The Blood of Youth

A complete package

I already watched this drama 3 times.I liked the friendship between Lei wujie and Xiao se.
Xiao se l,the protagonist is one of the smartest and coolest male leads I have seen.Li Hongyi really portrayed the role well.I have become his fan after this.
Ao Ruipeng as Lei wujie is very pure,innocent and a very reliable soul friend.His acting is very good and perfect.
Liu Xueyi as Wu xin is perfect and completes the trio.
I even liked Xiao se and Qianluo little romantic track.
Lei wujie and Ye xiaoyi story is also good.
Their revenge for their elder brother Tang Lian and how he was there for them in every situation is also perfectly dealt.
All the other supporting roles including the doctor are equally good and the actors performed well.
Overall an entertaining cdrama which focuses on friendship.I highly recommend this drama.
It does not disappoint you instead brings smiles sometimes too 👍

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Initially dropping this at episode 5 was a mistake

The simplest way that I can describe this drama is that it tells the story of a bunch of young martial artists and their adventures together. There are two main characters that the story revolves around. A Prince who has been reduced to a commoner with crippled martial arts and a brave and youthful martial artist that seeks to improve his skills.

WHAT I LIKED:
- Absolutely amazing and well-developed characters. All and I mean all characters are freaking awesome.
- Aesthetically pleasing and well done fight scenes.
- Engaging plot and the way it's edited makes it exciting to follow the story.
- Beautiful scenery, costumes, wigs. Aesthetics are on point.
- A great ending scene.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- I initially dropped this drama at episode 5 because I couldn't understand 90% of what was happening.I didn’t like that there was way too much information being thrown at you. The first 10 episodes are non-stop info dumping with many, many characters to remember, many sect names and backstories. It's very overwhelming and you definitely need a lot of bran power to watch this. It's not a suitable watch if you are tired and want to relax by watching a drama. It's definitely difficult to binge-watch BUT very rewarding to rewatch. Having said all that, once you get used to all the characters and plot, it’s super rewarding to watch this.
- The last 7-8 episodes were somewhat draggy as it became quite politically focused.

OVERALL:
If you want to watch a drama with great fight scenes, well-developed characters, adventure and friendships vibes + you are ok with following a drama with lots of characters, names and backstories to remember, definitely give this a watch.

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Imaginative tale from parts of Lord Buddha’s life story!!

Really, had to applaud the writer’s inspiration on making an imaginative and fantastic tale out of Lord Buddha‘s story!
Spoiler Alert!
Imagine how would a ½ human and ½ awakened being of the 8 practices of Buddhism (right thought, right speech, right effort, right action, etc) be like? He would have the ambiance of serenity, spell-binding awe, nobility and grace while bringing enlightenment to every scene he was in – kudos to Liu Xue Yi! He played it to perfection!
Also to Li Hong Yi, as he had to play Lord Buddha story of the renunciation of the throne and from worldly affairs. He was great in depicting Xiao Se with a cool aura, dashing resolute and an air of detachment.
Lord Buddha was of course foremost in ESP powers so in the story Xiao Se was the principal in martial powers. Some of Lord Buddha disciples were famous with specific psychic powers like telepathy, transcendental, clairvoyance etc. Xiao Se had companions in Lei Wu Jie, Sikong Qian Luo and Tang Lian , each with specific weapons.
1 great disciple transcendental to the lower realm and saw his mother suffering. This started the Buddhist tradition of transference of merits to ancestors during the ghost festival. In the drama, Mo Yi and Baili Dong Jun went to other realms. Mo Yi met with his dead sister and Baili Dong Jun, his dead wife, both were then cured from their mental sufferings.
1 character cannot have a wedding night scene - "non returner" on the path to nirvana which is 3 lifetimes of celibacy.
1 blood related relative plotted to kill Lord Buddha many times because of jealousy and envy which is considered 1 of the 5 “poisons” in Buddhism.
There was no FL in the Lord Buddha life story ! Often Sikong Qian Lou felt out of place in the drama!
Some of the gems of Buddhism teachings- don’t associate with non-virtuous friends. In the ending episode, the eye-opener conversation piece of the Director to Lord Bai which must had been a replay to his old buddy, the emperor, about Lord Langya that started the mess.
Don’t blindly accept anything handed down – tearing up the scrolls.
Free to explore any practices/religions - sit on that throne, if don’t feel right, leave it.
Everyone has a Buddha within /Buddha nature – Sikong Chang Feng to Tang Lian on making difficult choices: “follow your heart”. The emperor had heart disease as he follows his Ego not his heart.
Overall the actors and actresses that were selected played their parts so brilliantly that when some of them left the story, their memorable roles still lingered.

