Naomi Necro
United States
This review may contain spoilers
Promising Start w/a Chaotically Edited Plot; Xu Kai is Pretty & Dai Xu & Bai Lu Shine Thru The Mess
The Good:
*Xu Kai is gorgeous and I love his visuals in this drama. His wardrobe palette had beautiful nightsky/space themes that complimented his dark blue-black hair and caramel-honey eyes wonderfully. He looked great both with and without his "dragon scars". I thought his scene at Zhao Yao's grave when she was lying on the ground unconscious and he had to submit to Jiang Wu in order to get his help was so powerful and so raw. I re-watched his kneeling scene several times and how he held and cried over Zhao Yao and admitted how afraid he was; the despondency and fear on his face made his otherwise powerful figure seem small and child-like, and I thought it was very wonderfully done. He has moments of weakness in the series as well, but I'd honestly put more blame on the writing and editing over his skills as an actor. It seemed like he tried his best but his character did seem to lack a more dynamic bandwidth of emotions.
*Bai Lu as Lu Zhao Yao. WHAT. A. QUEEN. I loved her. She's powerful, arrogant, sarcastic, cunning, and an absolute delight to watch on screen. She did a wonderful job showing the growth of her character from the sweet and naive mountain guardian, to a powerful and ruthless sect leader, to a vengeful and cunning ghost, to a woman in love. I do think her strength evolved as she grew in character and for those who enjoyed her physical scenes as a "badass rule breaker", they may be a little irked by who she becomes in the later episodes as she spends most of her strength trying to protect and love Li Chenlan.
*Dai Xu as Jiang Wu. Absolute scene-stealer. I looked him up on MyDramaList the minute I saw him on screen. He's like the CDRAMA wuxia Loki. He's chaotic, he's funny, he's handsome, he's cunning, and he's got a giant heart that he veils beneath his ridiculous bravado and sarcasm. I looked forward to all of his scenes and laughed out loud from his antics while he shared leadership with Zhao Yao and Li Chenlan. I was devastated when he died and audibly whooped at the screen when he "showed up" again to give his sword to Zhao Yao (what a powerful scene!). Can't wait for more of his dramas.
*OST is not necessarily memorable, but it was pretty enough.
The Bad:
*The editing is horrendous. Some scenes end abruptly, while others are thrown in that obviously belonged elsewhere and with no rational explanation. How many times am I going to watch the same dragon-nightmare montage that Li Chenlan sees in his head? I swear, it must have been shown like 10 times in 1 episode alone whenever he struggled with his inner demon. I felt like the editors got especially lazy near the end of the series; it was clear this drama should not have been made into 56 episodes. It would have been perfect for 20-25. As is, we have to deal with a lot of filler episodes and a lot of plots getting dragged out and thrown into stereotypical tropes in an effort to carry the plot along.
*The plot drags and drags. As mentioned earlier, it was obvious to me that this show was meant to be much shorter in length and it was seemingly dragged for longer and longer segments. It would have been perfectly paced with 20-25 episodes.
*The CGI - Good. Lawd. It was bad.
*Standard CDRAMA wuxia tropes. 1st FL falls in love with the antagonist in sheep's clothing. He turns out bad and breaks her heart. 1st ML falls in love with FL before FL realizes her feelings for him. 2nd FL is close to 1st ML and is possessive and jealous of 1st FL and so she dangerously concocts ploys to put 1st ML in harms way in order to "save the day" and become his hero, thus making her the apple of his eye but it backfires and makes things worse (wow a surprise!) and she gets more and more careless and violent in her attempts to woo him. - why is this *such a trope* for c-dramas. I literally just watched this same plot in Ashes of Love and Eternal Love.
*Voice dubbing seemed really off with some of the characters and it hindered my ability to appreciate their performance pretty significantly. I'm talking specifically about Xu Kai's performance as Li Chenlan. Visually, I thought he was believable and I empathized with his emotions but I literally had to mute some of his more angsty scenes because the voice actor did a very poor job of sounding convincing. If I muted it and just watched, I could feel his pain. If I allowed the audio to play through, it literally made an otherwise convincing scene seem very elementary in skill. Specifically when he's crying over Zhao Yao in the cave, and later during any moment when he's experiencing pain (which happens more frequently in the later episodes as he fights with his inner demon).
OVERALL- Worth a watch? Yeah, there are aspects I really liked about the drama. It's the plot type that I normally totally eat up (handsome dark-soul male lead who struggles against his inner demons and evil side for his love; funny bromance, fantasy elements, backstabbing, steamy kisses, etc). Worth a rewatch? Nah. Way too much real estate for a drama that should have been 1/3rd in length. I would say, if anything, to skip through for Jiang Wu. He's really not to be missed.
