It's so bloody boring
boring.
I'm tired of this style that i'm dressed in.
Qian Gu Jue Chen, Ancient Love Poetry is a 49 episode fantasy drama
that's been aired on the web platform Tencent right now in china.
It's led by Xu Kai, Zhou Dongyu
and it's based on an existing
ip novel written by the author Xing Ling
The author is also one of the three script writers of this drama.
The other two,
being Rao Jun and Li Zhenru
Rao Jun is also the script writer of the drama Hua Qian Gu
The Journey of Flower.
And ....
once you startwatching the drama,
you'll realize
yeah it's kind of clear that it's written by the same person.
At this point i'm making this video.
I've watched the first 12 episodes.
So this first impression video is based on that,
i'll give it a one gold mine/one landmine
rating, in the smack middle of my seven level scale.
This is another very typical fantasy.
God falls in love, life time, type of story.
I haven't read the original novel personally,
not a big fan of this genre,
but based on the feedback from people who
have read the original novel, Shang Gu (上古）
people are not happy because the casting
choice is very far from what's written.
For that.
I do not have authority.
I have no idea if that's true or not.
But then I understand because for most of the screen adaptations of novels,
there will always be a lot of book fans who are not happy with the casting
And apart from that there really isn't that much to say
because it's such a typical xian xia/xuan huan drama.
If you've watched The Journey of Flower
Hua Qian Gu, or San Sheng San Shi Shi Li Tao Hua,
Ten Miles of Peach bNlossom or Love and Destiny,
Chen Xi Yuan or Ashes of Love,
Xiang Mi Chen Chen(Jin Ru Suang)
or Liu Li, Love and Redemption last year
You will see all of its certain plot being played in this drama.
So let me first talk about the good things that I noticed about this drama
which are are only merely 2 points
first being very nice songs.
It's like a fated thing.
is.. "zi gu hao ge chu lan ju"
Or "zi gu lan ju chu hao ge"
which is When it's a bad drama,
good songs are in it
or good songs are in bad dramas for some weird reason
this drama collected three of the most prominent male
singers in the entirety of chinese drama theme song singers,
including ai qing bao an (guard of love) Liu Yuning
including Mao Buyi
including Zhou Shen
When I see that it's like a huge warning sign,
it's like maybe music is the best thing of this drama,
and that kind of ... is true.
Second, this drama has very impressive, special effect, not everything.
Some of the creature design is just as normal creature design.
You see in a lot of fantasy dramas in china.
But the particular visual effects about people throwing out magic,
crazy sword turning into 10,000 copies and energy field they have
the different colors that flies out of their hands.
Glittering effects are really well done.
I think it's the best i've seen so far.
I mean Ashes of Love is really good too in that department.
But this one does not fall short.
If you look at the ending credits about how many
people they have on the special effects team,
it's pretty much like a film scale.
And they actually all come from Tencent's game team,
because tencent is a
if you don't know
big game company.
So they use a lot of that resource that's already available to them.
And because this is an s+ level production within Tencent
So they just chuck all that into this drama.
So visual effects wise, very pretty.
That's about it.
Now it's the dangerous part.
that may get me murdered.
cao duo wu kou
well It's not so "cao duo wu kou"
This drama is actually not so "cao duo"
There's not that many thing you can rant about it
The more fitting way to rant about ALP
is
it's so bloody boring.
Like I said, everything that you see happening
in this drama has happened somewhere else,
and it happens in the most standard fantasy drama way that
you can imagine and previous dramas have done better
writings about those very archetypal and archaic plots.
But then we're gonna talk about that a little bit later.
First um, very first thing in your face that
makes it not that enjoyable to watch is...
It really didn't cast the correct people for the roles
on china's internet.
This drama has already been ranted about by a lot of people,
but I don't think it's fair to criticize the looks and appearance wise
of the leading actress and leading actor zhou dongyu and xu kai.
I think they appear to be okay to me.