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Five Go Wuxia

Just one of the best dramas I've seen. I don't normally watch dramas with a lot of martial arts, as I get too stressed (I have PTSD) but in this drama, the fighting is manga-fied to the point where it's beautiful, acrobatic, a joy to watch, but not too violent. The characters are really engaging, and there's something exhilirating about watching the Wuxia genre played to the max, and beyond, without falling off the edge into ridiculous. I think this is a wondefully skillful production, with really sustained attention to detail. Love it. Perfect. I'm really hoping they can sustain the pace of the story. I'll come back and edit this if it looses momentum, and ends up in the badlands of all those other long c-dramas which lose their way. ... I've made it to episode 26 now, and no sign of flagging. I've increased my rating in fact. Totally hooked. Wuxin is my favourite.

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Go watch now don’t wait don’t hesitate!!!

I regret that I didn’t watch it sooner but thank god i did watch it i mean better late than never 😉 xiaose (li hongyi) character is so cool here like seriously super cool 😭 and all of the characters also cool as well lei wujie, wuxin, tanglian, qianluo, ruoyi you guys have my whole heart ❤️ i love their friendship so much seriously the best drama ever in terms of wuxia 10/10 also it’s my first time seeing a drama with so many characters and all of the characters are interesting and kinda cool tho with their own power. And this drama has the most perfect beginning, plot and the ending is so satisfying i like it so much!! I really hope they will make season 2 i want to see more of the martial arts world and to see their reunion with wuxin

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Loved it! Most of the main cast were terrific!

I started watching the drama after I begun Dashing Youth, so I was looking to seeing the familiar characters and I already found so many. Sadly, Baili Dong Jun's had very little screentime but at least we get to see Sikong Changfeng. I'm sad to see what's happened to Lord Langya and his devotion. I can't believe Yue Yao is dead. Also, we weren't able to find out the identity of Qianlu's mother. It was also tough to see the repercussions of what happens when heroes fail.

Li Hong Yi's Xiao Se looked so much like Cheng Yi. And Cheng Yi happens to be my favorite Chinese actor. Before this I didn't really catch the resemblance between the two, but they could easily pass off for brothers! Xiao Se as a character was pretty good and consistent throughout the drama. He had to rely on people but he still survived. However, I was looking forward to his powers coming back and when they did the fight was kind of underwhelming. Tan Lian's fight to death was way better.

Wu Xin / Ye An Shi was not given enough screentime. When we first met him, he was more powerful and later on it seemed like his powers were muted. He kept getting hurt, was stowed away, or controlled. The story would have also flowed better had they kept him in focus alongside Xiao Se & Lei Wujie. Apart from that, he is such a fun guy to have around and grown to be kind person despite the past sufferings.

Lei Wujie was such a blast. I wasn't sure that he was Lei Mengsha's son's until somone spelled it out, before that I kept thinking why is he so similar to Lei Mengsha! He grew so much as the show progressed. However they tried to keep him weak, because someone was always there to protect him. And while that was good, I wanted to see his true potential unleashed. Ye Ruo Yi's character came late into the picture and seemed a bit like an afterthought. The romance between the two was cute and fun to watch. She liked Lei Wujie from the get go and wasn't shy about showing it.

Lin Bo Yang's Sikong Qian Luo was a okay character. I would have liked her more had she spoken with a little more maturity suitable for a women of her stature. I enjoyed watching her take on seasoned fighters and win when the others couldn't. But she lacked chemistry with Xiao Se. As this drama wasn't romance centric, it needed someone who could have sparks flying even with the little romantic moments they had. But ultimately they grew on me because I wanted to like them together.

I kept expecting a bit more from Baili Dong Jun' disciple but Tang Lian was not in the same weight class as all the others. His best scenes were, the very first scene we see him protecting Wuxin's coffin and then the last one where he finally seemed like the drunken master. I wanted to see more of that characters. Here's to hoping we get to see it in part 2.

