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Michael's Thoughts: Good and Evil
- Michael's Thoughts: Good and Evil
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Michael's Thoughts: Good and Evil
Michael > December 3rd, 2023, 12:19 AM
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Kang Ning (Connie Kang) and Guo Jun Chen star in 'Good and Evil'
This show aired on Mango TV from August 22, 2021 through September 12, 2021. There are 32 episodes, although I think the last 2 episodes were a special epilogue that provided a "happier" ending.
If you search for this show on the Internet you'll find several Websites publish summaries that say it follows the 2 leads as they explore stories of love within a mystical book. I don't know what show those summary writers watched, but that's not what happens in the show I watched.
Good and Evil is classified as Romance, Wuxia, and Fantasy. It's more Xianxia than Wuxia. In fact, I think Wuxia is a misclassification.
Wuxia is about Martial Artists and focuses on heroes who cultivate their Kung Fu abilities, sometimes with the intention of ascending to immortality (although often these shows/movies are just about magic and fantasy battles).
Xianxia is about Immortal Heroes and usually involves gods, demons, devils, spirits, fairies, or other fantasy or mythological creatures. There's plenty of cultivation but everyone has native power (except for the mortals that the immortals encounter).
Xuanhua or Mysterious Fantasy is a recent blend of Cdrama genres and western fantasy themes. I don't Good and Evil fits into the Xuanhuan genre but I could be mistaken.
The Premise of the Series
The first episode begins with a prologue. It's a bit rushed and kind of hard to understand, but they actually go back and explain everything better toward the end of the series.
Chun Yao is an ancient god who has been given the task of guarding the River of Forgetfulness (it may be called something else in actual Chinese - you can never be sure about the translations). It's not quite clear to me what the river's purpose it. Evil spirits are imprisoned in it, and at one point in the series it's said (via translations/subtitles) that the spirits are supposed to forget their evil deeds. But I think the river is mostly just a prison.
After 10,000 years Chun Yao grows lonely for companionship. At first he enchants his own shadow and mixes it with water from the River of Forgetfulness. The shadow becomes a sort of automaton.
A taunting voice from the river persuades Chun Yao to make a forbidden deal. He must give up 108 of his own breaths (the significance of which is never explained). In return, the voice offers to help Chun Yao give the shadow a real body. Intrigued, Chun Yao agrees. Together the two powerful beings bring to life the beautiful Han Tan (Cold Pool Goddess). She spends thousands of years with Chun Yao and they fall in love with each other.
At some point the voice from the river betrays Chun Yao and reveals its intent to escape. Evil spirits rise from the river and Chun Yao begins to duel with them. As the battle unfolds a bolt of energy flies toward Chun Yao. Han Tan sacrifices herself to save him. At that point Tianzun (the Heavenly Emperor) sends down the Lord of Destiny and 2 immortal soldiers to punish Chun Yao for breaking the laws of nature and allowing hundreds of demons to escape from the River of Forgetfulness.
Chun Yao pleads with the Lord of Destiny not to punish Han Tan. At this point Tianzun intervenes and says he'll demote Chun Yao to the status of demon and Han Tan to the status of mortal. They are never to meet again.
About a thousand years later, Han Tan has been reborn was a princess in a northern kingdom (Beilu). She remembers nothing of her past and goes by the name of Hancheng. She has lived her entire life in her father's Cold Palace because she was born in a coffin. Her mother died for some undisclosed reason, and as the priest was about to close the coffin he saw the baby. She was acknowledged by her father but he swore he would never look upon her.
When she comes of age, Han Tan is sent to marry the powerful emperor of the south (Ling Jun) as part of a peace treaty. She has lived an unhappy life in which her only companion has been a demonic cat that terrorizes her father's servants. But when Han Tan is told of her impending marriage an angry maid argues with her and kills the cat.
The cat's demonic spirit returns to the realm of the One Hundred Spirits pool, a paradise-like world where many demons live under the benevolent rule of Chun Yao (now known as Chun Yao Demon). He greets the demon cat's spirit and hangs it on a special tree where demon spirits await rebirth into new lives.
