dahyuned

It could've been perfect if the production team understood the audience more.

Disclaimer that I have read more than half of the novel. I'll try to keep this mostly about the drama but there might still be references to the novel.

Let's start with my expectations of the drama.
I expected this drama to be about a second chance at life and a second chance at the leads' love story, delving into their backstories, motivations and relationships. I also expected there to be politics, which would be interesting as the leads are already seasoned politicians and are able to easily outsmart the old officials.

What the drama is actually about.
This drama is about the female lead learning that she was stupid in her past life, and struggling to choose between the male lead and the second male lead for the whole drama. Everything that I wanted explored about the main leads was explored about the female lead and the second male lead, leaving the male lead as more of a one dimensional accessory. The politics were okay, which was frustrating as they attempted to explore deep fundamental issues but fell short.

The positive aspects of the drama.
The acting. Zhang Linghe and Zhao Jinmai are not popular for no reason. They weren't just acting, they were living in their roles. You Jinwei, Zhao Peilin, Cheng Guo and Yi Daqian were all standout roles to me. You Jinwei perfectly communicating the loneliness and isolation of the emperor. Zhao Peilin had a much less significant role but her acting as the empress was also impressive, and it truly made me sympathise with her position and actions. Cheng Guo played Shangguan Ya to the tee, expressing all of her sides well. Yi Daqian was great at showing the personality of Su Ronghua. These six actors consistently gave an amazing performance in every single scene they were in. Most other actors had amazing moments, like Chen Heyi, Liu Xuwei, Karina Zhao and Chen Siyu.
The dynamic and chemistry between the leads. They always bicker like an old married couple, yet simultaneously always act like children around each other. Their scenes are always full of dialogue, whether it's playful and humourous or emotional and transformative. They care for each other dearly and their relationship spans decades. You can't miss a single scene with the two of them in it, it will always be either entertaining, or impactful. After 2 decades, I appreciate how the leads finally learn to openly communicate with each other.
The comedy. In a drama like this, the balance between light-hearted and serious is struck using the subordinates of the leads, and although it is not new, it is hilarious. Li Rong, Pei Wenxuan, Jing Lan, Jing Mei and Tong Ye are genuinely so funny and have me smiling and laughing aloud. They really seem like one family.
Pei Wenxuan. Pei Wenxuan is the best character. He's always unconditionally supporting Li Rong in any way possible, and he's always doing the right thing and caring about others. He has high IQ and EQ and he's also passionate about protecting those he loves. Zhang Linghe conveys a masterful performance.
Relationships. Something that this drama tackles is relationships, and all of the differences kinds there are. How relationships are influenced by power, how power can be used to destroy or protect relationships. How your relationships with others affects you: the decisions you make and how you think. It's really a deep topic and I applaud this drama for tackling it and managing to handle it well enough.
Li Chuan. Li Chuan is a complex character and it's unfortunate that his complexity was only shown in the last 10 episodes. It's bittersweet to see each emperor turn into a desperate tyrant driven to the edge of a cliff one after another in a never-ending cycle oversaw by the noble families. In my opinion, Liu Xuwei is not a horrible actor, but he just feels blank most of the time. He portrays the cute younger brother well, and I was struck by his acting when he tells Shangguan Ya that Su Ronghua is dead, but other than that he's very one note.