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My Kinda Jam

The beginning part was completely out of this world because it was all martial arts, the later episodes were more scheming and it took away a little bit of the essence of what made me fall in love with the series in the first place, I’m not adverse to schemes in a series so it didn’t damper it to much for me. The only problem I had was that I didn’t think it needed any romance and while I have nothing against mismatched couples this one’s just didn’t do it for me at all. There was absolutely no chemistry or even any type of sparks flying between the pair of Xiao Se/Sikong & Lei Wu Jie/Ye Ruo Yi, especially Xiao & Sikong (their romantic moment interactions was really painful to watch IMO) and the writers trying to force the couple thing to work was just cringy to say the least. I really wish they took the faux romance part out. They could have all just been martial brothers and sisters. All that being said, as much as I wanted to take out some points because of the forced romantic pairings because trust me it was incredibly bad and I so badly wanted to but I decided against it as the overall series did outweigh the poor romance efforts so I still gave it a solid 10⭐️.
Xiao Se was a breathtaking character and Li Hong Yi who portrayed him is such a good actor and did a very fine job. He sure brought Xiao Se/Xiao Chu He/Prince Yong An characters to life. He’s surely becoming one of my faves. My favorite character and I think he will also be that for most of the viewers is none other than Wu Xin, he’s one liners were a thing of joy. I wish he featured more throughout the series especially at the later episodes. Every moment he was on screen was important and meaningful. I also applaud Liu Xue Yi for going all in for this character, starting with agreeing to shave his hair for the role (he looked so handsome) and then bringing the character to life. The Bromance between Xiao Se&Wu Xin, Xiao Se&Lie Wu Jie, Xiao Se/Wu Xin&Lei Wu Jie was the only relationship that was needed to be very honest. One of my major disappointment was that we never got to see Spear Deity fight.
The top3 fights:
3rd place goes to the fight between Lone Deity and Xiao Se in Tianqi City.
2nd place goes to Baili DongJun (Liquor Deity) and Mo Yi (Earth Deity) on the celestial island.
1st place goes to Tang Lian against the Dark river people. OMG Tang Lian stole all our hearts with the fight. The actor that played this role did such an awesome job with it.
The CGI and fighting choreography was so incredible I was pleasantly gobsmacked. It fulfilled all my martial arts fantasies and then some.
Rewatch value 10/10 (I have already rewatched)
Overall 10/10.
I highly recommend.

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THE BEST DRAMA EVER

It was the first time that i watched so quickly a drama like that. The plot was awesome and original, and the action didn't let me be bored. I loved all the characters and my favorite was Wuxin, who was one of the protagonist and i would prefer to have more scenes due to his ranking cast. The music was special , one of the best. Also, the cast was perfect and for sure i will wach it again not only for the actors, but also about the plot. I am intrested to read the novel and also the donghua version.
I recommend it for everyone that loves action. It has not a lot of romance but for sure gives a lot of messages for the relaionships with the family, friends and strangers. Please give a special attention in this drama, besides the mark of dramalist for now it is no random. I believe that deserve for sure and more this ranking.
Thank you and i am waiting for dramas like this one.

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I’d been curious about this one for a while, but when I heard it had a second season, I got a bit lazy to start it. But I finally gave it a try… and wow, I’m so glad I did!

Finally—a sequel that actually feels like a sequel, not just a nameless spin-off or something slapped together with a "Part 2" label, like what happened with Ancient Love Poetry and The Last Immortal. I’m really happy when Dashing Youth (that comes out later even though that’s the prequel) not changing any names from this. Since I watched Dashing Youth first, it was really happy to recognize the characters names when watching this.

Anyway let's talk drama…

The story follows a group of young martial artists on their journey of growth, discovery, and destiny.

It opens with Lei Wu Jie, a passionate young disciple who is eager to prove himself. His journey takes an unexpected turn when he accidentally damages the Villa of Fallen Snow while trying to fend off some robbers. The villa is run by the innkeeper, Xiao Se. To make up for the trouble, Wu Jie invites Xiao Se to travel with him.

Along the way, they meet more companion—Wu Xin, Sikong Qian Luo, Tang Lian, and Ye Ruo Yi—and get swept into a much bigger adventure filled with danger, secret identities, and palace intrigue—long-buried battle for the throne.

As secrets begin to unravel, one of them must face the truth of their past and decide whether to embrace a destiny far greater than they ever imagined.

That's pretty much the story without giving the spoiler. Now what I like and don't.

What I like:
+ The strong & great friendship between all the characters.
+ A beautiful martial art dance choreography—some of the most beautiful martial arts performances I’ve seen.
+ A beautiful mix of martial art & palace intrigue.
+ A seamless continuation between Dashing Youth and The Blood of Youth.
+ Like many Wuxia-focused dramas, there’s very little romance.
+ No open ending or annoying cliffhanger—something I really appreciate, especially with a second season already confirmed

What I don’t like:
– Many BS about sword power & soul.

