This review may contain spoilers
A Villain’s Tragic Love Story
I started this mini-series mainly because both lead actors are set to star together in another upcoming drama called ‘Blossoms of Power’.This series is actually part of a larger, somewhat confusing storyline and serves as a prequel. It focuses on Mei Chaofeng, a young woman whose parents were brutally murdered by a so-called “friend”, Qiu Yunhai, who betrayed them purely for power. After their deaths, she is sent to live in a brothel, where she is mistreated along with other women and children.
Years later, on a fateful night, she is ordered to “entertain” a man who turns out to be none other than Qiu Yunhai himself. After he leaves her in the hands of one of his men, Mei kills her captor and escapes. During her escape, she encounters Huang Yaoshi, the most skilled martial artist in the world, who helps her briefly and teaches her three powerful techniques. From then on, she repeatedly attempts (and fails) to take her revenge, eventually crossing paths again with Huang Yaoshi and his wife, Feng Heng, who take her in and bring her to their island to train (and heal her pain).
There, Mei Chaofeng meets Chen Xuanfeng, her senior, and the two fall in love gradually.
Because the series is only 8 episodes long, their romance is fast-paced and compressed by necessity. While it doesn’t have the time to fully develop naturally, it still works within the story’s context. What we essentially witness here is the making of a ‘villain’. Mei Chaofeng and Chen Xuanfeng’s love is tested as they become consumed by care for each other, obsession and this leads to misunderstandings, where they will make irreparable choices that will have devastating consequences for those around them, all in the name of Mei Chaofeng’s pursuit of revenge.
They fight against true villains but, in the process, allow themselves to be corrupted by evil and forbidden martial arts techniques. Despite this, their love remains, and they ultimately achieve their goals. But, as is often the case in stories like this, turning to the “dark” side brings no happy ending. We end the series as Chen Xuanfeng is killed by misguided martial artists who believe they are eradicating evil, leaving Mei Chaofeng alone, consumed by hatred and grief. Stripped of all love and care, she is transformed into a true villain.
This is the kind of story I wish could be expanded into a full-length drama with more episodes, as it has incredible potential for deeper character development.
On a brighter note, I want to highlight He Yu’s performance. His acting is exceptionally smooth and natural, free of the stilted line delivery and overly dramatic pauses that plague many recent costume dramas. He was truly great here.
Overall, I watched this primarily to gauge how promising ‘Blossoms of Power’ will be, and after this, I’m definitely looking forward to it. This mini-series, though short, was genuinely engaging and worth the watch.
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This review may contain spoilers
Not As Bad As You Think
I watched this purely for Meng Zi Yi, and honestly? No regrets. It was short and fast-paced. Seeing her back in a role where she actually fights brought back some nostalgia from her fighting character days. She has that cool, commanding presence and I really hope she gets cast in more physically capable, female roles again.That said, her acting wasn’t top-tier. She did carry the show for me, but that’s probably my bias talking. There were definitely moments where her emotional range felt limited. Her go-to move for both anger and sadness seemed to be just… making her eyes bigger. It got repetitive, and a bit distracting at times. Still, I wasn’t exactly expecting award-winning performances here, so I let it slide. Her screen presence and fight scenes made up for a lot.
But the drama itself could’ve been so much better if they stuck to the original novel. Mei Chaofeng was supposed to be ruthless and ambitious, stealing the Nine Yin Sutra with her lover in a power move that betrayed her master and sect. That would’ve been a bold, complex arc. But nope, they went with the same recycled revenge story. It flattened her character and made her more tragic than fierce.
Even so, the route they went did make you pity her. Losing everyone she cared about, being constantly hunted down, falling deeper into madness, it was sad. I just think it would’ve hit harder if her motivations were driven by ambition rather than just pain.
Also, the way they handled her love story was frustrating. Xuanfeng's death, i felt, was unfair, but that could've been his karma for sticking along with Chaofeng. His death was brought upon by some self-righteous group out for revenge because Chaofeng killed their guy, who I personally think, literally brought it on himself. If he didn’t provoke her, he’d still be alive. That part left a bad taste.
