Kotori
Singapore
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The romance drama of 2020
Brace yourself through this journey of ups and downs full of bliss, heartbreak, disappointment, bitterness, and forgiveness. A ride you will not forget. This is the drama of 2020, the drama of this summer.
Firstly, the romance is well executed. It is heart-wrenching and warming. The chemistry of the two leads is very strong; their love is sizzling and buzzing. Their beautiful romance is what makes this drama extremely addictive: I am thinking about Si Feng and Xuan Ji when I go to work, when I go shopping, when I eat, and not watching this drama. I just cannot wait to watch it!
Our male lead Si Feng, played by Cheng Yi, carries the main weight. Si Feng's character design is well thought-through. He is firm on the outside but warm and kind from the inside. He loves the female lead profoundly but does not see her as his possession. While being cursed by the mask, he keeps all the suffering by himself and gives her space and time to love him back. Si Feng's character goes through a beautiful transition from learning about what love is about is to having the will to become the leader of his sect to protect what's important. Si Feng is truly every fangirl's boyfriend of summer 2020.
Cheng Yi's acting is flawless. I haven't seen this much suffering, both physically and emotionally, shown in a C-drama. Cheng Yi is so good at it. I am so grateful to the writer and the director who created these scenes, and I am thankful that they have chosen Cheng Yi for this role - I cannot imagine anyone else who can depict suffering as heartbroken and as beautiful as him.
Coming to the female lead Yuan Bing Yan, playing our heartless goddess of war Xuan Ji. I really like her character development. The way how Xuan Ji slows finds maturity and eventually, her heart and her love towards Si Feng is natural and wonderful to watch. During the last third of the episodes, she received criticism of not trusting Si Feng, but I find this extremely reasonable. No one told her anything, and she did not know about love. Listening to her family and clan's one-sided stories, how could she have reacted? When Xuan Ji's past life was revealed, I agree that Bing Yuan lacked in portraying the depth and complex emotions one would have loved to see in terms of acting. Her emotional scenes towards Si Feng could also improve. But I blame the script, partially, as it must be very draining to play this many griefing scenes as Si Feng just suffered way too much. On the hand, her scenes as War God are so badass. Two thumbs up for depicting this as little aggrieved Xuan Jin in one scene and revengeful heartless War God in another scene. For this, Bing Yuan really deserves more credit.
What makes this couple magical is there is no clear cut between roles. Sometimes Si Feng appears to have received the female's playbook. Si Feng suffers for Xuan Ji, but Xuan Ji also protects Si Feng. And isn't this what true love is all about?
Secondly, I also appreciate the excellent scripting. Whether this has been part of the original novel or developed by the drama scriptwriter, I enjoyed it how new characters are introduced, and hints are dropped that eventually weaves to a glorious thread that leads us to the grand finale. All characters have their roles and their motives along this thread, and no one is redundant. I haven't seen this level of scripting in a long C-drama for a while, and I hope to see more of this in future shows.
Thirdly, the CGI is excellent. Although we could not see real Hollywood type of CGI, but carrying this quality throughout 59 40min episodes is not easy. The audience enjoys full-blown action from fierce battles fought between gods and devils, between every imaginable species of celestial beings and affiliations, with all manner of divine weapons, cultivated spells and their destructive powers. There is one arc in the middle of the drama at which an island is attacked by demons riding on dragons. For a moment, I thought I was watching Games of Thrones.
A Xianxia drama is not a Xianxia drama if there is no CGI. So far, China is not very good at it. But L&R has shown that they can do it if they put the effort.
L&R also put a lot of effort in the soundtrack. The songs are beautiful and lyrics deep and suitable to story.
Lastly, I am thankful for the ending. After all the suffering, grudge, and misunderstandings among each other, the ending was heartwarming and satisfactory. The good deserves their happy ending, the bad their verdict. It has saved the ending of this drama.
As no drama is perfect, I want to point out a few aspects which make me deduct 2 points.
The last twenty episodes are not well-written. After the satisfactory clearance of the male lead's misunderstanding, the story continued on the same old path to making the male lead the evil of all. Many circumstances leading to Si Feng's downfall feel forced. The inherent problem of the Si Feng not willing/not able to explain anything to Xuan Ji further creates reasons for her to hurt him, up to the point that it takes away the angst. The audience becomes numb. In the final moments, I could not shed real tears, despite my love for the ML.
Also, a few dramatic scenes between the second couple Chu Ling Long and Zhong Min Yuan, felt watered and repeated.
The path towards the finale was a question mark: a giant pot that can destroy all three words, Yuan Lang, our raven, revived again and again to inflict suffering to our heroes and the back and force between Luo Sha Ji Du and Xuan Ji was rather embarrassing than touching, to be fair. I wished the heavenly emperor did not have to take such a key role at the end (the same way he did 1000 years go). Someone who has never intervened ever before suddenly intervenes at the end and turns the table. If there was such a force, I wished the story introduced him earlier.
Finally, I also did not enjoy the fact that our glorious antagonist Hao Chen suddenly was "white-washed" after the heavenly emperor showed him a few "what-if" scenes and gave him a few moral lessons. The whole world has been telling him that since day one, why now? Where did our manipulative, egoistic, hypocritical, and personated jealousy in the person of a villain suddenly go? Despite knowing where the makers are coming from, I felt the last scenes downgraded the deep character that 58 episodes have built for him. Despite all this, Liu Xue Yi did a fantastic job playing this three-dimensional character.
I am rating this drama a 8/10 because of the last 20 episodes. If I only rate the first 40 episodes, this drama clearly deserves a 10/10. Deep inside me, it has a 10 because of the romance, the up and down of emotions it has hatched in me and the love I feel about our Si Feng.
