Noble Aspirations

Above-Average fight scenes + Good acting by Young Cast (before they're famous!)

10/19/2021 - 8.25 rounding up to 8.5

I have not read the novel so this review is solely my take on the drama itself. I am pleasantly surprised that I enjoy this drama more than I thought I would. Being an 55-episode drama, I am prepared to experience a long and draggy storyline. I am actually engaged through about the first 30 or so episodes. At the time of writing this review, I've watched the first 6 episodes of season 2, and I strongly believe that they should have combined both seasons into one, and then cut down an episode or two from each of season 1's arcs. It's quite pointless to split this into 2 seasons, and then have a third season planned.

Acting: It's quite interesting to see all these big stars before they were famous. All of their acting is quite good. This is my first Li Ying Feng drama and he did a pretty good job as the male lead. I really enjoy seeing his character development from a young, innocent, and kind-hearted teenager, to become a loyal, stubborn and noble hero. The only criticism I have is that I don't quite see love in his eyes when he's looking at FL. Other than that, his portrayal of other emotions is good. I've seen quite a couple Zanilia Zhao dramas (Rookie Agent Rouge and Story of Ming Lan). I am not a big fan of hers, but I do think she did a good job in this drama as well. She looked so young and with such a baby face. Similarly, I've also seen a couple Yang Zi's dramas (Ashes of Love and Go Go Squid) and I do not like her characters in these dramas. However, I finally found her likable here and can see why she has so many fans. She looked beautiful and I like her portrayal of this calm, serious and level-headed character, yet still showing her very reserved admiration for ML. For the other two male leads, Cheng Yi and Qin Jun Jie, I am definitely a fan of them and their other works. I already know they can act and they don't disappoint here. Oh, I think Qin Jun Jie ages like fine wine :)

Martial Arts/Fight scenes: A big reason for me wanting to watch this drama is because of the fight scenes. I continue to search for dramas who will give me great fights with no slow-motion, spinning/twirling, and actors who couldn't hold a sword steadily. I would say I am quite satisfied with the fight scenes in the first half of the drama, esp. when the leads are still students. Even though there are quite a few zoomed out fight scenes and you know those were body doubles and stunt(wo)men, the overall visuals and choreography are good. However, in the second half, the use of magic and CGI increases and the actual fight scenes diminish. We got a few more good fighting towards the end of the drama. Overall, I personally think this drama has above-average fight scenes and it's a big reason I bumped my rating from an 8.0 to 8.5.

Plot/Characters: I enjoy the general plot of the drama and the different storylines. I do think that some of the arcs could be shortened. But there are enough action and events going on to keep be engaged through the first 30 episodes. I do feel that the drama slows down around episodes 30-40. I am also happy to see that our male leads, Xiao Fan and Jing Yu, continue to have this great friendship throughout the drama. Often times, you have one brother turns into an evil character. I am relieved to see them both continue to be the persons that they were as kids, and the bromance/friendship continues on when they are adults. I am also happy to see strong female characters who could fight and might be better fighters than the male characters. There's enough self-sacrifice and saving each other in this drama that I wouldn't characterize the female characters as damsels in distress. They do seem to be strong and intelligent throughout the drama.

Romance: Our main leads have a Romeo & Juliet-type romance. Even though I enjoy their scenes together and all the hardships that they go through, I only find their chemistry OK for the majority of the drama. As mentioned earlier, I am not feeling the love from Li Ying Feng. I expect more emotions if you are Romeo. I would say the turning point would be in ep. 52 when Xiao Fan heartbreakingly confesses to Bi Yao. That scene is when I can feel that chemistry. However, in the last 10 episodes, the romance seems to be running in circles - ML not wanting to see FL, FL went to see him and asked him to leave with her, ML said no - repeat a few times. The secondary romance between Jing Yu and Jin Ping Er is even weaker. There aren't enough scenes between them, and they don't have that many alone time together. I don't find it believable that Jin Ping Er would fall in love with Jing Yu. There's not enough buildup and it's not a love at first sight. There are also quite a few unrequited loves in this drama and they are decently portrayed.

CGI/Music - I have very low expectations coming into this drama regarding CGI and special effects. For a 2016 C-drama, it's decent. I laughed out loud at the appearance of a weird and slippery-looking snake though. This also might be the first drama that I've enjoyed the background music more than the songs themselves. The songs aren't that memorable but the BGM complements the different scenes appropriately.

