The cast are excellent, but the writer's need to reconsider their life choices.

Neo is excellent in this. To be fair the entire cast is actually excellent. It's a pity the story doesn't do them any justice.
This is meant to be a upbeat coming of age story following a group of late teens into their early 20's in a factory town in Fucheng China.
Initially I loved the costume, music, cinematography, acting and everything. It's a blatant hommage to those 80's American coming of age stories, from everything like Pretty in Pink, Fast Time at Ridgemont High and Ferris Buellers Day Off, to Stand By Me and The Outsiders.
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BUT, and it's a big BUT...... it fails to really grapple with many of the questions it raises, and all the various issues are really just there to have something for our little gang of indomitably upbeat heroes(TM) to overcome.
There are some truly viscous, selfish and horrible human beings they cross and have to deal with, which is pretty realistic. Failing to be able to over come those arseholes and learning to cope with that failure, as well as all the inherent flaws in the system that lets said arseholes rise to the top, is a perfectly normal part of growing up...but this drama doesn't really know how to deal with the issues it raises in any satisfying manner.
The story just shrugs it's shoulders, says lesson learnt and then drags you onto the next arc. Bad guys are deal with in the most perfunctory manner, and even good guys get stitched up for the most half arsed reasons... and the story just expects you to accept this and move on without actually questioning whether or not it's really right or just even. It's just life and don't look too hard at this system lets keep moving, listen to the fluffy upbeat music again and away we go to the next arc....
This starts a bad cycle of shit happens, our little gang struggle to overcome it, but before anything gets really dealt with, in comes the upbeat music and bright sunshiney camera work and every things OK and ALL RIGHT again!...and in comes the next arc to repeat the cycle...
In fact it got so overwhelmingly jarring, that as much as I initially loved the music, it's just got TOO MUCH by the end.
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Spoiler warning below
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There are some definite character choices there that the writer made. Mostly I noticed it's the women who once again suffer for the sake of giving something for the men to angst over. The trope Women in Refridgerators exists for a reason...There is a minor character death at the end, but they can't count since no other characters in the drama apparently even notice or acknowledges this event. Which is a seriously dirty resolution for this particular character.

My recommendation is to watch only if you really like the actors. They do phenominally well with this. And it certainly gives them some meaty scenes to work with. However the plots starts sagging in the early teens and it only gets worse.

The music is a delight, the camera work is a delight, and the director definitely knows how to make Hou Ming Hao look incredibly good. In fact I'd almost go as far as to say the director has a crush on HMH given how inordinately handsome he always makes HMH look in every scene, even in comparison to Yang Cai Yu, let alone the rest of the cast.


It's just ...the ending would possibly not have felt so wrong, if I wasn't so annoyed about that death. The last 4 eps just jarred badly and the very end just ended up being insult to injury. They could have pulled it all off, but that would have required a reasonably competent writer.
The last 4 eps alone dropped this from a possible 8.5 to my current 6.5 I would have gone lower if I was judging on the writing alone.

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Like a warm, sweet dessert, on a cold night.

This is a more character driven, than plot driven series, and I don't hate it for that.
I came for Lee Jin Wook, and honestly I stayed for him, since watching him play such a polar opposite character to that in Bulgasal or Sweet Home was refreshing, and adorable. Also Lee Jin Wook has truly one of the most stunningly charming and mischievious grins ever, and he wields it shamelessly in this!
Ha Ji Won wasn't initially my favourite, but she quickly grew on me, as I loved her characters self assured, independent streak. Even if I had a few issues with how meek she tended to be around the 2nd ML.

From the Leads families, to their friends and work collegues, the various relationships are almost always incredibly warm, supportive, and hilariously silly in ways only long term friendship and family can be.

This isn't a super deep show, but it is thoroughly enjoyable and something to watch if you need a break from massive amounts of angst and drama.

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Unless you'r a die hard fan of the actors, Don't bother to watch this!!!