And Huang Yaoshi? Definitely a downgrade. He's literally the Eastern Heretic, one of the greats, powerful, ambitious, unpredictable. Here, they turned him into a half-dead background character. No flair, no fire. Just sad and sickly the entire time. Why?
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Expect More Backstory and more details
I supposed this version has much more back story. Production and all is great. Movie production I would say. This version of Huang Yaoshi seems very apt and more realistic as compared to many other versions I have seen. Mei Chaofeng is very well portrayed and also, finally a version that gives more depth to Cheng Xuanfeng. Most version just briefly portray this couple, but this version do a more detailed version of the two.Mei Chaofeng is also being told in a less evil manner as she was compelled to retaliate. It shows how she was very much misunderstood for killing a baddie. Both Xuanfeng and Chaofeng are more humane than how they were portrayed over the years as evil. I guess it's time this was moderated and more detailed to show their compelling path.
It's a decent watch and sure re-watchable, especially for the Condor Heroes fan.
Alrighty, I am off to continue with the sequel of Eastern Heretic and Western Venom now!
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"Love in the House of Death"
This whole series "Duel at Mount Hua" is for me the most beautiful love story I've seen in Chinese films... Not just a story, but a myth that can be found in almost all nations. Someone who can snatch life from the jaws of Death. And love that can be found in the "valley of shadows". Such a relationship can illuminate even the darkest corners of other people's hearts. In Europe, these are the myths of Hades and Persephone, Admetus and Alcestis. And there is a bit of this theme in the film "The English Patient"Namely - two pairs of lovers. One pair is sent from death and still manages to create a "life" on the island. The other pair (Mei Chaofeng and her seduced boyfriend) are given a chance at life, but choose this "deadly path"..... There were other philosophical problems throughout the series that were relevant...."the thirst for victory in the house of friendship", "obsession in the house of the ruler", "power in the house of women" and "forgiveness in the house of hatred". These two actors - Zhou Yi Wei and Chen Pu Ling - I have never been disappointed with them. I guess I choose films based on the actors. Because it tends to happen, as in Hollywood, that way "stars" get films - and money - but there is usually nothing to watch. Let's call it the "Brad Pitt curse".....Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Too Many Unneccesary Plot.
What I liked,-Exploration of Plum Blossom Island Sect
-Feng Heng, her relationship with the disciples of Plum Blossom Island. Love that she became an older sister/mother figure to them and regarded them as her children. Really breaks your heart because you know that in the end, all the disiples get kicked out and Huang Rong, Huang Yaoshi and Feng Heng daughter, grows up alone on the island without her mother, and her many martial Brothers and sisters.
-Huang YaoShi and Feng Heng Cp, love love that they did not go the route of paring Huang Yaoshi and Mei Chao Feng, because i always viewed their relationship as Father/Daughter and not lovers. Huang Yaoshi was devoted to Feng Heng only
-Mei Chao Feng and Chen Xuan Feng cp, I like the dynamic. The playful older senior and the cold junior sister. Her warming up to him ladidah.
-Costumes... were okay but I guess their trying to adapt it more into idol drama style.
What I Did not like.
-unnesssary sub plots to fill in the episodes. I wished they Stick more to the actual plot of the original work (There was already pretty good details from the novel that good have just been faithfully adapted)
-Unnessarry villian ( that weird poison guy from the island down...).
-Mei Revenge arch, which I feel should have been resolved in ep 1 and 2. Yet it dragged all the way to the end, and was the motivational plot point for ( many sub plots as well) having her betray her sect 9 which i did not like). I feel like it should have happend that after taking her revenge ( mind you there was no revenge plot in the original novel) her desire to become stronger grew along with he affections for her senior brother Xuang Feng, I feel like this in itself would have been enough of a motivation for her to steal the manual.
-Huang Yaoshi being a mary sue. I did not like his character, just because I can tell they were trying reallly hard for the audience to seem him as the dutiful protective husband. I felt like it took away the character growth of what the character was suppose to go through in this point of the story. In legend of the Condor hero's, Huang Yaoshi has mellowed a bit from his younger days after the death of his wife, a death that was ultimately caused by his own doing. His ambition to be number 1 and to make his school the best, caused him to be alone, teaching him to appreciate the what was most important in life, which in this case was his only daughter, Huang Rong. Him being already perfect, made less impact to the story.
