I feel like I’m teeter-tottering on the edge of a cliff right now.

What I mean is that I am literally, like, 2 steps away from the finish line right now…after months of grinding through college applications, I just have two left. Two! And then I never have to write another college essay in my life. Crazy!

I don’t even know what I’m going to do with myself as a second semester senior. I’m literally going to have so much free time spawn out of nowhere that I literally won’t know what to do with it! Absolutely insane.

But before I go into complete free-fall mode and just let myself completely fall off a cliff (in terms of productivity and motivation), I first need to get some acknowledgements in order.

Thank you to Blood River for getting me through the insane college application season. You were literally my emotional lifeline. The only thing keeping me alive as I trudged through supplemental essays and Econ tests and like 0 sleep was your entertainment. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

But now, it is time to review you. Yes, I am very thankful to you…but I gotta be candid. It’s time to take you apart for a bit.

On the whole, I think it’s fair to summarize you like this: you were an extremely entertaining watch, but you lacked depth. You were a riveting case of style over substance.

Extremely Entertaining:

In terms of aesthetics, I could not take my eyes off you.

C-Dramas (especially wuxia/xianxia ones) are known for their emphasis on beauty. Each character’s outfits, down to their accessories (hair, sword, etc.), are designed with so much detail and care. Blood River knocked it completely out of the park, though. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a C-Drama make such dazzling, jaw-dropping outfits.

They literally take my breath away! Look at all those gems and jewels. Look at all the hair accessories! That must have taken eons to put on in the makeup room, holy cow.

Not only that, though–Blood River also gave each character their own distinct style. And they’re all so memorable! 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) is immortalized in my brain with his navy-blue hanfu, 慕雨墨 (Mu Yumo) with her purple hanfu, and 慕雪薇 (Mu Xuewei) with her light-blue hanfu. They’re all immediately recognizable!

 Also, we need to talk about the battle scenes. Similar to the clothes, they were absolutely insane. I feel like I’m literally repeating myself word for word here–but C-Dramas are (again) known for fantastical battle scenes where everyone’s flying up in the air and somehow makes random gusts of qi fly out of nowhere and kill everyone with one swipe of their arm. But Blood River knocks it straight out of the damn stadium. I felt like every scene was just them deliberately trying to break every single law of physics that ever existed. One moment they’re standing on the ground like normal human beings, the next, they’re flying up in the air with a ginormous fire-breathing demon-thing summoned behind them. One moment 苏暮雨’s (Su Muyu’s) just fighting some opp like a normal martial arts hero, the next, he brandishes his damn umbrella and somehow makes 18,000 (that’s the literal number he said in that one scene!) swords materialize out of thin air and all come crashing down on his opp on his command. To entertain us, Blood River strode across all the boundaries of the real world.

The plot was, similar to the aesthetics or the battles, un-put-down-able. It literally never stops. There’s so many characters, so many events, so many storylines, so many backstories running around the scene that boredom never creeps into the audience’s mind. But even with such a break-neck plot, Blood River still manages to tell a coherent, organized story: in essence, it’s just about this group of assassins who don’t want to be assassins anymore, who just want to walk around the streets like average civilians and enjoy life’s little beauties–but are stopped at every instance by other characters and players who still want to use them, to control them like they would a lifeless sword. It’s remarkable how many subplots this story was able to tell without losing sight of its main storyline.

I have now unfortunately run out of things to glaze Blood River for. It is with a heavy heart that I now begin critiquing various aspects of the show:

Superficial and Shallow:

The thing that irked me most about Blood River was its shallow, unstable worldbuilding.

It never fully establishes the original Blood River world, the one that existed before 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and 苏昌河 (Su Changhe) came into power. We don’t ever see how the assassinations work. How are they carried out? How are the kids assigned a person to assassinate–do they just get a letter in the mail? Or does someone higher up come tell them in person? Are they ever given specific instructions on how to kill the person–would a client ever care, for instance, if they killed their opp by poison versus by knife, or in public versus in secret? How would their higher-ups keep track of whether they got the job done? Would the kids be required to report to them or something? How are the kids paid to or forced to get the job done? What’s the punishment for failing a job, or doing it poorly? What do the kids do in their free time, when they’re not up and about killing people? Who’s in Blood River? Is it mostly just kids like the main protagonists, or are there a lot of older folks too? And how would a client get Blood River to do an assassination job? Who would they approach, and how much money would it cost?

