Demi God Semi Devil

Rating: ***.5

Genre: Wuxia, Fantasy, Adventure
Episodes: 40
Cast: Liu Yi Fei, Gao Hu, Hu Jun, Jimmy Lin, Liu Tao

"Tian Long Ba Bu is an adaption of a Jin Yong novel of the same name. The epic centers around the Beggar Leader Qiao Feng, the Dali Prince Duan Yu and the Shaolin Monk Xu Zhu. Each of their stories are interweaved throughout the show and finally clash and join at the climax of the story. Qiao Feng's story is his quest to find his real identity and the mystery surrounding an event that occured 30 years prior that left him as an orphan. Duan Yu's story covers his meetings with many of his half sisters that he did not know he had (thanks to his adventurous dad during his young days) and the battle with Duan Yuan Qing as the rightful ruler of Dali. Xu Zhu is a lowly Shaolin Monk who gets caught in the middle of an internal struggle of the Care Free Sect, one of the most powerful and secretative sects around. Their stories take place during the Northern Song Dynasty and across warring kingdoms of Song, Liao, Dali, and Western Xia."

I liked this drama, I really did.  However, I did not enjoy the beginning and end very much.  I have to agree that the beginning and end were a bit rushed.  Then again, I guess it's because in the original novel the story is also rushed.  In all honesty, I didn't really like Qiao Feng's story at all.  I loved Duan Yu and Xu Zhu's stories as they were funny and enjoyable, but Qiao Feng's story was just kind of annoying.  If it weren't for the two other main characters, I wouldn't have even watched it.

I kind of like the fact that they just switch actors when the characters are supposed to be in disguise.  It made it kind of funny and I bet it was a lot easier for the make up artists then to have to create a disguise for the actors.  As far as the acting goes, I didn't pay too much attention to it.  I'm kind of a sucker for Jimmy Lin just because he makes me laugh.  There are certain actors that can make people laugh just by their expressions, and Jimmy is one of them.

Funny Note: Guy gets hit in the face with a twig on Episode 11 around 12:23

Single Princesses and Blind Dates

Rating: ***.5

Genre: Romance, Comedy
Episodes: 30
Cast: Jimmy Lin, Dylan Kuo, Zhao Jing, Hong Xiao Ling, Chen Yan Fei, Xin Zi

"The 25 years old Le Tong Tong (乐彤彤) has two best friends Lala (拉拉) and Bamei (八妹). Three days ago, the conversation between the bride-to-be Le Tong Tong and her fiancé was recorded by the office’s hidden camera. The video about their breakup immediately was spread in the office.

Then came the shocking news that the young and beautiful newcomer in the Advertising department will replace Tong Tong as the bride. The humiliated Tong Tong tells a lie that she already has a new sweetheart. Everyone in the office, except Tong Tong’s two best friends Lala and Bamei, is full of expectations to what will unfold. Tong Tong comes up with the “Blind Dating Plan” overnight and vows to find a husband who is N times better than her ex. She will even give up all chances for promotion and will spend all her vacations and evenings in six months on blind dates. The story of the single princess and blind dates unfolds."

Although this series was charming and worthy of a viewing, there were some things that could have been a lot better within the series. Most of them were just from the production of the drama and not the story itself, though. For instance, unless I am mistaken, they used dubs for the main character instead of having the female lead's voice. Truthfully, I don't think they should have done this. If the actor cannot properly speak, then they should find another actor that can. I mean, the acting wasn't very good anyway, so why did they do extra work by voicing over it? When someone voices over the audio, it creates audio that is too clean. There is no background noise to it, and it makes it very unnatural. Not only that, whoever did the voice dubs has the most annoying voice I've ever heard. I think I've heard her voice before in another series, but I cannot remember the name of the series.

Another production mistake was the spelling of Carey's name. In the first episode, her name was spelled Carry, but around episode 29 they suddenly started spelling it Carey. (I'm not talking about the subtitles here. Both of the spellings of her name is on the original film.) Not only that, but Carey was shown eating a non opened chocolate bar. Like the actor pretended to open it and eat it, but it was obviously never opened.

I also have to point out that Fang Yan seemed to know things that he wouldn't have been able to know unless he was stalking Tong Tong. At first I didn't find him creepy at all. However, as the story went on, he got more and more creepy. I think that the writer didn't consider how the character would know these things.

In any case, I believe this drama was pretty good. Even though there were numerous problems, I still enjoyed it.

My Lucky Star

Rating: ****

Genre: Comedy, Romance
Episodes: 20
Cast: Hong Xiao Ling, Jimmy Lin, Lee Wei, Leon Jay Williams, Yoo Ha Na

"Like the boy who cried wolf, Xia Zhi Xing had lied one too many times. So when she did tell the truth, nobody believed her except for the most unlikely person, Zhong Tian Qi, a runaway young master of a jewelry empire. His belief in her inspired her to become a real jewelry designer instead of a lying, scheming jewelry con artist. In the process, she taught him the real value of jewels that he is destined to inherit. "