To start this off, if you don’t already know I’m addicted to Asian drama, it’s pretty much all I watch, with the exception of shows like The Great Australian Bake-off and Grand Designs. The terribly dramatic storylines, epic costumes and preponderance for fantasy is like catnip for this author; I can turn my brain off, sit back and enjoy. (And indulge in throwing popcorn at the screen while trying to keep my eyes from rolling out of my head.)
So, this week I’ve been bingeing a historical drama called Ni Chang, while flirting with a fantasy titled Snow Eagle Lord. I made it halfway through both 40-some episode series, before I dropped them.
Ni Chang was enjoyable, right up until the amnesiac prince remembered that the heroine saved his life back in episode 2.
Those reveals where the character discovers something that the audience already knows and has been waiting forever for them to figure out can be pretty awesome. There all this tension and you’re sitting there, biting your nails just waiting for the moment and then… Huzzah! Dramatic reveal! Angst! Joy! Fireworks! And then even more drama unfolds and you’re dancing around the living room giggling like a maniac (or is that just me?).
Those reveals are awesome, but they can also kill a story if you don’t put them in the right spot, and/or have another reveal coming up behind. The Untamed did it really well, but Ni Chang… not so much. It landed its reveal right at the halfway mark and didn’t have another juicy “OMG when are they gonna that find out?” ready to rumble. So… I dropped it like a boring arse stone.
As for Snow Eagle Lord… Well, it was pretty and giggle-worthy (albeit unintentionally) but it felt a little flat without enough juicy character stuff. That said, I really liked the romance arc between the two leads. It was subtle but satisfying and didn’t make me want to strangle either character for being insufferably stupid.
I’m now watching Under the Power. Five minutes in and I’m like “oooh, gruesome nasty!! Niiiice.” ???? Like, there’s this torture scene and you don’t see anything, but the sounds… squick. And then we have the hero, who happens to be the dude inflicting the pain and his expression… Dead man, dead as a doornail.
This is gonna be good.