Poorly plotted, badly edited story about obsession and desire in a world with demons and immortals.
The characters for the most part are hard to like, and harder to empathise with, and as time goes on, this only gets worse. Character progression is generally backwards. People start out apparently "decent" & "upstanding" but almost never stay that way. Most where never that way in the first place. Main characters are full of flaws, and don't deserve the ending they are given.
ChongZi never really works hard, or fights for anything, except to indulge in her obsessive need to be close to YinFan. YinFan fails spectaculary to do anything meaningful when it comes to protecting CZ. They both trust in the wrong people repeatedly and are generally incompetent.

The Immortal sects are simply gullible bullies and no better than the Demon sects, even in their choice of targets, as they seem quite happy to beat on humans with the right incentive or guise or "righeousneous". The Demon sect is overpowered and Wang Yue ...is far too much.
The story takes too long to go nowhere. Many things happen for reasons of plot, not for internal consistency or logic and it all ends in a massively underwhelming whimper of a wrap up.

Technically its a happy ending...However none of the characters get the ending they deserve with the exception of Qin Ke who deserves to live a life free of *ever* knowing someone like ChongZi ever existed. The two mains certainly don't. They only reinforce the idea that being insufferably selfish and obsessive will grant you your wish. Even if the world was nearly destroyed because of it.

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Start with low expectations and be pleasantly surprised.

Go in with very low expectations, and be pleasantly surprised, seriously.

It starts as a very cheesey, silly series and actually grows some serious oomph & ambitition. SFX are a bit dated, and the music gets a little repetitive and obvious, but the cast is stellar and carry off the story, which grows more teeth than you expect.

Hu Ge definitely carries this show, but the rest keep up fairly well with him. I didn't loathe all the female characters, and was glad at least one pair had a happy ending. However Hu Ge definitely seems to like his tortured hero characters! To be fair, he does angst so *very* prettily.

If you can survive the silliness of the first few eps, it will be well worth it. This series punches higher than is immediately obvious from the first eps, and production values.

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Coming of Age Wuxia standard

This was much better than I was lead to expect by many of the reviews, but well worth the watch.
Just make sure you bring a box of tissues once you get past the first half of the season!

Low expectations *might* have played a part, but I generally found myself not hitting the FF button as much as usual lately.
The young actors all mesh well, and I didn't find anyone to terribly annoying, except for the maid initially. The actors chemistry was good, however I'm still not super buying into the idea that Lu Ping and Xan YiFan only care about each other as "brothers".
There are a few too many intense lingering stares. I could totally see both boys being bi, with the women on the side.

The story wasn't super surprising, except for one part, which I was *very* pleasantly surprised at. I will say Lu Ping and his sister were *very* well balanced personality wise, given their meant to have surivived a decade on nothing but torture. The occasional slightly stupid action I can forgive as everyone is meant to be young and inexperienced late teens.

The situation around he adults motivation for past actions was a little ...fuzzy...and occasionally there seemed a few big jumps in logic/assumptions about events that everyone seemed to make. However I think I find breaks in character less forgivable than the occassinal plot hole, and in this the characters all stayed pretty true to themselves.
They learnt and grew, but they hung onto the basic tentants of themselves that they initially expressed at the start.

I wasn't expecting the happy ending that we got, and was totally ready for everyone to die, but they pulled in off in the last 2 eps and I really enjoyed the ending.

I love the main songs played in this series, and even after watching all the way through, I'm still not sick of them.
少年侠(《天醒之路》片头曲)
紙船(電視劇《天醒之路》片尾曲)
have both been added to my spotify list.

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Why must FL be so annoyingly STUPID???

Halfway through and I'm just about to throw my laptop through the window.
If the FL was any more of a clueless wet blanket, I could donate her to the fire service and she could then be at least mildly useful. Being sweet and naive only get's you so far. Not even trying to use your goddamn brain and trying to summon someone when you know the police are after them and FOLLOWING you???
The girl who stood up to a mob boss in the first ep, promptly then seemed to have removed her own spine, becuase she only stands up to people who *actually* are trying to help her. Never the people trying to actively, & obviously harm her.
I really like Zhang Zhe Han & Yalkun Merxat, but they are both wasted in this story.
It's going to take a lot of desperation to get me to finish this series...

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