Isn't it obvious?
Today i'm gonna talk about the final review
on the drama Love between Fairy and Devil
Cang Lan jue
hi, you're watching AvenueX where a junkie on good storytelling
shares her thought knowledge and occasional
weird ideas on stories and how they're told.
Cang Lan Jue, Love between Fairy and Devil
has literally just finished airing on iqiyi
it is definitely my August surprise and joy, in this video
I am going to talk about everything I can think of after
watching the whole drama and share that with my audience,
but before i go into talk about the drama.
There's something I wanna mention.
I often receive emails in the years past since I started the channel
of people ask me for help for buying stuff from
china on taobao/ weidian or any other well known
chinese shopping platforms.
I have finally gotten a really good solution for people.
So if you're interested,
watch the rest of a 2 minutes video
if not head over to this time code
where i'm gonna start to talk about the drama itself.
The process is simple, you go to their site,
tokcommerce.com
register an account.
Then you can browse taobao or other chinese shopping sites.
Here I just picked two items from two different shops on taobao.
I would then copy the links to those items
and then paste them into tokcommerce's site.
It will then show you a page through their platform
and allow you to buy the items from their end.
If you have any questions or request about size, color,
time of delivery,
anything regarding the item,
you can use live chat to talk to a service agent or email them.
You can use bank transfer or paypal to pay.
and There is a 10% service charge that will cover their
currency exchange cost and then give them a bit profit,
then you can track the progress of the items within China
once you see them arrive at the warehouse.
You can then choose to pack your items and submit your
shipping address for them to ship it to you
through dhl or ups or another shipping service that they have.
Also, they have a shipping calculator on their website.
Before you even make a purchase,
you can roughly estimate how much it's gonna
cost for the items you want to get to you.
All shipping options are trackable.
Since i'm doing this test wrong with them,
they paid my shipping cost,
but I still paid for the items myself.
It took ups about a week's time for them to ship the items to me.
So here's my parcel and my stuff.
Okay, but today definitely not a good day for wearing black,
so i'm not wearing it.
I would emphasize again,
I am not associated with them.
They are not sponsoring my video.
Or in any other way,
I just think it's a really useful service for
potentially a lot of people watching my channel.
Now, let's move on to talk about Cang Lan Jue
love between fairy and devil and everything I can think of.
About this drama.
I would first give it a final rating on my seven level scale.
It would end up being a two gold mine.
But more accurate number would be actually 2.5
for three gold mine.
It really needs to be almost perfect in every way.
And this drama, unfortunately,
has a little bit of,
I cannot ignore blight,
on the almost perfect canvas.
First thing I haven't mentioned in my first impression,
but it was very obvious was the ost
the entirety of the album,
here I'll just focus on the songs that has lyrics
sung by Liu Yuning, Zhou Shen, Yu Shuxin herself
Yu Shuxin and Wang Hedi, and a couple of other singers.
Zhan Wenting, I have to mention her too,
because she's brilliant.
This whole album and all the songs and their lyrics,
and the style and singers they pick are just
perfect
95 out of 100 score for this ost album.
The second thing is last time I said one of the most
important reasons for me to continue watching the drama
was wang he dis performance and I just wanna see his potential.
And I think by the end of the drama everybody can agree.
Miss The Dragon was an accident
for whatever reason that drama happened in that way
does not represent what he can do for sure.
I'll just pick out one thing I noticed.
I really really like his performance of the body swapping.
We've seen that in chinese dramaland
many times now in contemporary dramas,
impair dramas in fantasy,
in all kinds of things.
What I appreciate about this version of
a guy playing a girl is
he is not just playing a girl.
He's playing a specific version of Yu Shuxin
He also understands the essential difference of the two different characters.
It's not actually in gender,
although obviously mannerism would come through
such as like picking the skirt up with two hands,
which is a very girly thing that the actual DFQC never does,
=but there there's a very intricate and subtle thing
that he also copies which copies the psyche
of the female character
where she is very weak.
She can be beaten by everybody around her.
She's never been treated with respecting in her life up to that point
So she has that long time internalized
lower position in the society that she lives in.
And it goes into everything.
The way she looks at people is always looking up.
She's kind of small.
So she almost is always timid.
But once the body swtich happens,
Wang Hedi is much taller,
so he physically cannot really look up to people
to keep that timidness of the female lead,
he would actually bend and crouch.
He would not stand up straight.
It's a very different posture
through the entire period when he had the
body swapping so that he can make himself smaller
plus he would open his eyes just like 20% more than usual.
So that captures Yu Shuxin's look as well.
Then the drama also inject other details.
I'm not sure if it's actor or director or everybody working together.
For example, when he had the body switch,
the girl is in the boy's body now and he's much taller than her.
But she is not used to that height.
so She cannot quite gauge her height in the physical space
what's gonna happen
So his clothes would catch on curtain.
This type of detail is just great to see.
Comes down from the stair, from his throne,
wide shot that he stumbles.
