Grace

Watched this for Zhao Lusi and Dilraba, my first of Wu Lei (Leo) and Liu Yuning. The Long Ballad was not what I was expecting at all. I was thinking a centered romance around Li Changge and Ashile Sun and a little bit of Li Leyan and Hao Du with little to no character development. Boy was I wrong. Li Changge being powerful and able to fend for herself was commendable, the love between her and Ashile Sun was pure and the chemistry did it's thing. First: Li Leyan's character development. With Li Changge's life being turned upside down and Li Leyan being naive and immature in the beginning, I thought she would stay that way during the whole show. Despite it being centered on Changge, I don't know how they had time to ground Leyan. She reached the real world away from a glazed life in the palace, and learnt a lot about life. The development is crazy with this one, the stark contrast with the Leyan from the start to the Leyan in the end. This just shows how much a real world life can do to perhaps a spoilt child. Moving on from Li Leyan to Changge and Ashile Sun: their romance was tangible from the beginning, although Changge was focused on justice, and was initially captured by Ashile Sun to be his military strategist, they slowly shifted their relationship. The visuals served and the cast came together naturally with no strain in sight. This drama was a good watch for me, no forcing myself to finish watching just for the sake of it, despite the lengthy 49 episodes. All in all, I highly recommend, and a solid 9/10. (Ignore my rating for music, unless it's really good I just put a two for everything)