Thoughts on Veil of Shadows and how its barely concealed authorial intent reveals what the story wanted to be. or come over and wear a tinfoil hat with me!
My frustration with Veil of Shadows started nearly half a year ago, when I ventured into the script. On paper, without the tools of visual storytelling used to make this mess somewhat bearable, the story is particularly disheartening. The narrative shows a very clear direction towards a more cohesive structure and emotionally impactful plot, one that the writers, for some reason, never commit to. Instead, they make wild turns left and right, taking the story nowhere, straight into the dumpster fire.
At its core, Veil of Shadows seems designed around paralleling journeys of identity and reconciliation with oneself. The show explores how your sense of identity is tied to your ability to love yourself and others, most notably through Wu Wangyan and Ji Ling and their respective partners, Wu Shiguang and Li Jie (I’ll touch on Lu Wuyi a bit later). And yet, both their stories end up lacking any emotional payoff. They’re denied a meaningful climax of their character arcs in the name of what exactly? You expect them, Wu Wangyan and Wu Shiguang, Ji Ling and Li Jie, to reach self-acceptance in some sort of tandem, but the only tandem is your two last remaining braincells trying to make sense of imbalance, which creates a massive sense of absence.
This is where I suggest you wear a tinfoil hat with me. If the story is so bloated, why does it feel empty and shallow, barely holding together around interesting themes that are never allowed to reach their full potential? I had plenty of time to detangle this mess before the show aired, based on Guo Jingming’s (later Xiao Si bc I’m not calling him Guo Jingming) preferred themes, narrative tools, and beloved techniques, Tian Jiarui’s offhanded remark that the plot was rewritten seven goddamn times, the initial summary and title of the story, and the massive plot holes that start to make sense when you tweak a thing or two.
Wu Wangyan, the protagonist.
Despite Lu Wuyi being introduced as the main character of this story, don’t you guys think that her character contributes little to NOTHING to the overarching plot, more and more and more narrative bloat dolled up as importance? She starts the story without real motivation, no clear goals, nothing driving her forward. She feels like a side character awkwardly pushed into the spotlight without the substance to justify it.
Meanwhile, Wu Wangyan feels like the actual protagonist but somehow the story tries so hard to pretend it isn’t about her. Like she’s supposed to be the one actually carrying the narrative, the one who brings characters together, the point of connection. Instead, she’s often written off to free space for a placeholder the writers forgot to remove. From the very beginning, she has clear motivations, defined inner conflict, and she makes choices that actively shape the direction of the plot. Her actions have weight. You cannot take her out of the story without a gaping abyss staring back at you. (Which VOS literally did and now we’re all Li Lun-ing into the abyss)
Well, here is the initial summary for Painted Skin: The Resurrection:
Wen Xin, a young vixen with a beautiful face skillfully painted by her master Xiao Wei, embarks on a quest to find her elusive master, who departed without a farewell. Her journey leads her to Ningcheng City, a place where humans and demons coexist, but she unexpectedly crosses paths with Dongfang Ling Feng, a thousand-year-old fox demon responsible for a string of gruesome killings through consuming human hearts. Through a twist of fate, Wen Xin finds herself mistakenly assuming the role of the young daughter-in-law to Jing Hange, the Chief of the Demon Catching Bureau. Amidst the chaos and complexities of their intertwined destinies, these two demons begin to unravel the depths of their own hearts and feelings.
Your first reaction might be, who the FUCK are these people, which is fair, yeah. Look again though, doesn’t it sound familiar? Wu Wangyan searching for her beloved Xiao Wei and plotting with Chiwen, the Dragon Deity, to get closer to Wu Shiguang, the brother and son of Chiwen. Seemingly the same core, different skin painted.
So my point is: Wu Wangyan and Lu Wuyi were always supposed to be one character. Lu Wuyi is quite literally a Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from plotlines borrowed from Wu Wangyan (and Li Jie).
One of the most memorable scenes in the show for me is the moment it’s revealed that the Dragon Deity and Wu Wangyan are working together. It grabs your attention with spectacular acting and the promise of importance, but in essence, the scene is random, disconnected, and ultimately leads nowhere. It shouldn’t.
Wu Wangyan working alongside and actively plotting with the Dragon Deity would immediately give her relationship with Wu Shiguang more weight. She, akin to Wen Xiao in Fangs of Fortune, Yun Weishan in My Journey to You, or even Princess Zhang Ping in Yin-Yang Master, becomes the glue that connects the characters. Everything is heading in the same direction, instead of bloating the plot further. The conflicts actually intersect here.
Wu Wangyan and Wu Shiguang’s relationship with the Dragon Deity would no longer feel like a random, detached subplot. It creates an emotional rift in the story. Wu Shiguang already believes that the Dragon Deity, the great evil, is responsible for the massacre of the flood dragons, his family. Now it escalates: he discovers that Wu Wangyan was here on the day of the massacre, actively involved in the brutal killings of noodles. And even worse, he finds out she’s been working with the Dragon Deity all along. Deliberately. To get close to him, to gain his trust, to steal his prayer beads.
