![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Dropped: Mystery of Antiques (古董局中局) (2018)
To be honest I don’t enjoy the tomb raiding genre of cdramas. I had hoped that the older cast would made it a little more interesting. I do think the acting in this drama was better than what I’ve seen from other tomb raiding cdramas, but it still couldn’t make up for the generic story line. I ended up dropping this drama after three episodes.
Story
In the three episodes that I watched, Xu Yuan was sought out by an alliance of a families who were concerned with the caretaking of Chinese artifacts. Xu Yuan’s family was an original member, but his grandfather was executed for being a traitor to the country. That was why some of the older members scoffed at the idea of Xu Yuan working his way back into the alliance.
The first few episodes were about the members of the family trying to convince Xu Yuan to join them. Xu Yuan was reluctant, but his interest and knowledge of artifacts was undoubtedly strong and so he would help them solve problems anyway.
Pretty generic story. I am a cdrama vet by now so I know to expect slow starts but even slow starts should move the plot and the plot barely moved in the first three episodes. We know that Xu Yuan’s going to join the alliance and clear his family’s name, so what’s with all this stalling? The idea of having an alliance, secret societies, past history, all of these themes are common in other tomb raiding cdramas I’ve watched (and haven’t finished) so at this point they don’t interest me at all.
Production
The acting was better, but otherwise the budget wasn’t that great. We got the same cdrama lighting, the same cdrama dubbing. I wanted to enjoy it but I just couldn’t see this drama getting better. The way scenes moved was also not very interesting. A lot is told and not shown. Maybe because we don’t have the budget for fancy artifacts. That being said, Xia Yu (Xu Yuan's actor) did a lot better when he was explaining his thought process as opposed to showing because he's a better actor than the production team are CGI artists.
Characters
The actors were doing their best with their scripts but unfortunately their characters didn’t have a lot to go off of.
Xu Yuan was meant to be a cool thirty year old historian, he just wanted to live his life and he did have a heart of gold, he just happened to have a great knowledge of artifacts that had him inevitably linked to the alliance. Xu Yuan could have done this role but unfortunately he was noticeably older than his character, and the writers had trouble showing his reluctance because he was clearly too interested.
Yao Buran was a bit of a non-character at this point. He investigated Xu Yuan a bit but he didn’t really have an opinion about keeping him. Huang Yanyan on the other hand was a very odd character. She was very strong willed but it was hard to see what her deal was.
Overall
Once again I am confirming that the tomb raiding of cdramas is not for me. They all look and feel the same way. The downside of this drama was that even with a more experienced cast, they fell back onto a generic and slow story.
Story
In the three episodes that I watched, Xu Yuan was sought out by an alliance of a families who were concerned with the caretaking of Chinese artifacts. Xu Yuan’s family was an original member, but his grandfather was executed for being a traitor to the country. That was why some of the older members scoffed at the idea of Xu Yuan working his way back into the alliance.
The first few episodes were about the members of the family trying to convince Xu Yuan to join them. Xu Yuan was reluctant, but his interest and knowledge of artifacts was undoubtedly strong and so he would help them solve problems anyway.
Pretty generic story. I am a cdrama vet by now so I know to expect slow starts but even slow starts should move the plot and the plot barely moved in the first three episodes. We know that Xu Yuan’s going to join the alliance and clear his family’s name, so what’s with all this stalling? The idea of having an alliance, secret societies, past history, all of these themes are common in other tomb raiding cdramas I’ve watched (and haven’t finished) so at this point they don’t interest me at all.
Production
The acting was better, but otherwise the budget wasn’t that great. We got the same cdrama lighting, the same cdrama dubbing. I wanted to enjoy it but I just couldn’t see this drama getting better. The way scenes moved was also not very interesting. A lot is told and not shown. Maybe because we don’t have the budget for fancy artifacts. That being said, Xia Yu (Xu Yuan's actor) did a lot better when he was explaining his thought process as opposed to showing because he's a better actor than the production team are CGI artists.
Characters
The actors were doing their best with their scripts but unfortunately their characters didn’t have a lot to go off of.
Xu Yuan was meant to be a cool thirty year old historian, he just wanted to live his life and he did have a heart of gold, he just happened to have a great knowledge of artifacts that had him inevitably linked to the alliance. Xu Yuan could have done this role but unfortunately he was noticeably older than his character, and the writers had trouble showing his reluctance because he was clearly too interested.
Yao Buran was a bit of a non-character at this point. He investigated Xu Yuan a bit but he didn’t really have an opinion about keeping him. Huang Yanyan on the other hand was a very odd character. She was very strong willed but it was hard to see what her deal was.
Overall
Once again I am confirming that the tomb raiding of cdramas is not for me. They all look and feel the same way. The downside of this drama was that even with a more experienced cast, they fell back onto a generic and slow story.