-Huang Yaoshi being injured and dying as well. I like that the detail of Feng Heng being sick, because it made sense to her fate in the actual novel. But Huang Yaoshi is one of the greats and a doctor himself. He was also at this point in the novel, getting ready for the duel on mount Hua (as he has ambition to become the number 1 martial artist). This is important because it was specifically this desire that cause him to fool Zhou Botong to give up the manual, thus ending the life of his wife and basically destroying the happy family of Plum Blossom Island. I also didn't like how this was the plot device for Feng Heng to try and rewrtie the mantra. In the novel, it was clear she wanted to appease Huang's anger, ( and in a way, this is my opinion, have him forgive his disciples). This would have worked well in this show as it was established how much Feng Heng saw her husband and their disciples as her family and children. Her, the mother figure, trying to save this family from breaking apart would have made sooo much more sense, and again more impactful then the Mer fact fo trying to save Huang yaoshi's life.
what i wanted.
- There should have been a better romance plot. This was not in the origianal work, but was in some revised versions of the story, where alot of the male disiples were all vibing for Mei Chao Feng's affection. Mei played them all, but she secretly was inlove with Cheng Xuang Feng. This would have worked so well, because we could have seen mei, use her charm to learn martial arts from her martial brothers. It would have made her betrayal more devastating to her fellow disciples and add more hurt to their memory of their once happy found family on Plum Blossom Island. In the novel, Cheng Xuang Feng and Mei Chao feng were actually hunted down by their fellow martial brothers, thus causing them to run to Mongolia where they met with the Seven Freaks, causing the death of Xuan Feng and for Mei to go blind. This would have made the story more impactful and full circle.
What I wanted to see was her using their affection for her to learn more martial arts from the different brother but in the end, end up falling for Cheng Xuan Feng.
- I wanted to see more of the disciples of Plum Blossom island out their in the martial arts world. In the novel, it was known throughout that Huang Yaoshi was known to have 6 disciples, all talented in martial arts. In the show, they made it seem like all they did was stay on the island. How would anyone know about them? Huang Yaoshi was known to be very eccentric, and was fiercely protective of his disciples, and people knew not to mess with them. I wished they could have in cooperated this plot. Because Plum Blossom Island, although revered, by the time of Legend of the Condor Hero's, it is pretty much in a weaken school with no true successor. It would have been nice to see the school triumphing the martial art world during its glory days.
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The Weakest Link in the Saga
From Eastern Heretic and Western Venom, Southern Emperor & Northern Beggar to The Five, the bar was high — and Nine Yin couldn’t reach it.Weak script, poor character adaptation, and a lead performance that undermines the drama’s emotional weight.
I went into Duel on Mount Hua: Nine Yin True Sutra with high hopes, having enjoyed a lot other installments. Unfortunately, this one left me deeply disappointed, and much of that comes down to the performance of the actress portraying Mei Chaofeng.
I’ve seen her before in Princess Gambit, and here she delivers the exact same acting “face” — mostly widening her eyes — without any real emotional depth. In Nine Yin True Sutra, she fails to convey Mei Chaofeng’s inner turmoil or psychological complexity. Compared to the other actors, many of whom give layered and compelling performances, she feels totally out of place. I would give her a 2/10 for acting, but because the rest of the cast does raise the overall level, my overall score is slightly higher.
The script’s pacing is another problem. It drags in places, and with only eight episodes, it still manages to feel padded. Honestly, this could have been told in 5–6 episodes. I found myself skipping entire scenes.
The contrast with other anthology entries is stark. Nine Yin True Sutra, by comparison, feels like the weakest link in the series.
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Tragic retelling of the Twin Black Winds that is quite worth it.
As a new retelling of Mei Chaofeng & her fall into “villainy” & becoming one of the infamous “Twin Black Winds” I think this was a rather well thought out version.Cons:
- The series takes a lot of liberties with the characters & story so if you like the original & aren’t open for new interpretations then it’s not that good. I for one think they missed an opportunity on just making her a straight villain.
- Mei Chaofeng & Huang Yaoshi are totally rewritten to be safer & more empathetic & that does make them lose their original value.
