‘Till the End of the Moon’: Episode 1 Run-down — Are all Demon Lords so Dramatic?

EPISODE 1 RECAP

The drama starts out with a bloody war. A Demon Lord (Luo Yunxi) is determined to smash the world into pieces, and so far, he’s succeeding. Is it just me or is Luo Yunxi even skinnier than the last time we saw him?

Various groups of immortals fight against this evil dude but they stand no chance. A girl student from one of these immortals sect, Susu (Bai Lu), is waiting for her father and brothers to come home from the war. Looks like they’re not, though.

Things don’t look good for the good side. When the Demon Lord is making his “I’m pretty and winning” speech, an arrow flies by and crazes his pretty cheek. Everyone stills and looks to the sky. It’s Susu, she’s here and ready to help. She also comes to collect an item called the Mirror of the Past, which is a powerful artefact the Demon people are after.

Demon Lord comments that she is the first one who has managed to hurt him in a long time. Maybe wear a helmet next time you decide to put on a performance in the middle of a battlefield that’s full of people who all want a piece of you?

He attacks Susu and nearly chokes her to death, but kind of lets her go at the last minute for dramatic effects. When she bleeds, her blood drops down onto the Mirror. It transports her to a realm where she can hear a godly voice that gives her all the exposition she needs to get this drama moving.

The Voice says she is the “chosen one” (which female lead isn’t?), and shows her some snippets of the Demon Lord’s past. He used to be a weak mortal, with less make-up, who got bullied a lot, so he went reckless and submitted himself to dark magic, which turned him into the Demonic… fair-skinned mafia he is today.

The Mirror breaks before Susu can see more. With one of her friends’ help, she escapes and flies back home. Susu lets her father and uncle see watches those clips from the Mirror fragments.

Afterwards, they agree on a solution: Susu will travel to the past and seek out the Demon Lord to kill him before he becomes evil. Errrrm… I don’t know, does it even work that way?

Susu is a little uneasy because that feels like killing an innocent man, which it is, but they don’t really have another choice. Plus, the Demon Lord plans to destroy Susu’s father’s sect today, and it looks like he will succeed, so yeah… what’s the point of Susu remaining here anyway?

The father goes out to confront Demon Lord and the uncle begins the magic to transport Susu to the past.

Demon Lord carries out his promise and literally annihilates the whole area, everyone dies including Susu’s father. Susu witnesses everything and vows to kill the Demon Lord when she meets him again.

Poof. Susu is out. When she wakes up again, she is in the body of a noble lady in the past. Her name is now Ye Xiwu.

Xiwu and her maid are running away from a group of bandits. Susu tries to fight back but she can’t do any magic while trapped in a mortal body. Which means… white-clothes hero rescue time!

A man descended from nowhere, gracefully kicks at some trees, spins around for a bit, and saves her from the bandits. A man with the face of one of her classmates who died during the battle five minutes ago. Oh nooo, now we have two skinny fairy-skinned guys to choose from, why must life be so tough on the female lead?

By the way, it looks like this drama’s design team just loves pointy headdresses. 

Anyway, Susu runs over to hug him but is bluntly rejected. Turns out, this man has been pursued by her (Ye Xiwu) for a while, but he is in love with her older sister. Awkwarddd for Susu.

But things are about to get even more awkward. Susu gets back to the Ye mansion and finds that she is actually married to the Demon Lord she is looking for; at this point, he is a prince named Tantai Jin. Here’s the best part: he is also in love with her older sister. Let us meet this older sister, drama!

Susu also learns that this lady whose body she is in isn’t a very nice person. She is horrid to her husband and totally cheated on him, or tried to with the other guy.

Susu goes to the courtyard to meet Tantai Jin, who has been condemned to three days of kneeling by her. It’s obvious that he hates her guts and has no interest in being friendly with her regardless of her personality.

Great, ’cause she’s here to kill him anyway, right? *side-smile*

COMMENTS

This drama has quite an interesting setup. Bai Lu, as always, delivers. She is believable as both an innocent young woman and a warrior who can save the world.

Luo Yunxi’s character, on the other hand, has a bit more of a shaky start. As a demon lord, he monologues too frequently and theatrically. Ohh, so interesting — wait, no, that’s not interesting — ohhh, noww it’s interesting. That is how it is with him during the whole first battle.

When he is the mortal man Tantai Jin, however, things are much better because the character is shown to have more layers. Even though he is innocent and quiet, you can see that there is a dark streak in there somewhere; so, it will be interesting to see how he develops once Susu is in the picture. At least I hope I’m reading this right. ‘Cause… let me tell you, if this guy turns out to be another dark lord who grows a golden heart and abandons his identity and his life goals for “love”, I’m gonna check out.

With this setup, I do look forward to how the lead couple will come together; we will see if the story holds its intrigue. And hopefully the… budget-friendly costumes, makeup, and CGI will not be too distracting.