An Actor's Rhapsody Season 2 (2024)

A parody of Xianxia in style and quality

In order to honor the many Xianxia dramas out there, I will keep this review low-effort and low-quality. This also seems to be the general consensus among the Chinese public about Xianxia as a genre--where quality and originality go to die in multiple lifetimes and banality flourish for a heavenly eternity. A casual peak at Chinese internet such as Bilibili will yield a kaleidoscope of rant videos lampooning the vapidity of the genre.

So making a parody drama should be as easy as electrocuting fish in a barrel right? Well not exactly. Despite ostensibly genuine effort from the producer/ML to call out the genre and other stupidities in the CDrama industry, the show unfortunately also succumbs to many of the same pitfalls.

To much telling, not enough showing. Too repetitive in terms of structure and the same OST song that gets played every 5 minutes. And despite the short drama length, it lacked a compelling narrative to tie together the various parody scenes. It was only in the last 10 minutes of the show, that a compelling motivation emerged and I actually cared for the characters and wanted to see what comes next.

In Actor's Rhapsody's defense, it was a very low budget production and it actually commits fewer cinematic sins than most of the Xianxias out there. But for a topic ripe for the picking, I wish it aimed for something bolder, more refined, and more original--along the lines of 'The Great Nobody'. Another low budget short drama, but one that delivered nonstop laughs in an interesting and original story.

Pros:
-I watched Xianxia, without having to watch Xianxia
-Gives an interesting look at the behind-the-scenes insanities that goes on in Chinese drama
-Decent acting from ML, and the support (there are quite a few perpetual supporting actresses that signed up for this)
-Looks ok and have fewer instances of cinematic terrorism
-Short
-There are jokes and humor interspersed throughout, and done well enough that Douban gave it 7.5+ rating

Cons:
-Choppy narrative
-The format gets repetitive
-For those really picky about looks, you'll be seeing a lot of ET surgery from the SML

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