Legend of Fei

Watch it don't miss this

I feel this is underrated. This is a saga of another strong female with a physically weak male, and i have seen stories like this becomes boring after sometime. This story was able to keep my interest till the end and i binged watched. Though the male is physically weak but mentally very strong. FL and ML are devoted to each other with unconditional love. They don't demand anything from each other. They had good chemistry on the screen and their presence radiated good relationship from very start. I really liked when logical Ah Fei thinks why do i believe whatever he says without any question? may be it is his handsome face, even before that she started trusting him and protecting him. Our ML never took offence to it or showed his ego getting hurt instead he will feel so proud and tickled. Love the series. All characters were pretty good and even the second leads have a cute story. Amazing marshal art scenes. The only this which annoyed me is Disha getting away all the time and not dying or getting killed. I found that bit ridiculous. Well written story, beautiful OST, great acting and actors, amazing cinematography. All in all a must watch.

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A nicely paced martial arts coming of age drama that kept my interest from start to sensible finish.

After 9 pages of reviews, I don't know why I feel the need to add my two cents except that I've watched a LOT of this genre and Legend of Fei was a such a pleasant surprise after the numerous disappointing storylines that have been served up lately. The plot was dished out one course at a time, not too rushed and not to draggy, with each resolution leading logically to the next mystery. There were no awful censor edits making it disjointed, the ending wasn't stupid or needlessly tragic, and it wasn't a cliffhanger (another fave of late).

Sure, the kids start off whiny and immature, but they grow over the course of their adventures (although Li Yan remains annoying to the end). The main romance grows organically, which takes time, but their mutual admiration and eventual interdependence portray a love that feels really deep and beautiful, even without a lot of skinship. And Wang Yibo's acting was really good. I enjoyed the playful character he created, but he had some nuanced fear and anguish that came off really well too. The secondary characters were more comic-booky, except for Li Sheng, but I liked spending time with them on their quests (except for Li Yan).

So if you're looking for an enjoyable, comfortably paced adventure and enjoy this genre, you should give it a try. Oh, and the music is very good too!

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Average Wuxia Drama !! (minor spoilers)

Let me give you an honest review, It all started off nicely for the first 7-8 episodes for me, we are got to see and know some characters, some stories, and full packed action. Next 15 episodes went straight downhill, I skipped most parts we get to see so many characters come and go for no reason. It's so confusing to remember who is who, their names. Like not even a single person stays in your mind. For every character, there is a back story that goes like a long history lesson..And these episodes more than leads the story shifts to side characters. Then next 10(up to 27)episodes were good, the leads developed feelings towards each other, the story was beautiful..but then after ep 42 I again dropped interest, skipped the most, and finally convinced myself to finish it for ZLY and WY as I like both of them. I would not recommend you to watch this...Only you can watch if you're a fan of leads

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Long awaited - left disappointed

I waited until this was fully subbed before watching. I love the FL in all other drama so was looking forward to this. ML I was interested to see how he would perform.
Good points:
No love triangle between leads
No silly misunderstandings
No really annoying characters that you really hated - also bad thing as even the baddies didnt make your blood boil like they should
Now to the bad:
Story really dragged
Major Lack of chemistry between the leads - i wouldnt say the acting was bad but something was missing
Fight scenes were nothing special
Side characters one dimensional

It had all the makings of a good drama but I found the whole thing dull. I skipped loads just to get to the end.

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A little more skinship! I would have found good...

The story contained many little annoyances, script annoyances, but I don't want to overstate them. For example, the idiots of the stronghold, Deng+Sheng, let themselves be provoked to come out during the siege, so that enemy Tian Shu can also come in. So what qualifies the idiot Li Sheng to take over the leadership of the Strongholds later on, instead of the capable FL, who was beaten disgustingly by Mom throughout her youth? Well, that's just a small note on the side.

Overall, the story was still nice, with the nice little big romance and non-stop adventures. A love story, with no messy love triangles, no brutal torture, no nauseating forced marriages. Thank you.

Intermittent boredom spots were sometimes distracting, but I was able to grab an occasional beer from the fridge during that time.
I didn't notice the age difference of the main characters. Zhao Li Ying is cute after all and easily passes for much younger. Even if she sometimes looks like Tweety, the lunch of Tomcat Sylvester. And Yibo did his thing well, too.

Side kick Li Yan was annoying, her articulations alternated between screechy and super screechy, she should have been left out. This marginal character had an outrageous amount of screen time. Li Cheng, the boring loser, also had too much of it and all at the expense of the main couple.

