IA-000

I actually rate this drama a 6.75/10, but since I can't give that rating on MDL, I opted for a 6.5/10.
I also want to emphasize the fact that this is, for me, the first xianxia I've found interesting in over three years. And this is essentially due to the fact that this cdrama focuses on stong philosophical reflections, that I found very inspiring. However, this drama has many flaws, and I understand why many fail to connect to it.

Nevertheless, for me at least, there's still something in the design of this drama that I value greatly: the expression of sincerity in artistic & creative exploration. This drama really tried to create something visually different from the usual xianxia genre (mainly the first 11 episodes, cause after that it went slowly downhill).
This drama is far from perfect, but despite everything, it managed to touch the part in me in search for a creative journey.

1.The Directing :
The 1st ep looked very much like a pilot one, a bit chaotic & clumsy, weird voice over for the fl, your classic xianxia trope, in term of directing it's wasn't that great but still charming.
Episodes 2-11 were beautifully directed imo, not perfect but the creative input was def strong & authentic, it impressed me. The shots were differents & gorgeous, you could sense the inspiration from old famous movies from hong kong & china, and there was a serious will to give us a different looking xianxia. There was something very seductive in the way the scenes were portayed through the lens of the director.
The color palette, decor, makeup & costumes truly surprised me in the best way. I was so tired of watching xianxias having the same aesthetic.
Shots got repetitive after the first 11 episodes tho. Most of the creativity of the beginning faded away to display the most generic directing, probably less costing LOL. During the last part of the drama, few shots were pretty but kinda meaningless, so it was a disappointement.
Most cgi during the 2nd part & most importantly the action scenes were bad.
The editing was often weird. It participate on the downfall of the quality of the drama. The scenes followed one another in either an abrupt or robotic manner. Of course, it is obvious that to respect the 32-episodes format, there must have been a need to reduce a lot of scenes.
The work on the lighting was generic and lacked efforts. It actually made a lot of scenes (that were already poorly shooted) look very awkward.

Have you noticed how all the hugging scenes were poorly filmed? A shame. The directing after ep 11 definitely lacked sensibility, spirit but also bravery. I never got actually emotional while watching the drama, I could feel so much distance with what was displayed, it didn't feel real despite many realitic themes. The execution of it was most definitely NOT credible, lacked so much attention for details and precision.

The sountrack was absolutely underwhelming. I only like two songs and one of them was the one sung by Zeng Shun Xi.

2. The Writing :
A/The Themes of The Story :
The choice of the themes deplayed in the drama were outstanding and what truly makes this drama worth the watch and give it a high rewatch potential.
Here a short list of the themes :
-The Principle of Polarity (Yin & Yang, Cause and Effects)
-The cycle of life that never ends
-Theory of causality: cause and effect
-The theme of motherhood and fatherhood
- Maternal instinct ( HRY being overprotective) vs detachment ( BJS chosing to take action for both of them without her consent, being also overprotective)
- The challenges of perception
- Reality vs Imagination
- Hysteria or the condescending term and judgment of women's emotional expressions (Yin)
- The silent burdens in the expression of masculinity (Yang)
- The puirsuit of Truth & the construction of discernment

I have written a very long essai that I added on discussion topic of the page of FEUD, so if your curious I'll invite you to read it, it is called "An attempt to highlight the beauty of the deep philosophical themes of the story of FEUD". 