Other observations:
1) The guy with the dice as a magical weapon is quite funny, esp. in fight scenes
2) A grown-up Jackson Yee is more handsome than a teenage Jackson Yee :)
3) What is up with the medicine product placement?!?
4) Weird directing where actors just stand there and stare at each other for 5 seconds before speaking - forcing the viewers to feel the attraction?

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Different aspirations,goals and destinies

This drama is primarily based on a story of 2 friends played by Cheng Yi and Li Yifeng.
Both of them hailing from the same village,join in the same sect after a disaster strikes their village.The post events that take place in their lives forms the latter part of the story
Both the actors were quite good in their roles.
Yang Zi,Qin Junjie and Zhao Liying were also good in their roles.
The pace was good.There were not many twists and turns and the villains are the typical antagonists that we see in any drama.
Though the plot is not so intense, but still it is watchable.
A good wuxia drama.

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Love the entire cast! Have seen some of the actors/actress before.

Superb acting and delivery by Li Yifeng (Zhang Xiaofan), Zhao Liying (Bi Yao), Mao Zijun (Qin Wuyan), Yang Zi (Lu Xueqi), Chen Yi (Lin Jingyu), Qin Junjie (Zhang Shushu)

The theme of the story was held from the beginning to the end, which is an extremely rare gem in any type of series shown globally. The creatives usually stray, but not here.

Li Yifeng rocks his character as Xiaofan. Xiaofan is good, strong physically and mentally, he possess the qualities of a good leader.

The boy who everyone looked down on, was the smartest of them all, he just need space to adapt. Zhang Xiaofan was the the light of good shining through the darkness of the righteous Sect, What an irony. The stage is set for the unraveling of the answer to the theme question, "What is righteous? What is evil? We see the answer unfold in so many ways. Even Xiaofan says it clearly, their is only good and bad; if you do bad, then you are bad, if you do good, then you are good. Your actions has to be for the better of the world. We see through the story how the little boy grows up in age and skills, both physical and mental evolving into a hero. He is clear on what it is right and what is wrong and he has a clear conscientious to do what is right and abide by it. Xiaofan demonstrates this time and time again. He even refuse his love, Bi Yao to give her the Heavenly Book or to leave his sect for her, with her.

I have seen a few show with Yang Zi and she definitely has acting skills, the versatility is there.

Lu Xueqi has a lot in her closet that comes out little by little. Seems that she also like Bi Yao has a connection with Xiaofan. Hidden under her cold personality is a somewhat free spirit trying to come out and play a little. She is smart and a good fighter. She is the first to recognize and acknowledge the growth and strength within Xiaofan, whom she has developed a good relationship with. You can tell by her actions, dialogue, and they way she looks at Xiaofan, that she love/falling in love with him.

Bi Yao is somewhat naive, but eloquent and knows who she loves. And her love for Xiaofan has no boundaries. Just like Xiaofan being caught in between his love for her, his sect; she is caught between her love for him, her father, and being the heir to the Ghost Sect. Her father is relentless in his plans of taking revenge for loosing a hundred year old war, his diabolical plan of resurrecting the beast god, to taking over the righteous sect, that he indeed fails to take good care of his daughter as Xiaofan so righteously told him.

Zhang Shushu was my comic relieve. However, his moments with his grandfather was heartfelt and I especially enjoyed the scene with him and his grandfather telling him a story at night. Zhang Shushu grows up after his grandfather's death. He is forced by this accept his place as City Leader of Yudu and he commits to it. His growth is also shown when he encounters Qin Wuyan.

I have seen Mao Zijun in a few shows and he definitely has versatility in his acting. Would like to see him in a lead role. He has already proven to be a good villain.

Qin Wuyan is cruel and manipulative. He is willing to do anything for himself by hook or by crook. He even after Bi Yao and her father for his and her marriage.

Lin Jingyu is a good friend indeed. He correct the mistake he made once for not believing Xiaofan. However, Jingyu has always been by Xiaofan's side. He is definitely an expert fighter, but unfortunately lost all his powers due to being framed by a so-called righteous sect member scheming to be the successor to lead the righteous sect and works with the evil sect. It is at this point that he realizes Xiaofan was right, you are good by deed and bad by deed, depending on which you choose to do. He later finds out the his teacher was actually a traitor to the righteous sect, that his teacher was actually from the evil sect.