The negative aspects of the drama.
Su Rongqing. This is one of the aspects where the title of my review is the most relevant. The director, producer and others behind this drama fail to understand what makes a second male lead compelling and worth rooting for. They have to be better in some aspects to the make lead. This makes you think that they might be a better choice. But no, Su Rongqing is not better than Pei Wenxuan in any aspects. In fact, he's worse in about every single one. This drama dedicated so much screen time to Su Rongqing, much, much more then the male lead, for what? For us to feel sorry for his tragic backstory? For us to prefer him with Li Rong? For us to like him more? It's impossible. He's insufferable every time he appears on screen. His backstory never needed to be that deep, in my opinion. He's just an insufferable rich kid who thinks that he's the best because he shares some spare change, and that means that everyone has to bow down at his feet and respect him as the living angel on Earth. In terms of his screen time and scenes, the director made many changes from the novel, which made me even more frustrated. Chen Heyi did a perfect job if the purpose of the character was to make the audience want to kill him, but the problem is the purpose of the character is to be a tragic figure that we were rooting for. Chen Heyi does not do a good job. He looks sick and pathetic all of the time, and that makes the audience hate him, not sympathise with him.
Soundtrack. It's not so important, but it can break the immersion at times. There's barely any back track for the actual leads, and instead the only memorable track is specifically for Su Rongqing.
The wasted potential of Pei Wenxuan. I hate how the drama wasted his character. Imagine if they dedicated even half of Su Rongqing's screen time to Pei Wenxuan's backstory and his own dreams, besides supporting Li Rong. He just feels left behind and forgotten about. They dumbed him down a lot from the novel, making his ideas the ideas of other people and claiming that he doesn't know things that he actually should. Additionally, there's barely any buildup about the Pei family, which could have been such an interesting plot point, added to the relationships theme of the drama, and made Pei Wenxuan a more interesting and complex character with his own dreams and drive to do what he wants, not just supporting Li Rong.
How Li Rong's character was handled. Li Rong is such a complex character and there are parts of her character that I love and parts that I hate. Overall I really like her, but I disagree with some of the liberties the production team took from the novel. They made her feelings for Su Rongqing a lot more ambiguous, to fulfill their love for Su Rongqing. If they wanted to take liberties, they should have made her love for Pei Wenxuan a lot more obvious, rather then more subtle. She's just such a complex character who tries to do the right thing and cares about the people around her, but is always perceived as being heartless.

Overall it's an enjoyable drama. The strengths are the dynamic and chemistry between the leads and the acting while the weaknesses are the highlight on the wrong characters, misunderstanding their audience and their half-hearted attempts to delve into complex concepts.

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Qyestionable pacing but is still deeply enjoyable and touching

My expectations of this drama was a drama with good chemistry between the leads (it's Zhang Linghe and Jing Tian after all), with an interesting plot. Other than that, I didn't really know what to expect regarding this drama, and I was pleasantly surprised.

First of all, don't let the synopsis of the drama mislead you. Nan Yan was born into a world of immortals, she never 'entered' one, and I didn't sense any kind of dislike between Nan Yan or Ji Yang throughout the whole drama, light hearted annoyance at most. If I were to write a synopsis for the drama, it would be this:
Nan Yan is a practical, optimistic and down-to-earth poisoner who's working to find a cure for her mother's heart disease. She saves the life of Shao Cang, the former monarch turned fugitive of a righteous sect. Shao Cang is aloof, powerful and clever. They quickly establish a strong connection. Together, with the company of the naïve and humorous Young Dragon Lord Mu Zhanting and the pitiful yet witty fox spirit Yin Ya, they uncover conspiracies of the four seas about events that happened 100 years ago.

The positive aspects of this drama.
The acting is beautiful, especially the acting of Zhang Linghe, Jing Tian, Darren Chen and Chang Long. They're amazing actors and completely immersed me in the story. They really carried this drama in terms of pure hard work and skill.
The characters are all so real. They all had their own goals, fears and dreams. Nan Yan and Ji Yang are masterful characters. Their complexities were so well-written and portrayed. There was not a single character in this drama that I think was handled badly. They made me sympathise with them so much.
The OST. As a carat, I'm strangely proud to hear Xu Minghao's (The8's) OST for this drama. It always made me emotional and engaged.
The tone of the drama. I don't really know what to call this section. I basically mean the light-heartedness/intensity of the drama. The first half of the drama was pleasantly more light-hearted than I was expecting, I was laughing aloud in almost every scene. Then, the second half of the drama was more intense and darker, handling more complex and dark themes. However, the light-heartedness/intensity were mixed in with each other. The first half still had intense and sad scenes, and they were mixed in with the light-hearted scenes but were still impactful and taken seriously. The second half also still had light-hearted scenes, which was a nice breath of fresh air from the newfound intensity of the plot and characters. The tonal shift also made sense, unlike other dramas, where the shift comes out of nowhere. In this drama, it was extremely clear cut and had a justifiable reason for the shift. Considering the plot, the shift was barely jarring. Overall, the tone of this drama is one of the best I have ever watched. It has so much character, so much colour, so much tangible emotion and so much detail. It was genuinely a pleasure to watch.
Costuming. The costuming in this drama was super beautiful. I've watched four dramas featuring Zhang Linghe so far (Fox Spirit Matchmaker Red Moon Pact, The Princess Royal, Story of Kunning Palace) and I can confidently say that he had the best styling in this drama. All of the clothes are lavish and so much attention and detail were put into them.
The plot of the drama. Personally, I found the plot of the drama super interesting and enthralling, with lots of twists and turns and different aspects being introduced. Most things made sense and it wasn't just random events happening in sequence with no relation to each other. That being said, the plot was still messy and confusing at times.

