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The Long Ballad — Long, Dry & Where Was the Plot? ?
I’ll tell you what this show was: LONG. Just like its name. 😭
The Long Ballad has been on my list for the longest time. It’s highly rated, I love basically the entire cast, and the beginning was genuinely promising, so I really thought I was going to understand the hype. Unfortunately, somewhere around episode 15, it completely fell off for me, and the only reason I survived all 49 episodes was because I love the actors.
My biggest problem is honestly very simple: what was the plot?
I finished 49 episodes and genuinely couldn’t tell you what this show was trying to be. It starts like a revenge story, but that disappears. It’s not really enemies-to-lovers, it’s not fully political, it’s not fully about war, and there isn’t one strong central storyline carrying everything. The plot goes everywhere, the characters go everywhere, and some characters existed for so long that I genuinely questioned what their purpose was.
And because there wasn’t a strong enough plot, 49 episodes felt ridiculous. This could have been so much shorter. It became incredibly dry and boring, and by the end I wasn’t even excited to see what happened next—I just wanted to FINISH.
The female lead was also a huge problem for me. And this has nothing to do with Dilraba, because I love her. It was the writing of Chang Ge. She could be so self-righteous and arrogant that she genuinely annoyed me. She starts with this strong revenge arc, then that basically disappears, and eventually I felt like she didn’t even have a clear storyline anymore. Her character kept moving from one situation to another without an arc that felt satisfying to me.
Then we have a military/war drama with barely any actual WAR.
The comic-style battle sequences were a cool reference to the source material, and I respect the creative choice. But I don’t want comics replacing practically every major battle in a story built so heavily around military conflict. At some point, SHOW ME THE FIGHTING. 😭 It became genuinely frustrating because the story kept building toward these battles and then cutting away from the action.
The romance didn’t save it either. The chemistry between the leads was actually good at the beginning, which made it even more disappointing when the romance basically faded into the background. I never felt like their relationship was developed enough for me to become emotionally invested in it.
The storyline I enjoyed most was Zhao Lusi and Liu Yuning. I already love both of them, so they were such a treat here and definitely helped me continue. Even then, though, I wasn’t obsessed enough with their storyline for it to carry 49 episodes.
And then there’s Leo Wu.
Oh my God. GORGEOUS. 😭
Probably my favourite thing about this entire drama. The hair, the styling, the costumes—everything worked. He looked incredible, and I loved watching him. Between him, Zhao Lusi and Liu Yuning, those three basically kept me going.
On the other hand, I really didn’t like Dilraba’s styling. I understand that Chang Ge is supposed to be tomboyish, but personally, I didn’t enjoy the way she was styled throughout the drama. The overall production was nice enough—the costumes were generally good, the camerawork was fine—but none of that could make up for the writing.
And after ALL OF THAT, we get to the final episode and I’m once again asking:
WHAT WAS THAT?!
You had 49 episodes. How do you make a drama that long and still not have enough time to give everyone a properly satisfying conclusion? With that many characters and storylines, the ending should have been the moment where everything finally came together. Instead, it somehow made the entire drama feel even more unresolved. At the very least, after making me sit through 49 episodes, GIVE ME A GOOD ENDING. 😭
That basically sums up my experience with The Long Ballad: the cast was there, but the plot was not.
I wanted to love this so badly. I love the actors, the beginning had potential, and I went into it expecting to understand why it’s so highly rated. Instead, I spent most of it bored and wondering what exactly I was watching.
If you love the cast, I can understand watching it for them—because that’s literally what I did. But for the story itself? Absolutely not.
Too long, too dry, too scattered, barely any romance, barely any actual battles, and nowhere near enough plot to justify 49 episodes.
I finished The Long Ballad and my biggest achievement is simply that I finished The Long Ballad. 😭
The Long Ballad has been on my list for the longest time. It’s highly rated, I love basically the entire cast, and the beginning was genuinely promising, so I really thought I was going to understand the hype. Unfortunately, somewhere around episode 15, it completely fell off for me, and the only reason I survived all 49 episodes was because I love the actors.
My biggest problem is honestly very simple: what was the plot?
I finished 49 episodes and genuinely couldn’t tell you what this show was trying to be. It starts like a revenge story, but that disappears. It’s not really enemies-to-lovers, it’s not fully political, it’s not fully about war, and there isn’t one strong central storyline carrying everything. The plot goes everywhere, the characters go everywhere, and some characters existed for so long that I genuinely questioned what their purpose was.
And because there wasn’t a strong enough plot, 49 episodes felt ridiculous. This could have been so much shorter. It became incredibly dry and boring, and by the end I wasn’t even excited to see what happened next—I just wanted to FINISH.
The female lead was also a huge problem for me. And this has nothing to do with Dilraba, because I love her. It was the writing of Chang Ge. She could be so self-righteous and arrogant that she genuinely annoyed me. She starts with this strong revenge arc, then that basically disappears, and eventually I felt like she didn’t even have a clear storyline anymore. Her character kept moving from one situation to another without an arc that felt satisfying to me.
Then we have a military/war drama with barely any actual WAR.
The comic-style battle sequences were a cool reference to the source material, and I respect the creative choice. But I don’t want comics replacing practically every major battle in a story built so heavily around military conflict. At some point, SHOW ME THE FIGHTING. 😭 It became genuinely frustrating because the story kept building toward these battles and then cutting away from the action.
The romance didn’t save it either. The chemistry between the leads was actually good at the beginning, which made it even more disappointing when the romance basically faded into the background. I never felt like their relationship was developed enough for me to become emotionally invested in it.
The storyline I enjoyed most was Zhao Lusi and Liu Yuning. I already love both of them, so they were such a treat here and definitely helped me continue. Even then, though, I wasn’t obsessed enough with their storyline for it to carry 49 episodes.
And then there’s Leo Wu.
Oh my God. GORGEOUS. 😭
Probably my favourite thing about this entire drama. The hair, the styling, the costumes—everything worked. He looked incredible, and I loved watching him. Between him, Zhao Lusi and Liu Yuning, those three basically kept me going.
On the other hand, I really didn’t like Dilraba’s styling. I understand that Chang Ge is supposed to be tomboyish, but personally, I didn’t enjoy the way she was styled throughout the drama. The overall production was nice enough—the costumes were generally good, the camerawork was fine—but none of that could make up for the writing.
And after ALL OF THAT, we get to the final episode and I’m once again asking:
WHAT WAS THAT?!
You had 49 episodes. How do you make a drama that long and still not have enough time to give everyone a properly satisfying conclusion? With that many characters and storylines, the ending should have been the moment where everything finally came together. Instead, it somehow made the entire drama feel even more unresolved. At the very least, after making me sit through 49 episodes, GIVE ME A GOOD ENDING. 😭
That basically sums up my experience with The Long Ballad: the cast was there, but the plot was not.
I wanted to love this so badly. I love the actors, the beginning had potential, and I went into it expecting to understand why it’s so highly rated. Instead, I spent most of it bored and wondering what exactly I was watching.
If you love the cast, I can understand watching it for them—because that’s literally what I did. But for the story itself? Absolutely not.
Too long, too dry, too scattered, barely any romance, barely any actual battles, and nowhere near enough plot to justify 49 episodes.
I finished The Long Ballad and my biggest achievement is simply that I finished The Long Ballad. 😭
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