Hei Yue Guang Wen Na BE Ju Ben (2023)

let's admit toxicity and stop trying to defend and romanticize it

(DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to offend anyone with this review. I wrote it for myself as a rant and to look back on.)

I have tried to like this show. I really have. But I cannot dismiss the cheap storyline, plot holes, and aggravating characters. This is a show that tells the story by the characters telling us what happened, rather than showing us, which is very frustrating. I am a bit insulted by how dumb this show thinks its watchers are. However, this is not a boring show, it is actually quite entertaining, even with all of the bad it has.

Characters: I do not like any of the characters. They are all dumb beyond my belief. The show gives 90% of its screen time to Luo Yunxi and Bai Lu and throws in a few other characters who are also supposed to lead but are not really. There is a second ML, but he wasn’t in it as much as I thought he should’ve been; however, I really liked the second male lead. He looks sooooo good in costume, mans was also beautiful, right up there with Luo Yunxi. Not sure what was going on with his character, but he seriously looked perfect in this drama. I’ll have to watch a show where he is the main lead. This gives a sense of a lack of character and shows a feeling of emptiness. Another thing to add: I have tried to get over how nonsensical this drama is while watching it, but everything just screams unrealistic. Like I get this is a fantasy drama, but at least the characters could act somewhat relatable and human. All the characters in this show act in a way that seems predetermined for them, like a video game plot or something, and I'm not talking about the acting itself.

Acting: It’s good I would say. Luo Yunxi and Bai Lu are both very good at acting. It is nice to watch a show where neither of the leads over shadow one another with their acting abilities. I can’t say much about the other characters acting, because they barely get any screen time. In general, I would say that the acting is pretty good, it's above average for a C-drama and it is a shame that they were directed to act in such a nonsensical way.

Costuming/Set/Effects/Makeup: You can tell this show is expensive. However, I think that the money should’ve been spent a little more wisely. The budget is all in the CGI. The amount of CGI and special effects being used is very overkill. None of the sets look like they could be a real place, it all looks too perfect and plastic. The costumes are very pretty, but the makeup is awful. Every character looks pasty in the lighting and the eyeshadow, especially on Luo Yunxi, is not very flattering (they made my beautiful man look like a panda). Also, you get to see Luo Yunxi in a stay-at-home wife outfit at the beginning of the show. He looks eerily similar to Chu Wanning, it is distracting, but in the best way possible. Bai Lu looks stunning in every costume she is in. However, this show relies too much an CG for its fight scenes. You have a whole classically trained ballet dancer and you are gonna cover up his beautiful, graceful fighting with CG and opt for heavily editing CG onto all of the fight scenes???? Wasted potential there.
The makeup was so bad for every character. The foundation is so pasty on everyone. And why are we putting eyeshadow all
around their whole eye? Luo Yunxi is a beautiful man and the overkill makeup does him dirty, like he’s still so handsome, but I just understand why they had to style his character with makeup so panda looking. Also, when he is an immortal I wish that his hair strands would’ve been tucked in. Why pull out his hair at the end of his sideburns, if you are gonna pull some hair out at least do it near the top of his head. I would say my favorite look for Luo Yunxi would have to be his Devil god look; the makeup and especially the costume and hair looks really good on him. He looks regal and expensive and straight up like a Devil god haha. Don’t even get me started about TTJ’s housewife outfit. The costume department is the same as it was for hyx, so they definitely knew what they were doing when they styled him like a whole Imperial Consort Chu.


Music: So far, the music is alright. A good thing is music is not overplayed. The sound isn’t too loud and the osts are not played too much. Lots of shows tend to play music too loud and all throughout every scene, but it is not noticeable here.

Story (SPOILERS):
Let’s start with TTJ played by Luo Yunxi. He is an evil guy and the explanation we get as to why he is so evil is because he was just born this way. He is evil because he was born that way, not because of any other outside forces. Other shows and stories have given depth to their evil leads when they want us to sympathize with him, but here we are supposed to sympathize with his actions because of a cheap backstory and because the FL does. We do not really get to see what leads him to being a tyrant. Here are some shows that have done the whole evil lead trope better: The Untamed, Love Between Fairy and Devil. TTJ is the most pitiful man I have watched on screen. I am enjoying every bit of it.

