Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Red-Moon Pact

yangmi and gon jún epic couple

finally came a drama that is very interesting..yangmi never disappoints in a drama there are such beautiful scenes can someone tell me how you can make such beautiful scenes and they look so real yangmi is so beautiful in this drama and she is cool i love cold women warm man ,gon jun did not disappoint me either he is quite funny here he is 1000 times better than b legend of anle i love his character in this dráma , story he is very interesting Also little funny there are many famous actors who I love miles wei he is also beautiful and I saw only there is another female my favorite .. this drama will definitely be my favorite I've seen two episodes and it's amazing, definitely watch it, I've only seen four episodes, it's not enough for someone, I'll write a review, but I had the same feeling when I saw the legend of shen li and it's definitely the best drama this year...second in line to the fox spirit master red moon ..love it

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All style, no substance.

I began this due to the costumes and CGI, which seemed much more creative than usual. And yes, they did go all out because this one of the most beautifully made xianxias I've watched in CDramaland.
I've never watched the donghua or heard about the source material. Moreover, the cast, even the supporting characters are well known for their own works.

The summary is exactly as the MDL page. I'm not exactly the best person to talk to about scriptwriting and directing, but for once, I could actually see that something was just missing with the whole plot.

My major issue, and the reason why I'm dropping this, is because I do not actually care about the leading characters, particularly Dongfang Yue Chu and Tushan Hong Hong.
Heck, even the villains are two dimensional to me. (At one point, it seemed as if someone was forcing me to accept their indestructibility and fear them, but I did not care about their scenes or strategy.)
It's an endless cycle of rinse and repeat upto EP19.

I didn't care much about the Spirit Kingdom arc because it was pretty much ‘served’ on a plate because the plot required it. I didn't connect to Bu Tai's and Shi Kuan's love story.
This drama could easily wrap up in a minimum 24 episodes if someone wrote a shorter, yet stronger script. FSM drives the viewer around in circles with the same conversations and fights on repeat.


It does get better after Spirit Kingdom and the initial enemy, but I lost all connection to the characters and nothing manages to capture my attention, save for a few conversations between the Tushan sisters and maybe A’ Lai.

About A’ Lai. He was introduced out of nowhere and still has mysteries shrouding him, which is why I'm curious about his character. His romance is pleasant to watch, too – Tushan Ya Ya is the opposite of his calm and composed personality and I love their banter, even though it's not earth-shattering or as tumultous as the supposed love story of Hong Hong and Yue Chu, which I frankly don't care about.
If it wasn't for them, I would've easily dropped this.

About acting… Someone mentioned how Yang Mi had one expression at the beginning, but now? Either the directing or script was very poor because there is not a single scene of hers I find particularly memorable save for a very few close up shots of her eyes. I understand that she is the Chief, but I've seen colder characters depicted better than this.
Dongfang Yue Chu… I'm sure that Gong Jun gave his best shot with what was given to him, but to be honest, I don't find him much memorable.
I didn't care about their romantic progress, either.

The fight scenes… the leading characters’ fight scenes are boring. The one scene I do remember is that one in EP15 or EP16, that too, because of the song 回还 by UNEKO being played as the BGM.
But, the scene itself (which should be a heart stopping moment) was offscreen that I had to rewind to see if I've missed something. Plenty of dramas don't shy away from bloodshed and pain, even if not directly portrayed.

A drama from last year had a very similar scene and it got trashed for being ‘too’ fake, but at least the actor performing the scene had expressions which conveyed the intensity of the moment perfectly.

The OST does have beautiful songs, but the background score as a whole is forgettable and unimpressive. Even poorly written dramas can be hits if the music manages to enchant us.
These two reasons might be why I'm impatient with the pacing.
6.5 - 7/10 -- I prioritize characters and a lot, and this one falls far off the mark. For a drama that has two other stories lined up and a hypeworthy cast, this just wasn't it for me.