Wu Wangyan’s developed relationship with the Dragon Deity and the betrayal that is born from it, cuts through whatever trust existed and straight into the wounds of Wu Shiguang’s heart. She chose this. And she chose it while standing at Wu Shiguang’s side.
On top of all that, god, how much I wish she had been allowed to be the vessel for Jiu Ying. How devastating it would've been for her to learn that the violence she inflicts on others is at her core, it's in her entire being. She would be fully tied to the very force that destroyed Wu Shiguang’s family, unknowingly aligned with the power Wu Shiguang, as the next Dragon Deity, is destined to oppose, and she would fall in love with him anyway.
More importantly, and I cannot stress it enough, this is Xiao Si’s favourite theme, the one he returns to again and again across the trilogy: two people destined to stand in opposition, yet drawn to each other anyway. Here, the weight of that theme would finally feel earned.
Wu Wangyan’s conflict becomes structural. It shapes her present. The choices she makes carry real stakes and consequences. Her identity issues and resistance against what she’s been groomed into being are tangible and painful. Is she meant to hurt the innocent, those she loves? Is she defined by what she's meant to be? Is she forever trapped? Can Wu Shiguang’s love help her make peace with herself and can Wu Wangyan's love for him free her from the burdens of her own self?
My biggest beef with Wu Shiguang’s arc is the very clear sidelining of his character. He’s the hero, the central character whose story of becoming the true Dragon Deity we were supposed to follow, much like Gong Ziyu in My Journey to You or Zhuo Yichen in Fangs of Fortune. He’s a great narrative tool for the audience to learn about the world the story is set in — demons, humans, everything really. Through him, we were supposed to unveil the shadows of it all.
Wu Shiguang has a clear connection to every important figure of the story, and somehow he still develops separately from the main plot. He has no real meaningful relationship with the Dragon Deity, the little fox that literally waited for 150 years for him to appear. Sometimes plot tells him to hate the guy, so he hates. Then it tells him to call the guy gege, so he calls him gege. The plot then tells him to focus on real Chiwen and entirely forget about the guy who warmed the seat for him for all these years, so he does.
The saddest thing for me is Wu Shiguang’s love story with Wu Wangyan, and how they were basically reduced to witnesses of each other’s identity struggles instead of overcoming them together through the ordeals and conflicts they were so clearly meant to have. Wu Wangyan was supposed to be Wu Shiguang’s great motivation to become the Dragon Deity. She should be his reason why he wants to embrace his new role. The end of his journey is choosing Wu Wangyan, and through that choice, accepting himself.
It should be tragic. Wu Shiguang should be torn between his brother, the Dragon Deity, little fox, who he discovers to be just as trapped and broken as Wu Wangyan, and Wu Wangyan herself, who he chooses not because he lacks options, but because, out of all options in the world, he will always choose her.
Ji Ling, the false antagonist.
How do I even proceed with this one without banging my head on the keyboard until my bitterness bleeds out of me?
From a narrative standpoint, everything is trying to position Ji Ling as an antagonist at first. Ji Ling is our Gong Shangjue of Veil of Shadows. We, as the audience, are supposed to question his motives, doubt his morals, and distrust his actions. The Dragon Deity who killed Wu Shiguang’s entire family, he really is that evil, huh? He has succumbed to the darkness and power; he’s willing to do anything to preserve the throne he towers over everyone from. Ji Ling’s character is a real threat to Wu Wangyan and Wu Shiguang, and the mystery of Ji Ling’s ambiguous nature should be unraveled gradually, revealed slowly until we learn that the true evil is Jiu Ying all along.
The dilemma! The tension! That never materialises in any meaningful way.
What a waste of both time and a compelling character to half-assedly frame Ji Ling as an antagonist and ultimately rob the audience of any suspense because he’s forced into a romance he was never supposed to have in the first place.
Lu Wuyi, for no reason whatsoever, believes in the goodness of Ji Ling’s heart with unwavering certainty. Despite the shoehorned back and forth, I hate you, I love you, we’re never given any space to suspect otherwise, we’re never allowed to have any doubt about his morality. Female lead loves him and trusts him, he’s kind, he might have his reasons, he’s probably a tragic meow meow. There’s no real ambiguity or tricky grey area for his character to exist in.
We were never supposed to be sure about Ji Ling. Only Li Jie, who has very established relationship with Ji Ling, should be sure about him. Gong Yuanzhi to Gong Shangjue.
We, along with Wu Shiguang, should’ve embarked on this journey and learned that the Dragon Deity waited for Wu Shiguang for 150 years and quietly prepared the seat for him to take over. As Wu Shiguang’s heart melts, ours melt, too. When Wu Shiguang is devastated by the realisation of what it truly entails to become the Dragon Deity, Wu Shiguang, Wu Wangyan, and we should cry our eyes out, knowing that there’s no other option but to part with Ji Ling, misunderstood little fox trying his best.