Firstly, the romance is well executed. It is heart-wrenching and warming. The chemistry of the two leads is very strong; their love is sizzling and buzzing. Their beautiful romance is what makes this drama extremely addictive: I am thinking about Si Feng and Xuan Ji when I go to work, when I go shopping, when I eat, and not watching this drama. I just cannot wait to watch it!
Our male lead Si Feng, played by Cheng Yi, carries the main weight. Si Feng's character design is well thought-through. He is firm on the outside but warm and kind from the inside. He loves the female lead profoundly but does not see her as his possession. While being cursed by the mask, he keeps all the suffering by himself and gives her space and time to love him back. Si Feng's character goes through a beautiful transition from learning about what love is about is to having the will to become the leader of his sect to protect what's important. Si Feng is truly every fangirl's boyfriend of summer 2020.
Cheng Yi's acting is flawless. I haven't seen this much suffering, both physically and emotionally, shown in a C-drama. Cheng Yi is so good at it. I am so grateful to the writer and the director who created these scenes, and I am thankful that they have chosen Cheng Yi for this role - I cannot imagine anyone else who can depict suffering as heartbroken and as beautiful as him.
Coming to the female lead Yuan Bing Yan, playing our heartless goddess of war Xuan Ji. I really like her character development. The way how Xuan Ji slows finds maturity and eventually, her heart and her love towards Si Feng is natural and wonderful to watch. During the last third of the episodes, she received criticism of not trusting Si Feng, but I find this extremely reasonable. No one told her anything, and she did not know about love. Listening to her family and clan's one-sided stories, how could she have reacted? When Xuan Ji's past life was revealed, I agree that Bing Yuan lacked in portraying the depth and complex emotions one would have loved to see in terms of acting. Her emotional scenes towards Si Feng could also improve. But I blame the script, partially, as it must be very draining to play this many griefing scenes as Si Feng just suffered way too much. On the hand, her scenes as War God are so badass. Two thumbs up for depicting this as little aggrieved Xuan Jin in one scene and revengeful heartless War God in another scene. For this, Bing Yuan really deserves more credit.
What makes this couple magical is there is no clear cut between roles. Sometimes Si Feng appears to have received the female's playbook. Si Feng suffers for Xuan Ji, but Xuan Ji also protects Si Feng. And isn't this what true love is all about?
Secondly, I also appreciate the excellent scripting. Whether this has been part of the original novel or developed by the drama scriptwriter, I enjoyed it how new characters are introduced, and hints are dropped that eventually weaves to a glorious thread that leads us to the grand finale. All characters have their roles and their motives along this thread, and no one is redundant. I haven't seen this level of scripting in a long C-drama for a while, and I hope to see more of this in future shows.
Thirdly, the CGI is excellent. Although we could not see real Hollywood type of CGI, but carrying this quality throughout 59 40min episodes is not easy. The audience enjoys full-blown action from fierce battles fought between gods and devils, between every imaginable species of celestial beings and affiliations, with all manner of divine weapons, cultivated spells and their destructive powers. There is one arc in the middle of the drama at which an island is attacked by demons riding on dragons. For a moment, I thought I was watching Games of Thrones.
A Xianxia drama is not a Xianxia drama if there is no CGI. So far, China is not very good at it. But L&R has shown that they can do it if they put the effort.
L&R also put a lot of effort in the soundtrack. The songs are beautiful and lyrics deep and suitable to story.
Lastly, I am thankful for the ending. After all the suffering, grudge, and misunderstandings among each other, the ending was heartwarming and satisfactory. The good deserves their happy ending, the bad their verdict. It has saved the ending of this drama.
As no drama is perfect, I want to point out a few aspects which make me deduct 2 points.
The last twenty episodes are not well-written. After the satisfactory clearance of the male lead's misunderstanding, the story continued on the same old path to making the male lead the evil of all. Many circumstances leading to Si Feng's downfall feel forced. The inherent problem of the Si Feng not willing/not able to explain anything to Xuan Ji further creates reasons for her to hurt him, up to the point that it takes away the angst. The audience becomes numb. In the final moments, I could not shed real tears, despite my love for the ML.
Also, a few dramatic scenes between the second couple Chu Ling Long and Zhong Min Yuan, felt watered and repeated.
The path towards the finale was a question mark: a giant pot that can destroy all three words, Yuan Lang, our raven, revived again and again to inflict suffering to our heroes and the back and force between Luo Sha Ji Du and Xuan Ji was rather embarrassing than touching, to be fair. I wished the heavenly emperor did not have to take such a key role at the end (the same way he did 1000 years go). Someone who has never intervened ever before suddenly intervenes at the end and turns the table. If there was such a force, I wished the story introduced him earlier.
Finally, I also did not enjoy the fact that our glorious antagonist Hao Chen suddenly was "white-washed" after the heavenly emperor showed him a few "what-if" scenes and gave him a few moral lessons. The whole world has been telling him that since day one, why now? Where did our manipulative, egoistic, hypocritical, and personated jealousy in the person of a villain suddenly go? Despite knowing where the makers are coming from, I felt the last scenes downgraded the deep character that 58 episodes have built for him. Despite all this, Liu Xue Yi did a fantastic job playing this three-dimensional character.
I am rating this drama a 8/10 because of the last 20 episodes. If I only rate the first 40 episodes, this drama clearly deserves a 10/10. Deep inside me, it has a 10 because of the romance, the up and down of emotions it has hatched in me and the love I feel about our Si Feng.
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