Actually, I don't have the fixated idea of if you have a goddess
who is the strongest of all like in your story setting,
who is the highest ranking god that she has to be tall,
slender like goddess- like
she can be a little girl
like zhou dongyu is like
zhou dongyu's
Physic build is pretty much like child, obviously,
because I didn't read the novel and in the novel,
it's totally not the case so a lot of people
couldn't deal with that
appearance wise
I really don't have a problem,
but I still think it's the wrong cast.
Zhou Dongyu, she is a great actress on big screen in the cinematic world.
She is very expressive when she is in close or extreme close up.
And that's a very great talent she has,
but television is very different because it's a small screen experience and
because of very flat lighting that always
happens with xian xia drama in china,
it just isn't the best medium for her to show her acting.
and for long time viewers of chinese cinema or television,
you probably know like she is known to play more contemporary roles.
And she brings across that extremely familiar,
real feel of a girl who looks like a person that
you can meet in real life who lives next door.
And that's her strong suit
playing a goddess who has the strongest
power of them all and who inevitably has to do so much big things.
It's just so off from what she naturally is like.
and her acting is so contemporary.
It doesn't really fit into the very period drama,
ancient setting where things just has to
be a little bit peculiar
xu kai as well.
He's a good looking guy ok?
and no argument about that.
And he looks great in period dramas.
But the best thing for him to play usually is
the type of character who is very animated,
lots of funny things going on that kind of bubbly energy.
And this drama just writes his character,
which also is not really like how the original text has.
As another version of Huo Jianhua's character
in Hua Qian Gu
which is why I said it's written by that.
Since script writer, you can tell,
so he has that stone face,
he has that aloofness
he's so cold,
but whenever the camera is on him, right?
you just feel like he's trying to hold and not laugh in the next second.
When the director said cut,
he probably broke out laughing.
That's how you feel his acting is like on camera.
It makes it really hard for me to get into
the imaginary world of this drama's setting.
then the second thing is a very personal thing.
And it's an aesthetic thing is
i'm tired of this style
that i'm dressed in
very pale clothing color,
close to white.
Everybody kind of comes out of the same mold and this hair style
that got popular in 10 miles of peach blossoms ever since then,
has become a standard for Xian Xia drama.
For some weird reason.
The top of your hair pulled up in certain ways.
Part of that dangling and then long hair
like the lower half are just all flying everywhere,
making it a pain for onset hair stylist to comb
your hair constantly, maybe it saves money,
because it takes less time to do that type of hair.
But there was a time when chinese,
goddess or gods hair are just flamboyant and crazy,
the hair goes on the head with so many circles and
all kinds of twisted fares and gazillion decorations.
It just looks
exciting
and colors.
Can I get some colors?
Only a couple of days ago,
there's a television program that got viral on china's internet,
which is done by Henan television,
celebrating Duan Wu festival.
And they did this underwater dance of the traditional Fei Tian
which is the type of goddess.
That is on the mural in Dun Huang
very well known.
It's like an aesthetic symbol for the Tang dynasty.
That's the type of goddess that actually existed
in ancient china's people's imagination,
beautiful ribbons and colors,
and very daring clothing very actually exposed showing the flesh
since when did the aesthetics of chinese dramaland got so
quotation mark whitewashed,
not the white people whitewashed,
but white color washed.
It's boring and it's eye blinding.
When you stare at the white clothes,
people all the time you feel like.
I'm gonna go snow blind,
so very personal aesthetic wise don't like this drama then.
Yeah, the big thing about the drama is the plot is just
boring.
You would see so many troppy plots that happened in all other
dramas as such as cold hearted aloof tutor with a lively
cute bubbly little girl later turned out to be love of his life.
That's like Hua Qian Gu
And then there are three lifetime story also in this drama,
how many times have we seen that?
A plus?
It is the disciple of the student's turn to take the
trial of the heaven to get hit by lightning.
And if they can survive they level up,
and then the tutor comes to the rescue and takes it for her.
That happens in this drama, too.
Everything is just so predictable that I just watch it.
