Honestly, during the time that I was on hiatus from dramas I kept hearing about this Cdrama all over the place. I always thought it would be a good one because the buzz around it seemed so high, people really seemed to love it. So when Robin recently mentioned that it was one of the dramas she had seen that had been shot at Shanghai Film Studios, I suddenly remembered that “oh yeah I should finally get around to watching that!”
How is it possible that this drama is so horribly bad???
Basically this drama is about a secretive Special Investigations team, who are assigned to all the criminal cases with supernatural elements. On this team is the Master of Guardians (our hero, a human), a demon from the Underworld, two ghosts, two shapeshifters (snake and cat), a hacker/scientist/inventor, and the most cowardly idiotic intern known to man. A suspicious university professor (our second hero) soon joins their team.
They work very closely with the Black Robe Envoy, who is like the Grim Reaper/Ambassador to the Underworld, who shows up to collect the bad guys when they are caught.
I don’t even know why I’m explaining the premise. The drama is almost a JOKE, it is so badly executed. I was ready to weep with frustration. The cases were ridiculous; all the bad guys were eager to confess all. The team never had anything to do but show up and the culprit would conveniently share their (usually illogical) grievance. The villain was boring and two-dimensional. When the drama moved from simple criminal cases into epic world-destroying danger, it got even more ridiculous. Literally four or five actors would stand in for an entire race, or a whole invading army. I mean, are you effing kidding me right now. My imagination is good, but it’s not THAT good! LOL!! This drama had ZERO budget and it showed!! The special effects were laughable. And they used the same sets for every scene (and yes, definitely at Shanghai Film Studios!) The lighting was crap. The dubbing was crap! Sometimes you could hear two different voice actors voicing different parts of the same sentence. So shoddy. So LAZY. So CHEAP. It’s like campy on the level of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Excruciatingly bad.
So why? WHY was this drama so popular?? I can only conclude that people got hooked on the one thing that also kept me watching this fiasco from beginning to end: The two male leads have insanely good chemistry! I mean bromance with a capital B! It is not long into the drama that you start thinking these two guys like each other a little bit more than they should. The drama never “goes there,” but man it really feels like it’s gonna. Like any minute. LOL! And so I kept watching for THAT, hahaha. OMG, the tease, lol. The thirst is real, folks! I’m so ashamed, hahaha.
The two protagonists, in fact, are the only good thing in this sorry piece of work, though I also kinda liked the 10,000-year-old cat/boy, too; he was cute. I feel sad that they were stuck in this production; they deserved so much better.
So I can’t recommend this drama in any respect. I still wonder why it was such a hit. Chinese sense of humor? Sigh.
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