This review may contain spoilers
An average drama with a seriously annoying male lead
I do love a drama about gods and demons and so on. At first glance this appeared to tick the boxes, but then it fell into the predictable cliches TVB employs.I usually find Brian Tse pretty bland to watch, almost like wallpaper paste or window dressing that is just a white veil. Nothing offensive but nothing outstanding, he is just there. However, this is a perfect match for his role as an immortal because the expected mannerisms of Lu Dong Bin just somehow compliments his acting method tremendously well. I found myself quite enjoying him in this role and I never thought I would say that. Predictably, the moment he was introduced with all his magical powers, TVB had to take them away so that the drama could last 20 episodes instead of being sorted in a single one, but the way he loses his powers was by his beard getting set on fire. That made no sense, why would his magical powers be tied to his beard? That’s like working out and getting all these muscles but one day losing your physique because somebody shaved your pubic hair.
Erica Chan is okay. So far - 7 episodes in - I do not have any lasting impression of her. The actress can be pretty good as she was one of the standout female characters of that TCM drama, but here she is just… there. I don’t hate her character but I feel like she lack the main female lead charisma needed to carry the show.
And then we have the most annoying character in the show played by Danny Hung. Man, he is a swindler here but he spends most of it constantly acting like a brash childish idiot screaming at Brian Tae the entire time. Brian has amazing patience as he accepts being shouted at but I just found myself hating Danny the more I watched the drama. It is not really Danny’s acting since he was great in the TCM drama, it was just that his role was so poorly written. He has two modes so far: throwing himself into a jealous outburst whenever anybody even comes close to Erica, or acting all high and noble as everybody thinks his is an immortal. His character was also written so stupidly, because he backstory was that he really believed in Lu Dong Bin as a child, but one day people came over to his house demanding his grandfather paid his debt due to his grandfather’s gambling habit. He prayed to Lu Dong Bin for help but Lu never came, and so he doesn’t believe in the gods and uses it to swindle people. Like his grandfather brought it on himself, how could he blame it on the gods? He should have blamed his grandfather for gambling with no abandon.
In any case, let’s see how this progresses. I never thought Brian Tae would be this dramas’ saving grace but there you go.
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