cirho

There is nothing similar besides both being based on bl novels.

Right. The Untamed live action actually screwed the original story in my opinion. The donghua (animation) adaptation did a much better job than the live action.

I think all the people who are fluent in Mandarin can understand both Putonghua and Guoyu (The are simply the same thing). They're just like British vs. American English. The most obvious differences are the accents. And even within mainland China, different regions have different accents.

But the anime version got away with that. I don't know exactly how the censorship works. But anyway, it sucks.

When JC asked WWX to take off his mask, he immediately recognized that he is WWX. There is no way that MXY would look like WWX. The only explanation is that, he’s indeed WWX in his own physical body.
At one point, WWX said he “almost” died once. I forgot which episode it was.
In episode, 42, JGY explicitly said the sacrificing curse is for “healing a severely injured person” (not to bring some back from the dead.
Again in episode 42, when WWX took off his mask, everybody knew he’s WWX.
There is no other explanation. It is obvious that WWX did not die in the drama adaptation.

This is the reason why I said what I said...

Since you've watched till ep. 12, you should have noticed that the supposedly reincarnated WWX is using a mask to hide his identity form the people he, as WWX, used to know. This is just one proof. There are more hints / proof in coming episodes.

Yeah. They try to make this vague in the drama. But if you look closely into the development and the dialogues of the drama, this is certainly the case. No other possibility.

WWX didn't die 16 years ago. He was only injured.

There is one thing in the drama that ruined the whole story (apart from the puppets). I'm not exaggerating . I really mean RUINED . But I found that many viewers didn't notice that.
As a stand-alone drama, the Untamed isn't bad. But compared with the novel, it really lost all the charm. Especially the kind of dark and mysterious atmosphere that the novel (manga and anime as well) delivers.

I agree with you. They introduced the stupid (and childish) yin metal because they changed "fierce corpses" into "puppets".
In the novel, "fierce corpses" are sort of a natural occurrence (based on Chinese mythology). WWX was the first person to make use of this "natural phenomenon".
But what the heck are "puppets" in the drama? They introduced the yin metal to make that reasonable. And because of that, WWX is no longer the "grand-master of demonic cultivation" in the drama (he didn't invent nothing). And this part is not even the worst deviation imo.
The anime is way better.

[ SPOILER!!! ]
[SERIOUS !!!]
[DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED THE STORY]
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Toward the end of the story, it was revealed that JC was caught by the Wen because he tried to save WWX instead of being reckless (After the Jiang Clan was annihilated). He never told WWX about that because he knew WWX would feel guilty if he knew it. The same reason (+humiliated) why WWX didn’t tell JC that he gave his own golden core to JC.
JC kept the flute of the late WWX and Jin Guangyao mentioned that JC would never agree to exchange it for anything.
So their relationship was special and complicated.

In short WWX is at least partly responsible for the death of the people they both loved. At the end of the story, I’m sure you will cry when you know the kind of bonding they have (if it follows the original story).

Anime > Novel. The manhua/manga is kind of slow. I watched the anime first and couldn't wait for season 2 and read the manga. Since the manga didn't go very far, I ended up reading a novel for the first time in my life :O
But the good thing about the drama is that it will cover the whole story (my speculation) this summer.

Based on the novel. Jiang Cheng cares about WWX. But for some legitimate reasons (not entirely based on misunderstanding) he hated him as well. A series of unfortunate events happened between them but I don't want to spoil it.

The anime (or donghua as they call it) is very highly rated in MyAnimeList:
https://myanimelist.net/anime/37208/Mo_Dao_Zu_Shi?q=mo%20dao%20zu%20shi
And season 2 is expected to release this summer. The novel, manga, and anime are called "Mo Dao Zu Shi" instead of "The Untamed".

The novel has ended. The main story of the English version has been translated (only a few extra chapters left). From what I can tell, the English translation is not censored and the chapters from Exiled Rebels are quite organized.