The negative aspects of this drama.
The pacing. Well, the title of this review says it all. Honestly, the pacing of the drama is not all bad. For some people, the pacing of the first half was too draggy and too little was happening, but I thought that it was perfect pacing for the light-heartedness of that part of the drama. The second half was when the pacing really picked up, packing a lot more into the episodes. This pacing was also good for the more intense theme of the second half of the drama. My big problem with pacing is nearing the end, I would say about 8 episodes from the finale. This was when the drama realised that it had a lot more of the story to tell and not enough time to tell it all. So they started packing in scenes one after the other with barely any time to breathe and process in between before a plot twist is revealed or there's a new series of events. Instead of untangling the web which was already established, i.e. Nan Rao's heart disease, Shao Cang being framed for murdering the Great Path sect and the Evil Path sect trying to resurrect Sen Luo, they just added more and more convoluted conspiracies on top, leaving only two episodes to solve everything in reality.

Overall, this is a drama that I enjoyed a lot. It had amazing acting, characters and tone, but the pacing towards the end dragged it down. The characters and their struggles and emotions spoke to me. This is a nice, entertaining watch.

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I would give up my golden core to watch this for the first time again

Where to even begin? This is the first ever drama that I have watched that I consider to be completely perfect. Everything, from the acting, to the CGI, to the costumes, to the BGM, to the plot is so perfect.

Story:
This story takes many twists and turns but somehow manages to feel so coherent and bring back central focus effortlessly. This is definitely a character-focused drama, which is amazing as all of the characters are so compelling and beautiful written and acted. A few episodes at the beginning are dedicated to a flashback, which for some reason I found really funny. We were just inside of Su Yishui's memories for three years. The only parts that I would say were weak were Wei Jiu and Tu Jiuyuan's storyline, although that had its own charm, and the whole ending of the plot with Prince Ping, because it ended up just going to nowhere and was kind of confusing. I understand why it wasn't explained as there was no reason for Su Yishui to info-dump during his flashback, but a little more exposition would've made the situation a lot clearer. This drama took me on the ride of a lifetime, and I'll never forget it.