And i'm like,
cool.
That
I see
moving on.
Boring.
Plus, if you really want to dig at the logic,
it's all written for the sake of what the script writer want things to happen.
So they force it to happen.
For example, our female lead is supposedly the strongest god.
But ever since she was born,
which is already 10,000 years,
by the time the story starts,
she had some problem that causes her to not really progress very fast.
Her three "brothers"
they just let her
be her happy,
carefree girl,
life not really working on any of her.
stuff that she's supposed to do while actually
knowing some imminent big thing is on the doorstep.
And if she couldn't take that responsibility,
it's gonna be catastrophic for existence
while they know that.
They just let her own free like a chicken,
not until one of them thought we should
just get this guy to become her teacher,
because he is the strongest like fighting god of us all.
And he is a very strict teacher.
I know this is to put the male lead and the female lead together,
but honestly it doesn't make logical sense.
What were you doing for the other 10,000 years?
So this type of thing happens all the time in the drama
it's not like hard logic problems like the snake is too
small and it can escape the cage from Miss the Dragon
but it's pretty also embarrassing
for the two leads.
I just don't get the chemistry and it's me.
So if I don't get it doesn't mean you won't get it,
doesn't mean you won't like it,
so you may still get it, but me,
zero,
by the time episode three,
they're hugged, they are kissed
They're like somehow suddenly got together and like each other
I'm like... why?
it's not warranted
You really feel like the script writer is holding your chin
and have the sugar in a spoon
feed you like that
eat my sugar x3
At the end of it.
It's just one of many fantasy drama that is
really like i've said this back in 2019
the entire genre is really at its tail
and somehow dramas are still being made in this.
Maybe the production companies,
I don't know these people just don't care about what the audiences want.
I am very tired of it and I do not hide away from the fact that
that definitely plays a big part in my reaction to this drama,
which is I just can't get into it,
don't care about the characters,
don't care about the cp nothing grabs my attention about this drama,
but then you might be somebody who just love this genre and
you wanna see a million other versions of this type of story.
There's definitely no problem with that.
And before I end this video,
one final thing about this drama, right?
Or the entirely the genre of xian xia in chinese dramaland
these days is there's one big elephant in the room.
Let's say if the god's realm is a higher existence than human's,
they live in the place where they do not suffer,
most of the pains we suffer as humans and they live long time.
They are supposedly so much stronger and more elevated.
Why would they care about all the little human
chick fight stuff that we have in our world?
Like the endless,
romantic tortures about lifetimes,
fall in love with somebody and fall out of love with
somebody, become enemies, fighting each other,
or the gods competing in the power struggles, politics,
court stuff?
Why wouldn't anyone think that if you have elevated
yourself from the existence of mere humans?
Why would you still care all the conflicts of the human world?
Won't you have some kind of different perspective
and therefore have different types of enjoyment?
If anyone wants to write a new type of fantasy drama about gods,
I really want to see a script of people do not have the same
perspective on romantic relationship on the bureaucracy and
politics and those god actually have developed.
Other quite fantastical interests.
I know the fantasy dramas,
the gods falling love dramas,
although it's talking about god,
it's idol drama in the shell of gods.
And this is what the productions think that all the audiences
would want to see is we just want to see a romantic story,
but people dressed in prettier clothes with superpowers
and special effects and they can fly and do stuff.
But wouldn't it be interesting?
Right?
If somebody say no,
we're gonna really make it make sense
in our logic where the gods,
Because they're gods,
they don't care about the same kind of things that humans do,
but then they kind of open your imagination and perspective
about what are the things that they are worried about?
Why wouldn't it be cool to have at least one drama like that?
And I want to see that at least it's a breakthrough.
It's a different perspective.
It's some kind of thinking going on behind it.
Instead of just
keep beating the dead horse.
So that will be the end of the first impression video of
ALP from AvenueX
thank you for watching this video.
Take care.
I'll see you in my next video meanwhile.
Live long and happy drama watching.