Following the revelation of Jingyu's Teacher being the traitor. He airs the dirty laundry of the so-called righteous sect, where practically all of the leaders, are not so righteous including their own leader, who is bad by his actions and by his heart. He was always preaching of righteousness along with the others, but they and him were the biggest traitors to the righteous sect. The righteous sect leader want to punish Xiaofan for no reason and he breaks his promise to Xiaofan's teacher to wait a few days. The Fen Xiang Valley, another so-called righteous sect actually acts evil doing bad deeds in Yudu, and other places, yet they blame everything on Xiaofan. And Although Xiaofan saved them so many times, the righteous leader yet wanted to murder him in the midst of the biggest battle they were having. And it is here that Bi Yao sacrifices herself for Xiaofan. This leaves Xiaofan heartbroken on many different levels. He later helps a very much wounded father of Bi Yao to extend her life so he can take her to the sacred mountain. However, Qin Wuyan volunteers to go and help Xiaofan in Yudu. Will he really help or just create more issues as he is always scheming.

Bi Yao, who is from the evil sect, is actually good as she has not done any bad things whereas the righteous sect leader and Fen Valley whom are in the righteous sect are evil by doing bad deeds. What an irony!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And Zhang Xiaofan, who has always side with the truth and good was in the process of being killed by his sect leaders for his righteousness. What an irony!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enjoyed Ren Jialun (Liu wei) and his little brother.

Now to find Noble Aspirations II to see. However, it is very difficult to locate C-Drama with complete episodes and with English Subtitles.

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This is a great show for those of them that likes the typical cliche storylines, but I liked it from the start to the end. However, it didn't end quite the way I wanted it too, but there is something about this kind of Wuixia stories that I damn well enough like to torture myself through.
It okay, enough to watch for those that want to watch something.
There's actually a lot I can say about this story, about its plotline and everything really, and as I haven't seen the Legend of Chusen 2, so I can't say for sure if everything will be ready and dandy in the next chapter of the story.
The actors are doing a great job of being convincing but I loved the side characters more than I did the main characters because they did such a better job at convincing me that it was worth the imbalance of the whole storyline.

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Yang Zi 10/10 acting skill

This is my favorite drama. Music cast story 10/10 wish it follow the novel give Yang Zi more playing role cause she did a amazing job.. even tho she show up more then Zhao Li Ying -Bi Yao
I loved both Yang Zi and her character of Lu Xueqi . Both actress and the character kept me going in the series. I also didn't mind Li Yi Feng as Zhang Xiao Fan. It was the first time seeing him in a drama as with the rest of the cast, I found him to be boring at first but good through the whole series. I love the bond between the characters of Zhang Xiao Fan, Lu Xueqi, Lin Jing Yu and Ceng Zhu Zhu after the martial arts tournament orginal novel.. by far my favorite today actress Yang Zi wish you return final Noble Aspirations Season 3 or a Reboot..

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Yang Zi!!!

Too many episodes but I think the writers needed to tell everything about these two young men's life who have undergone what I call Post Traumatic Syndrome in watching their parents, family, and their community destroyed and murdered. The writers took them to join the heavenly sect which at the end of all of it in this piece was not so heavenly. I couldn't understand why the writers decide to have the sect leader eliminate Xiao Fan without explanation. I have to watch the last episode again. Demons and Righteousness sects have always been in our existence in this present day but in different forms. What this has told me is that you don't need to belong to a sect to achieve one's goals. Looking forward to watching the 2nd part of this to see how the two young men have overcome the demons within themselves and continue with a righteous path. Thanks for throwing the emotion of Love into the mix. Love can always sway a person from right or wrong. Thank you to all the cast, writers, producers, etc. Great Job! Yang Zi... I loved her in this.

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Finished it. And boy.
I just wanted to write a comment but it kept getting longer so here.
Overall I liked the underlying themes of abuse of power, fighting discrimination and advocation of equal treatment. Should a person be descriminated or even hated because of their back ground with even being given a chance?
We also saw a romeo and juliet doomed love with the main leads.
It was an enjoyable though exasperating watch with a lot of long conversations of them not saying anything to advance the plot or just the same talking points over and over again, a lot of face palms and I have no idea how many times I asked my self 'are you kidding?'
Could this have been shorter by cutting of a lot of unnessary scenes? Yes. I had to do the editing job myself with the help of the fast forward button. And still we had a non ending.
The acting was only limited by the writing of the characters and I'm going to put a heavy burden on the directing.