Once again, the story and the editing does get a lot better. [It shifts to the human realm by EP19, but I found myself bunny hopping through scenes instead of watching it as a whole.]
But, they raised the stakes far too late for me to be interested. As far as I had watched, it was aesthetically pleasing, but tragically snooze worthy.

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not what I expected

I've always loved Yangmi. Watched almost all her dramas.
Started feeling a bit bored with the drama since (?) can't remember which episodes lol.
To be honest, I dont feel for any characters in the drama, including Yangmi's one expression.
She would always tilt her head slightly down with her eyes looking up looking stoic or serious.
Wanted to drop few eps back but I persisted.......Until their kissing scene lol....I just can't. hehe.
She practically took him in as a kid (8 years old?), and watch him grew up.
Did I miss out any kind of emotion development?
Gosh...I just can't. This is not even a noona kind of relationship.
It's aunty/ahjumma with young boy relationship, despite him growing into a man (although childish acting), it's still quite difficult to convince my mind. Maybe if the drama started differently, it would have been easy to accept this.

So finally..I have to say goodbye to Yangmi.
This drama is not for me.

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A Tale Of Love

"Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Red-Moon Pact" tells the story of Tushan Hong Hong, the chief of Tushan who cares about Tushan more than she does herself. Years ago, she saved Donfang Yue Chu because of his bloodline and raised him. After years, when Dongfang Yue Chu became an adult, his relationship with Tushan Hong Hong became closer. These two developed feelings for each other despite their age gap. Tushan Hong Hong is a fox spirit who has lived for hundreds of years, probably even thousands of years, while Dongfang Yue Chu is only a young man in his 20s. The gap is quite clear, but they still fall in love, I love this about them. "A love that transcends age difference," that's what their love exhibits.


What do I love about this drama? What I love about this drama is the chemistry of the leads, while some might say that their romance fall flat, that wasn't the case for me. Loved the chemistry of this two couples.
I've been reading comments saying the FL acting is off in this drama and that she doesn't make audience feel anything. But in my opinion, Yang Mi's acting here is top tier. Her role as Tushan Hong Hong is a cold character, a very cold one to be precise. She's the chief of Tushan, she's duty bound, she carries the weight of thousands on her shoulders, plus the fact that she has to protect her clan against the evil villain, so her cold facial expression is very justifiable if you're to ask me. Yang Mi, Gong Jun, the other leads, and supporting characters performed well in their respective roles.

The reason I'm not giving this a rating above 8.5 is because I'm not satisfied with the ending, no more, no less. As for the other aspects, I loved "Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Red-Moon Pact" thoroughly. Is this a drama I'd recommend? Of course. Is this worthwhile? The answer is "Yes".
In short, "Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Red-Moon Pact" is a drama I'd recommend for watchers who love Xianxia, it's a worthwhile drama. Ignore the negative comments, reviews, and low ratings, watch this with an open mind, you just might love it!

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I don’t know where to start.

I truthfully don’t know where to start and not in a good way. I have had this drama in my “to watch” list for many years and I was extremely excited when iQIYI announced the airing date. I waited for it and started watching as soon as it aired. To say the least it was a big let down and disappointment. I feel like there was such a solid cast, and yet this drama turned out to be mediocre at best. I struggled to get past episode 15 and for a long time I abandoned it, I only continued to watch it later on because I hate dropping dramas, plus I really wanted to watch Zhang Linghe. I will say the story kind of picked up for me somewhere around episode 24 or so, but there was so many plot holes and bad scriptwriting, that no matter what miracle the CGI, or cinematography team, or the cast did the drama suffered a lot. I probably would have rated this lower if not for the last few episodes, honestly don’t know whether or not I recommend watching it.

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it's definitely for the one's with high attention span.

I'm a kind of person who observes a lot and never involves myself with anything, but certain POV of the shows in different social media internationally made me write my first ever review. here's my take.

