Upcoming fantasy wuxia drama Ever Night (Part 1) stars Chen Feiyu, Song Yiren, Yuan Bingyan and Meng Ziyi in the leading roles, and will release 2 episodes every Wed-Fri on Tencent and Youtube beginning tonight. VIP members get a 6 episode head start.
Theme song by Jane Zhang ; Tan Weiwei
Ning Que is a soldier who has came to the capital to clear his family. Yet when he finds out that his servant Sangsang is the embodiment of Ever Night, the foretold forever nighttime of humanity, the two go on the run.
I enjoyed the first two episodes. No over the top acting and poorly dubbed annoying female voices. Some CGIs were weak but… I like it so far for several reasons:
1. Solid supporting cast. Got some big name old timers in here and boy can they act.
2. Finally a coming of age story where while they are new comers, the folks here seem more natural than some of the popular young performers. Or you could even say it’s nice to see new faces that has potential.
3. Cinematography. The outdoor scenes and the wide angles, gave me the feels.
4. Screenplay adaptation and director = same person. Hopefully this means it’ll be a tight storyline.
Fingers crossed that it won’t disappoint like T& Es.
I enjoy it as well. Probably my fav 2018 costume drama. I finished very few of those this year.
Pros: Story, subject, scope seem compelling. Many pros about the acting. I also like the lack of squeaky or whiny dubbers. Song Yiren’s acting is natural and nice to watch. (Bu Guanjin is another surprise new(?) actress for me this year). The potential for plot having to be changed for censorship (cough.. The Rise of Phoenixes) seems low. So I hope the plot will be more consistently coherent until the end. Very glad to see a reasonable-looking drama outside the palace harem confines. I can’t deny that I think of luxuriously robed, caged ladies when I see harem dramas. Some palace ladies much too cruel for my taste. Despite the fact that I like Zhou Xun, Dong Jie, Xin Zhilei’s acting, I can’t watch those harem dramas. I can’t imagine a happy palace life with one emperor and a palace full of concubines. The scope is also too limited when all is confined to the palace. Limited to domestic household scenes a lot of the time. Hope Ever Night won’t have as many of the usual drama burdens that come with the standard-drama-tropes-package from the Princess meets Prince dramas. No maids have to sacrifice themselves to save princess at least.
Cons: it’s not an all-around pretty drama. Scenery is gorgeous but cinematography is sometimes uneven. The Xiling cinematography looked weird. Spinning camera angle overuse. (TRoP seems to be more consistent with excellent cinematography, but I didn’t get far with TRoP.) Same goes for set, acting, direction. Some actors’ acting look out of place. Tong Yao’s brother. A few of the lesser characters.
People have been saying how Ever Night will be similar to Fight Break Sphere, Eagles Youngsters, Martial Universe. I have been skipping those, hoping that EN will offer more pleasant watching. So far, it seems that way.
I watched the first one and a half eps and this is the first one of these major xianxia dramas where the drama looks like the trailer. Super pretty set and scenery (minus the Western-looking one).
I’ve never seen Chen Feiyu in anything before and he’s one of the more natural male leads in doing that “hold a cool pose without looking like he’s posing” thing. His line reading is weak, as is his acting, but it’s sufficient for me. He and both Tong Yao and Song Yiren have pretty good chemistry so far. Song Yiren is great as a cute female lead and actually has pretty solid line-reading. Easily the best of the young leads so far.
It’s quite the opposite to me. I watched the first two episodes and felt a little underwhelmed. They didn’t give me a wow bang effect like Tribes & Empires had (T&E’s first several episodes anyway), some CGI isn’t impressive and I notice a few editing glitches. Cinematography is great, but again IMO still can’t compare to T&E. Anyway, it’s quite early to judge,
Well I think part of it is that T&E’s trailers were amazing so the actual show was a let down. The trailer made it seem like Game of Thrones but prettier, but the actual show care nowhere near that.
This one has pretty scenery but the trailer was nowhere near that of T &E. Basically it felt the trailer sold it as exactly what it is is, a standard coming of age xianxia with fairly simple revenge and romance motives.
Dramas have become sooooo pretty. I want to live in that library in the final picture.