1
1fooDog
disappointing and confusing
Since Xiao Zhan is a popular idol I thought they would put more work into this drama but it's pretty disappointing everywhere from script to acting to production. A whole 6 episodes have gone by like this and it's simply not up to standard given the budget they are working with.
Plot as always is the biggest problem and it is very confusing if you haven't read the book. We start off episode 1 in the middle of a major plot point which is given no introduction. Sometimes this can work but the necessary background to the mermaid race, the lore of the way magic works, and so on are only vaguely implied through side character monologues instead of clearly explained. Further, each successive episode keeps piling on a handful of new characters from the source material and quickly jumping between them. It's hard to remember faces let alone backstory. Thus a whole bunch of people die in opening episodes without eliciting any emotional connection, which is just poor planning. Let me add that the source material is itself full of plot holes but the adaptation does not fix them, and all sorts of crazy coincidences and illogical decisions happen in order for the story to advance.
Central to the plot is supposed to be the romance but it's extremely strange due to the age gap and bad acting. Xiao Zhan has a very mature feeling from the beginning, after all he is thirty. Meanwhile Ren Ming as Zhu Yan very clearly is meant to be a young girl and spends her first few episodes dealing with teenager level cat fights. There's nothing inherently wrong with that but it makes it very strange that she becomes his only love interest. It doesn't help that the acting of the leads is lacking. Ren Ming is ok but her character is girly so can come across as tedious. However Xiao Zhan is also very limited, he is fine when he is acting like a cool guy but no good at expressing emotion in a natural way, e.g. the tribulation scene was so awkward.
The drama also has many embarrassing production details for something of this budget. For example, a villain speaks with a darth vader sound effect; it's very clear from the dance scenes none of the actresses have meaningful dance training (one of them was visibly struggling to maintain an upright pose in episode 5) but they insist on all of these long dance scenes; and low quality CGI animals are used.
Plot as always is the biggest problem and it is very confusing if you haven't read the book. We start off episode 1 in the middle of a major plot point which is given no introduction. Sometimes this can work but the necessary background to the mermaid race, the lore of the way magic works, and so on are only vaguely implied through side character monologues instead of clearly explained. Further, each successive episode keeps piling on a handful of new characters from the source material and quickly jumping between them. It's hard to remember faces let alone backstory. Thus a whole bunch of people die in opening episodes without eliciting any emotional connection, which is just poor planning. Let me add that the source material is itself full of plot holes but the adaptation does not fix them, and all sorts of crazy coincidences and illogical decisions happen in order for the story to advance.
Central to the plot is supposed to be the romance but it's extremely strange due to the age gap and bad acting. Xiao Zhan has a very mature feeling from the beginning, after all he is thirty. Meanwhile Ren Ming as Zhu Yan very clearly is meant to be a young girl and spends her first few episodes dealing with teenager level cat fights. There's nothing inherently wrong with that but it makes it very strange that she becomes his only love interest. It doesn't help that the acting of the leads is lacking. Ren Ming is ok but her character is girly so can come across as tedious. However Xiao Zhan is also very limited, he is fine when he is acting like a cool guy but no good at expressing emotion in a natural way, e.g. the tribulation scene was so awkward.
The drama also has many embarrassing production details for something of this budget. For example, a villain speaks with a darth vader sound effect; it's very clear from the dance scenes none of the actresses have meaningful dance training (one of them was visibly struggling to maintain an upright pose in episode 5) but they insist on all of these long dance scenes; and low quality CGI animals are used.
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