I was sick of the usual maiden falls for devil, they kill each other, become victims of misunderstandings etc... stuff. finally I saw something different, their is no gods and demons...but instead it's spirits and humans, and the prejudice within themselves and between spirits and humans...a dominant female lead who knows she is powerful, and has nothing hidden to discover about herself...very refreshing.

I get that many were extremely hyped up for this show and expected something you already knew to happen but in a more extravagant, more cluttered way, but this is not your ideal xian xia, it is adaptation of a existing animation.

this show completely depicts a new side of xian xia, their is spirits, and their is humans, and they resolve their conflicts, while falling in love along the way. it's that simple.

acting wise, excellent. production wise, immaculate. story wise, very depressive, and every episode has one or the other angasty situation, which is right up my alley, personally I love tragedy in dramas. and I love to torture myself with it. among many such works you can definitely add this your list.

for those who want plot after plot, fight after fight, and want that constant rush of things happening in drama, it might not be your cup of tea.
I find this drama very precise with it's storyline and at the end all the objectives it began with was met.

coming to romance, it's heart breaking like it rips your heart slowly...
*SPOILERS....their romance begins slowly and gradually they fall deep in it. but due to Hong hong's huge responsibility she comes to a point where she has to forget her years of love. you might be thinking it's a same plot as other xian xia, but here in this drama she NEVER remembers them again...and why she chose to forget was NEVER known to yuechu...till the end he thought she gave more priority to tushan and he was insignificant to her. she NEVER said she likes him... but at last she chose to ask grief tree to bind them, and then they realise just how deep their love was...because for them both, humanity comes first than love, at the end it was their TRUE love that helped them to fight against evil.

*I'm moved by my writing again...lol.

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Boring

First of all I'm so excited for it, but it's so disappointing,
Plot is poorly writting and editing was awful.
Production team must pay more attention to plot.
Acting was lower than my expectations, most of the cast are well known for good acting but here must of them are terrible here. They didn't choose good voice actors for actors it didn't suit them.
Only good part of the drama is in episode when Ti xia and wei sheng enter, I'm more excited about their love than the main role. They have a great chemistry than main roles.
I hope s2 and s3 be better than this....

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confusing drama that dragged on far too long

Caught this drama on iQIYI when it was getting good ratings but was unimpressed.

The CGI and costumes were quite good and on par for other C-dramas in this category but wow was the story bad. Also, found this drama very confusing to follow along. I mean there was a grief tree, but never understood what the grief tree was or what powers it had. The grief tree granted couples wishes, but also had some evil person living inside of it for a while. At one point one of the characters gave their "love seed" to the grief tree (I am not making this up) to help cure it of some ailment. The characters were trying to save the 6 realms even though there were only humans and spirits fighting each other. Not sure what the other 4 realms were. One of the female characters had a school girl crush on some guy Ao Lai, turns out her friend just happened to be that guy all along (what are the odds!). By about episode 25 or so, was completely bored of this drama, just wanted it to be over so started fast forwarding over the filler scenes. The villains were boring and uninteresting, the story was just dragging. There is really nothing worth recommending about this drama.

Zhang Linghe even shows up in the later episodes of this drama to participate in a silly sub-plot about some 7 treasures bark, not sure what the 7 treasures bark is or why it is important but at this point in the drama who reallly cares. After the success of some of his other dramas you have to wonder why Zhang Linghe would take a small part in a bad drama like this but I guess he must have owed someone a favour.

Ending of this drama was confusing as well, some characters who died in earlier episodes were alive and well in the final episode in some alternate reality. Overall this drama gets a well-deserved 2/10.

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Despite the Glamorous Budget, the Plot is...

Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Red-Moon Pact aka Yue Hong is the first installment of the Fox Spirit Matchmaker trilogy. IQIYI and Stellar Pictures did spend a huge sum of money to produce the trilogy. While waiting for the release date, I kept searching for information on the manga's wikipedia site and also watched a tidbit of the anime. For your information, I've been waiting this show for a year and even kept fantasizing and imagining what the scenes in the show would look like. But my expectation is cut short when the actual release date is confirmed. Despite the stellar casts, aesthetic backgrounds, exquisite costumes, top-notch CGI, and high budget, the show falls short when it comes to the script. You can see just how disappointed I am. However, I don't want my one-year awaiting turns into a fruitless effort, so I keep pressing on until the final.
(For the synopsis, you can check it out at MDL main page or at justjacky's review. I'm not going to copy it down because this is gonna be a very long rant.)

