cleverly woven into the script. The OST / music was very well done and gave me ear worms for weeks!
The Lowlights:
Who Rules The World starts off with promising first few episodes, with visually spectacular fight choreography and interesting character set-ups. The story then rapidly descends into the depths of sloppy scriptwriting and vanilla bland plotlines, resulting in a mediocre mishmash of palace politics and family melodrama that seemed to drag on forever. The story gets somewhat back on track in the final 8 or so episodes, but by then, it was such a mad rush to wrap things up that the pacing became uneven and haphazard. This, combined with choppy and disjointed editing, left some episodes feeling flat and uninspiring. Even the scene where Bai Feng Xi delivers her character-defining line, which was said in the context of soldiers who have willingly died for her on the battlefield, felt indifferent, as there was not enough lead-up or follow-through in the narrative for me to appreciate the emotion of those words. The motivations of characters were also shallow and under-developed, leading to actions that were either puzzling or just down-right illogical. Despite being heavily promoted as a martial arts / WuXia drama, most of the fight scenes were cramped into the first and last few episodes, which left the middle acts of the drama feeling a tad dull. The CGI battle scenes also started off well, but towards the end, deteriorated into a B-grade Marvel movie imitation.
The Verdict:
Who Rules The World had so much potential to be a well-made drama. However, the screenplay was too ambitious in trying to cover multiple narratives, resulting in an undercooked incoherent story. This left the actors to do much of the heavy lifting and often looked lost in their own plotlines. That said, if you are looking for a historical fantasy drama purely for entertainment, great chemistry and endearing main characters, then this show will not disappoint. But if you are looking for a well-written story, then you might not enjoy this one as much.
In this drama, society is divided into two parallel but distinct paradigms; the mainstream political world, and the martial arts world also known as Jianghu. Our main characters, Bai Feng Xi and Hei Feng Xi are the top two fighters in Jianghu. Their names sound similar, but are written in different Chinese characters. Bai means white and Hei means black, which in the source novel is meant to represent their contrasting personalities. Bai Feng Xi and Hei Feng Xi share a friendly rivalry and have known each other for many years. She nicknames him Black Fox for his calculating and cunning persona. He describes her as a troublemaker due to her maverick behaviour and unashamed love for eating and drinking. The mainsteam society is ruled by the Emperor of the Dadong empire. This empire is made up of six States which have their own responsible governing body. Bai Feng Xi and Hei Feng Xi have alternate identities in the mainstream world which they keep as a guarded secret. The story begins when a mystical token controlling all six States is declared missing. Hei Feng Xi and Bai Feng Xi become caught up in the search for the token and the subsequent power struggle, as each State attempt to conquer one another to ultimately claim dominion over the entire empire.
The Highlights:
Zhao Lusi and Yang Yang are terrific in this drama, with their endearing portrayal of the main characters and sizzling onscreen chemistry. As an actress known primarily for lightweight comedic roles, Zhao Lusi surprisingly fits the “as beautiful as she is lethal” character of Bai Feng Xi like a glove. She steals the show with her versatility and acting chops, as she effortlessly brings to life the elegance, charisma, playfulness, and wittiness of Bai Feng Xi. Yang Yang also shines in his portrayal of the calm and strategic Hei Feng Xi. He plays the different shades of the character well, with measured intensity. All his scenes with Zhao Lusi are on-point and the off-the-cuff banter between their characters was incredibly fun to watch. The evolution of their relationship from friendly rivals to falling in love unfolds naturally and nothing felt forced or overly sweet to give you a nauseating toothache. The self-deprecating scenes about cliched plots in romantic novels was also cleverly woven into the script. The OST / music was very well done and gave me ear worms for weeks!
The Lowlights:
Who Rules The World starts off with promising first few episodes, with visually spectacular fight choreography and interesting character set-ups. The story then rapidly descends into the depths of sloppy scriptwriting and vanilla bland plotlines, resulting in a mediocre mishmash of palace politics and family melodrama that seemed to drag on forever. The story gets somewhat back on track in the final 8 or so episodes, but by then, it was such a mad rush to wrap things up that the pacing became uneven and haphazard. This, combined with choppy and disjointed editing, left some episodes feeling flat and uninspiring. Even the scene where Bai Feng Xi delivers her character-defining line, which was said in the context of soldiers who have willingly died for her on the battlefield, felt indifferent, as there was not enough lead-up or follow-through in the narrative for me to appreciate the emotion of those words. The motivations of characters were also shallow and under-developed, leading to actions that were either puzzling or just down-right illogical. Despite being heavily promoted as a martial arts / WuXia drama, most of the fight scenes were cramped into the first and last few episodes, which left the middle acts of the drama feeling a tad dull. The CGI battle scenes also started off well, but towards the end, deteriorated into a B-grade Marvel movie imitation.
The Verdict:
Who Rules The World had so much potential to be a well-made drama. However, the screenplay was too ambitious in trying to cover multiple narratives, resulting in an undercooked incoherent story. This left the actors to do much of the heavy lifting and often looked lost in their own plotlines. That said, if you are looking for a historical fantasy drama purely for entertainment, great chemistry and endearing main characters, then this show will not disappoint. But if you are looking for a well-written story, then you might not enjoy this one as much.
Was this review helpful to you?
