《少年歌行》 - episodes 19-25

[cashew]

I have...so many conflicting feelings.

• Fuck, I did not expect to like the main character so much, but I'm such a sucker for the self-sacrificing type.

• I'm actually kind of impressed by the main male lead now. At first I felt the acting was just OK, but compared to his peers, he's actually pulling off the poise and carriage of an aristocrat. Wow. Especially since he actually tries to make the shitty lines less shitty through his acting, so that exceeded my expectations.

• The problem with modern Wuxia is there's less and less requirements on the actors to know some basic martial arts. I'm not saying you have to actually be fully trained (like Jackie Chan or Jet Li), but at least go take a 3-month crash course on how to throw a realistic looking punch FFS.

• The very fact that these actors are keeping their backs straight while walking is apparently an achievement by modern 古装 standards. 😭 Like, here's an example demonstrating the basic "walking" skills of old period drama vs the modern period dramas:

• This show really cannot handle the politicking. Like...at all. Please do more fight scenes and stop reminding me that writers have no idea how politics work.

• The side romances are seriously bad. Uninteresting and poorly executed, and there's no emotional stakes. The main romances are actually much less annoying, probably because there's zero drama involved in their romance, so it's not getting in the way of the story.

• The idiot character is also slowly starting to grow on me. I really did not expect that.

• The inconsistent books prop bothers me. I mean I know it's a small thing when there are far bigger prop problems, but since the books are a MacGuffin, it keeps getting brought up and it's soooooo annoying.

• There's a strong danger of the plot becoming nonsensical. At least the character interactions are still fun.