Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Sword and Beloved (2025)

FSMM DISASTER WITH ROTTEN SCRIPT

I thought Red Moon Pact was worse among all installments of Fox spirit matchmaker franchise, but Sword And Beloved proved me wrong,It's even worst.


If you want to watch this drama so badly bcz of cheng yi, just watch the first 13 episodes and STOP THERE & assume It's one of the best dramas out there then move on.I wonder whether the main lead actors & actresses only got this first 1/3rd of the script and accepted their roles bcz no way they could've read the entire scriptbook and still accepted this inconsistent illogical mediocre mess.Such a waste of talented cast.


Main leads storyline - So this drama was supposed to be the story of Male lead Wangquan Fugui And his Heaven & earth sword heart .But his sword meridians were cut off and he was sent to exile with a binding spell then he gradually appears less and less in the screentime that almost felt like he's doing a guest role in his own storyline,later came back with full screentime in the very last episodes to finish off the ultimate villain of fox spirit series, the Black Fox & the Grief tree...Fugui's potential 'beloved' is our Female Lead Qing Tong, who he saved with 10 years of his lifespan (well, no big matter, he also burned out his lifespan for a support role too, Fugui is just too kind in nature) FL also became a side character in the middle of the drama with no major impact in the storyline Except that she incidentally acquired a black grief tree seed (which i personally think was an entire dumb decision for her to follow those ''recipe books'' her evil brother gave to her lol) But then, FL had to sacrifice herself and ML had to kill her in the end for that seed (Did it really have to occur at the pavilion though? when it holds precious memories of us viewers from Love In pavilion, which is somehow a decent drama and the best among all 3 FSMM installments)
Still,Wangquan Fugui is the most watchable character of this drama & barely carried the drama in his back even when writers messed up his character to get it aligned with their shitty plot


2nd leads storyline - 2nd most watchable character of the drama was Quan Rumu,who is the cousin of Fugui, who had a loveline with the last dragon clan descendant demon, which at first looked so good and interesting, but then their story got dragged & i fast forwarded the hell out of it, both of the characters ended up as unnecessary deaths by our clown writers who probably have gone through so much sufferings in real life to venge it through the characters they write.My good advice to the Writers is, stop writing cdrama scripts and go get a life.


3rd leads storyline - Fan Yun Fei, a fox clan demon & Human Li Xueyang had their happy Ending but i doubt if anyone even cared for it in the end.But Yunfei added some comedies in the drama which viewers really enjoyed & he was one of the side characters that made sense,he had some good dynamics with our dear Fugui and Rumu and their scenes were enjoyable.


Main Antagonist - I don't have any energy to talk about that Black Fox and grief tree and seed thing bcz they are always the main villains of the FSMM stories and good characters always had to sacrifice themselves in order to 'purify' the hatred they gathered.This whole repetitive villain arc is boring and uninteresting.Rumu's father Quan Jingting is another loathsome villain who only schemed and Schemed Against his family & yiqi alliance all his life but still wasn’t unalived by the righteous alliance leaders for so many years which made no sense at all, Qing Tong's so called 'brother' Qing cheng who's another villain also got unnecessary long screentimes and angered the viewers in the most annoying ways possible. Only this two characters are Enough to drive the viewers to drop this drama in the Middle. Enduring their cheap dialogues for so long which made little sense probably took some lifespans from my life.


Drama is full of unnecessary side plots and side characters which added no value in the main storyline and not to even mention the plotholes as usual like the other 2 previous installments. Martial arts scenes were less than expected, but done very well by Actors and with good CGI, Emotional scenes literally felt flat so i'd say directions & camerawork were bad,but as the actors were all fine,they somehow managed to create the impact of the scenes.


This is one of the biggest disappointments of 2025 and i'd not recommend this to anyone, it didn’t sadden me a bit with It's sad (or rather open) ending bcz ending was also messy and laughable. i am just relieved that it came to an end, now people won't have to suffer anymore with this Fox spirit matchmaker disaster saga.This is also one of those rare cases ever in my 11 years of watching Asian dramas that i rated a drama 9 at initial episodes but ended up with a 7 in the end,...5 or 6 would be a more perfect Rating but i had to consider the amazing cast list's hard Work and dedications for a rotten stupid script for which i Wonder if they had to nauseate while filming certain scenes bcz they were so badly written.


i sincerely wish cheng yi would choose a good script with good production house and good writers & directors in the future.

