O Castigador de Demônios (2020)

A Train is Coming ......

The Devil Punisher is a 2020 romance fantasy supernatural drama co-produced by Sanli and Netflix. This drama includes some elements of mythology. I was originally really pumped waiting for this drama to finish airing since the synopsis looks pretty interesting. I ran here after finished watching the drama, and all I can say is it is a train wreck.

In Chinese mythology, Zhong Kui is a demon fighter (you might have seen pictures of him posted on doors). According to legends, when he was a mortal, he lived during the Tang dynasty era. He participated in the palace examination, however, due to jealousy, the prime minister framed him and he took his own life. Meanwhile, Meng Po is known as the goddess/ grandma who cooks forgetfulness soup so that souls who reincarnate will have no memories of their past life, thus there is no grievances nor resentfulness. This drama narrative revolves around Zhong Kui and Meng Po as lovers that transcend over time.

It all started after a hateful spirit burned a bridge in the underworld realm and dragged Meng Po to the human realm. Upon arriving at the human realm, Meng Po memory was erased and her heavenly aura was sealed, making Zhong Kui unable to find her for a period of time. Shortly after finding Meng Po, Zhong Kui and Meng Po crack stranger supernatural cases together, and in the process of it, Meng Po falls for Zhong Kui once again. However, not long after problems start to brew bigger. The problems they were solving were like dominos that lead to one another, which ultimately lead to the big plan and the villain. The villain in the drama is really predictable, after watching a few episodes, I am pretty sure that most of the viewers are able to guess who is the big bad boss.

This drama was funny and interesting in the first few episodes, I laughed quite a few times watching the earlier episodes. However, it got really draggy and it has a lot of nonsensical plot and plotholes in the middle of the drama. The climax lacks intensity, and the ending of this drama was really rushed and full of nonsense. Why go all around circles, ups and down when the problem/ trial could be solved easily. For real, the problem-solving in this drama was really funny and nonsense. In addition, one episode of this drama is around 1 hour long, which will probably make some fall asleep or really sleepy while watching this.

The characters in this drama are straight so bland, they have no personality or whatsoever. I don't know if the characters were written in that way. And I'd like to give a slap to En Xi, she acted so bratty and took everything for granted. The actors and actresses' acting was emmm, it was like a child's play. I watched one of Mike He's dramas, Cambrian Period, but his acting does not give me any impression, meanwhile, this is the first Ivy Shao drama I watched. Their acting was downright bland, I am sorry to say this but I feel like all of the actors in this drama were just reciting lines. I mean yea the male lead looks hot and the female lead looks cute but they have no chemistry at all. I always laughed at their kiss scenes, I feel like watching 2 fishes kissing every time they kissed...

This drama got a pretty huge subsidy from the government, however, I wonder where all those budgets went. The production, the cinematography is so terrible it looks like a high school kid production drama. I don't know if because it is shot during Corona or what but it is terrible. I have no words on how to describe it, I The CGI was average, not too bad but not good also, even though there were some terrible CGIs. And even if the cinematography is terrible, I am still kinda looking forward to the actor's outfit but again, their outfit is soo bland.. And the historical/ period costume, makeup, the hairstyle was horrendous; I am sure even a small production period drama did it better. As for the BGM and OSTs, there is nothing catchy in particular.

I thought I'd give this 4.5, because there are some cases that were pretty touching (but still not well-developed), and for their comedy element in the early episodes, and lastly for the character development. The only character development I see throughout this series is Zhong Kui and Ouyang Kai. Their character develops as the story arc progresses- Zhong Kui became more "sympathetic and more humane", Ouyang Kai became more "mature".

I thought of dropping it halfway, but I kept on watching since I was curious if the story takes a better turn but It does not. Overall, if you are a fan of the actors or genre, go ahead and watch but for me who is not a fan of the actor nor genres, it is a waste of time and energy.

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Give it a Try—There’s more to this show than you think

I think that some people struggled watching this show because there were some links to Devil Punisher being a lot like Goblin.

But let me just tell you that it’s not really the case. The show had a lot of layers to it that all lead to one major tipping point by the end.

And while romance/love is a strong, consistent piece of the story as a whole, The Devil Punisher is a combination mystery, karma/fate, revenge and supernatural/ ghosts.

In fact the whole things kicks off due to a 1,000 vendetta against the Ghost King but the signs of another character at play were even clear in the first episode and that mystery element is what hooked me right away.

But like I said there’s a lot of mention of karma and a trial meant for the main lead character, Chong Kui, that only he can indoor by the end. To me this was probably the most annoying thing to find out because he was surrounded by gods and he couldn’t really do anything at times.

At the same time, this brought humility to the show and his character because as an ordinary person when face obstacles in our lives we can’t just make them go away with powers. (And obviously, I could relate to seeing him mopping around.)

And this linked/faded battle between the villain, Lu Chi, in the center of the story brought to light even more barriers within the story’s construction of the “three realms” that give pause to some (American) viewers which I understand.

There’s a lot of instances where we were like “why can’t they do this?; why can’t this happen?” but just based on the rules that show up in the world of the show that the “gods” can’t really interfere with the whole ordeal as a while actually starts to make sense as you continue to watch.

Is it annoying? ABSOLUTELY!!!!! Did I find Chong Kui’s determination to face all of it on his own without considering Meng Po’s perspective ridiculous?

Absolutely!!!! But that was just something his character seemed to even more aggressively by the end because he knew Meng Po wouldn’t sit back and do nothing when she felt so responsible for Lu Chi’s actions.

But, as an American viewer, there where themes and details I had to wrap my head around while watching this as it seemed to reveal a lot of cultural and mythology elements that I wasn’t familiar with.

By the end of the show, I realized why we got so much time in the “mortal world” between the two leads and why there was so much buildup and (at times) what felt like “filler” leading up to that last few episodes.

Moreover, because of the way the ending is and really how things started in their past lives those scenes were basically there to show us and to give the main characters time together because it becomes clear that it wasn’t something they had before.

The ending made me cry but I am so glad I watched it till the end because there is a resolution to everything.

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