A lot of reviews here, I can relate to. Guys, you are all right. But what the heck, entertained myself quite well and give this thing a 9.

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What a waste, it could have been so good, but it wasn't...

ᴍʏ ʀᴀᴛɪɴɢ ꜱʏꜱᴛᴇᴍ: 3 = [ᴀʟᴍᴏꜱᴛ ᴅᴇꜰɪɴɪᴛᴇʟʏ ᴅʀᴏᴘᴘᴇᴅ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛɪᴍᴇꜱ ɴᴏᴛ ᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴀᴅᴅᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴍʏ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜʟɪꜱᴛ, ᴇɪᴛʜᴇʀ ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴛᴏᴛᴀʟʟʏ ᴛʀᴀꜱʜ ᴏʀ ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴛᴏᴛᴀʟʟʏ ʙᴏʀɪɴɢ.]

I tried, I really did. I literally watched 32 episodes of this and it was pretty hard to keep going.

This is basically just a sappy adolescent feeling love story superficially wrapped in a weak plot. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's nice to look at on the surface, but as you go on, you start to realize that there is just no suspense or actual point. Zhou Fei has training wheels on most of the time and sometimes just plainly seems to not know wtf is going on, but suddenly becomes a fighting genius randomly. She's like Goku, 90% dumb, 10% badass when it counts. And Xie Yun is supposed to be so damn smart and capable, but he does plenty of redundant dumbsh** too.

There is no hardship for these main characters, Zhou Fei is going to be victorious no matter how dubious the situation seems, so don't hold your breath. And certainly don't worry about Xie Yun, because no matter how dire his fatally poisoned situation appears, he's not going to die either, in fact, I started to feel like he wasn't even in any real danger early on.
One minute there's no cure or poison strong enough to counter what he's been poisoned with, and then one episode later they're off to find the poison that can counter what he's poisoned with. And does Zhou Fei find this contradiction of information (ie. plot hole) important enough to ask questions about? Nope, she's just gonna' go get the thing, it's not as if anything about it had to make sense to her. 😂

Literally all the time they point out that he's very badly poisoned, they tell you this so many (many, many) times, it's the most poisonous poison to ever poison. But you know, it's only going to almost kill him every time he does something he shouldn't because if he did the poison will kill him...eh. But it doesn't, it only almost does, over and over, almost. Can't be that bad then, seeing as how he released the seal for the poison to (very prematurely and pointlessly) try to get involved in a fight in which he made about 10% difference to the over all out come of. And all for love, guys.

So yeah, it's just a very, very drawn out love story with no reason to worry about any one, because nothing really bad actually happens.

All that said, the acting wasn't bad, just the writing and plot. Too inconsistent, no suspense and sometimes pointless side stories, it's kind of like watching a lame anime where you stick around just for the attractive scenery. I mean, their outfits (especially Xie Yun's) were really great, so stylish and great colours too. Visually, in terms of character appearances, very nice job. But that's not enough to carry a show. I think the biggest issue for me was that I was looking forward to this show and was disappointed. They should have just advertised it as a love story with a little bit of fighting drama, so that what's on the label matches what's inside; as it was, I was only intrigued by this intriguing drama for about ten episodes.

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Developing Martial Artist

The cast jive very well together. The chemistry between Zhou Fei (Zanilia Zhao) and Xie Yun (Wang Yibo) was on point.
The series focus on the making of an upcoming young martial artist’s journey, which includes a range of life’s rainbow, family love and issues, love and love issues, obstacles and her own personal growth through all.

Zhou Fei grew up under the shelter of a stellar grandfather, who was a grandiose martial artist during his time. The she was under the wings of her parents. Her grandfather established, built, and protected the 48 Fortress. Many sects tried to breach Fortress but failed to do so because of Zhou Fei’s grandfather and her parents, specifically her mother. Her mother was extremely strict with reasons of course – survival. She was more so tough on Zhou Fei than others, as she was in the line up of being Young Master of the Fortress. Little did they know that they had their own little martial artist within their family.
The impenetrable Fortress was not so impenetrable for Xie Yun, the Prince of the former dynasty. He managed to not only break in but dazzle the occupants of the Fortress by breaking through one of their most secured entrance. Little did he a Zhou Fei know that they would end up lovers. Situations presented themselves in such a way that the rebellious Fei got what she had wanted for years, to venture out of 48 Fortress. However, little did she know that this journey will make her into a refined martial artist. Fei experiences many different aspects of the world of Martial Arts and was able to learn from many renounced teachers. We see her character growth throughout the journey, and we also treated to the subtle bloom of her and Xie Yun’s love story.