Mu Qingge/Xue Ranran:
I honestly don't know whether to categorise them as two different characters, or the same character. From the moment I saw her I loved her, to be completely honest. Mu Qingge has such a fun, playful yet straightforward charm that is just so attractive, while Xue Ranran's bright, lovely energy brightens up the screen. It is a bit of a pity that we didn't see more of the actual Mu Qingge, as she only got all of her memories back in the last few episodes, but the amalgamation of their two characters was also so compelling, and excellently handled, in my opinion. I've seen some complaints that Mu Qingge basically died and never came back, which is of course valid, but I don't share the same opinion as 1. I believe she did come back after she regained all of her memories and 2. It wouldn't be a fun or engaging story if there were no consequences to events. I think the direction that they went with her character is the most reasonable, as technically she never should have been revived according to Heaven's will. Her just coming back exactly as she was before would've made Heaven's will something to be taken much less seriously than it actually should've been in the story. Another complaint that I've seen is that Xue Ranran is a boring character, and I just can't accept this. Xue Ranran is a little bundle of joy and nobody is allowed to hurt her. And, she's an extremely relatable person because yes, I would also be thinking about my master that much if he were Su Yishui. If there is one thing that I dislike about both of their characters, it is their tolerance of Su Yu. However, I can ultimately see where their feelings come from, as he did treat them well for decades. I just hate him too much...
Su Yishui:
My favourite character hands down. It used to be Mu Qingge at the start of the story, but Su Yishui quickly stole the show for me. He is the standard for every single male lead character and I stand by that. He is a perfect character, but not in the sense that he is a perfect person. He's made plenty of mistakes and bad decisions, and yet I can't bring myself to hate him for any of them, exactly like Mu Qingge/Xue Ranran. He is a perfect blend of cold, straightfoward, brutal and no-nonsense towards others, and soft, sweet, playful and loving when it comes to the people he cares about. I genuinely have nothing else to say about him, he's just so perfect to me! Although can I just say that he really had me fooled when he was pretending to be the Mortal-Demon Lord.
Su Yu:
Possibly one of my most hated characters ever. He's just genuinely so insufferable, is willing to do whatever it takes to gain power and get what he desires at the cost of everyone else, and then turns around in the last second and gets to die an honourable death. I don't believe it. His passive-aggression and condescension is genuinely so infuriating and I was cheering for Su Yishui every time he tried to kill him, and every time he was suffering the effects of the poison. The scene where he got kicked out of Su Yishui's body and his spirit was being brought back into his own body, I was just saying, "Yes! No! Yes! No! Yes! No!!" the whole time. The fact that he threatened her into marrying him is absolutely despicable and he doesn't deserve anybody's sympathy, respect or affection. He doesn't deserve any of them, Mu Qingge, Xue Ranran, Mu Ranwu or Zhou Feihua. I think that he is at the center of one of the only problems with this drama, which is his constant infantilisation. The number of times Xue Ranran, Mu Qingge and Zhou Feihua said that they wanted to prevent him from making mistakes really pissed me off. He knew exactly what he was doing, including all the unspeakable consequences, so therefore it wasn't a mistake. I understand that there were decades of good feelings between him and those three, but it gets to a certain point. Especially after he invaded Su Yishui's body, I was shocked that Xue Ranran/Mu Qingge had any concern for him left. Genuinely about to punch a hole through the screen every time he spoke, especially when he had the audacity to imply that Su Yishui is interrupting his conversation IN HIS OWN HOME.
Mu Ranwu:
Just an annoying character overall. Feel infinitely worse for her than for Su Yu any day of the week, but she's still not good by any means. Even if you hate your sister that much, doing what she did is unforgivable. I believe that even if she was constantly compared to her her whole life, a genuinely good person wouldn't have blamed Mu Qingge for being talented, or for the choice she made to save the lives of innocent people. The only thing I respect about her is how fast she switched up on Su Yu. However, her switch up on Wang Suizhi was completely out of left field and felt so unnatural to me. Maybe I accidentally skipped a few lines in her scenes out of annoyance, but I didn't see any warmth from her side until the very last moment. Pretty in-character, though. Losing her sanity is what she deserved in the end. Living neither a happy or horrible life.
Other characters:
Let's start with positive ones and end with negative ones. Bai Baishan, Gao Cang and Xi'er were so funny and perfect as the three comic relief characters. Gao Cang was kind of weak but Bai Baishan completely subverted my expectations, he showed the most growth out of all of the three and was quite a pleasure throughout. Xi'er was just super cute, I adored her dynamic with Ranran and she was even able to save the chemistry between her and Gao Cang. Yu Tong, like Bai Baishan, subverted my expectations. Her unconditional support of the leads was heartwarming and refreshing. Zeng Yi's nickname for Su Yishui was super cute and their dynamic together was super entertaining. something that I appreciate is that his "protectiveness" of Xue Ranran was not at all dragged out, again subverting my expectations. Wei Jiu was an irrelevant character to me, the only thing I liked was his dynamic with Su Yishui and Mu Qingge/Xue Ranran. I could not bring myself to be compelled by Tu Jiuyuan, she did all of that for Wei Jiu? (strong doubt) The weakest major character (that I'm not forgetting about) might be Zhou Feihua. I wasn't paying attention when she was first introduced, and I continued to not really pay attention throughout all of her scenes. Her childhood backstory with Su Yu came of nowhere for me. They could've done some more with her character, but then again she's not really that important. Her insisting that Xue Ranran end her relationship with Su Yishui, and constantly going back to Su Yu really irritated me, though.
Overall, one thing that I appreciated in this drama, that maybe besides the Mortal-Demon Lord, nobody was evil just for the sake of being evil. This drama really cares about and cherishes its characters.

Rewatching:
I'm writing this review immediately after finishing the drama, but I am already excited to rewatch. It's the type of drama that's super nostalgic for me because the story came so far from where it started and so it's going to be such a blast to rewatch and rewatch and rewatch and rewatch... Will probably skip the scenes with just Su Yu, Mu Ranwu, and Dun Tian, though.

Romance:
The chemistry is immaculate, the writing is immaculate, I love everything about Mu Qingge/Xue Ranran and Su Yishui as a couple. I wish there was some more affectionate moments between them after they both regained all of their memories, though. Mu Qingge is stronger than me for sure. Something that I've seen about them and that I definitely agree with is that their dynamic and relationship throughout the story is very equal. They both sacrifice a lot for each other, both lose their memories, and even switch the master-disciple relationship. I can't possibly put my thoughts into coherent sentences, I just adore them so much!

