Another addition to the "Could have been,but isn't" list

i have just completed this show and oh man!! where do i start. The story had a great premise and initially the execution was also brilliant.i have not skipped a single scene for almost 25 episodes and for me personally that's almost a milestone particularly when it comes to c-dramas. this was probablyh the third show after BEGIN AGAIN and ONCE WE GET MARRIED to achieve such feat.Then just like many other shows it just took a nose dive and by the time the show ended it crashed and burnt so hard that you almost feel the showmakers wanted the audience to hate themselves for putting in so much time of their lives.
So the story is about a spiritual creature THE PHONEIX that lives beyond the three realms namely heaven,demon and mortal. our FL wei zhi is from a noble family who after some unfortunate incidents had to live as a maid for WEI family.when the daughters of the wei family are asked to join the immortal bones cermony( or something i dont rremember the name properly) the maid is also asked to join them because she is also of the same age and when a group of 18members are presented near the mirror the phoneix awakens and all these 18 students are selected for training. In comes our ML yan yue who is an immortal being from the heavenly realm and god of the sun with a mission to find the real phoneix among the 18 students.he joins the academy as an instructor and a great love story unfolds.

PROS: i think the story is really fresh and one of the best fantasy fiction i have seen though the makers faltered in its execution.the VFX were really great from start to end.the OST was also great,the FL sang some of them and her voice is very soothing and brings out emotion of the scene very well.2ML acting was superb

CONS: the biggest CON was the ending.they just rushed through it and you end up scrathing your head over what has happened.they could have removed some unnecessary slow paced flashback(both leads previous lives) and given themselves some room in the end to make it an meaningful finish. I saw in iQIYI that the show is also known as HUORANG which is basically magical flower in the show,but they neither gave a backstory to huorang nor a decent explanation of what happened to it in the end.Second biggest con would be the casting,i would never hire the casting director ever again whoever he is. None of the leads were suitable for their roles,nor did the cast live up to thier roles.even the support cast failed to impress me.the main leads looked beautiful but personally didnt feel their chemistry appealing at all. funnily you will love the main lead acting when he is possessed by his evil father and becomes evil.The FL was never able to bring out any emotions properly for a role as powerful as the phoneix,she was literally the title actress but was always a damsel in distress preceded by an intense scene.The BGM was also not upto par when there are some intense scenes like when the FL first reveals herself to be the phoneix the bgm is just plain flat and almost brings down the whole energy of the scene.

All in all this was a show that could have been one of the greatest shows from china,but was brought down by its inconsistent pace of screenplay.its almost like they started the show with around 45 episodes in mind but were suddenly asked to bring it down to 36episodes. This show is watchable once for its freshness and a new concept,but never recommend to rewatch it not even once.

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