Dashing Youth

Not as good as I hoped

I couldn't wait to watch this show after the wonderful The Blood of Youth. Unfortunately, Dashing Youth didn't meet my expectations. It was okay but not as good as I hoped.

Cons. Quite poor acting and not actually interesting characters. Baili Dong Jun is really boring and pathetic, especially in the last episodes. But if in TBOY, Lei Wu Jie was mocked at for being pathetic, Baili Dong Jun was taken seriously like it's a normal thing to speak by slogans. Yue Yao, who was quite bright and bold at the beginning, became shout down and quiet like a ghost closer to the end and totally lost on Baili Dong Jun's background. I wish I could empathize Ye Ding Zhi and Yi Wen Jun more but I couldn't.

Pros. This was a great idea to invite the actors from TBOY to act in Dashing Youth. It was amazing to see Bai Shu Yu, Fan Jin Wei, Yan Jie, and Li Hong Yi appearing there. I love the main theme of Ye Ding Zhi and Yi Wen Jun, their soundtrack is very beautiful. Some guest roles were much more likable and intriguing like Sheng Mo [Demon] and Jun Yu [Ji Xia academy’s first disciple]. Each Sheng Mo's appearing was enchanting, and I wish he played more significant role in the show. I also liked some other supporting characters like Xie Xuan, Su Mu Yu, and Li Chang Sheng.

I hope that The Tales of Dark River will not disappoint.

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Great story, but riding on Blood of Youth's tailwind

Watching this after BoY gives it an interesting perspective as we know what these characters will turn out to be like in the future. But I feel that this series is relying too much on this fact to make the story interesting.

To start off, the plot is your generic wuxia with great friendships, amazing fight scenes, romance of course (though I feel they went too far with this). The plot was really slow to begin with and felt like there was not really a main storyline, this would especially be the case if one has not already watched BoY. I felt that I was only interested in continuing watching Dashing Youth because of my knowledge from BoY, and I was intrigued to find out what led them to become as their future selves. If not for BoY, this would have been a generic wuxia series, albeit with many many dashing youths.

For bromance lovers, this is a must-watch. I must say, I did not feel a lot of genuine tension between any of the couples, and yes, this includes Ye DingZhi and WenJun. The tension and relationship between YDZ and BLDJ, on the other hand, is top-notch, as are BLDJ and SKCF. It feels to me like all the men in this series are good at two things only - 1. fighting, 2. love at first sight. And I must say, they really do fall head over heels purely with one glance, with YDZ as an exception of course. YDZ and WJ's romance might be the most authentic, but then again I do not love this couple since I am quite annoyed at WenJun and her indecisiveness and lack of ability to think things through most of the time.

Now let's talk about some characters - the 8 young masters from the Academy are all unique and quirky characters, which makes sense with it basically being a criteria to be accepted as a disciple by Li ChangFeng. LCF himself probably is my favourite character from the series, he's snarky and funny, yet damn powerful and intervenes at the perfect times. We never did find out how he was doing, but assuming that he has rid himself of his immortality, he would probably be growing old with his lover at one of the corners of the world. BLDJ, ML himself, in my opinion, is morally perfect. He is able to see between the black and white sides, and has the ability and courage to forge his own path. He is an admirable character, which makes this series even more exciting to watch. I also enjoyed watching Prince LangYa himself in action - there have often been mentions of his valour and bravery in BoY, so it was intriguing to finally get to see how he earned his admiration and title.

Things I was looking forward to but didn't quite meet my expectations - there still seems to be some gaps between the plots of DY and BoY which has remained unsolved. I have also put this in the discussion as a topic, but how exactly did YueYao and Lei MengSha die? How did BLDJ end up as he was in BoY, an irresponsible drunkard who wishes constantly to forget his past? Honestly, of the 3 city lords, only SiKong ChangFang is actually doing the work, poor guy

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Handsome actors and lots of special effects

The recruiter for this drama certainly had excellent taste for handsome actors. I counted at least 10. And there were plenty of special effects. Whenever the fighting got heated, some fantasy cartoon like characters would be featured to represent the type of inner strength of the martial artists.

The story featured three male leads each with their own romance story. Baili DongJun was the young heir and grandson of Marquis ZhenXi. He led a sheltered luxurious life. His ambition was to become a wine deity, well-known for the wine he brewed. Only when he was selected by Prince Xiao RuoFeng to become a student of the prestigious JiXia Academy headed by Li Chang Sheng, the top martial artist of the world, that he started on a different journey.

Ye Yun, on the other hand had an unfortunate life. He was a close childhood friend of DongJun. His family was executed by the emperor, on some untrue allegation of treason. He escaped and went on to become a highly skilled martial artist. Unfortunately for him, his life took several negative turns. The Beique targeted him as a candidate to acquire their martial art which required a special disposition that he possessed. They needed him to wake up their king who had been deep in a meditation since they lost their kingdom to Beili. For this, they lay several traps for him as he was unwilling to help the enemy.

Sikong Changfeng was a friend that DongJun made while the latter was trying to carve out a name for himself as a wine deity. Before this, he was a vagabond who had self-trained in martial arts and had no memory of his life before he turned fifteen. For him, his path to success was a lot smoother than Ye Yun as he caught the eye of Nangong ChunShui, the reincarnate of Li and became his disciple.

In this drama, you see the contrast in the lives of DongJun and YeYun. Both were disposed with special abilities. For DongJun, his life seemed to be a bed of roses. He rose from adversities to become stronger and seemed to meet the right people to help him. The love of his life turned out to be a beautiful Beique princess who had given up reviving her kingdom as she did not want another round of war and believed it was a futile attempt.