Overall, the first and maybe the last 10 star rating I have ever given to a drama. Xian Tai You Shu you absolute masterpiece. I love art made by truly passionate people, and this drama screams passion, love and care to me. And by the way, what was in the air when Deng Wei and Xiang Hanzhi were filming? They look breathtaking.

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"I like the moon, but the moon doesn't know."

Zhou Ye and Cheng Lei worked super hard and did super well in their roles as He Yan/General Feihong and Xiao Jue/General Fengyun. This drama is full of beautiful character work, nice cinematography, and some touching full-circle moments and parallels.
In terms of the plot, I liked the pace, it barely dragged and kept me interested throughout every episode. There was something so satisfying about seeing He Yan who lost everything beginning from the bottom again and working hard to achieve her goals. That is what's so refreshing about this drama; usually the female leads tend to be naturally talented at fighting and work for recognition of their talents, but in this drama, He Yan is actually not talented at fighting and rises to the top through hard work and dedication, which is such a beautiful message. Skill and dedication truly matters more than natural talent.
I loved the main characters and Zhou Ye and Cheng Lei were absolutely amazing. There were widespread complaints that He Yan didn't have the general aura at the start, but as the drama progresses, the audience gets to experience her growth and reassumption of her position. I find it kind of funny that everyone was expecting a newbie soldier to be super imposing and emotionless, when that's not how it was written in the novel. One of the biggest downsides of the drama is simply the viewers' own expectations of what the drama should be like without regarding trying to understand what it is.
I thought Zhou Ye portrayed He Yan amazingly, her curiosity, playfulness, dedication and intelligence was on full display, and her struggles with finding herself and her own identity was also executed very well by Zhou Ye in terms of the limitations of the script. He Yan as a character is truly very engaging and the viewer can't help but root for her success and happiness in this new chance at life.
Meanwhile, Cheng Lei lived and breathed Xiao Jue, such an amazing character. Unexpectedly, the part that I enjoyed the most were all of the comedic moments, but the emotional and cool moments were also really great. A lot of male leads have the archetype of cold on the outside and soft on the inside, but I feel with Xiao Jue it was done incredibly well. He's commanding, skilled, but also sweet and dedicated to the one he loves.
The chemistry between Zhou Ye and Xiao Jue was also a huge highlight of the drama, their moments held so much tension, whether emotional, romantic or comedic.
In terms of Chu Zhao, I've seen that other viewers pity him but I think he's just the generic "I'm entitled to the female lead because I 'love' her" type of second male lead, and people who said that he should've been the male lead are absolutely wrong in my opinion. His role as a person who strictly follows his own morals was pretty interesting in the story, there were times when he was united or against the leads, and it all flowed very naturally. Zhang Kangle does have an iPhone face to me, though.
Cheng Lisu and Song Taotao were pretty interesting characters, especially as their romantic relationship is a feature unique to the drama. I wish that they had gotten more screen time, but obviously because of the face swap, it was not possible. Zhang Miaoyi was still very cute in her role, and I honestly could not tell that Li Qing was the replacement for Cheng Lisu's previous actor.
The villains, namely Xu Jingfu and He Rufei, really annoyed me, especially He Rufei's extraordinary delusion. I can't even elaborate more on that because it makes me so angry. He spends all of his screentime acting like an entitled child throwing a tantrum. I wish that the viewers could've received some context for Xu Jingfu's actions.
Last but not least, the male lead's subordinate Feinu and all of He Yan's army buddies survived to the end of the drama, which is an absolute miracle. I have to thank the drama writers for that one.
Honestly, the biggest downside of the drama is its runtime. It would've been so beneficial to have 40 (45 minute long) episodes to give the story breathing space and time to elaborate on other aspects of the plot or characters. I think that the audience could've really benefitted from a deeper exploration into He Yan's psyche and journey of self-discovery outside of He Rufei. The storyline was still present, but it could've been even more impactful and emotional to see He Yan's numerous struggles with her identity highlighted. However, for the time they ended up with and the amount that they had to cut, I think the people behind the drama did an excellent job at crafting a captivating and engaging drama.
I truly commend Zhou Ye and Cheng Lei on their amazing performances, and recommend this drama to anyone wanting to watch a touching story of romance, fulfillment, and growth with excellent acting and fight scenes.

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