Again, it's a new soul in the new body that doesn't quite know
how to control the different size and then gauge steps, how wide,
how small because i'm never really gotten used to living in this body.
So all those details,
I so highly appreciate.
This is definitely a carefully polished way of performing this character.
And this is definitely beyond superficial
level of usually acting the gender swapping,
body swapping occasion between a man and woman.
Now i'm gonna talk about a couple of problems of this drama that I noticed.
And then i'm gonna finally conclude about
what I still think this drama has achieved.
That is beyond my expectation,
there was a storm about this drama in this
week's updating, the last week from episode 31 to 36,
particularly 33 and 34.
Because of the plot and characters and things that happened,
a lot of people weren't happy.
They thought this drama is heading towards the
cliff that it's gonna fall off and then crash.
It's the tail broken drama.
It is yet another Game of thrones ending or Guardian.
Fortunately, I think in the last two episodes,
they managed to pull it back and it's still a satisfying enough ending.
But I do see in storytelling,
the structural things of this story from 31 to 36.
It's the problematic part of this drama.
if in an ideal world,
that script needs to get revised,
a lot of details needs to get changed
in terms of the drama's storytelling pacing,
it really crashed around 32 to 34,
where because all the audiences watching this drama know,
the drama is gonna end at 36.
Yet there are so many important things you haven't dealt with yet
this urgency of you don't have enough time
yet you are wasting a lot of time on things
that can be cut shorter
devoted to the romantic relationship's development,
and the rebirth of the female lead.
But it's so long.
It doesn't give space to any other important things
the drama needs to talk about
with previous episodes.
And how the story gets told
is very to the point.
They don't waste time and lingering on things
with slow motion and turning in circles.
That's not the taste of this drama.
So with that style,
at the point where you really need to talk about very important things
and you need to tie all the loose ends towards the end of the story,
building up to the climax
suddenly like the god of pacing just left this drama,
you feel like
what are you doing?
You don't have time anymore
move on
plus particular ways they picked for the actors to
act certain roles of that stage of that character
is not helping the audiences to figure out
what you're trying to do.
In china. A lot of people were unhappy about the fact that
the female lead comes back and she's very different from before.
Although everybody can pretty much guess is it's a play.
It's not really that
she is still her,
but then for whatever reason she is not really acting like her.
Yet the drama I think in their execution of showing that
on camera with the actress acting is not making it
satisfying for the audiences to understand that
that is the case enough.
Again, if you haven't watched,
you probably don't know what i'm talking about
if you have you will know.
I think there are better ways for direction during those 2/3 episodes to
make it logical for the character within a story to do what she does,
but also make the audiences clearly clearly clearly
aware that this is for an ultimate goal and end.
It's easy to do that. Really.
You just suggest it with a couple of shots where
he's not looking and she is~~~
so I do think they can still work on the script, pacing,
how long each scene is,
what you cut in between,
what you introduce more and then you edit out.
and Then the direction of the acting of that part,
most of the controversy of this drama and people's worry
before it ended, was that this drama is gonna crash
when they watch the last but 4/5 episodes
the other thing while I was paying a lot of attention,
watching this drama to the end
that I strongly strongly feel that could improve this drama
and actually solve their problem of last 6 episodes
rush and rush and doesn't have buildup,
doesn't have scenes linking together,
it doesn't flow,
they could have cut out one line and that will result them
having about 20 more minutes screen time within the 36 stories.
Size to give that space,
to make all the very hasty parts of the last 6 episodes
smooth it out
the twin sister line,
which didn't get introduced until first very late in the drama.
So you can really edit that out.
Then its sole function is for Rong Hao's character
to escape for the second time out of that prison.
And then he can do what he does right for the end of the drama.
But when you finish watching Rong Hao's whole plot line,
you realize at the end,
he really doesn't need to do epic things.
He's the sad character with his Shi Fu as well.
So the fact that the story has him towards the end captured twice,
but then released twice is wasted.
He could just be captured once and released once and done.
You can actually get rid of completely.
The line that Dan Yin and Jie Li are twin sisters.
The sister hood just suddenly showed up in the last bit of the drama.
And it doesn't quite work.
You're not very convinced,
and then it doesn't serve any other emotional or meaningful purpose.
I mean it's funny that the father character of theirs was like,
i'm gonna sacrifice myself.
I'm gonna turn myself in
you two sister lived together happily ever after,
and then he disappears.
Everything went back to normal.
Everybody is happy.
500 years, every character kind of is getting what they want in a way.
But where is the father?
nobody knows
Nobody cares about him.
He disappeared.
feels like you spend time to build up this line
of the twin sister yet.
It doesn't actually help the story.
It just wasted very precious time that this drama actually doesn't have.
That whole jie li and Dan yintwin sister line can totally go
and it will make the drama better.
It's just my opinion okay
and then this drama also connects to future
2 dramas the seven lifetimes story and then Si Ming ]
coming from this company that will be built also in this universe
with with recurring characters
let's hope in those dramas that the Yun Zhong Jun
gets dealt with.
