Tribes and Empires: Storm of Prophecy (2017)

What The Heck?!!

What'd I just watch? I feel like what I just witnessed was 75 hrs of wasted money, time, effort, skill, and talent. Admittedly, I skipped most of it, as only about 4 min of each episode were needed for me to figure things out.

My goodness, this had the weakest plot you can possibly imagine, but the acting was nothing short of superb.

Without spoiling anything, this is the most pointless ending of any drama ever made. Nothing is resolved, except for the characters that are confirmed to have died.

The characters are idiots who can't even stay consistantly in character.

Cinematography is excellent. The main antagonists are the best, most interesting characters. Not a single character developes from start to finish. The worst, most useless characters are Muyun Sheng and Pan Xi. Muyun Sheng is the least sympathetic, and his father has a weird need to crown him king over his other sons, who could be better suited, just because his father killed his mother.

The best characters were introduced in the first few episodes, then they just disappeared in the last 20-odd ones. The best, most empathetic characters were Muyun Lu, Su Yu Ning, Muyun He Ge, Empress Nanku, and the dark wizard guy with the dodgy arm, and they all had relatively minor roles! Do not watch this drama. It's a weak plot with weak characters and the answer they found to stretching a story out to 75 episodes, is to keep adding more and more uninteresting side characters to an already uninteresting story.

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All of 75 Hours mounts to nothing

I have never written a review before. But after wasting so much time on this one, I was upset. All three main characters. who were fated to be king, did absolutely nothing significant. And the story did not have an ending. By the end you have no idea who win who lose. Too many side characters who did so much trying to seize the power. In the end. you don't know who succeeded. Who becomes the king. Then at the last scene, a creature who has never appear in the story, shouted into the sea. You don't know who and why. I could not believe this was the ending. I even looked at other websites to see if I can find more apisole that might rapped thing up. but nothing. The acting was mediocre.

The pace was extra slow. I watched it in 2.0 speed and did not miss a thing.

So don't waste your time.
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Great production but bad pacing and ending

Overall a recommended watch from me if you don’t mind a long show. I would say it’s worth it. I’ll say upfront though, the ending is batshit.

This has the potential to be a great show. But it is not without flaws.

First up with the positives;
The production is GREAT. The scenes, effects, and cast are all pretty good. I really like the chemistry between the few CPs like Muyun Sheng/Pan Xi, Han Jiang/SYN.

My gripe is with the editing and drawn out slow conversations. The scenes always cut at the wrong moments which don’t even create suspense at all and relies too much on flashbacks to explain things. Then there are unnecessary and reeeeeaaaaallllllyyyyyy long, drawn out conversations. *heaves long sigh* . You get the gist.

Also, there are way way too many characters. As you can imagine, this leaves a lot of loose ends after episodes of character build-up.

SPOILER ALERT.



Ending:
This was crazy as hell. ‘That Man’ who was only mentioned once every 30 episodes ends up becoming the main villain? How convenient LOL.

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Great idea for a fantasy drama, but horrible storytelling

OVERALL (vague ending spoilers)
I think a 5.5 is too nice of a rating, but I think the actors and music were well done, so I can't be biased on giving it a lower score because the story and ending were horrible.

I want to be clear that I started this drama when it aired in 2017 and dropped it because Dramafever went down. I recently picked it back up again because I was thinking back to Zhou Yi Wei's works of Shuofeng He Ye and wanted to see how his story went down. I was utterly disappointed with this "ending," even though many comments forewarned me. Even if the producers wanted a second season, if it's not in the works, I don't think it's fair to leave everything as open-ended as it did. Sure, it was a closure to their current predicament, but they closed the ending by introducing new plans and information. All of these new ideas are given to us within the last episode. Then they don't even close it up with some of our other supporting casts like Muyun Yan Shuang or the tribes.

STORY
I won't go into details because there were so many unnecessary details in this drama. I felt like I saw all of the side characters more than the main cast at times. The schemes' details did not seem necessary to are dragged onto a 5-10 minute conversation. The side characters that were involved and then were gone, or killed off. Why did they make me watch so many scenes of those characters for nothing?

This drama had three main characters, and each included their love stories, background story as children, and character development scenes as grown-ups. There was so much to show, say, and do with these characters. Instead, the writers decided that I must see more of the side characters.

Then we have essential scenes that were dragged out a good 3-5 episodes. For example, Han Jiang would be stuck in a situation, and we wouldn't see how he got out of that situation until 3-5 episodes later because they were showing other parts of the show. I was waiting so long for the war to happen with the tribes and the Muru clan, and it just kept going and going. Even when the war happened, it got dragged out for so long.