I cannot get over how the FL (Bai Lu) is sympathizing with someone who committed mass genocide and killed her family in front of her eyes. The characters are the dumbest set of people I have ever watched in a drama. How could she ever sympathize with him? He is so awful and honestly a pathetic character. He is a jerk and says and does the foulest things just because of an evil bone or something like that. And then the show goes, ‘oh! She is keeping him alive because of that evil bone and she has to destroy that before destroying him!’ Like how dumb does this show think we are?? To believe that even if there is a tiny little factor like that stopping her from killing him that she would just not kill him and start to fall for him?? Excuse me, but no. She should be pissed off to the point where she kills him right off the bat! Are you kidding me??

The jumps from lifetime to lifetime make no sense. In one episode you are with TanTaiJin and then all of a sudden, out of the blue we are in a dragon’s dream of them as immortals, but they don’t remember anything. It is a brand new show with brand new characters, there is no mention of the other life and it just makes no sense. Why is it important to the plot?? The importance is so insignificant. I think it has something to do with ‘life and death’ or something like that.. idk, it is dumb. Sang Jui (Bai Lu of that timeline) already is in love with Ming Ye (Luo Yunxi of that timeline). He obviously does not know her or love her back. She pines for him because he is the big strong ML. We get to see them fall in love in the span of an episode; personally, I wish they showed more scenes of them falling in love. What I took from it is that Ming Ye fell in love with Sang Jui because she gave him fruits and kept pestering him, outside of that, nothing makes her special. It is just cheap, when you think about it, why out of the thousands of years that Ming Ye has lived, would he fall in love with her over fruit???? There is no way that no one else has pestered him in the thousands of years that he has lived. Their love just is not very touching.

After the heavenly realm the show then goes back to reality. The characters seemingly have nothing to do with the heavenly realm characters. They just look alike, but I am sure they are tied together somehow. Anyways, what I want to say about this portion of the show is just that it does not make much sense. TanTai Jin grows stronger and stronger immensely fast, it is a bit out of nowhere. He is the ruler of everyone pretty much, or almost. Everyone knows who he is and is scared of him and calls him a monster. Around episode 22 the FL (I forgot her name) and TTJ fight cuz he killed a bunch of people. The people he killed were quite awful so I am not mad at him for that. He did however really scare her a bit, going a bit crazy when they fought, he had his reasons though. I just don't like how 20 minutes later she forgives him. They have a 'tender moment'. This would all be okay if the she didn't have her mission. It seems like the FL has completely forgotten about TTJ mass murdering her family and entire clans and she has forgotten about the whole reason she was taken back in time in the first place. She now holds no anger towards him at all, she doesn't bring up her mission, it just is a big headache. How could she forget??? Especially when he keeps growing more into the TTJ that killed her family, the tyrant of the entire universe? It just doesn't make any sense. Now they are strolling on a date, going out on the town. What happened to his evil bone??? That's like one of the biggest plot lines of the show, but it has been forgotten? We couldn't go 5 minutes without hearing about the evil bone earlier on in the drama and now it just vanished??

Also the trope of 'tied together for lifetimes' is done so poorly. Like I get that it's their past selves maybe?? or they are connected with these characters cuz they look the same? But the facts are those dream characters are different people than the originals we followed. They have different thoughts, feelings, values, ideals, and the switch from the dream to reality or whatever and back is just so confusing honestly. I can see what the story is truing to do with the whole 'tied together for lifetimes' type of thing, but doing this with the characters is just so so so so cheap. There is no payoff. HYX did it right, the characters from each lifetime all tied together, they shared thoughts and memories and feelings, it just was done so much better and TTEOM is just a worse than knock-off version of stories that actually can pull this off.

Ep 14 is what drew the line between a show that I can watch even though it is kinda dumb, to a show that I am now going to hate watch. Basically Sang Jui drugs Ming Ye and coerces him into having sex with her, he then gaslights himself into thinking it is ok. Straight up disgusting, didn’t think this show could get any lower. She says she does it to get back at him?? Get back at him for what?? They both had a huge misunderstanding because they didn’t talk to one another, but he didn’t do anything wrong honestly. Nothing he could’ve done should’ve incited that. I don’t care if they love each other, she drugged him and coerced him, and it was so out of character. Makes no sense, it’s awful. They romanticize this NC scene between the two of them it is so so hard to watch. Literally, I was on the verge of tears, not out of how pretty or how much they love each other. There was no love in that scene, it was not pretty, it was disgusting and foul and the fact that the show is trying to portray that scene as something romantic and not something that is wrong is absolutely aggravating. Some are trying to say that he was into it, but man’s was drunk out of his kind and drugged on top of that! I don’t care if they are in love, you don’t do anything of the sort with someone who is not in their right mind!