I'm very unhappy at the end that he didn't get what he deserves.
Maybe in Si Ming's story kick his ass okay kick his ass,
I just cannot wait to see him fall.
Then the final tiny problem with this drama
is the ending is a little bit too hasty.
I don't quite get is
why they don't do a version where the guy comes back and they kiss.
Then you add one extra daily life scene.
During the first 9 episodes.
There are so many moments between the two leads.
Counting flowers,
getting the morning dew water,
all those things, cooking for her,
which tastes like shit,
like there are so many details of their life together,
it will be such a classical way of writing story is at the end you repeat.
But now it's the new them,
the rebirth and rebirth version of both characters
just add one more scene
Right now. The drama feels like it brakes suddenly
and thens runs right into a wall and it ends.
It's not the most comfortable way of ending your journey.
You should slow down and gradually press down on
the brake and make the car elegantly stop.
I just don't quite get why they would make the ending like that.
It doesn't fit the atmosphere,
and it definitely doesn't satisfy this psychological needs From the audiences.
So these couple things stopped me from rating thisdrama to the highest level.
Finally, I want to talk about a couple of
things I highly appreciate about this drama.
Number one is it's a carefully worked out script,
although it has shortcomings, towards the end,
the earlier parts,
it's so obvious that it has been rewritten rewritten rewritten, figured out.
All the details matching multiple times.
I've been sitting down staring at the screen and then
trying to figure out how they link everything together.
And right now I'm at the end of episode 18 halfway that I make notes,
intensity.
Hey, and that's episode 18,
even noted down certain shots angles
how they would cut between scenes
I think it's a very matured way of telling stories.
The best i've seen in recent years in the
xian xia genre from Chinese dramaland
unexpectedly.
So i've been doing that work
responsible writers from Chinese dramaland,
so hard to get
and then I cannot help because Chen Xi Yuan, Love and Destiny is
another one of my favorite Xian Xia that happened back in 2019.
I cannot help comparing tha
t because I also see almost like a evolution of the genre
between that drama and this drama
that drama resembles a little bit more of 10 miles of peach blossoms
that type of successful Xian Xia drama in the last couple of years.
but then it moved on a little bit away from only the romance part.
It started to wanting to do more
that whole idea of one person versus the whole world.
And if you're in the position to decide who you pick to save,
can you just say I wouldn't sacrifice either for either
and that god pulled out of that drama a little bit towards the end,
but not really extensively worked on.
Now 3 years later in this drama where the style and
pacing is actually more resembling even older
Xian Xia drama like the Tang Ren dramas of early 2000s in China.
And I really appreciate that in this third stage of evolution of this genre,
with a lesser high profile cast,
it feels almost more coherent as a work where
everyone is as important of other people.
It's not like only 2 leads and everybody is definitely second tier.
In this drama, you see all the supporting roles
getting plenty of time and plenty of respect.
They all have super rounded characters.
They're all treated equal and you feel like because of that,
even out energy, the whole story, the ensemble really comes through,
and then its ideals
The bigger things, the message,
the one liner, if you have to write about the story gets
fully expressed in a much more obvious.
And throughout this drama,
the very persuasively everywhere away,
爱一人但是也爱苍生
I love one person but I also love all
And how you express that under the most
cruel test of situations.
So Cang Lan Jue for the bigger ideas,
it's more full-on
It's almost completely about that.
If you think through all the characters,
their purpose of existence and their development,
in that sense,
I think this drama may be very underestimated.
If you only look at it.
As a Xian Xia Gu Ou, XIan Xia Period idol drama
and plus this drama is only 36 episodes.
Although I actually wish it could be a little bit longer,
maybe not even to 40,
just give it one or two more episodes.
So that's pretty much everything I can think of.
I wanna add on to my first impression talking about CLJ
And honestly, if I keep talking,
I can talk another hour about other details,
but editing long videos and trying to subtitle them is a nightmare.
And i've been wearing this throughout the whole video.
If you are curious,
this is my conceptual design o fCLJ as a brooch
with the Ronghua skill I'm doing
and I will put a video out of the process of making this.
Soon on my second channel,
it's an orchid,
the yellow one at the core with the two wings that reference to the
episode nine of the guy coming out and saving a girl moment,
the black wings
and then there's a moon behind it which represents male lead's
his whole clan of people and obviously the classic scene of
on the bridge.
And then behind that is the leaf of an orchid.
So it's an idea of the wings protecting a flower.
But then there's moon behind it and then the
leaves protecting the moon
twice over thing.
It's just my idea okay very conceptualize.
And after i've made this people on internet said it looks very much like a.
The schools sign the design of house of, you know I don't know,
Gryffindor or Slytherin
It's the house of 兰强挖诀机
Land QIang excavator institution.
This could definitely be a symbol and I think it's very fitting.
Okay, that would definitely conclude this video now
Thank you for sticking through this.
And i'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.