The plot is simplistic, dull, and bland as if it were an exquisite cake without any icing on top of it. I don't feel any emotions out of the dialogues, instead I just keep a poker face and stare at my screen as if nothing had happened. Moreover, the script is full of typical cliches of a childish rom-com drama like are you injured, are you hungry, try my new dishes, it's late now-go back and rest, and blah blah blah. This cycle keeps repeating for countless times and soon becomes very repetitive. To me, it's like the parents nag to their child to oblige to the rules and do what he/she is supposed to do and not to meddle in someone else's business.

After searching the wikipedia once more, I only discover that the writers ATTEMPT to cram several little arcs into the show in order to prolong the story. However, it doesn't work out because the story becomes more underwhelmed, and those couples barely have screentime of their own. Somehow, I kinda feel that they always prioritize the main couple over the others.

Aside from the bad script, the show also suffers from choppy editing. The transition between every scene is done haphazardly even though the post-production team is given a one-year time. When a certain scene has reached the climax/pinnacle, it will zoom to another random scene which has nothing to do with the previous one. I personally feel that this absurd scene jumping hinders some of the audience to understand the story thoroughly, but all we can do is to ENDURE it!
(Note: The choppy editing is resulted by using panoramic screen instead of the normal green screen, claiming that they wanted to try using a new technology that never existed in other Chinese fantasy dramas.)

As for now, I'm going to explain every couple's arc and the rant will continue below. Here we go...
- Tushan Honghong and Dongfang Yuechu (Yang Mi and Gong Jun)
Honghong is the chief of Tushan and the eldest of the Tushan sister. Being a leader of the Tushan fox clan, she shoulders a lot of heavy responsibilities. She is cold, aloof, and can be authoritative. She has been acting cold because she fears of falling in love and is still guilty of what happened to Dongfang Luo, her childhood sweetheart. Yuechu is the descendant of the Dongfang family and has been hunted since he was younger. He is intelligent, mischievous, and a bit cunning. To him, Honghong is his life savior, and he can't help but to have a crush on her. Despite her objections, Yuechu relentlessly pursues Honghong and never gives up when she rejects her. The two of them have the same wish, which is to see humans and spirits live in harmony. In the process, he melts Honghong's cold heart and she decides to fall in love once more.

- Tushan Yaya and Aolai SanShao/Ah Lai (Cristy Guo and Wei Zheming)
Yaya is the deputy chief of Tushan and the second eldest of the Tushan sister. Yaya has a carefree and reckless personality, which is the reason why both of her sisters prefer to keep her dark of the truth, afraid that her recklessness will bring chaos to Tushan. Aolai Sanshao, disguised as Ah Lai the Poison Boy, is one of Honghong's friends who had been helping her to investigate the black fox. He has an easygoing, cheery, and cheeky vibe. As he spends his days in Tushan, he is attracted to Yaya's carefree nature while Yaya also admire Ah Lai's cleverness and courage.

- Bu Tai and Shi Kuan (Zhu Xudan and Yang Shize)
Bu Tai is the princess of Spirit-Master Kingdom. She is a nice person and also filial to her kingdom. She has a secret crush on her loyal spirit guard, Shi Kuan. She is the first person who confesses her love to a spirit under the Grief Tree. Her love is later reciprocated by Shi Kuan. Unfortunately, Bu Tai was assassinated by Guoguo as one of Shi Ji's schemes. Later, Shi Kuan ascends to the position of Spirit-Master Kingdom's new emperor.