- Zoey Meng does have a lot of just stilted face acting & she does well in only a few parts.
- Action scenes could be better. Zoey isn't very good in these scenes & I just don't think she works as an action girl.
Pros:
- Mei Chaofeng’s relationship w/ the people of Plum Blossom Island is actually quite good as this version depicts them close knit so when the tragedy happens it’s effective.
- While I did say the played the safe route w/ Chaofeng’s character I also feel this makes her relationship & betrayal w/ Yaoshi works more. The original doesn’t give us a good reason to feel for Chaofeng other than she herself is regretful.
- Zoey Meng & He Yu actually have good chemistry & when the final episode happened I was actually happy when they were together & sad when tragedy struck.
- This is where Zoey Meng shines, when she’s w/ the other actors. Alone she’s pretty weak, but she’s stronger with the others.
-Speaking of the other characters I also like that each character on Peach Blossom Island feel like their own character. They feel like individuals & not just some character that’s tacked on. They could’ve gone the route where the other disciples l, despite being 4 characters, function only as a single unit. They feel like 4 characters
- I also like the inclusion of the new original characters who allow the world to feel more expansive & also help reinvent the story.
- Yu He on the other hand wasn't bad in the action scenes, but he still needs some practice.
Overall I really enjoyed this reinvention of the story & how they sort of retconned (IMO fixed at least) a few things.
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This review may contain spoilers
This is the spin off story about Mei Chaofeng. Although this is only a spin off story, it still has the important detail from LOCH. What I like is the relationship between Huang Yaoshi and Feng Heng. We never see their relationship in LOCH, what we know only Huang Yaoshi loves Feng Heng so much. So this drama can really show us about their love, Chen Duling and Zhou Yiwei chemistry is really loveable! Meng Ziyi's acting as Mei Chaofeng and He Yu as Chen Xuanfeng also really cool. I love their chemistry too. The martial arts also cool.
What I don't like is the relationship between Huang Yaoshi and Mei Chaofeng. In this drama Huang Yaoshi looks like he forced to accept Mei Chaofeng as his disciple because of Feng Heng, and they not really have teacher-disciple relationship between them. It just feels like Mei Chaofeng only sees Huang Yaoshi as a hero, not a teacher. This is in contrast to the character of Mei Chaofeng in the drama LOCH, even though she is blind, she can still recognize her master arround her, she even will kneel before him. Huang Yaoshi also still help and defend Mei Chaofeng. This shows that their teacher-disciple relationship is really strong. The other thing how Xue Qingyi even can enter Peach Blossom Island?! Even Zhou Botong trapped 15 years in there!
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You Know That Kind Of Prequel
I only planned to watch this as a warm-up before the original drama… and it really felt like a warm-up. Not bad, just not that gripping either. I dropped the original before because I didn’t get it, but maybe I’ll try again now that I’ve seen this prequel (and the other prequel too, maybe? We'll see how brave I am).Some scenes here honestly felt like filler—like they wandered off from the main plot and forgot to come back. I came for more training scenes and actual growth, but I guess the drama had other plans. At least I finished it (which says something).
The whole vibe reminded me of “Zang Hai” but make it Wuxia. The ending? Yeah, it hurt. Not enough to make me cry, but definitely enough to leave a sting. No regrets though—now I’m just looking forward to the two leads’ next projects.
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Very Dissapointed
I only watched this due to the FL Meng Zi Yi, she is very beautfiul.But unfortunately, everything else few short. The acting, plot, romance, choreagraphy, all sucks, especially the plot, which was most important.
First, Huang Yao Shi is the absolute worst here, quiet talking, cold, acting all cool, not like the arrogant, busting personality like he is in the book.
But the worst has got to be the plot, what the heck is this stupid REVENGE plot, the whole plot is driven by revenge, its overdone, recycled, linear, and stupid as hell. Mei Chao Feng is driven by ambition, power, love, and emotion. But i guess the 'best' plot is already written in The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Cadaverous Claws《射雕英雄傳之九陰白骨爪》
thats why they cant steal it? Ugh, never watching this again.
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1
1华山论贱: Nine Yuan Token Manuscript
--Review--As disappointing as the first volume of the Legend of Condor Heroes reboot was, it's LoCH, so I had to check out the rest on the slim chance they would surprise me. Lol nope. Meng Ziyi fans, look away, you've been warned.