*Xu Kai is gorgeous and I love his visuals in this drama. His wardrobe palette had beautiful nightsky/space themes that complimented his dark blue-black hair and caramel-honey eyes wonderfully. He looked great both with and without his "dragon scars". I thought his scene at Zhao Yao's grave when she was lying on the ground unconscious and he had to submit to Jiang Wu in order to get his help was so powerful and so raw. I re-watched his kneeling scene several times and how he held and cried over Zhao Yao and admitted how afraid he was; the despondency and fear on his face made his otherwise powerful figure seem small and child-like, and I thought it was very wonderfully done. He has moments of weakness in the series as well, but I'd honestly put more blame on the writing and editing over his skills as an actor. It seemed like he tried his best but his character did seem to lack a more dynamic bandwidth of emotions.
*Bai Lu as Lu Zhao Yao. WHAT. A. QUEEN. I loved her. She's powerful, arrogant, sarcastic, cunning, and an absolute delight to watch on screen. She did a wonderful job showing the growth of her character from the sweet and naive mountain guardian, to a powerful and ruthless sect leader, to a vengeful and cunning ghost, to a woman in love. I do think her strength evolved as she grew in character and for those who enjoyed her physical scenes as a "badass rule breaker", they may be a little irked by who she becomes in the later episodes as she spends most of her strength trying to protect and love Li Chenlan.
*Dai Xu as Jiang Wu. Absolute scene-stealer. I looked him up on MyDramaList the minute I saw him on screen. He's like the CDRAMA wuxia Loki. He's chaotic, he's funny, he's handsome, he's cunning, and he's got a giant heart that he veils beneath his ridiculous bravado and sarcasm. I looked forward to all of his scenes and laughed out loud from his antics while he shared leadership with Zhao Yao and Li Chenlan. I was devastated when he died and audibly whooped at the screen when he "showed up" again to give his sword to Zhao Yao (what a powerful scene!). Can't wait for more of his dramas.
*OST is not necessarily memorable, but it was pretty enough.
The Bad:
*The editing is horrendous. Some scenes end abruptly, while others are thrown in that obviously belonged elsewhere and with no rational explanation. How many times am I going to watch the same dragon-nightmare montage that Li Chenlan sees in his head? I swear, it must have been shown like 10 times in 1 episode alone whenever he struggled with his inner demon. I felt like the editors got especially lazy near the end of the series; it was clear this drama should not have been made into 56 episodes. It would have been perfect for 20-25. As is, we have to deal with a lot of filler episodes and a lot of plots getting dragged out and thrown into stereotypical tropes in an effort to carry the plot along.
*The plot drags and drags. As mentioned earlier, it was obvious to me that this show was meant to be much shorter in length and it was seemingly dragged for longer and longer segments. It would have been perfectly paced with 20-25 episodes.
*The CGI - Good. Lawd. It was bad.
*Standard CDRAMA wuxia tropes. 1st FL falls in love with the antagonist in sheep's clothing. He turns out bad and breaks her heart. 1st ML falls in love with FL before FL realizes her feelings for him. 2nd FL is close to 1st ML and is possessive and jealous of 1st FL and so she dangerously concocts ploys to put 1st ML in harms way in order to "save the day" and become his hero, thus making her the apple of his eye but it backfires and makes things worse (wow a surprise!) and she gets more and more careless and violent in her attempts to woo him. - why is this *such a trope* for c-dramas. I literally just watched this same plot in Ashes of Love and Eternal Love.
*Voice dubbing seemed really off with some of the characters and it hindered my ability to appreciate their performance pretty significantly. I'm talking specifically about Xu Kai's performance as Li Chenlan. Visually, I thought he was believable and I empathized with his emotions but I literally had to mute some of his more angsty scenes because the voice actor did a very poor job of sounding convincing. If I muted it and just watched, I could feel his pain. If I allowed the audio to play through, it literally made an otherwise convincing scene seem very elementary in skill. Specifically when he's crying over Zhao Yao in the cave, and later during any moment when he's experiencing pain (which happens more frequently in the later episodes as he fights with his inner demon).
OVERALL- Worth a watch? Yeah, there are aspects I really liked about the drama. It's the plot type that I normally totally eat up (handsome dark-soul male lead who struggles against his inner demons and evil side for his love; funny bromance, fantasy elements, backstabbing, steamy kisses, etc). Worth a rewatch? Nah. Way too much real estate for a drama that should have been 1/3rd in length. I would say, if anything, to skip through for Jiang Wu. He's really not to be missed.
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