User Reviews

SPOILER ALERT!

I felt like they built up the first half of the season showing that Kai was a good guy and not a killer and then it ends with him murdering a man right when he is reunited with his family after 500 years..... Thought it would have been better if Kai found a way to do things "his way" which was what I thought the direction was going when he extracted the Fire Wu from Uncle Six. Oh and I was pissed when they killed Uncle Six right when Kai resolved things with him. UGH

This show is an americanized show that revolves around Chinese mythology, it was always going to be flawed, but most of them are forgivable flaws in an other wise enjoyable show. However the ending is very bad, the 2 final episodes feel like they were written in a rush 2 hours before filming was due to take place and as a result are riddled with inconsistencies and plot holes.

1: Not an oversight but a mistake I feel, why kill six? He was by a very very long stretch the best character in the show, killing a badass character in the midst of a redemption arc just seems like a waste.

2: Alec's story makes no sense 2b: First history would correct itself, he travelled back in time and effectively kidnapped his family. History would fix this because it means that past-Alec would put his wu hunting quest on hold and find his family. Future Alec spent 500 years trying to get back to his wife and kid, after running away with them past-Alec would not stop chasing, and what he would find would be a man who looks like him but sounds weird, is wearing stranges clothes and has taken his family. Past Alec would kill the modern day Alec and his quest would be for nothing

2c: Even if my above point wasnt true and 2 alecs existing at the same place and time fighting over the same family didnt result in death, the mere presence of future-Alec would disrupt the events for past-Alec. Meaning past-alec may never have become the wood wu to begin with which again would result in the timeline correcting itself because future-Alec would dissapear.

3: How did one woman take down an entire police station? Zan had backup, but they did not arrive until after she had taken control of the entire precint. Her backup were seen shooting 1 straggler cop, otherwise 1 woman with a pair of pointy shoes was able to single handedly annihlate an entire police force just because the lights were turned off. I know we are to suspend disbelief when watching tv but this just felt poorly done. A very minor tweak, like showing Zan's backup parked outside ready to charge as soon as the lights go out. That scene would take 5 minutes at most to shoot and would make that whole sequence make much more sense.

4: How did Kai get back to present day? We saw his friends run to the collapsing portal as Kai went through the sand portal thing to chase Alec back to a scottish forest in the 1500's, after that fight takes place the next thing we see is Kai back in his time working in the restaurant. How? If there was some kind of time travelling mechanism in the scottish forest then Alec would not have been on a 500 year quest to travel in time and in the same vein if the wu assassin has the ability to time travel Ying Ying could just send Kai back to her timeline and stop the wu xings from being seperated in the first place. So no matter what angle you look at it from this is more extremely poor writing because the only conclusions we the viewers are left to draw is that nothing makes sense, nothing that happens matters. None of Kai or Alec's storyline had any significance and the writers dont care to even try and explain things.

The following are not about the 2 part finale but are other incosistencies I noticed

The episode with the earth wu. He was holding a woman captive and asking her questions to see if she was "worthy" of being his successor. He asked the question "is the pace of nature everlasting?". His captive answered "yes". The wu looked dissapointed and proceeded to kill her. Later when fighting against Kai the wu exclaims " the pace of nature is everlasting" as a kind of battle cry. That means the woman gave him the answer he wanted and he still killed her.

Why was no one concerned about the water wu? She was the only person left alive in the realm between life and death yet Kai asked no questions and none of the 1,000 monks even mentioned it. The entire point of this season is that Kai "has" to stop Alec because if Alec suceeds he will exist in a time and place he does not belong and that will throw off the entire flow of time itself and be "catastrophic". Yet a now depowered water wu is left in a time and place where she does not belong and nobody gives a s***. That may be a small oversight in the writing but it completely diminishes the entire first season plot. It means that Ying Ying wasnt telling Kai to stop Alec because it would be the end of the world but they wanted to stop Alec because they hold some kind of personal grudge against him.

Kai's complete disinterest in everyone and everything. I know the actor is not a native english speaker and that is fine, my issue is not with the actors handle of the vocabulary, my issue is with the blase writing of the character.

-- He finds out that Alec is no ordinary crime boss, he is a wu, but not just any wu, he is an immortal previous wu assassin who was trained by Ying Ying and has more knowledge than Kai has been told, and Kai isnt bothered in the slightest. He finds out that a mystical force that is demanding him to risk his life and the lives of his friends has been lying to him and keeping huge secrets and he isnt surprised, isnt angry, doesnt grill Ying Ying to see if she is witholding any more important information.

-- He finds out that CG is a cop. He finds out that a woman is undercover police and has infilitrated Kai's best friends operation. Again Kai is not interested in the slightest, he isnt angry at her, he doesnt ask what her plans are with Lu Xin, he doesnt warn Lu Xin. He asks " are you going to arrest me?" and thats the height of his interest.

I cant speak on anyone elses behalf, but if I was in either of the above situations I would not simply shrug and be fine with finding this stuff out, I would have many questions for Ying Ying and CG and I would not trust them possibly ever again.

I know this review is entirely negative but unfortunately it is hard to ignore the negative aspects of this show. Personally i like the cast, there is no denying the skill that went into choreographing the action scenes and so far the balance between fantastical powers and real world dangers have been handled pretty well. It is just a shame that when the wrting is bad it is very bad. With some more time spent on the scripts and more time done with proof reading and checking for inconsistencies the show could be very good, whereas the first season while promising has had plenty of very noticeable teething issues weighing it down.