Blood River never answers any of these questions. It focuses so much on 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and 苏昌河’s (Su Changhe’s) overthrow of the old system yet never really explores that old system. It’s just glazed over as a system that 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and 苏昌河 (Su Changhe) hated and felt used and cheated by, as if that’s all the audience needs to sympathize with 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and 苏昌河 (Su Changhe) desire for rebellion. But that goes against one of the biggest tenets of storytelling: show, don’t tell. Blood River tells us that the old system is bad without ever showing us why. But I feel that the protagonists’ impetus and exigence for action could have been much more compelling and relatable had Blood River actually shown us the injustice 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and 苏昌河 (Su Changhe) were suffering under the old system. Show us scenes where 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and 苏昌河 (Su Changhe) are forced to kill people they don’t want to. Show us the guilt 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and 苏昌河 (Su Changhe) felt as they brandished their swords and took an innocent life. Show us the rage that built up in them–show us the struggle in their conscience to justify their actions and contend with their coercion. Show us their desire to take revenge on Blood River’s old systems and break free of its shackles.

Blood River also barely scratches the surface on its three families. We really only see a few characters from each family–we never see all the other family members, which undermines the credibility of our protagonists’ leadership and power. How many people are our protagonists actually leading? How many people can they actually command? From what we saw on screen, it really doesn’t seem like a whole lot, which doesn’t seem to be the impression that Blood River’s trying to make.

Side note: Blood River’s also lacking in its development of the four major cities that it keeps referring to. We’re just kinda fed their supposedly grand and impressive reputations and power without ever being shown its streets or its people or its buildings. We also just scratch the surface of the emperor’s family. I feel like the only character in there who actually gets the full treatment of a backstory is 萧永 (Xiao Yong), which kinda pisses me off because he’s the most annoying character of that family by a long shot, but everyone else is sorta treated as…a reputation. We’re just told how others see them without ever being shown their actual stories and abilities. It feels quite shallow.

Which brings me to another big, glaring pothole in Blood River: its main characters. Specifically, the fact that literally none of them show a single ounce of character development across the entire 38 episodes in the damn season. 

Let’s start with our main character: 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu). This guy’s just the same guy, start to finish. He’s just the orphan of a massacred city who in one night transformed from a sheltered rich kid to an assassin-in-training forced to kill, who somehow holds onto his dad’s righteous warrior values despite all his years in the bloodthirsty grips of Blood River. Like, I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make any damn sense. You’re telling me that this guy spent so long being trained to kill and seeing bloody deaths on a day-to-day basis–and that never tainted his worldview even just a tiny bit? This kid lost his whole family and city and childhood in a single night, got swept away by (essentially) a terrorist organization, but was still able to hold such hope and optimism for humanity? Maybe he’s just such a heart-of-gold naive guy or his dad just taught him extremely well, but his conscience and motivations just seem too pristine to be plausible.

Let’s move onto 苏昌河 (Su Changhe). I think this guy was designed to be a static character, but his stagnancy still irks me. Like, bro moves up from a mid dude from the 苏 (Su) family to the entire 大家长 (patriarch) in literally one night. He assumes this big, massive leadership role–but nothing about his personality really changes. He doesn’t get more leader-like, more commanding, or more resourceful, or even just more stressed out. And he’s still so willing to be so submissive to 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and just go along with whatever he says–even though he’s the big leader now. His undying loyalty to 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) despite his bloodthirsty ambition is just so pure that it lacks credibility.

Maybe what’s really irking me about these characters is how pristine they are. I mean, look at their stories. They grew up learning how to kill people. They grew up being taught that their worth was measured by how many people they could kill in one instant. They had such horrible, gruesome childhoods–yet somehow have such pristine consciences and pristine loyalties to each other. And, in the case of 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu)–such pristine tempers and composure, as if he really grew up as a rich kid of a well-off city. I feel like I need them to be a bit more dirty to make their backstories plausible. Fiery tempers. Tainted consciences. Bloodthirsty motivations. Loss of hope in humanity. A little bit of insanity. Their author seems too focused on making them presentable to the average audience that they sacrifice their authenticity.

With 白鹤淮 (Bai Hehuai), though, my problem with her is genuinely her static character. She is literally so plain (as a character). She spends her entire childhood looking for her dad–then when she finally finds him, it just–happens. There’s no big revelation or huge emotional breakdown. The father-daughter duo just instantly trust each other and get along super well–despite the fact that they have literally never met or interacted with each other. Where is the hidden resentment in her towards her dad for literally disappearing off the face of planet Earth for the past 20 years of her life? Where is it??? Why is it not there????

And her relationship with 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu)…his love doesn’t change her at all, and she doesn’t change him at all. Which makes literally 0 sense! She’s his first love, and he spent his entire childhood killing people…shouldn’t love completely change his perspective? Make him more hopeful, more kind, more optimistic?

