Da Ren Wu / Big shot review
Da Ren Wu / Big Shot
Story
Naïve, young Tian Si Si, the apple of her father’s eye and the sole heir to her family’s riches, believes that she is in love with the great romantic hero, Qin Ge of the Meteor Clan. She dreams of traveling the martial arts world, actually meeting Qin Ge and having adventures just like many of the stories that she has read and heard. From childhood, she has been betrothed to the younger son of General Yang, Yang Fan, whom she despises. Handsome, melancholy, talented Yang Fan has been on a mission for his father to secretly investigate the Meteor Clan whose upright reputation and strength has been rising in the martial arts world to rival that of Shaolin and Wudang. He comes back injured and somewhat changed, troubled with memory loss after an investigation. He marries Tian Si Si as his father ordered, but Tian Si Si has other plans for her life and runs away at the first opportunity. She quickly becomes entangled in plots and counter plots as she discovers the real world. Both Yang Fan and Qin Ge are ordered to go after her. All is not what it seems as the Meteor Clan and its members, rivals and government agents are at work behind the scenes. (summary from DramaWiki)
The story starts out quite simple and gave me the impression that it was going to center around Yang Fan and Tian Sisi. However, around episode 10 or so it starts to branch out. Chuchu gets a more prominent role and the story revolves around the conflict within the Snowy Mountain Clan. It was that part of the story that I enjoyed most and up until then I thought that the plot was enjoyable. However, after that it goes downhill. To make it short, the story becomes a bit of a mess. Too much is focused around the villains to the point where it's a rare treat to see any of the four leading characters. The end is even worse, Yang Fan and Tian Sisi disappear for some time and only brings them back for the latter half of final episode. They were far from being my favorite characters but it felt like they should have been involved a lot more in the series. It was like the writers didn't remember until the last minute that they were the main characters and brought them back for that reason. Aside from that there were a lot of loose ends that the writers forgot about or didn't bother to tidy up. Sisi' final reasoning and thoughts about fame in the ending stayed true to the theme that was introduced early in the series. But since then, with all the plot twists, side stories and at times bad writing, the series had gone into a whole another direction. The theme of the series wasn't only lost among the chaotic mess that was the plot, but it seemed forced as well.
Cast/Characters
Nicholas Tse as Yang Fan
Least to say, Yang Fan is a mess of a character. It's impossible to explain more without spoiling everything. But in my opinion, he was written inconsistently in the beginning, which could be explained by the plot twist. What can't be explained by the plot twist is how badly his character was written after the plot twist was revealed. Nicholas Tse didn't redeem the character either, in the first half he looked bored constantly regardless of whether he was supposed to be angry, sad, happy. He got a little better towards the end but by then his character has such reduced screentime that it was too late.
Angelica Lee as Tian Sisi
Tian Sisi is a despicable character. I really hated her character in the beginning, she was beyond the typical rich and spoiled girl. She did mature and grow out of it around half of the series which made her likeable but at the same time very unrealistic. It's not the fact that she matured, but rather that she did it quickly and became almost saintlike afterwards. But despite the criticism for the character, Angelica Lee is wonderful in her role. Even thought I hated the way Sisi was in the beginning, Angelica's acting made up for it. She never exaggerates whether Sisi is acting like a spoiled princess or later when she has matured. Angelica's acting is very natural and vivacious. The only thing working against her was that she was playing against Nicholas Tse whose acting was the exact opposite.
Liu Tao as Gongzi Chu (Chuchu)
While Yang Fan and Tian Sisi were set up to be the protagonists and the main characters of the series, Chuchu was probably the real heroine of the series. Aside from being a very welcome voice of reason among all the characters, Chuchu is brave and heroic. She probably sees more action than Yang Fan and Tian Sisi put together and rarely needs to be saved. The series would have done a lot better if it kept the focus on Chuchu like it did in the middle with the Snowy Mountain Clan story arc. Liu Tao shines in her role and was one of the reasons why I kept watching. The other reason being her character's interaction with Liu Qing which was the best thing that came out of this series.
Yan Kuan as Qin Ge
Qin Ge is basically a spin on a modern day idol. All the girls worship him, own red scarves like the one he has around his neck and frequently go to a shop where they buy Qin Ge merchandise such as paintings and poetry books. If they are lucky they can get Qin Ge's autograph on them. Yan Kuan is good as the suave and handsome Qin Ge, who relishes in the attention he gets and almost being worshipped as a hero. But as time goes on he starts to see things differently and realizes that he might not be the hero everyone thinks he is. Yan Kuan is really underrated and underused in this series. What's sad about his character is that while he was praised to the skies in the beginning, no one seemed to even acknowledge his last heroic act in the end.
Ren Tian Ye as Liu Qing
Liu Qing is only in the series for about 10 episodes but his presence was certainly memorable. The oldest disciple of the Snowy Mountain Clan, he was set to take over once his master was gone. On the surface, Liu Qing is a carefree drunkard who enjoys bickering with Chuchu a little too much to convince anyone that he doesn't have a crush on her. However, deep inside he is a noble and caring person. Liu Qing was probably one of the best written characters on the show because despite having two different sides his character is consistent and enjoyable to watch. Ren Tian Ye and Liu Tao have very good chemistry and while their characters pretend that they are bickering, as a viewer it's easy to tell that there's no malice between them at all and that the bickering is half the fun of their relationship.
Costumes
The costumes are at times good and at times... not so beautiful. On one hand they dressed characters such as Qin Ge, Jiang Manhong and Chuchu in beautiful costumes that fitted their characters perfectly. Tian Sisi gets beautiful costumes mostly, aside from a strange pink/green dress she occasionally wears. Then there's Yang Fan, whose costume looks more like a white version of what Neo wore in Matrix: Reloaded with a tribal pattern on it. Not that there's anything wrong with that particular costume, it just looks out of place considering the time and setting this series takes place in. The worst case is Chong Buzing of the Crow Clan. I cringed every time I saw her on screen because not only does she have a modern haircut and wears a fake looking mask, her costume makes her look like a circus trapeze artist. So while the costumes are mostly good, the one that's bad is really bad.
Choreography
I hate to criticise Angelica Lee because her acting was really good but her fighting scenes leaves something to be desired. Her movements look awkward, as if they are just rehersed movements. I realize that this is what choreography is about, but a lot of actors are able to make their movements look natural on screen. Angelica failed in doing this which didn't make her fighting scenes look convincing. The choreography itself is nothing to rave about, it's rather standard and lacks originality.
Music
Initially I got interested in this series about watching the trailer (Youtube link). The song "Ming Yue Guang" is probably one of the most beautiful duets that I've ever heard and that alone made me want to watch this series. However, I was disappointed to find out that not only is it neither the opening nor the ending theme, it doesn't appear in the series at all. Disappointing, but at least I have downloaded the song so I'm happy. As for the opening and ending themes themselves, they are okay but not more than that. They don't exactly give an accurate representation of the show. The lyrics of the music doesn't suit the theme of the show (which is probably because the plot changed directions so many times) and the clips are mostly of Yang Fan and Tian Sisi even though there were so many other important characters.
Overall impression
I both loved and hated this series, depending on what episode I was watching. The beginning was good, and then the arc with the Snowy Mountain Clan came and I thought that the show was addictive because I couldn't stop watching. Then later on I found myself fastforwarding through a lot of scenes and not feeling that I missed on much at all. Watch this series for the actors and the characters I've listed above (except for Nicholas Tse and Yang Fan) and this might be worth it, although be prepared to get confused and frustrated at the messy plot.
3,5 out of 5.