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Recommended watch

Finished watching Season 1 and 2 of this drama. I must say it was worth all 73 episodes. I started season 2 as soon as I finished season 1 as I wanted to know what happened to Xiao Fan and his brothers. I would say this is one of the C-drama that has a high re-watch value as long as you are willing to sit through all 73 episodes.

The storyline is not complicated and easy to follow. Slight love triangle, but not too excessive. The drama let you follow Xiao Fan's journey from being an undecisive young man to a mature, know what he wants grown-up. He does looks good in the Ghost Sect outfit. The bonds between brothers are so strong in this drama and certainly make you rooting for happy ending for them. The unspoken love between Jing Ping'er and Jin Yu is heart breaking ( I kept yelling at the TV for them to just tell each other how they felt, even just at the end).

The Righteous Sect annoys me in this drama. They are actually worst than the Demon Sect and think very highly of themselves. They are not that good, in fact they are spiteful and unforgiving sect.

All the casts done a really good job in this drama, they acted their character beautifully, not to mention the beautiful surrounding and clothing (the Demon Sects wore more dazzling clothing!) Jing Ping'er red dress and the Azure Dragon outfit was so beautiful and of course, Xiao Fan's black and red robe!

Watch this if you are into good versus evil story line, everlasting love, unspoken love, unrequited love, lots of fighting, awesome magic and martial arts.

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Great story purely executed

Great actors and it is defensively worth watching but I don''t know what is wrong with script writers as some things are just, to put it mildly, not believable even for this genre.
Just one of the examples, One of the protagonists is holding a "mystical" pearl in his open hand starring up in the sky while two guys are fighting to get it. 3rd guy swoops in and picks the pearl from his hand and everyone looks surprised?! Then 5-6 episodes were spent fixing that mistake.

Growth of two main characters is carried out very well and it is nicely executed by cast members. Remaining cast is just a good. Chemistry between them is great and very often quite emotional.
Choreography is more of a dance then real fight as focus in on the magical cultivation and CGI effects.
Music is on the spot for my taste, except for a closing song - From my point of view is a bit out of touch and cheesy.
I compare all c-drama shows to "Joy of Life" which is in my opinion a master peace and we will not see anything that good any tie soon...Perhaps Legend of Fei...

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Dragging, nothing special

The best number of episode should be only around 30-35 episodes. I literally need to force myself to continue to watch this, almost dropped the series.
Well overall not a bad drama, but not those series that make you want to know more and hook you into. And this is definitely not for those looking for old times sword fighting thingy, this is only a drama with a lot of special effects bearing swords, without nice actual sword fighting, all edited with special effects. In short is a so called costume drama with special effects. Watchable for those fans of the actors and actress, but don't expect for extraordinary story. Not love story, not fighting story, not mystery, not thriller.. just flat story of the good and evil sects.

Comments on the drama:
1. There's no couple feeling between the main leads, not sure if this is the way to portray love between them? There's no love expression at all from both. Only the actions, sacrifice, without that...both like no feelings at all.

2. The story line like jumping and unreasonable, example: just out from Hu Qi mountain then suddenly can bump into Zheng Shu Shu in Yu Du? Are this two places adjected?? And so many other unreasonable things. Like some story being cut and fast forward without notice, but still the series is very long with slow pace? Something wrong with the screenwriter!

3. The flying scene, absolutely unnatural and can see very fake. And I even can imagine the wires wrapped around their body while their maintaining that kind of posture.

4. The make up, especially the eye lashes... OMG...so fake! And to think that this is costume drama, which was supposed happened like donkey ages ago.. there should not be such things like eye lashes extensions?

5. The title is Legend of Chusen, but the whole story... not really about the legend of Chusen. Chusen only appears on the last episode and being mentioned few times before that? The whole series talking about the evil vs good sect, and the emphasis not even to the Chusen but to the Blood Pearl?? So may as well change the title to Legend of Blood Pearl?

6. Irritated with Bi Yao Character, sooooo stupid and stubborn!

7. Kudos to Qin Jun Jie acting, after seeing his acting here and Listening Snow Tower, his acting really good!! And his character here is really refreshing and entertaining

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