Highlights from the show:
So far, the best scene for me has been the one where TTJ was betrayed by his caretaker and he just bears it all to everyone. He monologues for like 30 minutes and gaslights everyone on the boat and then tortures himself in front of all of them. It was quite entertaining. I also really enjoyed all of the scenes with TTJ at SuSu’s residence, particularly the scene where the man is washing dishes.

Casting: I really am not mad at the cast; the leads were really good acting wise. It’s just that the script and story was so so cheap and confusing. Like they went through so many lifetimes just for all of Susu’s hard work to have failed in the end if you know what I mean. This show could be cut in half if Susu would’ve just told TTJ that she needed his evil bone after he became a simp for her. I think the show should’ve ended like around episode 35 or something when they had their moment in the garden and all was good, like they cleared up their misunderstandings and actually talked. Seriously the last few episodes are just full of flashbacks.

Last Remark:
Honestly, this show has p*ssed me off ever since it was announced to be made. I have nothing against the cast, but everything against the production company. Y*uku has used Immortality to market off this show since the beginning. They aren’t even trying to hide the fact! Almost the whole team behind hyx worked on this show, from the CGI and costuming department to the actors themselves. The story is also a bit similar to hyx. I wouldn’t have a problem with this, if the story itself weren’t so insulting. They put Luo Yunxi in this and made him the ‘Taxiun-Jun’ of this story. They also have bought hashtags out for Luo Yunxi with something relating to him being a mainstream actor and leading in a BL role. Why would they do that when BL is currently at a not so great state in the C-ent right now?! That just seems so scummy to me. This show is just so so so cheap. It just rubs me the wrong way. I will finish this show out of hate and spite. The only reason I am watching this is because I love Luo Yunxi and lots of that love comes from him being Chu Wanning in Immortality. I had no idea he would play the anti-Wanning here.

Final part: 500 years later
Li Susu and TTJ are back as immortals. The last ten episodes are honestly so confusing plot wise; much of it made no sense to me. I found myself getting very bored quickly and just skipped to every scene with Luo Yunxi in it. The last 10 episodes are really just everyone trying to figure out if TTJ is a bad guy and has the evil bone; it’s literally Susu is happy with TTJ and they are fine and then she gets mad and then she is happy and everything is cleared up, but then he does something to upset her again, it cycles quite a bit.

Tbh I started this show for lyx and finished it for him; I ended up liking his character the most. TTJ was a pretty and pitiful man. Luo Yunxi really ate up every scene where TTJ was having a manic episode or straight up being pyschotic. I was thoroughly entertained with his performance throughout.

Rant about the final episode: Lastly I have to say that the final episode really reminded me of the last episode for Darling in the Franx, you have giant celestial beings in the sky, the leads are floating off into the heavens, they transform outlooks times, the world is about it end, none of it makes any sense and you are just staring at your screen confused with how you got to this point.
The ending is just a whole mess. It’s the type of ensign that pisses me off. You’re really telling me that he killed all of the immortals in the beginning of the show, and the whole show is SuSu going back in time to get TTJ’s evil to prevent him from killing all of the immortals 500 years later, but in the end, the very last episode, he kills all of the immortals???? He kills every single one but her so she can kill him???? And this is so that there will never be an Devil god again??? It makes no sense. How is killing everyone in the immortal realm better than having a Devil god who honestly doesn’t pose much a threat. Like honestly if he would’ve just stayed the Devil god at end of the show with the pure heath that he had or whatever then no one else would’ve died. Like he could’ve just not killed everyone. And then when there is a new Devil god it’s not like they would kill every single person. What’s so bad about the evil bone passing from god to god? It sounds better than a whole mass murder of all of the immortals. Maybe I’m wrong and I just got so confused, but the ending is super confusing so me thinking he killed everyone is valid. Seriously, I’m a bit offended with the last episode. Why’d TTJ have to cause all of that chaos and misunderstanding if he was just gonna die in the end? I’m so confused. What is the ending of this show. My eyes hurt. I watched an hour of straight CGI and special effects. So TTJ sacrifices himself and stays up in the clouds or whatever. And it ends and he’s up there t-posing in rainbow land, while she is down with a kid who is theirs. Is he up there so that the evil bone won’t go to a new devil god? Is he even alive? What was that ending.

As much as I disliked about this show, it was fun to hate watch. It was so fun to watch up until the last 10 episodes where I lost interest.


NOW GIVE ME HYX SO I CAN SEE CHU WANNING!!!!!! After watching this show I am so so so sure that Luo Yunxi was born to play Chu Wanning. He played a character quite opposite of that of Wanning here, but we got a few glimpses of what Wanning could be like once it airs.

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