My journey backwards in time with this franchise has been quite the ride, and thankfully, the next moves things forward again with The Lost Caverns. This entry was a real mixed bag, to be honest. It features some unbelievably cool action scenes (episode 7 is tops), and beautiful filming locations that kept me hooked.

The story itself was a little disappointing. It felt a little bit aimless throughout, and I think the biggest problem for me was that the characters weren't very interesting. A couple of them were downright murderous bastards, which was odd that we were meant to cheer for them. I was hoping we would have Hu Ba Yi at least narrate, the whole thing is so distantly related to the main series it's odd that it even kept the title (unlike The Weasel Grave, which is a much more related prequel). It's a little mindboggling. We don't even find out about Mojin and how it comes into play until the end, and it's juts kind of brushed off as an "oh, by the way" moment. Speaking of that ending... the 2 minute narration should have been its own episode to actual dramatize those crucial events. It would have made for a much more interesting finale.

The acting is fine, from what I could tell. The production values are much higher than previous titles in the series, although the quality varies from episode to episode. Th sets and costumes were excellent as well.

It's a good show, but it doesn't feel connected enough to the main series for me. The only character I liked died fairly early on too, which was disappointing. In the end, I'm kind of just left with a feeling of... meh? It's good for what it is, but I'm more excited to finally get back to the main story, with characters I actually cared about.