B/The Storytelling :
The storytelling was a complete fail.
The writing & choices of the themes were great but the construction of the narrative was very amateurish and full of obvious and tacky clumsiness.
The audience is really left alone trying to guess the depth of the writing. And if you don't pay attention enough, you would definetely miss the beauty of the subjects displayed, because precisely the storytelling wasn't efficient enough. You do not get to truly witness the beauty of the theory of polarities reaching its high potential when it comes to a drama adaptation. FEUD is to me more of an attempt, a lovely & clumsy attempt that still reached me, but if I wasn't myself educated enough on taoism and other philosophical ideas, this drama wouldn't have reach me like it did. And that's why I can see how many people didn't connect to the drama.
The writing of the first twist was actually good (HRY faking having forgotten everything), the 1st stabbing scene did get the reaction from the audience that was needed, but the twits after felt VERY repetitive, forced & cringy, simply added to avoid truly writing something creative & more serious as obstacles or ways to deepen the psychology of the characters.
Honestly, they were too many repetition in the writing, it was annoying.
I guessed most major twists, and after the 1st one, the thrill of guessing became flavorless.
The constant focus on those stabbing scenes & the display of physical pain was of poor taste (most xianxias have those and it needs to stop LOL, can you write angst in another way? Like it's 2025?). One or two scenes were enough for us to grab the importance of how deep their sorrow was, but nah, they kept going just to use those heavy scenes of suffering as a way to fill up the storytelling, which I find not only problematic but also triggering. It destroyed the impact of the first scenes, making the use of those same looking scenes (where you see the fl stabbing the ml, one of them needing to die etc) as a pretext or disguise for the lack of cleverness needed to write new scenes with such a strong impact.
HRY & BJS “acting” to then cooperate felt flat as hell, it was simplistic and yet again REPETITIVE ! So, in the beginning, HRY was acting up, BJS was playing along, then HRY played AGAIN in an illusion to trap BJS. And then, both of them play fools to win against the bad villain bla bla bla uuugh so boring and cringy ?! Like, the writer didn't find any better way to make the story evolve? haa? That's the real major issue, the writing didn't get to evolve at all ! A waste of so much potential, and that's a shame.The drama could've been epic.

The last part of the drama (eps 22-32) was highly disappointing. I did enjoy the scenes were BJS get to discover the truth when it comes to what HRY had to go through in the mortal realm without him but after that, nothing interesting was going on. The quality of the writing definitely showed its heavy limitation there. Watching BJS acts like a child was cute but felt completely random since the drama was almost ending.

The drama was far too abstract & focused on aesthetics when it came to the story of the two heroes' love, we were forced to display a form of detachment since the writer failed when it comes to the storytelling.
We don't really know how BJS & HRY fell in love in details. I mean we know the circustances but we never got to see the characters wonder and have introspection about how they feel and think. The drama was too focus on displaying a robotic way of narration. We needed to dive more into their soul imo. We didn't have enough scenes where there was a real effort in the writing, particularly with the help of sincere and deep dialogues.


Now, let's talk about the ending.
The ending was underwhelming but the idea of it was very interesting and meaningful, too bad the making was badly done.
The whole idea of HRY going back in time to try to change things in the past, but failing into changing the future for her & BJS was an excellent idea but again, poorly executed. They rushed the whole process.
The idea was that Destiny or your Karma fate, is bound to happen no matter what, your mistakes, one flawed action, aren't the only responsibles of the trajectory of your life's journey. Erasing suffering won't change the separations, the misunderstanding (etc), nor the course of what should happen. Suffering is what made you transform, you have to live it. You have to accept how unperfect your past could be, & if you are able to make peace with it, you can find some sort of harmony, between suffering and happiness, cause one can't exist without the other, again it is the symbolism of polarities. Happiness might not be the actual precise word to express the opposite of suffering, I think it was more a matter of Prosperity (a spiritual abundance) that is about experiencing a sense of profound fulfillment, gratitude, and richness in every aspect of life.
HRY go back in time and resolve the main misunderstandings, leaving the people have more informations, to guide their future choices but without forcefully intervene (the way she did in the past). It's a way for her to help them gain a better level of consciousness, something she lacked herself for a very long time.
By being more conscious of what's happenning around you, because of yourself and others, you get to at least try to harmonize the income of your future by not failing into the trap of self victimization. The source of your suffering, doesn't have to kill you, it can transform you.
The ending is about Yin and Yang becoming complementary, forming One through their differences.

