CKDramaddicts

Really enjoyed your thoughtful review. It echoed many of my own sentiments, especially that strong sense of nostalgia (it's set close to when I was in university and when I spent a year in China teaching at a university after graduating) and the bittersweetness of first loves and crushes. I loved the friendships, but also wished we could see the main OTP get together a little earlier and the last few episodes fleshed out more!

(Oh, that should be the sound of a ping pong ball bouncing away. :))

The drama is set in 2014, when the real South Korean army made international headlines several times. Even what happened in the bonus scene at the end of the entire drama was inspired by true events.

Based on the extra scene after the final credits, he didn't die...

Regarding the realism question, the show is based on real events in the South Korean Military that was widely covered in the news in 2014 (when this drama is set as well).

You can find it free on Viki and Youtube. The "NewTV Hit Drama" right above the cast & credit list links directly to the YouTube playlist.

I think this would be a great feature (but daunting, haha) to add to the MDL cast list! Baidu cast listings for dramas will includes the voice dubber's names, which you can figure out with the help of Google Translate and also Googling the dubber's name. I believe Xiao Zhan is another actor who started dubbing his own voice recently (Douluo Continent), though not for The Untamed.

Great article! And you highlighted the stand out examples I would've picked as well (Princess Weiyoung, The Untamed, Eternal Love/Three Miles)! :) I generally don't love dubbing, especially if I'm famiiar with the actor's real voice, but there are definitely a few voices (Bian Jiang, for example) that have helped make the character memorable.

It does feel like they are sloooooowly moving away from dubbing though -- don't get me wrong, I think it will be around for a long time stil -- but I've watched quite a few modern dramas over the past year that use live audio.

For those interested, there have been a couple of modern C-dramas recently about the voice dubbing industry: Poisoned Love and You are So Sweet.

Gaaaah. I suspected they were going to go this route with the ending and was ready to accept it, but I became so frustrated with QJN's character and the way she was pressuring him while he was still coming to terms with the shock of having a daughter whose life was in his hands. I thought it was spectacularly insensitive and kind of ruined the character a little for me. I know she has her principles, but come on! Trust the guy and let him deal with his trauma for two minutes! Meanwhile, he's begging her to stay and not abandon him like everyone else in his life.

And as much as I love a good "tortured hero/anti-hero" character, the pay-off is seeing them get a happy ending. In ZXS's case, he already made it clear he wanted to make the moral and right choice going forward, even if it meant being fatalistic about what that meant for his own life, so I was okay with that. But to throw in a surprise daughter, kill off Mo Li, after already seeing the woman he loves almost die TWICE --- **all in the span of a maybe two or three days** -- was really super-massive over kill and absolutely heartbreaking. If you're going to do all that to your ML, he should absolutely end up happily with both the FL and his daughter (even if he gets a bit of jail time), and the uncle killed off. And it was set up with that possibility - the police were there! He had all the evidence! The more I think about that final episode...

Somebody edit us all of the OTP's scenes into one long video, but change the ending where he survives the blast and they live happily ever after! *Heaves a big sigh*

Yes to everything you said (especially the cut scenes) and in your reply to yourself too, lol!

Gah, that was my guess based on a clip of the explosion I saw somewhere and the scene in the credits where ZSX is crying and holding Mo Li. Not the ending I would have wanted for the OTP (because the whole show is unrealistic anyway, may as well give it a fairy tale ending too, haha), but at the same time, I think this was the ending the drama was building up to throughout the back half. In that sense, it's perhaps a fitting one for the ML who had become fatalistic about his life.

YES! This is the first time I've ever commented on a show. I didn't have anyone to discuss it with, since my RL drama-watching friends were going to pass on this one after I warned them (despite enjoying it immensely myself, lol). It's been fun reading everyone's opinions and having a space to share my own! :)

I can't remember if they've revealed all of this in EP 25, so possible spoiler warning....

....but XL is Xiang Lan, Uncle Zhu's daughter/ML's first gf and WZ's wife.

I'm still enjoying this and still love the FL, but her naivete towards other people's scheming in 34/35 is kind of driving me nuts right now. (She was onto ZXS pretty quickly in the beginning though.) Why is Su Qian getting a pass from everyone? She's clearly out for revenge too given how conveniently she is in league with WZ. The ML is supposed to be pretty brilliant and understand how dark the world can be AND YET. He wasn't connecting all the dots either. And even if the FL is completely naive to WZ's scheming, she is extremely principled, so knowing what she knows about WZ -- raping XL and then trying to destroy ZXS -- one would think that should be more than enough for her to want to refuse WZ's investment from an ethical standpoint. (I know that decision is ultimately out of her control and up to Huang though). In a way it sort of goes back to the ML challenging her ethics and principles in the early episodes and asking her how she would chose between two impossible choices. I guess they're trying to make the point that preserving the research is more important than anything? I know QJN is fiercely independent, and this is expecting too much, but I wanted WZ/SQ's plans foiled with QJN going to her dad for financial help instead, lol.

It's bothering me that ZXS is hiding his connection to WZ from her after all they've been through to get back together. Like the lies STILL just keep piling up! Not cool. :/

QJN is amazing. They're all a little different so not completely comparable, but other dramas with kick-ass female leads who know their own minds and won't let other people get the best of them that come to mind include: Princess Weiyoung (perhaps the closest in the way she carries herself?), Imperial Coroner (FL feels a bit younger though, so different from QJN), I Will Find You A Better Home, and Flower of Evil.

100% YESSS. Just tell her already! Face everything together. She probably would have some great ideas up her sleeves too.

I know this is just storytelling and "villains being villains", but it boggles my mind how Uncle Zha and especially Wen Zhao have the audacity to blame the ML for anything, when it was all Wen Zhao's doing. He's a piece of work and I hope he goes to jail in the end. I'm really enjoying this soapy drama, but the whole, forcing someone to love them or be with them when they clearly don't want to, and not letting anyone else have them either, is one of the most annnoying drama tropes. Everytime Wen Zhao opens his mouth --- argh! I know I'm stating the obvious, but just wanted somewhere to rant, lol. XD

Ah, I see, fair enough! Would it be any less distracting to see so many random people in Europe including street musicians and conference attendees all speaking Chinese though? Not sure there's an ideal or satisfying solution, but interesting food for thought on how it can be done better! :)

You're not alone! I want all the screentime for the OTP, but I don't mind the secondary protagonists anymore. I found the 2ML annoying at first, but I like how his character has evolved and become supportive and can also see the true feelings of the ML. And through her friendship with Mo Li, I've also come to also appreciate the genuine kindness of the little sister. And ditto for the office colleagues. I've always loved Chunran though. Zhu zhu is terrible, but I guess no office is ever completely poison-free, lol.

I could see how it might be distracting for some viewers, but I've seen it done elsewhere, including Hollywood films. Given the extensive amount of dialogue Victoria would have to speak in English, including a lot of scientific conversation involving more complex terminology, I can see why they went this route. Even more so if she's not as comfortable (she spoke in English for short sentences). I would definitely find it challenging delivering this amount of lengthy dialogue in a language I was not comfortable with. It's also better than oversimplifying the dialogue just to keep it in English.

It was a bit weird at first -- I assumed the professor could understand Chinese at first, but after the street busker scene, I think the viewer is supposed to assume she's speaking English/whatever language so fluently it's like she's speaking Chinese (but it's still a tiny bit wierd, since the other characters still attempt to speak English), If all else fails, we can pretend it's like Star Trek, they've got universal translators, but viewers don't, lol.