I would have been happy watching three separate dramas of these characters and having references between the dramas. At least then, the focus wouldn't feel like it was being thrown all over the place. The big issue is that when you have three main characters and their stories aren't involved, they're not all on-screen together, meaning that you would have to put in chunks of their story separately, which is what happened here and was not well done.

I hate how they are all prophesized and destined to do something/create calamity, and they all want to change it. This could have been a great drama about how destiny and prophecies don't determine your path. However, their means to change it are the dumbest way to deal with it, hence the dragging.

I understand that because this is a Chinese drama, the theme of fighting for your country and people, even if it is right or wrong, means honor. So, I understand why this is something some of the characters struggle with. This also applies to their family honor as well.

Love was a theme that brought most of these characters into a downfall, even the smaller roles. I guess we can't even get one happy love story in this drama.

I won't even get to the loopholes or questionable aspects of everything else. This could get long and ugly.

ACTING/CAST/CHARACTERS
I think as actors and actresses, they all did so well. There were only minor things that I could point out, but I don't believe that it's necessary. Let's head into the likes and dislikes of the characters.

Muyun Sheng was probably one of the worst main leads that I have seen in a drama. I'm okay with a weak protagonist turned strong, but he was literally weak throughout the drama until one scene, and then that was it. The writers made him so useless until the very end. I feel like if there was a second season and the plot was well written, he could be a strong protagonist.

Muru Hang Jiang was a passable main lead. I think some of his decisions weren't the best, but I feel like I can see his character try. Even when he is a little selfish, he tries, so I give him credit for that. He never gives up and continues to do what he thinks is right. He just never really grew as a character, even if his family relationship got a bit better.

Shuofeng He Ye was such an extraordinary character to me. I applaud Zhou Yi Wei for bringing Shuofeng He Ye to life. Zhou Yi Wei had so much passion that his character became stuck in my mind for years. I loved his resilience to survive and take revenge could be felt as we watch him fight his way through the drama. The way he growls in anguish and anger then contrasts it to when he cries in pain, all of that could be felt through the screen. His character was so well put together in terms of growth. He went from a boy that went through slavery and injustice to a man who fights for the freedom of his tribe. He continues to love his people and honor the relationships he creates. I mean, there's so much to say about this character. I need all of his clips from the drama nicely compiled into one video.

Honorable mention to the whole cast, especially the minor ones that showed up in only a few episodes but made a lasting impression.

MUSIC
The music was phenomenal and well thought out. The big orchestra opening and the ending added to the dramatic feel of the drama. I loved how when they are out in the Han prefecture, and nature sounds were well incorporated. They weren't trying to add unrealistic background noise. They layered it well with instrumentals on top of those nature sounds.

RE-WATCH VALUE
Would I recommend you put yourself through 75 hours of torture again? The answer is no. There was just too much going on for me to try to find my favorite scenes to re-watch.

This drama does have beautiful, stunning cinematography, one of the best I have seen, and great music. Some of the characters are well written. The overall idea of the story is excellent, but it's just not well done. If you're into that and don't mind slow and draggy dramas that have some potential, do check it out!

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I haven't been this excited about a drama since I first saw The Lord of The Rings.

It's an ambitious, all-encompassing story that made me feel excitement like I felt when I first watched The Lord of The Rings (which has stood the test of time as my all-time favorite over 20 years since it first aired). The world-building and the scale of storytelling, history, lore, and brotherhood are engrossing to such an extent I couldn't think much of anything else during the duration I spent with this drama (until maybe the last 15 or so episodes when I got impatient). Also, the eye candy in this is no joke. I was gobsmacked by how beautiful Shawn Dou's Muru Han Jiang and Huang Xuan's Muyun Sheng were. Both actors were meant to play these roles. My goodness. Extra kudos to the incredible child actors who played their younger counterparts. Not only did they look almost identical, but they played the characters perfectly (I also really enjoyed their acting in Love In Between, in which they both starred).

To the naysayers - ignore them. If you're into long-scale epic fantasy stories like The Lord of The Rings or Game of Thrones, stories that take patience with their development, world-building, and story-telling, then you'll be riveted by this. Frustrating caveat: (SPOILER) All of the suspense building to the ultimate prophecy ends up leaving us on major cliffhangers and it doesnt seem like we'll ever get a sequel.

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