The game is progress?
So I was suckered into watching Love Game in Eastern Fantasy and also suckered Henry into watching it with me. Why?
Well...
The story is about a modern ho-hum FL being sucked into a game of her favorite author's latest book. She finds that she's the second FL and needs to win second ML's heart and beat the game in order to go back to the real world. That sounds fun and gamey, right?
Cast and characters
Ho-hum FL, Miaomiao, is played by Esther Yu (Love Between Fairy and Devil, My Journey to You). Esther Yu is often criticized for her baby voice. But honestly, it's her annoying baby-ish acting that gets on my nerves. She was totally fine in My Journey to You and I dropped it for other reasons.
As Miaomiao...I don't know what the deal is with this character. She seems like a fairly normal adult female in modern times. But once she's transported into the game/novel world, she has to act super cutesy. Who acts like this in real life???
Cold ML with the heart of gold (or CGI lotus), Mu Sheng, is played by Ding Yuxi.
He's fine. Though his attractiveness suffers a -80 debuff once he is out of costume.
Game/novel world FL Mu Yao is played by Zhu Xudan (Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber (2018)).
She's also fine.
Game/novel world ML Liu Fuyi is played by Yang Shize.
His face is a blank slate. But I'll give him a pass, because his role is the actual ML of the novel/game world and they may be playing up the cold ML stereotype where he always has to look slightly inconvenienced.
Pros and Cons
Pro: Good concepts
A drama about a game. It seems like it would be an RPG.
Various twists and reveals, ie. who the author is and his relation to the FL, who the villain is and her relation to character(s) in the drama.
Con: Bad execution
A drama about an RPG sounds fun. But after maybe the first 1-4 episodes, it feels like all mention of the FL being in a game and needing to complete quests are gone. Then it's back in full force in the last 1-3 episodes, but pretty half-assed. So the entire middle section runs just like any normal Xianxia. It begs the question: why bother making this a drama about a character sucked into a game/novel in the first place? Miaomiao being a modern person does not affect the plot in any way besides to serve as audience insert.
While the twists and reveals are sometimes interesting, they are badly executed. There are a lot of flashbacks to show that the characters knew about various twists in advance but they are not foreshadowed properly. So they come off as lazily written exposition. And there are so many lazy expositions! Characters will start to explain some backstory and then flashback to the exact same exposition they were just explaining.
The editing is terrible too. Some scenes drag on for way too long. I'm not even talking about those long expositions. I'm talking about panning shots of scenery and long silences between characters before they cut to an unrelated scene. Some scenes end too abruptly when lingering a beat or two longer might give more emotional impact. There are also no clear indications when cutting between present time and flashbacks.
Oh, and plot holes, if one was to think too much about story logic.
Pro: Character relationships...or the concepts of them
Sibling relationships, friendships, romances...they all sound fine on paper for this drama. But I don't really feel anything for any of the relationships portrayed. All the characters just seem to go through the motions.
Well...maybe these two are just not good actors since it's hard to get any emotion out of them.
At least nothing is really offensive about any of their relationships.
Con: "Cute" characters
I just don't understand China's humor and their definition of cute. The bamboo shoot demon is so annoying.
Just want to punch that stupid face!
And maybe a part of it is China's dubbing of little children by (I'm pretty certain) adults. Their dubbed voices are just so fake and off-putting. I don't have great love for children to begin with and I hate dubbed little children even more!
Neutral: CGI
Some CGI scenes are good. Early on, I thought the mirror world scenes were good.
Some CGI are bad and sort of inexplicable. To this day, I still cannot understand why there's a floating red/black lotus to represent Mu Sheng's...heart? soul? inner core? demonic form?
For it's quality, I don't know why this drama is as popular as it is. And I'm just going to cut it short here because it's quitting time!
Well...
The story is about a modern ho-hum FL being sucked into a game of her favorite author's latest book. She finds that she's the second FL and needs to win second ML's heart and beat the game in order to go back to the real world. That sounds fun and gamey, right?
Cast and characters
Ho-hum FL, Miaomiao, is played by Esther Yu (Love Between Fairy and Devil, My Journey to You). Esther Yu is often criticized for her baby voice. But honestly, it's her annoying baby-ish acting that gets on my nerves. She was totally fine in My Journey to You and I dropped it for other reasons.
As Miaomiao...I don't know what the deal is with this character. She seems like a fairly normal adult female in modern times. But once she's transported into the game/novel world, she has to act super cutesy. Who acts like this in real life???
Cold ML with the heart of gold (or CGI lotus), Mu Sheng, is played by Ding Yuxi.
He's fine. Though his attractiveness suffers a -80 debuff once he is out of costume.
Game/novel world FL Mu Yao is played by Zhu Xudan (Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber (2018)).
She's also fine.
Game/novel world ML Liu Fuyi is played by Yang Shize.
His face is a blank slate. But I'll give him a pass, because his role is the actual ML of the novel/game world and they may be playing up the cold ML stereotype where he always has to look slightly inconvenienced.
Pros and Cons
Pro: Good concepts
A drama about a game. It seems like it would be an RPG.
Various twists and reveals, ie. who the author is and his relation to the FL, who the villain is and her relation to character(s) in the drama.
Con: Bad execution
A drama about an RPG sounds fun. But after maybe the first 1-4 episodes, it feels like all mention of the FL being in a game and needing to complete quests are gone. Then it's back in full force in the last 1-3 episodes, but pretty half-assed. So the entire middle section runs just like any normal Xianxia. It begs the question: why bother making this a drama about a character sucked into a game/novel in the first place? Miaomiao being a modern person does not affect the plot in any way besides to serve as audience insert.
While the twists and reveals are sometimes interesting, they are badly executed. There are a lot of flashbacks to show that the characters knew about various twists in advance but they are not foreshadowed properly. So they come off as lazily written exposition. And there are so many lazy expositions! Characters will start to explain some backstory and then flashback to the exact same exposition they were just explaining.
The editing is terrible too. Some scenes drag on for way too long. I'm not even talking about those long expositions. I'm talking about panning shots of scenery and long silences between characters before they cut to an unrelated scene. Some scenes end too abruptly when lingering a beat or two longer might give more emotional impact. There are also no clear indications when cutting between present time and flashbacks.
Oh, and plot holes, if one was to think too much about story logic.
Pro: Character relationships...or the concepts of them
Sibling relationships, friendships, romances...they all sound fine on paper for this drama. But I don't really feel anything for any of the relationships portrayed. All the characters just seem to go through the motions.
Well...maybe these two are just not good actors since it's hard to get any emotion out of them.
At least nothing is really offensive about any of their relationships.
Con: "Cute" characters
I just don't understand China's humor and their definition of cute. The bamboo shoot demon is so annoying.
Just want to punch that stupid face!
And maybe a part of it is China's dubbing of little children by (I'm pretty certain) adults. Their dubbed voices are just so fake and off-putting. I don't have great love for children to begin with and I hate dubbed little children even more!
Neutral: CGI
Some CGI scenes are good. Early on, I thought the mirror world scenes were good.
Some CGI are bad and sort of inexplicable. To this day, I still cannot understand why there's a floating red/black lotus to represent Mu Sheng's...heart? soul? inner core? demonic form?
For it's quality, I don't know why this drama is as popular as it is. And I'm just going to cut it short here because it's quitting time!