Halloween's Over But I'll Give My Thoughts On "The Devil Punisher" As A Manga-Style Taiwanese Series

Sure, Halloween is OVER but I decided to finish watching this Manga-style Anime anyway. I still thank Japan for actually creating Manga and Anime. I still think Chinese entertainment, Taiwanese entertainment, and South Korean entertainment learned a lot from Japan. A shame really that Japan tries to be more exclusive than not. I watched through Devil Punisher which is actually 天巡者 (Tiān xún zhě) or Skywatcher. I don't exactly get what's with the international distribution vs. the localized titles. I guess the title Devil's Punisher is a lot more appealing to Western audiences. The international title is cooler actually than the real title. It's like I prefer to call Rockman by his international distribution title namely MEGAMAN.

It's a crazy twist on Chinese mythology. This is the love story of Zhong Kui (Mike He) and Lady Meng (Ivy Shao). The two are Taoist saints who ended up as humans after some unfortunate incident in the afterlife. Lady Meng (also known as Xin Yu or Hsin Yu in Taiwan pinyin) lost her memories in the process. The bridge was destroyed and an angry ghost (later revealed to have a huge role) took Hsin Yu hostage. Zhong Kui becomes Zhong Zhengnan who tries to get back his girlfriend. As Zhengnan, Zhong Kui works as a baker for an old woman named Granny Wu. Granny Wu may be an amusing grandmother but she does have a few scenes that make me cry like a baby. One of them is the scene where Granny Wu sees her granddaughter unable to recover. Another scene was where Granny Wu was forced to accept her son died ahead of her.  I just want to hug the poor old lady. 

Jane Cheng is Li Enxi and Roy Chang (who looks like Makino Tomoaki, sort of) is Kai Ouyang. Ouyang starts off as an arrogant bully (who's actually controlled by his father) who starts to learn to love Enxi. There's also Anson Chen as Professor Lu Boya. For a bit of spoilers, I'd reveal that Boya actually isn't the nice professor that he is. Instead, Boya is pretty much a sleazy guy who's got an agenda. Okay, I'll just stop with the spoilers from there. Boya has some kind of obsession with Xin Yu - which becomes a turning point for the story. 

The story has some tearjerking moments but they can be quickly overrid. Granny Wu's granddaughter accepts what's happened and she recovers. There are also come characters who die tragically but end up being comics as ghosts. I really wonder if such humor is good or bad - considering I've written some really bad stories myself. I guess I can't fully understand Japanese-style humor where it mixes serious stuff with comedy. The comedy isn't there just for laughs but can be written to show how life has its ups and downs. 

The series has a 20-episode format. Some say it's kind of too long because each episode is around one hour and a few minutes long. I think 10 episodes could've been enough given the length per episode. However, it seems that Sanlih-E Television and Netflix both decided to decrease the budget so they could have more episodes. It's unlike how the huge budget of My Name K-Drama only allowed eight episodes instead of going for 16 episodes. I guess the show's use of CGI not being too good (which seems to be more like Japanese Toku levels) was one. Fortunately, the lack of PG-7 ratings allowed better action scenes than what Japanese Toku is allowed to work with these days. 

It's somewhat engaging even when it's no longer Halloween or Chinese Ghost Month. It's got the love story element that kept me going. There are great action scenes to watch for. Overall, it's an entertaining flick for those wanting to see how Taiwan can work with Japanese ideas.