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Dropped: Candle in the Tomb: The Wrath of Time (鬼吹燈之怒晴湘西) (2019)
I think this drama kind of reaffirmed to me that the tomb raiding genre of Cdramas is not for me. The last tomb raiding Cdrama I watched was Candle in the Tomb featuring Jin Dong, and that one was too campy for me. Candle in the Tomb: The Wrath of Time had a far higher production value and the story was slightly less cheesey. However, I still found the story kind of uninspiring, and I did not feel particularly hyped to watch this show, except to watch the cast.
Spoilers up to episode 8.
Story
The story was a typical "finding treasure" sort of story line. At the time where I dropped the drama, it was split into two story lines. One was following Chen Yulou and General Luo in the underground tomb. The other story line followed Hong Guniang and Zheguxiao...what they were doing, I didn't quite catch.
I think I found the story uninspired because for the most part, tomb raiding is a Western import. Not that there are no Chinese stories about finding treasure, but they are not Like This. They are not like Tomb Raider where they go underground and avoid traps to find treasure. Why do we care about the treasure? Make me care. I didn't care. I didn't feel inspired by our main characters' goals.
And while the story has been relatively well executed (compared to my expectations), there were still parts of it that were clumsily handled. There were a lot of tropes that were dragged out and made me bored.
Hong Guniang being a fish out of water, not being in tune with a more natural life and the way of things, etc. got real old real fast. She can't be this stubborn and out of touch. If she was, she would not have lasted this long as a right-hand of Chen Yulou.
Another story line was the one relating to Kunlun. He was portrayed as a man who had some intellectual disabilities but otherwise had a heart of gold. This was shown in his interactions with Hualing. However, Kunlun perished in the collapsing of one of the tombs, and Chen Yulou spends quite some time mourning him (Hualing mourns him too, albeit to a lesser extent on screen). I felt like Chen Yulou's mourning of Kunlun was not proportional to the time we saw them alive together.
So overall, I felt that the story didn't really have anything going on for it. It wasn't rage inducing, but I didn't care about it, as it felt very much like a transplant.
Production
I did think that the production quality was very good, from the set and costumes to the higher quality and variety in visual direction. It's such a pity because those aspects did make me want to keep watching.
I also am a fan of a few of the main cast, including Pan Yueming, Gao Weiguang, and Xin Zhilei. I really wanted to keep watching for them, but the story wasn't enough to keep me going.
Characters
I kind of couldn't get a hold on Chen Yulou. At first, he seemed to be sort of a capitalist, and opportunist. But by the time I dropped the drama, it seemed like the drama wanted us to see him as a true sympathizer of historical settings, as opposed to the more greedy General Luo. It seemed like a weird shift from showing us how Chen Yulou didn't have the best intentions, to how he's now apparently the most altruistic guy ever.
Hong Guniang was his right hand. She was a very capable martial artist. And I thought she was fun! I like having characters like her. However, as I mentioned, her somewhat yell-y and exasperated personality got real old real fast. The first time I was irritated by it was when she and Zheguxiao watched a wolf hunt a deer. Zheguxiao stopped her from intervening and killing the wolf. And when the deer was suffering, Hong Guniang seemed shocked that Zheguxiao would release the deer from its suffering by killing it. Obviously Zheguxiao was more in tune with nature, having lived in this environment for longer, but the way we were hit over the head with it was very old. And Hong Guniang was also supposed to be the sympathetic jiejie to Rongmao Yixiao, and yet she was part of the gang who had kidnapped him. Make it make sense.
Zheguxiao was kind of a free spirit, with his shidi and shimei, Laoyangren and Hualing. The very first scene featured the three of them, so we can assume that he once was a sort of tomb raider as well. We later see in a dream of his that his presumably late mother had entrusted him with finding a certain treasure, and that's what the group of them were doing. He was an okay character, nothing much to note about him.
General Luo was your typical big bad villain. He even had a huge scar across his face, and by the time I dropped the drama, he'd lost an eye and covered it with an eye patch. He was hasty and greedy. He and Chen Yulou were meant to collaborate on their expedition but later they start to have disagreements, particularly when things get scary. We also see that he has plans to possibly go behind Chen Yulou's back.