When Ji Ling is allowed to embrace his role as the false antagonist (false dragon deity, false younger brother) and dangerously balance on the tightrope of grey morality connecting his past self and present self, his identity issues fall neatly into place. Ji Ling trying to preserve his happier self amid the questionable decisions he’s forced to make suddenly feels more understandable. We question him, and he questions himself, yearning for easier times.
Due to forced romantic elements that were never sufficiently developed, Ji Ling never receives a defining moment where he can accept himself and celebrate the overcoming of his immortal suffering. His identity arc feels limited, under-explored, hella fragmented. Ji Ling is denied any meaningful culmination all together and his search of oneself FULLY depends on Li Jie’s journey to have the intended impact on viewers.
While Li Jie is given a relatively complete arc, separating Li Jie and Ji Ling character developments from each other weakens both their characters. They’re quite literally interdependent. They’re our antagonist duo, as I said earlier, Gong Shangjue and Gong Yuanzhi if you will. I think there’s very clear reason why in the first episode we have a long ass fight scene between Wu Wangyan/Wu Shiguang and Ji Ling/Li Jie.
Li Jie’s dynamic with Ji Ling works so well in order to preserve the secret of Ji Ling’s identity. He’s the loyal guard dog who knows exactly who Ji Ling is, a kind person who Li Jie chose to protect.
As I said earlier, only Li Jie should be certain about Ji Ling. And we, as the audience, shouldn’t even be fully certain about Li Jie. And if Li Jie is portrayed as the demon-hunter commander with close ties to the Dragon Deity, our presumed antagonist, he suddenly becomes far more unsettling.
That’s where Yuan Wuhuo, the butterfly demon, becomes genuinely interesting. He could appear, causing chaos and deepening the mystery around the Shilin Sect and the Dragon Deity. Imagine if there were real doubt, if we weren’t sure whether Yuan Wuhuo and Li Jie were connected, or even the same. From Wu Wangyan and Wu Shiguang’s perspective, encountering the butterfly freak could raise a real suspicion. Like, who is this? Is he working for the Dragon Deity? Is he trying to steal power?
And then Yuan Wuhuo becomes the key to learning about Jiu Ying and everything the true evil is plotting.
Of course, what also makes Li Jie and Ji Ling so awfully compelling is how perfectly they mirror each other. One genuinely doesn’t exist without the other in any meaningful way. Yuan Wuhuo and Ji Ling. Li Jie and the puppet Ji Ling. Yuan Wuhuo, the butterfly demon, and Ji Can, the loneliness demon.
Wu Wangyan (if we give her story back to her) and Wu Shiguang’s identity conflict stems from who they’re supposed to become, Ji Ling and Li Jie’s stems from who they once were. It’s an obsession with past choices and how that obsession slowly eats you alive, denying you the present and a full life, making you forget that you are not alone and that your regrets don’t define you. You can still live a joyous life.
It feels incredibly obvious that they were meant to go through this journey of self-discovery together. Only together can they fully understand themselves. They complete each other.
Even the mechanics of the plot could have reinforced this. It makes far more sense for Ji Can to trap Li Jie and Ji Ling, and for Yuan Wuhuo, the butterfly demon, to target unconscious Li Jie and Ji Ling while Baize protects them. Then it’s not just random conflict, it’s their demonic halves acting against them. Their inner selves quite literally attacking them.
It makes far more sense for Li Jie and Ji Ling to be trapped in the Star Stone Illusion together, because what the fuck is Manman, and how did his character ever help us understand Ji Ling? The Star Stone Illusion should be their moment, Ji Ling’s moment, really, to unveil that he knows about Yuan Wuhuo and Yuan Xizai, and the connection between them all.
I could literally go on and on about the many scenes Li Jie and Ji Ling were supposed to share, but ultimately, the lack of those scenes and the absence of any real closure for their relationship and their identity arcs simply feels unrewarding.
At the end of it all, Ji Ling doesn't know fully where Li Jie and Yuan Wuhuo, the butterfly demon, come from. At the end of it all, Li Jie doesn't know fully the story between Yuan Wuhuo and Ji Ling. Only we, the audience, know their complete story.
To conclude my fucking unhinged rambling, Painted Skin: The Resurrection had all the right elements for an interesting story: mirrored identities, intertwined fates, and complementary relationships. And then Veil of Shadows spectacularly butchers everything what is good about this story by separating the arcs that were clearly meant to converge, by cutting its own tension and revealing its own secrets, by introducing characters while borrowing plotlines from existing ones just to make them somewhat coherent. Veil of shadows is a fragmented version of something far more compelling that we were never allowed to witness.
But sure as hell deserved.
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