- Lu Jianwen and Yan Rushan (Sebrina Chen and Mao Zijun)
Lu Jianwen is a new constable of the Yiqi Alliance. As far as I know, she is a justice-driven person. She gets entangled in the women abduction case alongside Yan Rushan, also known as Thousand-Faces Gentleman, who is Rongrong's former disciple. At first, they never see eye to eye, but soon they are drawn to each other and stage another love story.

- Yueti Xia and Hu Weisheng (Chen Duling and Zhang Linghe)
Yueti Xia is the descendant of the Yueti Family who possess Seven-Treasures Bark. She has a playful and mischievous nature. Hu Weisheng is the disciple of the Ximen Family who takes part in the Seven-Treasures Bark's hunt. He is a naive guy and clueless when it comes to love. After escaping life-and-death situations and spending time together, they realized each other's feeling and love blossomed between the two.

- Tushan Rongrong (Hu Lianxin)
Rongrong is the third chief of Tushan and the youngest of the Tushan sister. Rongrong is more mature and meticulous compared to Yaya. She is one of Honghong's trusted aids in accomplishing Honghong's missions.

- Shi Ji (Wen Zhenrong)
Shi Ji is the former chief of Tushan and also Honghong's sworn enemy. She is a cruel, manipulative, and egoistic woman. Guoguo is her personal informant.

As expected of the stellar casts, their acting is actually top-notch if it hadn't been the stupid script. All in all, most couples have bare chemistry and the only redeeming quality so far is the fifth couple. I actually like Gong Jun, but his acting as a hot-blooded youth is so-so to me. He's better off to psychopath/unhinged/murderous characters. This is my first time watching Yang Mi. I have to say that she acts as the stoic and cold leader too perfectly - not even a smile appears once. Even if she smiles, it feels rather forced. Somehow, they have master-disciple dynamic or worse mother-son relationship. I keep feeling that Honghong looks like a mom nagging to her child to obey her, seriously?

And what's with the amnesia trope? Logically speaking, after sacrificing the Love Seed, Honghong should've forgotten both Yuechu and Dongfang Luo, but why does she only forget Yuechu? Very illogical, right? Anyway, this shitty trope is played for ten episodes until I'm fed up with it. In other words, it can be simplified as a push-and-pull game.

Another thing is that Yuechu suddenly has a crush on Hong Hong after being raised in Tushan for 16 years!! What on the earth is going on? If Yuechu were still a child, it was more understandable. However, he has grown into a teenage boy and suddenly falls for Honghong at the first sight. It's weird, isn't it?

The villain is too one-dimensional and boring. Unlike JOL Season 2 which has unpredictable villain, this show exposes too much of her true intention to usurp the 6 realms. They should've made her more mysterious to captivate the audience, but hell no! Every time her scenes pop up, I'll remind myself that an I-will-kill-Honghong-and-rule-over-the-six-realms sentence would spurt out of her mouth lol!

Don't get me started at the ending! It's a forced happy ending and the most ABSURD one! It's obviously a sad ending for every couple. However, they make it looks like they've entered an alternate universe and got together with their loved ones. Also, the last scene of the main lead doesn't make any sense. I just can't work out what the writers are thinking about. And we don't need the extra clip either!

Don't expect good fighting scenes - there are only hand-waving gestures and everything is done. I know using CGI in a fight scene is not a bad idea, but they need to combine with weapons too.

OSTs and BGMs are okay-ish, but not enough to hook me up.

I'm settling at the score 7.5. I DON'T recommend this show and will never rewatch again unless I need some brainless antidote after tiring out myself. I feel sorry for the whole assembles of casts who have obviously tried their best, but who knows this is going to be a flop?

For those who are casted in Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Zhu Ye and Wang Quan arcs, I'll wish you all the best and hope you won't suffer the same fate as Yue Hong does. This is the end of my rant and good luck!

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Love the casts

Love the drama❤️my favorite actors and actress. The story pretty good , ML and FL chemistry very good and love the happy ending .❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️👏❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

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