As for Ye Yun, in spite of his capabilities, his life was ruined first by a selfish and suspicious emperor and then by the cunning Beique Chancellor. There had been several times, when his life could have turned for the better but circumstances turned it into a nightmare. The love of his life was his childhood sweetheart and fiancee who was still in love with him through the years he went missing, presumably dead. She was a great beauty but was quite ignorant and somewhat stupid, and was easily deceived by the Beique and became a pawn to their plots.

Being a bit philosophical here: in life, some people are just so blessed that they rose from one challenge to another, gaining grounds each time. While others having worked hard through their lives but were set back with each turn.

Somehow, Chinese drama always have emperors less than qualified for their job morally. In this drama, it was no different. The emperor allowed Ye Yun's family to be executed, even though he knew General Ye was innocent - a complete asshole in my view. Somehow the best heir, in both capabilities and moral disposition, he chose turned down the throne in favour of a rapist - I was rather disappointed in this.

Neo Hou (MingHao) had this boyish look about him that made him very suited to the playful and mischievous DongJun in his teens. It would be interesting to see whether he could graduate into more mature roles when he grew older.

The cartoon-like special effects however, made the drama looked a bit kiddy, a little out of line with the serious nature of this drama.

However, on the whole, this is an interesting drama worth watching.

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Zhao GE can't out but this drama can release come on chinese gov

This drama fighting is completely ridiculous. it look like shooting instead of fighting. they should create gun fighting in ancient chinese instead of using sword.

story is completely stupid.
characters broken and act like no one else beside them. try to be on spotlight.

why this drama which promote theft, absurd, alcohol , misbehavior, can be release while drama like zhao ge can't be release.

look like chinese are unfair to good drama and promote only bad drama.

Fate general which can't release also.

at least those drama which can't release far better than this drama and even putting youth.

base on chinese's eyes is youth mean drug, stupid, spoil, clueless and theft?

truely stupid and extremely disappointed.

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An Epic Story

When The Blood of Youth ended, and Dashing Youth was announced, the hype surrounding it was really stellar. We were promised adventure, a lot of fight scenes, and more importantly the answer to the question we all had while watching Blood of Youth, "How did we get there? Why did Xiao Ruofeng die, What happened that made Baili Dongjun agree for his best friends son to be taken hostage?"

And lo, and behold, the drama has not disappointed us. The cinematography, the cgi, the costumes, the dialog, is up to perfection. I love how it's not too heavy and how paced it is. It's an incredibly well made show.

As fans, we can only hope that" Tales of Dark River" will be just as good.

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One of the best modern Martial Arts series of all time!

Must see for anyone who grew up watching and loving Martial Arts series as a kid, and enjoy it well into adulthood.
Its a great balance of dialogue, costume, canon, with amazing visual fx, and sound.
Each Character developed in this series is distinct, which if you watch alot of wuxia etc, sometimes differentiation is challenging.
The series is based on alot of canon (characters, dynastical references, forms of martial arts) , and i feel it pays homage and also adds to the richness to it. Its not a simply a retelling. I feel its been a really well crafted modernisation.
Highly recommend watching it. Its on par with Game of Thrones level production value, with good story telling.

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Drink responsibly even if you are a Liquor deity

I've seen this drama around on social media and after reading through the summary and seeing that this is a prequel to The Blood of Youth, I decided to check it out.
The first two episodes were a real banger, absolutely amazing fighting scenes and the exact atmosphere from The Blood of Youth with the light hearted humour and friendships. Lots and lots of parallels to The Blood of Youth which I loved to see (like the coffin/chest transport and everyone fighting for it and for the main character, the two main characters meeting in a tavern/Inn etc.).

Then the following episodes up until episode 10 lost the energy of the first two episodes, it was a little difficult to stay tuned. But the episodes from ep 10 onwards are redeeming this so far. There are things which I found a little and quite obnoxious, especially Lei Mengsha's laugh. Like, yes we get where Lei Wujie had his genes from but no need to pull it until grotesque in my opinion. In my opinion, the casting choice for Lei Mengsha could have been Gao Hanyu, he can embody dummy cute characters very well. The other thing I found quote obnoxious was Baili Dongjun's drinking in episodes 3 - 8ish, I know that he wants to become the liquor deity but come on, the drinking was a little too much at some points.

I highly appreciate the casting of Xia Zhi Guang as Sikong Chanfeng. Overall, Dashing Youth and Blood of Youth characters and back story are very nicely tied together, so far I think and feel that nothing is missing, nothing was omitted which I love to see. As far as prequels and sequels go, it's definitely on the very to exceptional good side and I'm enjoying it so far.

As for what you should watch first, Blood of Youth or this, I think it does not really matter but then again if you watch Blood of Youth first it will be easier to understand the relationships between the characters in Dashing Youth.

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Its truly Dashing Youths everywhere ?

I'm currently on Ep 19 and I'm so glad I started watching it! With so many handsome actors, and Masters and those fight scenes! I absolutely loved all the fight scenes. They are so majestic and awesome! The storyline, cast, crew, everybody has done a wonderful job in the drama so far!

Even with these many characters, the drama itself doesn’t seem confusing and that's a huge feat in itself! You can watching without needing to watch Blood of the Youth, cause this is a prequel to it after all.

The pacing is good, the cute bromance moments between our little Spear Diety and Baili Dongjun and Ye Dingzhi is so cute! Loved the brotherhood these three have! And let's not forget the Eight handsome masters of Juxia Academy! They have done a great job! Our talkative Mr Li and Mr. Zhuomo and all the others too! I just can't get enough of this drama!
THE SWORD PLAY AND FIGHT SCENE CHOREOGRAPHY is really good! Shoutout to whoever planned it all! Be it the first time Baili Dongjun gets his lotus sword, fight scenes between him and Ye Dingzhi, and the others! Everything looks great on screen! Give it a try people! You won't regret it!

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