Lire davantage

Sword and ... definitely NOT beloved

The GOOD 👍:
Perfect music: the songs will be stuck in my head for a long time, they're so beautiful, both the melodies and the lyrics ✨🎶

Amazing costumes, accessories and hairstyles for ALL the characters and especially the main ones🌸💫: this stylist should get some kind of award because every recent drama with their work is a feast for my eyes when it comes to the characters' looks. "Sword and Beloved", "Love of the Divine Tree", "Shadow Love", "Fated Hearts", "Love In The Clouds". Just STUNNING. 😍My deepest respect for their incredible work.👏

Fantastic fighting choreography⚔️🔥, it was really impressive and I loved all the epic fight scenes. Very detailed and professional polishing there. Especially with Fugui's powers, it was so fun to watch him obliterating his enemies.😎

Acting🎬: Cheng Yi, Guo Jun Chen and Chang Hua Sen brought to life really wonderful characters that I will always remember fondly. 💔With the scenario they had, they did their absolute best and I am grateful for their devotion.

The BAD 👎

Romance🙄: It was a BAIT from the beginning. Only in the very first episodes, the main "couple" had the chance to build something but it was cut short when the toxic, obsessed, trash entered the picture and ruined everything till the end. 🤬AAAAALL the focus went to the love stories of the side characters with no room or time for the mains. They did us DIRTY. 👿That's not what ANY of us wanted. We were treated like CLOWNS.🤡

The villains🥱: you're trying to tell me after all the crap Quan Qingting did... They STILL let him run around with no-one checking up on him??? 🤦When there's a SNAKE, if you don't want it to bite you, YOU CUT OF ITS HEAD. Cause it WILL kill you. You end it the moment it's down, otherwise you'll regret it forever.

Qing...cheng...🤮: HORRIBLE character, served no purpose other than keeping the main couple apart, childish/amateur acting by the actor, I feel like his only line was JIE JIEEEEEEE. 🤮He ATE like 12 episodes and brought nothing to the table. I wanna erase his memory from my mind.😖

Gullizan or whatever she was called😒: Short lived. Another meaningless character with the depth of a needle pin. She was forgotten before she even existed in the drama.

The absence of Cheng Yi from many episodes.😡 That was... I HAVE NO WORDS. 🤬Everybody and his dog had screen time and we were struggling to even spot a time stamp with Fugui in certain episodes. 🧐What the hell was that????? ☠️What idiot decided this, WHO REMOVES THE ML FROM HIS OWN DRAMA???? 🤦I swear to NEVER watch anything from these writers EVER AGAIN.😾

And as for the ending... 😞

To say I did not expect Fugui's sacrifice is a lie. I wouldn't have minded sooo much if he had actually LIVED a little. 😢Everything good went to the third couple, the lovey/dovey scenes, the marriage, the happy ending. 😮‍💨Even the doomed second couple had romantic scenes, they had kisses, they talked about love and marriage. Even if they both tragically died, they shared precious bonding moments. 🥺But Fugui and Qingtong were deprived of that because of QINGCHENG. 🤬My blood boils every time I mention him. I can't believe how much bad impact he had on the drama. He literally destroyed the main part of the story.

I haven't fully watched the two previous FSMM dramas, just bits and pieces but at least those main couples were ACTUAL couples. 🫤Heck, the Red Pact couple got their happy ending in the modern world. What did we get????? 😓Fugui first killing Qingtong and then sacrificing his last life force to bring back her original form. We can GUESS that blue butterfly was Fugui's soul and prooooobably he'd reincarnate and return to her but open endings are GARBAGE. 😠I DON'T WANT TO GUESS. SHOW IT TO ME. 😤What happened to "we'll travel the world together to see the rivers and the mountains and all the sceneries and we'll always be together...". I'M DECEIVED.

Sigh... I'm just so disappointed. 😭This had the potential to be one of the best C-Dramas ever and now it will leave a bitter taste in my mouth every time I remember it. 😢If Cheng Yi wasn't the ML, I would have dropped it halfway. He's the one who kept me watching for support. Now, I'm just looking forward to his next projects to recover from this disaster... And HOPEFULLY, he'll have a happy ending for a change...🥺🙏

Lire davantage