You know what would’ve been so much more compelling? If 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) wasn’t so pristine in the beginning, but still held onto some remnants of his dad’s values…but then 白鹤淮 (Bai Hehuai) comes in, and her love makes him regain his righteous values. Maybe 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) could’ve started out as an angry, directionless assassin…bloodthirsty and vengeful because he’s forced to kill, but deep down unwilling to carry out all these killings because he knows that it’s wrong, yet without any motivation to change his situation because he doesn’t know what to do with himself besides be an assassin…but then comes 白鹤淮 (Bai Hehuai), who’s a healer, and he watches her from a distance as she selflessly saves innocent lives…and the beauty in that is what causes him to regain and reconnect with his conscience, what gives him the motivation to fight Blood River’s corruption and set himself free. I would watch that. That’d be a real love story.

In terms of theme, Blood River is quite shallow. Sure, some central ideas are explored: there’s ambition vs. stability or how others perceive you vs. how you really are. But they just seem…unsupported. Told, not shown. The characters talk a lot about whether living a life of glory in the warrior world would be better than living an ordinary, quiet life in a small city…but based on their actions, it doesn’t seem like they care that much. 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and 苏昌河 (Su Changhe) don’t act strikingly different in 暗河 (An He, Blood River) vs in 南安 (Nan’an). 南安 (Nan’an) doesn’t seem like a big release of stress for them–it just seems like a place where the plot dies down for a bit to give the audience some breathing space. It doesn’t fundamentally change or affect the characters.

And onto the reputation theme…the 暗河 (An He, Blood River) assassins talk a lot about how they’re perceived as an evil terrorist organization…but we’re never really shown that. We’re never shown scenes where they’re walking down ordinary streets and suddenly all the civilians run away from them; we’re never shown Wanted posters of their faces on the city’s bulletin boards. We’re just told they’re perceived like that and asked to accept it, which seriously undermines the development of the theme.

I guess a big part of the problem with Blood River is its balance of show and tell is completely off. For the important storybuilding elements (worldbuilding, character development, theme), they opt to tell instead of show, when those things are seriously so much more compelling when shown rather than told. They instead focus all their energy on showing great aesthetics, epic battle scenes, and the actors’ face cards…but those superficial things can only add to an already great story. They can never make a story great.

Some other random things I need to rant about:

1. Their clothing.

I’m sorry, but I’m not done rambling about it. Their fits are just too damn complicated to make their worldbuilding plausible. You’re telling me that these guys are expected to kill people in the darkness, swiftly and quietly, while looking this bedazzled?

They are so conspicuous. They literally gleam on the streets from all the jewels in their fits. And those outfits would take literal eons to put together and maintain. You’re telling me that they have the time–and money–to do all that in between all their dangerous assassin assignments? Their clothing is literally so insane that it undermines their worldbuilding. I feel like it shows Blood River’s struggle with authenticity…in their effort to impress their audience with their actors’ amazing outfits, they lose their characters’ credibility. It’s a costly trade-off.

2. 龚俊’s (Gong Jun’s, the actor for 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu)) ass acting.

Why. Does. This. Man. Only. Have. A. Grand. Total. Of. 5. Goddamn. Expressions. In. This. Entire. Show!!!!!!

I swear he literally acts like his face is carved out of wood. All his expressions look so forced. He for some reason also looks like he’s constantly trying to keep his mouth shut, which makes him look really self-conscious and unnatural.

Some of it may not be his fault, I guess. In terms of lines, it seems like he’s not used to speaking perfect Mandarin all the time and is kinda trying really hard to say his lines with the absolute best pronunciation, which may explain why they come out so forced and inauthentic. But that could’ve been fixed with a dub…I’m really confused as to why Blood River didn’t get one for him.

I swear to God, where is 温客行 (Wen Kexing, acted by 龚俊 (Gong Jun), one of the main characters in the show 山河令 (Word of Honor)). Where is he?????? 龚俊 (Gong Jun) absolutely nailed that role right on the nose–he was at once flamboyant, childish, and bloodthirsty…he was so full of expression…but here, he just looks like a wooden statue.

3. 常华森’s (Chang Huasen’s, actor for 苏昌河 (Su Changhe)) amazing acting

Huge W for the team. His acting was like 龚俊’s (Gong Jun’s) in 山河令 (Word of Honor)–so rich with diverse expressions and yet so genuine at the same time. 

4. Chemistry-less main love stories

I swear, I could rub chlorine all over 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and sodium all over 白鹤淮 (Bai Hehuai) and stand them next to each other, but literally 0 chemical reactions will occur. This is their entire love story: they meet randomly in the woods, have their “love at first sight” moment, then proceed to engage in the most cliche couple activities ever (苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) saves her from falling down a big cliff, 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) buys sweet pastries for her every morning). They love each other nominally, but deep down, where’s the quality time? Where’s the tension? Where’s the deep conversations? Where’s the meshing of personalities, the intertwining of souls? They just love each other because whoever wrote this story thought 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) needed a love interest to keep the audience’s interest going. She is such an empty character–you could take her completely out of the entire show and I feel like the storyline wouldn’t even change that much.

