Great for people who really love history
Its a shame to see this so lowly rated and it doesn't look very popular on here. It definitely isn't like most of your average dramas currently as it is most definitely more of a historical drama. I wish it was rated as high as Three Kingdoms.I think it did a great job trying to portray the ending of the Qin and the struggle before the Han Dynasty was established. It seems like it mostly tries to follow history so it can be somewhat boring when they introduce many different people and are "chatting/talking/planning about things".
It is amazing that this piece on a historical event can be so interesting, which really is just a testament to how China's history could be written into many dramas just based off of what happend in history.
Likes:
- It was the same director (and uses a lot of the same cast as Three Kingdoms) but it does a great job showing what occurred before the Han Dynasty was established. I think if you liked Three Kingdoms, this will be great for you.
- I honestly think anyone who enjoys the historical aspects of Chinese history with all the values such as like: Righteousness, pride, honor above all, and so forth will really enjoy this show as it does a great job highlighting all those qualities back then. You have people who would die for their pride or for their brothers and so on.
- I think the Character for Liu Bang did really good as well. He really played the role well trying to depict a more Hill-billy country bumpkin (from his beginnings) kind of person.
Dislikes:
- This is where I rate the rewatch value a bit low. I think it did a great job of playing out this piece of history, but it is 80 episodes and quite long. There are many scenes that would get boring when people are discussing politics and plans and it doesn't really make sense to rewatch it all, but I could see myself looking for specific scenes to be like Damn, that's truly a powerful moment in history.
- The ending (80th episode) is a bit off putting as it feels like they're rushing parts of history? It feels like there could be a lot more that have gone on and been shown before events took place as they did here in this episode. It feels like they want to be historically accurate, but ran out of time and kind of just pushed it all together to fit the max episode count or something.
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However, what I did not like was really just that some scenes (personal preference) just seemed so out of place (for character development I guess) and dragged out the series to how long it really is. I wish they condensed and moved the story at a bit faster pace without trying to develop the characters too much. I feel even in like 50 episodes, if done right... they could've developed the characters enough, because I still could relate with the characters and the emotions of the scenes even though I honestly found myself pressing that skip 5 second button sooooo often to get through scenes. Of course I just read the subtitles a lot so I got the jest of it and moved on.
It really just pains me on how much slow talks there were that made scenes long and made this a grind through. Otherwise, overall the story does seem pretty good. Nothing completely original like something that has never been seen before, but still it does a pretty good job at getting you to feel and relate for some characters.
Also what I felt was dragged on, probably for dramatic purposes(?) was how long it took for some characters to decide on something. It honestly drives me crazy in a story where scheming is huge, for characters to just feel bad and not do anything. Of course it is satisfying once they start fighting back, but again it goes back to how slow the story was going...
Overall I'd say it isn't bad. Acting was great... sound/music was up there, but not like insanely amazing. Rewatch value is a bit lower mostly because of how long the story drags... and thus how long a series this is.
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Feels like an Anime showing
I'm kind of torn on how I feel about this one.I'll spoil one sentence that was said in the show to summarize how I feel about it, and it was said by the Emperor... and he said the ML's life so far has been too easy thus far.
This is how I feel about the series overall. That one sentence can kind of summarize it too well. I felt kind of unimpressed by it since it did feel like our super smart ML just happens to know everything and have an answer to everything, guided or not... my one line summary would be: it feels like I'm watching a classic mainstream anime but in real life acted version.
Likes:
- Acting was good
- Enough interesting scenes to keep me interested, like parts making you wonder what'll happen next
- Visually not bad, but expected from a modern day series
Dislikes:
- I didn't really enjoy the theme of a return to a point back in time at the start, but I guess overall it fit into the story alright.
- Everything is way too easy for the ML and even in any points of danger or what not... he simply outspeaks the other.
- The music was not to my taste. They tried to bring music that you'd see in more "current day" type of dramas in my opinion into it and the humor that went along just wasn't to my taste either... it felt forced... like they were making some really "witty or funny" joke, but it really felt like a okay... cmon... to me. I guess I personally just prefer a more to the point and follows a main storyline more so rather than slice of life interactions.
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