A Love Never Lost (2025)

Compelling historical drama with some strong performances

This probably won't appeal to some people since it's a serious drama, becomes increasingly depressing and doesn't have a strong romance. However I'm still thinking about the characters after finishing it and despite some of the flaws, it's probably one of the better historical dramas I've seen in a while.

As most viewers probably know, this show was supposed to air in 2022 but was pulled at the last minute so it's not clear how much of this final version has changed or been edited.

Set during the death throes of the Qing dynasty it explores the various factions - royalist and revolutionist - trying to change China for the better. The five leads have diverse personalities, flawed characters and are not obvious heroes. Alot of the early action takes place in Japan, which is unusual for a C-drama (usually the Japanese are portrayed as obvious villains but here they are more nuanced), and everything looks big-budget with loads of extras, carriages, costumes and lots of period detail.

All five leads are interesting. It's strange to see Li Xian play the rather grey character of nobleman Liang Xiang instead of his usual hero roles. Then we have the rabid bomb-making anarchist, the idealist revolutionary, the pragmatic opportunistic soldier and the woman who inadvertantly becomes a revolutionist and is involved with three of the male leads. The FL's character is very different to what we usually see in C-dramas, both passive and active, and surely non-conformist for the times. There were some scenes when I did want to slap her and say " wake up woman!" but generally you root for her.

There are important real historical figures as well as the fictional ones, which made me read up on my Chinese history. Apparently, even Liang Xiang is based on a real person.

The acting is of a good standard and this is clearly a quality production. However, it does suffer from editing and sometimes I just wanted to see more of Shuhong rather than the endless military politicking but I did not fast forward once which says alot.

Recommended if you enjoy historical dramas based on fact and don't expect to see a big romance.

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the most gorgeous drama I have ever watched

Given the current Chinese trend filled with cheep fake fantasy dramas, this drama is too gorgeous. I am totally overwhelmed by the unbelievable mobilization of various kind of people who are properly dressed such as soldiers, noble men, commoners, and so on. A huge budget must have be spent for the drama. Most of the things, settings are authentic. The storyline is quite complicated so it must be so hart for the production to feast commoners eyes casually that is proven by finding only one review here except mine. I really thank the production for giving me a chance to access such a high budget awesome drama. The six year old son looks good and he should be a cool guy in the future.

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