ASMR Huang Yaoshi is back, paired off with ASMR Chen Duling. The good news is that she doesn't feel out of place next to Zhou Yiwei. The bad news is that the 'Wicked East' Huang Yaoshi talks with the same energy as his terminally enfeebled wife. So if you pretend that all prior adaptations of the menacing, arrogant HYS doesn't exist, you can probably justify Zhou Yiwei's modern art character interpretation as merely a 'Questionable' element of the show.
Then there's the straight up bad. So apparently some of the rare plaudits for the show's first volume went to Meng Ziyi', as 'the prettiest' Mei Chaofeng. Perhaps a more apt framing is that any role she plays now looks like the 'Mei Chaofengist' XXX. Because at this point her visuals and expressions doesn't match any normal person in Classical China, unless they are wicked or a Yao demon. Cosmetic surgeons should be kinder to actresses in the future and offer renders of them post-op in classical attire, to dissuade them from maxing out the tech-tree on their face. As for acting, MZY goes from stare hard to stare harder. If you combined Chen Duling's perpetually tranquilized look and MZY's perpetually stare-eyed look, you could get 2 full expressions and make something of a believable side character.
The other actors do a pretty decent job, which makes MZY stand out even more. It's like they AI edited MZY from a staring contest into a normal film‒it's that jarring. So quite a few acting reality TV shows have become stalwarts of Chinese television in recent years. They feature a judging panel of renowned actors and mostly inexperienced or idol actors trying to elevate their acting game. You can find episodes of many idol actors who have participated, including some of your popular geges and jiejies. If you can find a subbed version, they are actually quite illuminating into what veterans and directors look for in actors. Watching MZY is exactly like watching one of the clueless mentees doing a botched rendition. I keep expecting Francis Ng or Zhang Ziyi to yell out CUTTT!!, jump out from backstage, and shit on her performance for the next 5 minutes. In fact MZY had been a contestant in several seasons. Her performances were mediocre then, and they haven't improved since.
But don't brand me a MZY hater, I actually think she's quite funny. In fact, she's become a queen of variety shows, known for being outspoken and good-natured, all the while trolling everyone for shits and giggles. While it may sound like an insult to say that MZY's peak acting level is variety show star, it's actually a misuse of her talents to not have her on. So producers, please keep MZY's variety show schedule fully booked, you'll be doing heroic service for two TV genres.
While the acting is bad only for the Fl, the script is atrocious everywhere. Nothing makes sense‒character motivations, backstories, the Wuxia lore, character relationships are all a jumbled mess. The pacing is also ridiculous. They will summarize important plot points in 2 sentences while panning around some jack shit minutiae scene for 5 minutes straight. I can't fathom how in the era of Chatgpt, one can prompt out such a bad script. I know China is testing out AI scriptwriting, but for god's sake, at least use the SOTA reasoning models. I feel like this show originally had a $8000 budget for 2 scriptwriters, then decided to cut out $7000 to use on Zhou Yiwei and Chen Duling's ASMR cough syrup. So they replace the scriptwriters with $1000 of Deepseek tokens, then halfway through MZY comes knocking to take out $850 because she ran out of eyedrops. And now they only have a 4 page outline with no more tokens, and just moved the prompting to the shittiest free trial tier LLM that Temu has to offer. Wait what, Temu has an LLM? I didn't know either, but you heard it here first.
So where do we go from here? I will still pray to the ghost of Jin Yong that despite effing up 2 volumes, the other volumes can squeeze out something adequate. It's just bizarre to assemble that many decent actors and directors to reboot the biggest IP only to churn out such a cesspit. Or at the very least, I hope this time enough people in China will watch this to shit on it. If we are going to be robbed of a good show, at least don't rob us of hilarious mock review videos.
--Category Ratings--
- Overall - 4 (5 - 1 it's LoCH)
- Plot - 4
- Theme / Concept / Impact - 7
- Acting - 7 (8 - 1 MZY)
- Visuals - 8
- Audio / Music - 8
- Rewatch - 2
- Cultural/Topical Accessibility - 7
- Subtitle quality - 8?
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