Is Avatar a good movie? This is one of those arguments that I'm sure everyone of my generation has heard before. I think Avatar is a great movie, yes the story is absolutely trash, but the great visuals & the incredible OST turned it into a very memorable experience for me. Rainless Love in a Godless Land is a little similar for me, the photography is far above the modern kdrama standard & the OST is absolutely phenomenal, perhaps the individual tracks aren't quite up to the summit that is the Goblin OST (or Wu Bai's Last Dance), however the mixing & even the audio effects are absolutely phenomenal, the best I have ever heard in any TV series.

I brought up Avatar, but objectively speaking the story of Rainless is actually okay too. Personally I think this is the biggest "weak" point of the drama.
I could talk about plotholes, but there aren't that many on the surface level, though it is advised not to think too deeply about cause and effect.
I'm frustrated how little actual romance we've had. I mean sure, a Tdrama does not HAVE TO BE a romance drama necessarily, however here the story was completely set up for romance, most of the big actions the main characters take are motivated by love, that is why I find it difficult to tolerate the lack of actual romance that has been shown. Someday or One Day is hugely & I mean HUGELY better in this regard.
Someone in the comment section compared the plot to a Matryoshka doll and this is a somewhat valid comparison, it's just that I could not appreciate the big reveals in the last episode all that much. It's like all these grand concepts were introduced to confuse and mesmerize the audience, but ultimately they did not have that much plot relevance.
I don't like the main villain's motivation for doing the things he did, feels like it was just an afterthought by the writer. Honestly, I think I would have preferred not knowing.
I'm not entirely sold on the ending either, how everything turned in the last episode felt quite arbitrary to me..
Still it's nice a that the writer managed to produce a complex, cleverly written & still somewhat coherent script, it's better than what most high concept shows have in Hollywood.
I really liked how the show is based on indigenous Taiwanese lore. The mysticism based on this paired with the aforementioned audiovisuals are the heart of the drama.
Overall the show is fairly original, however it cannot be denied that the writer has gotten a lot of inspiration from Goblin & a certain Japanese video game.

I talked about before how I'm not entirely happy about the romantic story, but that's not all, the chemistry between the leads could've been better. Even during the finale I could not really get into the mood to earnestly root for their happiness.

Alice Ke really stole the show. She must have had fun while filming. What a great adversary she was! Though perhaps in certain scenes her enthusiasm was a touch too obvious.

While watching the drama, during the early episodes I frequently felt that I'm watching a movie produced for children, such as the 2018 Little Mermaid movie. Xie Tian Di's character had many juvenile moments. It's fine to have juvenile adults in a drama, they exists in real life too, I'm totally one myself, but Tian Di had some ridiculous dialogs early on, similar to a cartoon mom explaining something to her cartoon son about dog poop. Did perhaps the producers try to make the drama more family friendly? I guess it's okay, this did not detract too much from my enjoyment.

Joanne's singing was a very nice touch. In the later episodes I missed the summoning ritual quite a bit. Obviously this is based on Goblin's candle blowing thing, but it was nonetheless lovely.

The episode previews were extremely annoying. Why, just why would anyone put the episode preview BEFORE the epilogue? A binge watcher does not need episode previews anyway, even if I'm watching a drama normally as it airs, I would like to have the option to not look at the previews.

TLDR: Rainless Love in a Godless Land is a wonderful audiovisual experience with an above average story, 9/10.

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原子邦妮 Astro Bunny is absolutely incredible, even outside of Rainless's OST. Her songs sound like Ivy songs, but better.


edit: I decided to give this another go, now in the year 2023. I think my review holds up quite well, but now I felt the chemistry between the leads being better than what I initially thought & also enjoyed the final half episode A LOT as well.