Now onto our secondary couple–唐怜月 (Tang Lianyue) and 慕雨墨 (Mu Yumo). I swear to God, these two just randomly meet in the woods and have their “love at first sight” moment too. What pisses me off more, though, is the fact that 慕雨墨 (Mu Yumo)–despite technically being the female lead–gets like 0 screen time, and when she does get screen time, it’s just of her fawning over or missing her man. That’s literally all she thinks about or does in this entire show. At least the two have some chemistry moments–they had some nice loving looks towards the end of the show. But that’s literally it. We’re shown superficial love, love for the sake of love, but never the deeper intrinsic value of love.

5. Justice for 慕雪薇 (Mu Xuewei) and 慕青羊 (Mu Qingyang)

These two were my favorite characters–and my favorite couple. They actually had some tension going on. They actually spent quality time with each other. Their confession in the fire was actually sweet and heart-tugging.

But then, what does the director do? Kill them off. In the fire. We’re just shown this wall of fire on the screen that obscures the two of them from our view, and then after that, we just have to presume they’re dead. They’re not even given the dignity of a corpse. Like, come on. It’s not that hard. Just show them both swooning over and lying down on the ground from the fire. That’s all we need to give us some closure.

6. Justice for the 谢 (Xie) family.

After 苏昌河 (Su Changhe) becomes 大家长 (patriarch), I swear to God the entire 谢 (Xie) family gets a combined total of like 5 minutes of screen time. Guys–aren’t they supposed to be one of the three big families of Blood River??? Why do they never show up?

Literally the solution to this is so easy. Just make 慕雨墨 (Mu Yumo) 谢雨墨 (Xie Yumo). Boom. Problem solved.

7. Some good irony.

I lowkey didn’t think this show, as shallow as it is, would be capable of making good irony…but it did, towards the end. 

For one, 白鹤淮 (Bai Hehuai) is literally kidnapped by 苏云绣 (Su Yunxiu). That’s ironic–苏云绣 (Su Yunxiu) is supposed to be 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and 苏昌河’s (Su Changhe’s) benevolent teacher, but she kinda just selfishly kidnaps the girl for 12 straight years…

And then, 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) kills 萧永 (Xiao Yong), the emperor’s son, right out in the open in the middle of the street, even though he’s supposed to be an assassin who only kills people in the dark and in secret. That’s some nice irony–while 萧永 (Xiao Yong) enjoys a respected reputation, he sets out killing orders and screws everyone’s life over in the dark; while 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) is feared and has a horrible reputation, at least he does everything he does right out in the open, under the sun. It would’ve been even more compelling if 萧永 (Xiao Yong) wasn’t cooped up in that horse-drawn carriage and there was an actual crowd watching the whole thing.

8. One really good thing–nice male-female friendships

I feel like C-Dramas have this running problem where literally all their opposite sex character pairings have to have some sort of romantic intention going on, whether it’s one-way or mutual. So it was actually really nice to see Blood River break away from that and show pure, healthy, trusting friendships between girls and guys. We had 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and 慕雨墨 (Mu Yumo), 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and 萧朝颜 (Xiao Zhaoyan), 苏昌河 (Su Changhe) and 白鹤淮 (Bai Hehuai), and 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) and 慕雪薇 (Mu Xuewei) (only towards the end, though). Honestly really refreshing and nice.

9. One random scene that PMO

While he’s carrying her in his arms and running around the streets to go find a doctor to help her, 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) suddenly sets 白鹤淮 (Bai Hehuai) down in the middle of the street and suddenly keels over himself too.

Like, I’m so sorry, I know you just got your ass kicked in battle, but you got a woman in your arms. You better let nothing in the whole damn world make you keel over while she’s being carried by you. And besides, 苏暮雨 (Su Muyu) wasn’t even alone–there was 苏昌河 (Su Changhe) and 苏喆 (Su Zhe) there too when 白鹤淮 (Bai Hehuai) collapsed. Why couldn’t you let one of them carry her???? Why’d you have to carry her when you were clearly out of strength????? This man is a literal idiot.

⋆˙~~~⋆˙

I have now completed my ranting regarding Blood River. All in all, I am very grateful for it. It helped me survive some of the most stressful and excruciating months of my life. But I don’t know if I’d ever go back and watch it again. It didn’t leave many lasting impressions on me.

One last thing, though: the instrumental music album for this show is actually really cool and really unique. Check it out:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m-1tf7ZK4mF5cOEC-48j5vLxs0XM7fors&si=V_TAQWcwdWQ4ubF5

⋆˙eighteen rants⋆˙