3. The Pacing
It was awful.
Unlike many, the beginning of the drama and the first part was the most interesting part to me.
Yes, the very first episode was very clumsy, but despite that, I immediately saw potential and the chemistry.
Nothing was clear, and that's what I liked about it. Everything was designed to encourage us to make suggestions rather than offering an academic introduction to history. And the pacing was very good, during those episodes, I never got bored.
It's only after episode 12 that the chain of events slows down and makes the narrative less engaging. There are many scenes without passion, without a well-crafted rhythm, particularly in the way events follow one after the other. The drama lacked so much passion, lacked so much life, and the terrible pacing made those inadequacies even more heavy.
Despite many lovely scenes, some great emotional moments and the chemistry between the lead, they couldn't correct the void left by the lack of quality in the storytelling & the pacing.
Those scenes in that 2nd part (eps 13-21) were largely premeditated with the aim of solving the main mystery rather than showing us a shared adventure with moment of deep connections. The drama lacks a lot of subtlety.
The other thing that made the pacing quite awful that were most definetely
repulsive are the filler scenes. They were soo boring, especially the scenes about the Jingyun sect and its members, all those scenes with the 2nd male lead etc, gosh so boring.

4. The Chemistry
The last time I actually liked Bai Lu's chemistry with her male lead was with Xu Kai. The chemistry between Zeng Shun Xi & Bai Lu was also one of the reason I decided to continue watching the drama. The chemistry was very obvious from the get go. Their scenes felt natural, you could sense how comfortable they were in acting together.
They did lack intensity but they instead displayed a very lovely, charming chemistry, that was very refreshing.
In the beginning of the drama, you could sense a sexual tension between HRY & BJS but after episode 12, it kinda got lost. Their mutual attraction got muted for the sake of highlighting a more platonic love, which was disappointing to me. I mean, I loved the platonicity, the innocence from it but it wasn't neccessary to suppress their desires lol, both could exist at the same time.

5. The Acting :
Since FEUD is a drama produced by Yu Zheng, we have to deal with the fact that he adds most of his team members into the cast of the drama, and as always it's annoying as hell, cause most of the time those actors & actresses bring nothing truly interesting to the table, at least for most of them.

Zeng Shun Xi's performance was the true suprise of this show for me but also what made me curious about this drama in the beginning.
I never was impressed by his acting if I'm being honest, he always does the job but never truly was impressive.
Here, he really was good. His care and dedication to display the right expressions but also subtle ones (especially during the 1st part of the drama) were one of the major reason that made me choose to continue watching this drama.
I really enjoyed his work on the characterization of Bai Jiu Si and the expression of his character's aura was undeniable. It felt sincere, even if, during the 2nd part of the drama, his acting lacked novelty, his portrayal got a bit redundant. The last part of the drama gave him enough substance to show us more of his range.
Zeng Shun Xi does look very young despite being 27 year old, and I think it did take away the credibility of him looking like the most powerful & respected deity (Heavenly Lord Dacheng) in the heaven realm lol.
But it wasn't really that disturbing to me, I could ignore that. But the real flaw in his acting imo, is that at some point (and it's also the case for Bai Lu too) you can very obviously see how his own lack of experiences in life made some of his scenes feel unsatisfied, incomplete and sometimes superficial.

Bai Lu's perfomance felt quite flat and average. There was few scenes were I fought she did a good job but overall, her peformance lacked range and depth to portay Hua Ru Yue.
She didn't display anything different of what she usually does. She lacked tremendously micro expressions and energy shifts in her perf.

Li Mo (Liang Yong Qi) and Sun Zheng (Long Yuan) were the only interesting character's outside the leads to me. Their acting perfomances were good especially Li Mo.
The rest of the cast performed in a rather ordinary or caricatured manner. They were simply uninteresting to watch for me.