Overall, The Blood of Youth is a beautifully crafted wuxia drama with strong character bonds, elegant fight scenes, and a compelling storyline. If you enjoyed Dashing Youth, you’ll definitely want to continue with this one.

I’m excited to see what happens next—I can’t wait to watch the next part of their journey!

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Boring, but low on Angst, Great Friendship in the end.

I was curious to why The Blood of Youth had such high ratings. I knew there wouldn’t be a romance (well, it’s not heavily featured) but the cast seemed solid, so I thought to give it a go. I will have to say, I wanted to love it like everyone else, but it just simply okay for me. In fact, I would describe it as fairly boring and REALLY slow pace.

I don’t need romance to be the focal point of the story, I enjoyed Joy of Life and the simple slow pace of The Untamed. I however I wasn’t a big fan of Sword Snow Stride, but at least that drama had better “romance”.

Overall, I found The Blood of Youth a little boring and not enough romantic gestures.

I did love the loyalty between the core cast. I enjoyed watching the little story arcs and the comical theme / tone of the drama. I didn’t really care for the palace politics and really did feel like the drama could have been shorten by 10 episodes at least.

The costumes were good, but there wasn’t enough variation and the hair and make-up was decent. I thought there was A LOT of story arcs to go through and I found some hit or miss for me. I tend to like the tragic side love stories more, than the tragic friendship / family ones.

The ML was the star of the show for me. I really appreciate his acting, it’s the cold stoic acting, but not too much under acting, which made him so cool. Love the different type of friends he made, for example, the silly simple one, the beautiful child-hood friend and the quirky non-practicing monk.

I think if you started the drama and was completely drawn, then go for it, continue the series. I was holding out for the more impressive scenes, like the epic fight scenes or “romance” exchanges you kind of get (but not really). I actually put on my calendar to force myself to watch at least 2 episodes a day.

To sum up, these friendship base dramas with lack of romance are hit or miss for me. I didn’t love it but I can see why everyone else did.

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Blood will out, and spill more blood.

"I want to travel north with the wind, watching the snow sweep across the land.
I wish to travel east by boat to see the elegant fairy brave the wind.
I wish to travel thousands of miles with the clouds, even the Emperor ruling the court cannot stop me.
I will bathe in the sunlight at the top of Mount Kunlun.
I will witness lush mountains rise at the edge of the ocean.
We shall reunite after a long journey.
But I won't go home until I've seen the world."
- Wuxin, episode 5

If you needed a reason to watch 'The Blood of Youth', the above quote from Wuxin summarises the mood that this show wants to encapsulate. That period of time between infancy and adulthood - where you know enough about the world to believe it is yours for the taking, and not enough about it to realise the world is something no man can own. The moment where you feel so invincible; you manage to fool yourself into thinking you really are.

Xiao Se, a favoured prince, certainly believed he was untouchable; yet, after a humbling battle with a far more experienced opponent, he found himself crippled and alone - in a self-inflicted exile. That day, he thought, was the day that his childhood died; but when he met wandering traveller Lei Wujie, he saw his opportunity to step out of the shadows, and to reclaim the youth that was stolen from him.

If you like Wuxia, then this show is definitely for you, but any casual C-Drama watchers will enjoy it as well. Although at times the over saturation of tropes can be annoying, they are part of the appeal of this show (by now I've accepted that every female love interest in a historical or fantasy C-Drama is condemned to act like a whining 5 year old). Yet, for the most part; the women in this drama are portrayed well, and are not to be trifled with.

The issue comes in part with the pacing; the ending felt rushed in comparison to areas of the Drama which were given time they did not deserve, and for the sake of drama an entirely unneeded character death was thrown in, which seemed to have no other purpose than to shock. For example, one of the leads disappears for half the drama, only to return in an unforeseen but again, irritating way. Many of the plot points felt at times decorative rather than integral to the story.

I criticise the show so heavily in part, because it had so much potential. If the writing had been a bit more tidy and concise in places, it would have been 10's all around - but it's tainted by a seeming need to appeal to everyone, and consequently, not doing any one trope or theme entirely right. This is not to say the drama isn't filled with iconic moments that will leave you wanting more, but I wish it would have found it's feet, and picked a camp to settle down in rather than wandering around for 40 episodes: what should have been an emotional story of the pain and beauty of youth became a half-court, half-martial arts, half-revenge, half-romance, half-tragedy, half-comedy drama, which never really picked what it wanted to be.

Yet, as I said; the reason our sentiments about what went badly are so deep is because what went well was so enjoyable - and flaws and all, I would definitely recommend this show as an essential watch for any Wuxia or C-Drama fan.

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