Greenlemon
This review may contain spoilers
101 minutes of sad regret
Jade Dynasty had been on my to-watch list for months. Considering the story, movie promotion, the stills, the apparently stunning visual effects and the fantastic reviews, unbeknownst to me most likely due to Sean Xiao's work in the hit series 'The Untamed' which transformed him into a top rising star, I had to watch it.
You know the famous overly-used cliché 'appearances can be deceiving'? Well here it proved to be exactly the case masked by the migration of Sean Xiao's 'The Untamed' fandom towards his recent work. Genius!
After 101 minutes, which is the duration of the film, I fail to understand what is 'Jade Dynasty'? Why has the movie been inaptly named that when there are no references to it at all in the film. Jade??? The only stone in the movie looks more like a ruby, not jade unless of course it's red Jade but Jade is mostly green. Dynasty? Where? I failed and still fail to grasp this amongst other things i.e. the reason for the male lead Xiao Fan being so dumb and simple minded when he apparently had been practicing cultivation since he was a child following his adoption into the Qing Yun Sect. A cultivation level that is not visible at all.
Xiao Fan looks more that the fool in a renaissance-esque wuxia court rather than a highly cultivated human being. He's dumb from the beginning to the end. He's weak, clownish, childish, immature and not particularly smart but he's kind and generous and he practices goodness which are high virtues. Nonewithstanding his stupidity stands out. The question is why? To pay a comic tribute to Mark Chao's brilliant performance in Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms by ridicule mimic Ye Hua's fight against evil or to go all the way Ron Weasley copy-cat scenes from Harry Potter's Quidditch matches which he didn't participate in? I didn't get it, sorry. There are better ways to pay homage to outstanding entertainment visual and literary works than trying to sell moments of pure utter idiocy to the audiences and expect them to rave about it online/offline through word of mouth, which they did about Jade Dynasty both positively and negatively.
The female leads which are three by the way seem to suffer from various degrees of general apathy and emotional attachment and detachment to the male lead. It's hard to understand which one is more logical than the other in their actions, however my credit goes to Tian Ling Er who acts like a protective older sister to Xiao Fan and whom he dearly emulates. Lu Xue Qi is always on Duracell batteries girl-power fighting mode defend/attack and Bi Yao is simply a pain like many dull characters in a movie/drama which are there simply for the purpose of not advancing the action and looking pretty in pastel colours.
The sects are nothing new or original for that matter, having been recycled over and over and over again over the years like new exquisitely crafted glass artifacts, here without the new or the exquisite, rather, a regression to the boring old and banal plain utility relics best suited for a museum.
Overall Jade Dynasty had 86 minutes of a pure delusional infliction of mental pain, one that is best avoided, resulting in a total score of 3.5 out of 10 points. The last 15 minutes of the movie were entertaining enough however as they reminded me of other works not because they produced scenes of quality story or performance wise.
Don't bother watching the film unless you have a fondness for Zhan Xiao aka Sean Xiao, or you want to experience an entertainment hell for a bit. Even then it's not worth it.
You know the famous overly-used cliché 'appearances can be deceiving'? Well here it proved to be exactly the case masked by the migration of Sean Xiao's 'The Untamed' fandom towards his recent work. Genius!
After 101 minutes, which is the duration of the film, I fail to understand what is 'Jade Dynasty'? Why has the movie been inaptly named that when there are no references to it at all in the film. Jade??? The only stone in the movie looks more like a ruby, not jade unless of course it's red Jade but Jade is mostly green. Dynasty? Where? I failed and still fail to grasp this amongst other things i.e. the reason for the male lead Xiao Fan being so dumb and simple minded when he apparently had been practicing cultivation since he was a child following his adoption into the Qing Yun Sect. A cultivation level that is not visible at all.
Xiao Fan looks more that the fool in a renaissance-esque wuxia court rather than a highly cultivated human being. He's dumb from the beginning to the end. He's weak, clownish, childish, immature and not particularly smart but he's kind and generous and he practices goodness which are high virtues. Nonewithstanding his stupidity stands out. The question is why? To pay a comic tribute to Mark Chao's brilliant performance in Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms by ridicule mimic Ye Hua's fight against evil or to go all the way Ron Weasley copy-cat scenes from Harry Potter's Quidditch matches which he didn't participate in? I didn't get it, sorry. There are better ways to pay homage to outstanding entertainment visual and literary works than trying to sell moments of pure utter idiocy to the audiences and expect them to rave about it online/offline through word of mouth, which they did about Jade Dynasty both positively and negatively.
The female leads which are three by the way seem to suffer from various degrees of general apathy and emotional attachment and detachment to the male lead. It's hard to understand which one is more logical than the other in their actions, however my credit goes to Tian Ling Er who acts like a protective older sister to Xiao Fan and whom he dearly emulates. Lu Xue Qi is always on Duracell batteries girl-power fighting mode defend/attack and Bi Yao is simply a pain like many dull characters in a movie/drama which are there simply for the purpose of not advancing the action and looking pretty in pastel colours.
The sects are nothing new or original for that matter, having been recycled over and over and over again over the years like new exquisitely crafted glass artifacts, here without the new or the exquisite, rather, a regression to the boring old and banal plain utility relics best suited for a museum.
Overall Jade Dynasty had 86 minutes of a pure delusional infliction of mental pain, one that is best avoided, resulting in a total score of 3.5 out of 10 points. The last 15 minutes of the movie were entertaining enough however as they reminded me of other works not because they produced scenes of quality story or performance wise.
Don't bother watching the film unless you have a fondness for Zhan Xiao aka Sean Xiao, or you want to experience an entertainment hell for a bit. Even then it's not worth it.
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