So this was mostly about a bunch of beautiful people, mainly the male characters, walking around looking beautiful , often huskily whispering their dialogue, with some modern C-Rock/Pop scoring over the impressive CGI….we’ll sort of. Lol. There is a story of adventure, self discovery , along with a mission to gain the means to stop the ultimate evil. We quickly learn who the villains are in this. After which each episode repeats the same story with Li Lun (a demon) in partnership with Chong Wu’s leader, having convinced some poor demon to ally with the former because they believe he’s going to help them get something they want. The only differences is the demon and the setting in which the conflict takes place. This was interesting to start but began to get stale after a few episodes. Thankfully, Li Lun’s villainy changed up halfway through the series.

The characters spend a LOT of time standing around calmly talking in intense situations where things should be moving quickly. Moreover, if something goes terribly wrong there were a LOT of moments where the characters literally stood there for 10 minutes starring prettily at the horror unfolding before them, doing nothing. For this to be a show about sword wielding mortals who were fighting powerful demons, the pace was at times a bit too slow. Again, many scenes dragged focusing on one “epic” CGI moment for far too long before moving the story forward.

Despite my qualms, thus far, the series has been incredibly engaging. The leads have fantastic chemistry especially Zhu Yan ( Demon ML), Zhuo Yi (Mortal ML) and Wen Xiao (FL/Goddess). These three have had some great scenes all together and when it was just one with the other. I really enjoy Zhu Yan. He’s a demon, but he’s far from evil. He’s mischievous and compassionate with a hilarious sense of humor. Love him. The brotherly love between him and Zhuo Yi is palpable while his chemistry with Wen Xiao is incredibly easy, natural , with some lovely swoon moments thrown in.

The acting is not award winning and doesn’t need to be. However, it does work for this series. I will say though, the actress who plays Pei Ji (Cheng Xiao) is a horrible. Her delivery lacks emotion and almost stops short of being deadpan. SMH. The series still has a few more episodes before it finishes but considering what has been shown thus far I don’t believe it’ll end happily for our heroes. :( If the series continues to maintain the compelling aspects of the story/characters it will have been worth watching, and will be worth watching again.

Update: Finished this series. Overall this was more character driven than anything. Though the story was quite interesting too. I will say the last 7 episodes were so good, but emotionally draining. Heartbreaking storytelling. Thus, binging may not be the best approach. As expected the ending was extremely painful to watch, but the bonus episode revealed that all may not be lost. Great series. Most of it will be fun to rewatch save for the last few episodes which I think many will not want to experience again.