Overall
This drama would probably be an okay watch, but I just don't really have the patience to stick with dramas that aren't stimulating me. I can imagine that this drama may have exciting adventures and such, but it hasn't really done much to attract me or to at least give me a reason to care. Like I said, uninspiring :( It's a pity, because I really wanted to enjoy this higher production budget with a cast that I liked. But I guess in the future I'll know that this genre is just not for me.
Spoilers up to episode 8.
Story
The story was a typical "finding treasure" sort of story line. At the time where I dropped the drama, it was split into two story lines. One was following Chen Yulou and General Luo in the underground tomb. The other story line followed Hong Guniang and Zheguxiao...what they were doing, I didn't quite catch.
I think I found the story uninspired because for the most part, tomb raiding is a Western import. Not that there are no Chinese stories about finding treasure, but they are not Like This. They are not like Tomb Raider where they go underground and avoid traps to find treasure. Why do we care about the treasure? Make me care. I didn't care. I didn't feel inspired by our main characters' goals.
And while the story has been relatively well executed (compared to my expectations), there were still parts of it that were clumsily handled. There were a lot of tropes that were dragged out and made me bored.
Hong Guniang being a fish out of water, not being in tune with a more natural life and the way of things, etc. got real old real fast. She can't be this stubborn and out of touch. If she was, she would not have lasted this long as a right-hand of Chen Yulou.
Another story line was the one relating to Kunlun. He was portrayed as a man who had some intellectual disabilities but otherwise had a heart of gold. This was shown in his interactions with Hualing. However, Kunlun perished in the collapsing of one of the tombs, and Chen Yulou spends quite some time mourning him (Hualing mourns him too, albeit to a lesser extent on screen). I felt like Chen Yulou's mourning of Kunlun was not proportional to the time we saw them alive together.
So overall, I felt that the story didn't really have anything going on for it. It wasn't rage inducing, but I didn't care about it, as it felt very much like a transplant.
Production
I did think that the production quality was very good, from the set and costumes to the higher quality and variety in visual direction. It's such a pity because those aspects did make me want to keep watching.
I also am a fan of a few of the main cast, including Pan Yueming, Gao Weiguang, and Xin Zhilei. I really wanted to keep watching for them, but the story wasn't enough to keep me going.
Characters
I kind of couldn't get a hold on Chen Yulou. At first, he seemed to be sort of a capitalist, and opportunist. But by the time I dropped the drama, it seemed like the drama wanted us to see him as a true sympathizer of historical settings, as opposed to the more greedy General Luo. It seemed like a weird shift from showing us how Chen Yulou didn't have the best intentions, to how he's now apparently the most altruistic guy ever.
Hong Guniang was his right hand. She was a very capable martial artist. And I thought she was fun! I like having characters like her. However, as I mentioned, her somewhat yell-y and exasperated personality got real old real fast. The first time I was irritated by it was when she and Zheguxiao watched a wolf hunt a deer. Zheguxiao stopped her from intervening and killing the wolf. And when the deer was suffering, Hong Guniang seemed shocked that Zheguxiao would release the deer from its suffering by killing it. Obviously Zheguxiao was more in tune with nature, having lived in this environment for longer, but the way we were hit over the head with it was very old. And Hong Guniang was also supposed to be the sympathetic jiejie to Rongmao Yixiao, and yet she was part of the gang who had kidnapped him. Make it make sense.
Zheguxiao was kind of a free spirit, with his shidi and shimei, Laoyangren and Hualing. The very first scene featured the three of them, so we can assume that he once was a sort of tomb raider as well. We later see in a dream of his that his presumably late mother had entrusted him with finding a certain treasure, and that's what the group of them were doing. He was an okay character, nothing much to note about him.
General Luo was your typical big bad villain. He even had a huge scar across his face, and by the time I dropped the drama, he'd lost an eye and covered it with an eye patch. He was hasty and greedy. He and Chen Yulou were meant to collaborate on their expedition but later they start to have disagreements, particularly when things get scary. We also see that he has plans to possibly go behind Chen Yulou's back.
Overall
This drama would probably be an okay watch, but I just don't really have the patience to stick with dramas that aren't stimulating me. I can imagine that this drama may have exciting adventures and such, but it hasn't really done much to attract me or to at least give me a reason to care. Like I said, uninspiring :( It's a pity, because I really wanted to enjoy this higher production budget with a cast that I liked. But I guess in the future I'll know that this genre is just not for me.