My Journey to You started off very well- it was mysterious, beautifully shot, and with a lovely soundtrack. The world of the show is one where all the female characters except one have ties to a mysterious spy organisation and three (or four) of these women have infiltrated the highly-guarded Gong family. For some strange reason, the Gong family holds a bride selection ever 20 years, and as the show begins, the spy organisation Wufeng has sent spies dressed as brides. Our female lead is also a spy, albeit among the lowest order in this cruel organisation, and she has been handed over an assignment which we as the audience are not fully aware of. It is not enough to trust one woman with a task so Wufeng decides to send three female spies. The bride arc is undoubtedly the most interesting and engaging in the entire show.

Immediately a number of different mysteries are placed in the world of the show to be solved by the end. What is Wufeng- what is its purpose, why does it exist? Why is the Gong family so guarded? Why are brides sent to the Gong family? Who are the other clans in this world and what role if any do they have in this Wufeng-Gong fiasco? As the story progresses, similar other questions prop up.

The first ten episodes are fairly well-paced after which I felt the show started dragging: the Gong cousins were at each other throats for far too long without any real reason. It was quite clear that Gong Shang Jue’s primary concern was the Gong family itself and that explains his tough stance towards Gong Zi Yu, so in the end it isn’t really a surprise. Yet, many of the confrontations between the cousins just seemed to repeat themselves, episode after episode. The three trials were far too spaced-out (and frankly somewhat underwhelming) to hold attention. It’s only the last five episodes or so where the pacing improved and the main questions (including who killed Gong Zi Yu’s father) were answered…to some extent.

For a show with so many female spies, women really didn’t have much to do beyond spying (and falling in love). Women are either crazily in love or become coy soon after falling in love (Ziyu’s mother, Gong Zi Shang, even Yun Wei Shan) or chasing some mumbo-jumbo ideas of “freedom” (again, Ziyu’s mother, Yan Wei Shan and Shangguan Qian come to mind), or the verdict is not out on them (e.g., Wuji and Shanggan Qian). Are any of these women (except Gong Zi Shang) even free? Whether it’s being a Wufeng spy or married into the Gong family (which very much resembles a prison for women as they can’t go outside)- all women are in chains, physical and emotional. Gong Zi Shang’s seeking her family's attention is placed on the back burner in front of the love story. What can be more important than romantic love? If women aren’t married or in love they can surely end up being as cruel as the head of Wufeng! The show started off as the FL’s story and ended up being the ML’s story, as he had the strongest arc.

The last episode solved some of the questions asked and then left plenty of other questions unanswered. Perhaps the most jarring one of them: why did the FL go there, and what happened to her? Instead of also critiquing some of the Gong family practices, the screenwriter decided to present Wufeng as a single-headed, mindless organisation with a psychopathic female killer as its head. Of course, plenty of logical fallacies too appear- how did Shangguan Qian manage to mortally injure Jin Fan.

At the end of the show I liked how the cousins had finally bonded; the separation of the back hill boys was sad. Yet, what really was the point of the back hill? What was the point of many of the devices used in this story? There are many positives on the show- particularly the lovely soundtrack, the costumes, the beautiful cinematography, the characters, and the acting to a great extent. The weakest link in my opinion was the plot which meandered to the point of being pretentious. The greatest stories always have deeper subtexts- scratch this one and it is hollow with hardly anything to say beyond its stylistic machinations.