In Blossom (2024) First Impressions

Episodes 1-10

Recently promoted into the role of Imperial Censor, Pan Yue (Liu Xueyi), a clever and talented member of a prominent family heads off to Heyang in search of his childhood sweetheart to make good on a betrothal. His fiancee Yang Caiwei (Zhenghe Huizi) who has fallen on very hard times is now apprentice to a local coroner, despised by even the poorest of the slum dwellers because of her disfigurement. Just around the time when the two finally meet after over a decade, she is made the scapegoat of a mysterious family massacre that rocks the city.

The city of Heyang is essentially a gangster’s paradise. Four powerful gangs rule the roost and even the county authorities have to pay obeisance to the heads of these gangs. With a good bit of weight throwing and sleuthing Pan Yue is able to help Yang Caiwen resolve her predicament but she’s not enthused about marrying him particularly considering the gulf in status. In the end his persistence and sincerity pays off. She relents and gets dressed for the occasion only to be kidnapped on the way by her self-professed rival Shangguang Zhi (Ju Jingyi), an overindulged, can’t take “no” for an answer daughter of a wealthy family. In her great wisdom she arranges for a body swap ritual on the wedding night. Still the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry and Shangguang Zhi who possesses the body of Yang Caiwei dies under suspicious circumstances that very night. Everything points to Pan Yue… which of course makes no sense except that he is seen by Yang Caiwei at the scene of the crime. To muddy the waters even further, Yang Caiwei is now living life as Shangguang Zhi trying to find out what happened to the other woman.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across a human caused transmigration event in my drama sojourns but it does serve the same sorts of purpose here. It’s a second chance story that comes with a reset button. Moreover there’s a vague sense of Heaven’s timely intervention in the dirty deeds men. Yes, Shangguang Zhi did this awful thing in stealing another person’s identity but irony achieves a resounding win in so far as her actions leads to her own demise. She reaped what she sowed. Furthermore now that Yang Caiwei is living as Shangguang Zhi, she is free to sniff around clues regarding her parents’ deaths.

Despite the high production values and intriguing storyline I have mixed feelings about this one. After 10 episodes I can safely say that while I like it and have great anticipation for the general shape of things to come, I don’t love it as much as I would like to. I am, however, overflowing with love for Liu Xueyi, last seen by me in The Blood of Youth. The 33-year-old actor who has made a career playing villains and grey characters is a genuine acting powerhouse and by far the best thing about this. He smirks and smoulders in the best ways possible. Here he really does a fantastic turn as a crusader with two faces. In this he’s a bit of a Zorro. And perhaps an Edmund Dantes. It certainly doesn’t hurt that he’s strikingly handsome as well. Ju Jingyi is decent enough in the dual role of bad girl Shangguang Zhi and Yang Caiwei pretending to be Shangguang Zhi but often falling back on old habits. The chemistry between them is good but I’m still of the view that visually Ju Jingyi and Zhang Zhehan have something together that’s unique and can’t be replicated.

My other issue with the show is how the show moves along — the pacing is slower than I like. At this point in the story I can’t decide if this is a criminal investigation show with rom com elements or a romance that just so happens to have some crime fighting elements in it. Perhaps that’s a good thing for drama normies but not for someone like me who prefer these shows to err on the side of having “too much” crime solving. My own sense is that there’s a good detective show waiting to unfold that’s being interrupted by romance tropes, side characters and clunky humour. It presents itself as a serious show or at the very least takes itself quite seriously and demands that the audience to do so as well. Yet, the personalities of the supporting cast are stock standard cliches that routinely find their way into a show of this kind.

I keep reaching for The Imperial Coroner comparisons repeatedly. Although the leads in Blossom are generally better actors and have better chemistry, for me at least, Imperial Coroner has more of the “crack” factor. The direction is better, the characters are more interesting and the script feels a lot more rigorous. A fun vibe pervades the storytelling all throughout. I was drawn to the Imperial Coroner within the first 5 minutes. Blossom feels like work. Not arduous work but more effort than a person who loves the genre should have to put in.

I don’t often comment about lighting in my reviews as I’m no expert on technical matters but this show tends to be unnecessarily dark looking. I didn’t particularly like the lighting on Ju Jingyi when she was doing her Shangguang Zhi stint and I wondered more than once if she would keel over as a result of an overdose on eyeliner.

Finally I don’t really think the body swap/transmigration does much for to enhance the romance. There are no complex consequences to it. Its primary purpose is to prolong the push and pull and prevent the romance from making any headway too early. Thematically (and arguably) it could speak to Pan Yue’s devotion — he’s a one-woman man. Regardless of how she looks — whether disfigured or in the body of an unlikeable woman, he will always be drawn to her like a moth to a flame. However, in terms of the trope’s impact on how the romance plays out, it’s neither here nor there. It also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me too that Pan Yue would keep Shangguang Zhi close at hand in the courthouse just because she sounds ambiguously penitent. Yes, he is suspicious of her and there’s an element of “keeps your friends close and your enemies closer” but as far as he knows she’s still an entitled spoilt rich young woman. To my mind the set-up is too fast and loose for my comfort.

At this point I intend to keep going because of 1) the larger conspiracy hovering over the leads as well as the backroom deals and 2) Liu Xueyi who is just absolutely brilliant in these types of antihero roles. The man is a criminally underrated performer. Despite sounding more negative than I intended there are a sampling of very good moments in the show. The sequences at the Life and Death gambling house, for instance, demonstrates that the show can be a good detective story and the leads make a good investigative team. That’s the kind of stuff I want more of.

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