Chun Yao Demon then releases his subjects to visit the mortal realm for 1 day. This is an annual festival he implemented to help maintain order and good morale among the demons. However, one of his most trusted servants, a demon woman name Bai Shan, enters the mortal realm with her own purpose in mind.
Bai Shan waylays the carriage taking Hansheng to the southern kingdom (Nan Yuan). It is at this point that Hanheng becomes involved with the demon folk of Hundred Spirits Pool. She stumbles through the magic portal to their world and meets Chun Yao Demon. Neither of them remembers the other, but they begin a complicated relationship that takes them through four sub-plots.
Most of their story is wound around several vignettes. Chun Yao Demon discovers that a great evil force is attempting to escape from the Hundred Spirits Pool. The barriers holding in the evil are weakening and he concludes that he must reconstruct the Kunlun Mirror to restore balance to the Force (or whatever). It is Chun Yao Demon's quest for the components he needs that takes him and Hansheng on their series of adventures.
The Four Sub-plots
Bai Shan's escape to the mortal realm starts the first of several vignettes. She has gone to trick mortal women into sacrificing a few years of their lifespans in exchange for something that makes them happy. Bai Shan needs to collect these life-years for a forbidden spell.
Chun Yao Demon at first orders one of his other servants to kill Hansheng for intruding upon the demon world. But then he realizes that she is sealed with a mysterious "book of fate" that mortals shouldn't possess. He decides to keep her alive while he learns about who she is and why she has such a powerful artifact. But then he learns about Bai Shan's treachery and Chun Yao Demon takes Hansheng with him to the mortal realm to capture Bai Shan.
Bai Shan's story lasts for 7 episodes.
The next vignette takes place in the demon realm (as best I can tell) and it involves time travel. Kong Lan, a peacock demon who is Chun Yao Demon's chief servant, has a son named Kong Qi. Chun Yao Demon sends Hansheng to a demon school where she befriends Kong Qi and his aunt, Xiao Shan. She's not really his aunt - that's just an honorific his family gave her because she was reborn out of an egg that Kong Qi took care of. Because he cared for her for so long, Xiao Shan has sworn to look after Kong Qi and protect him.
Their story is the main plot of the second vignette.
The third vignette takes place in the southern kingdom (Nan Yuan) where Ling Jun and his sister Princess Hui An have immersed themselves in various plots. However, the real Ling Jun isn't who everyone thinks he is. His place is taken by his immortal brother, who escapes from the Hundred Spirits Pool.
The relationship between the two Ling Juns is complicated and it's bound up with the backstory of the entire series.
The fourth vignette returns to the demon realm, where the master of the demon school - Wu Yin - is having problems with his disciple, Si Tong. Si Tong was introduced earlier in the show and he is always portrayed as a bully. First he picked on Kong Qi and then he picks on Hansheng. He basically picks on everyone and is very unpopular with all the demons.
But Si Tong has a mysterious past and only his master, Wu Yin, knows the truth. The secret of Si Tong's past and his connection with the main characters is the focus of the fourth vignette.
My Thoughts on Good and Evil
I wasn't sure I wanted to watch this series. Many of the Xianxia shows seem to be made for younger audiences. There's nothing wrong with that but they just follow patterns that don't interest me. But I read several reviews of this show and was intrigued.
First, someone said that the CGI effects were very well done. Many of the Xianxia shows (or at least the older ones) appear to have limited budgets for special effects, so they often feel like you're watching a stage play. And the acting in those shows can be very stilted.
Several commenters said they liked the female lead (Connie Kang, who starred in a slightly earlier 2021 series, The Wolf Princess), and several people said they didn't like her in this show. I thought she did a good job in The Wolf Princess so I was curious to see what her earlier show would be like. All-in-all I think she did a good job with the role. Some of the writing was deliberately goofy and fun - not quite intended for younger audiences. Instead, I think they just wanted the character to come across as innocent and naive.
Nearly all the commenters deplored the ending for the show. It's not a classic "happily ever after" story. But even so most people complimented the show on keeping their attention and remaining engaging.
