THE BEST CLASSICAL CHINESE MYTHOLOGY INTERPRETATION MADE BY A CDRAMA

This story is loosely based on the Chinese mythologies presented in the legendary Classic of Mountains and Seas. Many Crdrams leverage characters from those tales, but they usually do so in a way that requires one to be familiar with those stories and those characters’ powers. Thereby, making it extremely difficult for an outsider to connect with those characters and forcing one to focus on the love story.FoF doesn’t make that mistake. It cleverly uses a combination of costume choices, subtle dialog, and backstories to immerse the audience in the characters’ abilities, challenges and desires.FoF is also not focused on being a love story. For the first time in a very long time, we have a story that isn’t interested in presenting a love triangle or sub love triangles. If you’re looking for a romance, this one isn’t for you. This isn’t Chinese Bridgerton or Harlequin. If that’s what you’re in the mood for then skip until you’re in the mood for a fantasy with great action.The love story presented in FoF is much like the love story for Han Solo & Princess Leia in Star Wars. The love story is important, but it’s not the main focus. There are several other Star Wars similarities between it and FoF. I think it’s important to understand that the Chinese mythology came first, and George Lucas used a lot of it to form his universe.FoF is a fresh breath of air in a landscape of repetitive Cdramas where the plots are always the same.PROsACTING: Every single person in this drama was amazing in their roles. There were no over-the-top pantomime performances and expressions. There were no goofy facial expressions that are more in place in an episode Gilligan’s Island than in a drama. There were no childish sounding voices.Quite a few of the actors were required to perform 2 different roles that required different personalities. For me, the standout acting performances were from Lester Lin and Cheng Xiao. It’s hard to believe that LL is just a teenager. He presents 2 very different characters and he’s believable and sympathetic in both roles. Cheng Xiao has less than 60 minutes of screen time, yet she is able to use that time to create a complex, multidimensional character who is also very sympathetic. Despite her small amount of screen time, CX’s expressions and situations made me feel that I knew as much about her as I knew about the Baize goddess.TIMING: There’s a nice amount of comedic moments in here. The comedy is very reminiscent of the comedy one finds in shows like Sherlock or movies like Lethal Weapon or The Avengers. If you had a problem with the comedy there, then you probably won’t like the comedy here. And, just like those properties, the buddy cop/frenemy timing in FoF is executed perfectly!CINEMATOGRAPHY/VISUALS: The best visuals of any show produced this year. Nearly every scene could be a poster. It’s that beautiful! The cast selection was also, impeccably, beautiful. Usually, these shows seem to select performers in the non primary Lead roles that aren’t as attractive as those leads. FoF didn’t do that. Everyone is beautiful here. MUSIC: easily the best OST and BGM soundtracks of the year. The OST doesn’t just feature nice songs. The words of each song directly relate to the motivations and challenges faced by the characters. And, to emphasize that point, most of the songs are performed by the talented cast.PLOT: On the surface, this appears to be just like any other Cdrama; a love story focused on the challenges of its main characters to be together. Fortunately, FoF has a series of complex themes that it doesn’t hesitate to explore, including: The character/destiny that one is born with and how one decides to handle itThe rules of justice and responsibility Challenging fate and carving its unchangeable outcome into something that you can acceptCONsFILLER: The decision to extended this out to 34 episodes instead of leaving it at 28 episodes. I felt like I could identify those episodes that were used as filler to comply with that last minute decision. However, those filler moments aren’t frequent, and the director wisely chose to place them before the last 5 episodes of the show. They also contain some interesting exposition which is one of the reasons why this show is so rewatchable.HAPPY ENDING: okay, the ending isn’t “everyone lived happily everafter.” It’s based on Chinese mythology. This is the same mythology where the legend of the Cowherder and the Weaver Girl is considered romantic. However, the main love interest characters in FoF are allowed to say goodbye and remain in each other’s lives. All characters that die, are given a proper send off and the audience is given time to grieve for them before returning to the action. We also get an extra episode that tells us what happened a few months later. Although I was/am sad, I thought it was a happier ending than the Princess Weiyung. It also didn’t feel tacked on like the ending in The Double.GODS & GODDESSES: Basically, they suck and are weak and ineffective. There was only one God that had any kind of power worth mentioning. I don’t know if this is due to a cultural difference between gods in Western classicism vs Chinese classicism. For example, the Baize goddess would probably have been considered a High Priestess instead of a goddess because she was still human not divine. In western classicism, high priests and priestesses had powers beyond ordinary mortals, but those powers were limited.This may also be decision by the director and creative team to inject their opinions about the ability of the divine when they are needed most. 🤷‍♀️PROMOTION/IQIYI: Don’t let the hater propaganda fool you. This show was a hit for iQIYI. It averaged 8100 on their heat index and reached a high of 8734. For a platform, where the average is in the mid-7000s, this was a hit.The only reason why this show wasn’t the bigger hit it deserved to be is that it didn’t have the budget to fight back against negative propaganda that occurred a few hours before Pearl Girl and LGiEF were released. In fact, the only marketing it could afford to do was a single promo video and MV.iQIYI also decided to use a weird release cycle for this show that included pausing new releases for 2 days directly after the show reached the 8700 mark while other shows were releasing new episodes.In other words, the ability of this show to reach 8700 was driven entirely by fans and word-of-mouth. That’s incredible, and it says volumes about how compelling most people find this show when they give it an honest shot.

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