This series is not about an established martial artist, but a developing one. I like the fact that the creatives took the time to develop Fei’s character as such and were able to weave in her and Xie Yun ‘s love story without taking away from the actual story and everyone had enough screen space as needed and the interaction between the characters were on point.

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Fast pace, good plot, great acting, brings back memories from the Wuxia drama era!

In the last couple of years, the c-drama market has been saturated with a lot fantasy/xianxia based period drama or court/palace based dramas, so "The Legend of Fei" feels a little bit like a breath of fresh air. If you have watched the TVB Wuxia dramas back in the days, you will feel a sense of familiarity that this drama brings.

Story:
The plot is fast paced so each episodes goes by very quickly. Again, bring me back to the old days of the TVB Wuxia era when these dramas used to be around 30 episodes and there was no 'fillers' for the sake of making more episodes to earn money. Although "Legend of Fei" is 51 episodes, from what I have seen of 12 episodes, they sure crammed in a lot in those episodes. Episodes 1-10 has a lot of elements that contributed to world setting, character setting, and plot setting/foreshadowing elements, and then starting at episode 11, we started to see things pick up (11-12 are must watch episodes). The most important thing is that, 'Legend of Fei' captures the essence of 'rivers and lakes', the core element of what is important in a martial art story. The interesting thing is that YouFei as the heroine seems to have taken the 'hero' script that is typical of martial arts drama, who throughout the storyline roamed the marital arts world, learned different martial arts techniques from people she encountered, and make fellowship along the way as she get closer to becoming a more powerful martial master.

Acting/Casting:
I was a little worry at first about the casting but after the first couple of episodes and seeing the chemistry between the two leads, I said that this casting choice is very good. I think I understood why they casted Wang Yibo for Xie Yun. Xie Yun is an extremely active and lively character, if you cast an older actor to play this, he may come off as 'greasy' and it would not look good. The Xie Yun played by Wang Yibo is very lively and adds a lot of comedy to the episodes. He's actually a very talented actor, body posture and facial expression/management are impeccable. Youfei played by Zhao Liying, at first I was a little concern about her age as she's playing someone who's way younger than her actual age, but because of her baby face, it's not noticeable at all. Her strong point is that she's able to grab the emotional parts of Youfei very well and this gives her the ability to connect with the audience with the character.

Music:
Both opening and ending song are great, specially the ending song by Jane Zhang and Liu YuNing. Some of the background music are also great, very authentic martial arts feel and it fit the scenes very well. For example, the instrumental piece in the the drinking scene between Youfei and XieYun, when Youfei got drunk and lean on XieYun's back. At first he mistaken it as her leaning on him on purpose and started to smile until he found out that it was because she passed out drunk.

Rewatch value:
I do have to say that I'm not too fond of this director's choice of scene cutting, he has a tendency to blur the background to the point where it looks a little fake and he love close-up face shots. You may wonder why you can't remember the character names well but can remember their faces very well...the reason is because of this. And it really test the actor's ability for facial management and sometimes you can see the detail of pores and skin blemishes on some of the actors' face. I have to say that both of the lead actors have great skin. Despite the technical flaw, this drama only gets better with each rewatch as you catch more detail through each run.

Overall Summary:
If you like martial arts drama, this is a must watch. If you value a good storyline with interesting characters this is for you. It feels fresh among all of the period dramas that has been released in recent year. The chemistry and interactions between Youfei and XieYun is top notch.

After reading some comments on the drama page, I want to say a few words. As a long time c-drama watcher since the early 90s, I have watched the rise and fall of Hong Kong and Taiwanese dramaland and the rise of mainland dramas. In recent years, I'm not happy with the status quo of how c-dramas has come to be and produced - it has shifted focus away from good scripting and acting towards trope heavy and filler based dramas that has little substances. C-dramaland has lost its originality as one drama after another started to look the same.. Few Wuxia dramas are being make nowadays and the few good ones are far in between, for example "Nivarna In Fire". But even that and Princess Agent was not able to capture the essence of "Rivers and Lakes" that you typically seen from the Jing Dong dramas and older TVB Wuxia dramas. This is why I treasure what I have seen in this drama so far. There is an originality element to it that's not common in this era of c-drama. And the icing on the cake is that the focus has shift from a male hero to a female hero.

I hope "Legend of Fei" maintain the quality of the storyline throughout and if it does, it will be a gem, a treasure among c-dramas.

(This review is done up to episode 12. I will update as I watch more episodes!)

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