And how do you turn down a time travel fantasy story?
The interplay between Kang Ning (Connie Kang) and Guo Jun Chen is good. He has to play a serious immortal. She gets to be a young woman who is having a blast, going on tons of adventures, and slowly coming to realize she's in love with a handsome young demon. Watching her break down his barriers and capturing his heart is fun. It's a different kind of show.
The costumes and sets vary in quality. Many of the demons (especially the younger ones) look like kids dressed up a for a stage play. I think that's intentional. It's sort of the writer/director saying, "Hey, this is how they express their inner personalities." Or maybe they just didn't have a big budget for dozens of intricate "monster" costumes.
Chun Yao Demon's world is interesting. It's huge, filled with tribes and kingdoms and politics and evil and good. There are stories everywhere and a common request among online commenters is they want a second season. Mainly because they love the lead characters, but the show would boring if the demon world and societies were boring.
And the title of the show is interesting. It really is about "good" and "evil". That is, the main and secondary leads must all choose between doing good or doing evil, or doing things that other characters might deem to be good or bad.
Some of the bad characters are sympathetic. Some of them are just "bad" characters - cliches that follow simplistic patterns.
Some of the good characters have hidden depths. You should warm to them as you learn more about them. Kong Lan the peacock demon is just the most obvious character with depth. There are others, and some of them are surprising.
Hansheng's journey is a complicated one. I think most people will be satisfied with her journey even if they're not happy about the way the show ends. I think it ends with a certain finality that doesn't quite extinguish the viewer's hope of continuation. That's because a secondary major theme is that we make our own destiny. Even though the gods of the heavens have mandated that Chun Yao and Han Tan must never be together again, they defy the odds.
Overall it's a fun show to watch and I'm glad I took a chance on it.
You're just not going to be 100% sure about who wins in the end. Everyone kind of gets something, even the majority of the "bad" characters.
One Common Fan Observation I Disagree with
Many of the fan comments on the show conclude that "none of these stories ends well". I think they're wrong. I think each of the vignettes ends on a more positive than negative note. Just because all the couples don't end up living happily ever after doesn't mean they didn't end well.
In fact, I think one couple's future is left open-ended and the viewer is kind of nudged by the plot to believe that the two secondary leads WILL have a chance to live happily ever after.
Some of the Secondary Cast Members
Yu Lei plays Kong Lan, the peacock demon who is Chun Yao's most senior advisor. He also appeared in Time Flies and You Are Here, where he played Bailu Academy Director Xu Shao Lin. I think he had a much more memorable role in Good and Evil.
Li Ming Jun plays Kong Qi (son of Kong Lan). He also appeared in Love of Thousand Years as the white mirror spirit Bai Jing Zi.
He Mei Xuan plays Bai Shan. She also appeared in The Flowers Are Blooming, where she played Liu Yi Yun (I don't recall the character). I haven't seen her in anything else but she did a good job as Bai Shan.
Wei Yu plays Jia Lan Tiashi, a Taoist master in the first vignette. Although he's not a major character even in that story arc, he's pretty interesting. And he played a more prominent role in The Wolf Princess, where he appeared as General You. He also played Fang Lao Ling Zong, a minor character in Dance of the Phoenix. And he also played the first Tian Ning emperor (the rebellious general who founded the dynasty) in Legend of Yun Xi.
Zhang Hei Feng has a minor role as the father of Xiaoshan in the second vignette. However, he's also appeared in many other shows and movies, including In A Class of Her Own (Mr. Zhao), Dance of the Phoenix (Wu You Dao, one of the academy teachers), The Wolf Princess (West Turk General), and Shining Just For You (Cai Can).
Chen Zhang Yang plays Hansheng's brother Xie Chang Ye, a secondary prince of the Beilu kingdom who is also sent south to the Nan Yuan kingdom in the third vignette. He also appeared as Qing Zhan in Shining Just for You.
Qin Chu Ming briefly appears as Hansheng and Xie Chang Ye's father, the Beilu king. He also appeared as County King Pan in The Wolf Princess.
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