He shen

I grown up in Tientsin but left there from 18 years old until now. In my memory, Tientsin is a mixing of Chinese traditional, Western culture as Concession, humorous citizen, Mysticism, food and the river. All the place in this TV show was so familiar, the river, the bridge, piers, restaurants, black market... Unfortunately, the TV show losts 40% of details from the fiction, and the translation lost 40% more details, but I'm still very happy to watch it from Netflix and see my hometown!

As a lifelong lover of Asian cinema and TV, and the cultures in general, I find this to be yet another fantastic example of a slow-burning Chinese drama. It has everything I want from such a vehicle... well developed characters that occupy a fascinating environment, interesting cultural elements and historical themes, intriguing traditional mysticism, all bound up in a truly compelling narrative. Oh and zombies! My one slight criticism is with the subtitles, they go by so fast that I often have to rewatch a scene so as to make sure that I can follow all of the action onscreen. But I guess that's maybe more of a flaw in me than in the production itself. I watched season one on Netflix in only two sittings and I'm extremely pleased to say that I've just begun to watch season two on Amazon Prime and I expect to get through it in a similarly short amount of time. I just cannot recommend this fabulous show enough. 9\10.

The story and dialogue is very thoughtfully woven. The sets and details on the sets are meticulously crafted and beautiful to look at. The acting is done well and enjoyable to watch. If you speak Chinese (Mandarin) then you will probably enjoy listening to the dialogue. You might have to rewind sometimes to catch the subtitles, but it is worth it. And I like how they include a scene at the end with the credits, that is a nice touch.

I thoroughly enjoyed this well acted and entertaining story. If you like romance, mysticism, drama and of course zombies, then watch this. Each episode develops the characters well and moves the quirky storyline along at a good pace.

Gosh what a long trek this has been. 24 episodes of some surprising excitement from China. At this writing I have three episodes to go so I can't give out spoilers. I'm not sure what I expected from a mainland China piece; perhaps unfairly I thought it might be a tad amateurish. Far from it, this is a slick, involved and ultimately exciting journey which, judging by promos during end-of-episode credits looks to be full of action in its conclusion. Set in 1930s Tianjin, in Republican China, with all its accompanying fashion, dark brown looks and, er, interesting hair styles, we follow the exploits of Gou De-You (Li Xian) as he investigates the mysterious appearance of hundreds of bodies on his patch. As the "Little River God" it's his job to fish them all out. In tandem with Ding Mao (Ming'en Zhang), head of an influential business group, they dig deeper into a strange and dangerous world to uncover the Ancient Evil Gang, its enigmatic mentor and his successor Lian Hua Qing (Enhe Kang). There is mysticism, fight action and intrigue, even zombies, and all that kept me invested in this right to the end. I have read that series 2 has begun filming though, sadly, without Li Xian. He has great screen presence and an intensity that easily makes him leading man material. In the next series Jin Shijia will be the lead actor. I thoroughly recommend this adventure and look forward to the next series.