TeaLily

Can you elaborate on why you feel she's miscasted? The Zhu Yan character from the original novel is supposed to be feisty, emotional, reckless, and naive -- personifying the element of Fire and the colour Red. Do you feel Ren Min is unsuitable to play this type of character?

Or is it that you don't find her beautiful enough to match Xiao Zhan's gorgeousness? Personally I don't get the impression that Zhu Yan in the drama was meant to be very beautiful. At most she's only meant to be quite pretty (which I feel is what Ren Min is). It's Shi Ying that's supposed to be the extremely beautiful (and therefore seemingly unattainable) one. This story seems to be based more on that trope of an ordinary-looking girl meeting a handsome prince. I get the impression that the directors want to emphasize Shi Ying's unattainable quality, and so it would make sense *not* to choose an actress who is as good-looking as Xiao Zhan to play his counterpart.

"The Longest Promise" is based on the novel "Zhu Yan", which is the prequel to "Mirror: Tale of Two Cities". So at least one of the characters in TLP is going to be one of the main characters of "Mirror". But the production teams of the two dramas are completely different, so I don't know if the two dramas really flow that much into each other (I haven't watched "Mirror", so can't confirm). I get the impression that "The Longest Promise" as a drama can basically stand alone, and doesn't necessarily have to be watched with "Mirror", unless you want to follow the story of that one character that appears as a main character in "Mirror".

It was filmed from around March to August 2021 -- about 3 years after The Untamed.

The focus of the drama shifts much more to the main leads in later episodes starting from around episode 13 onwards though, because that's when FL officially becomes ML's disciple. After that, there are a couple of episodes in the early/mid 20s where we don't see them together as much again (at least not physically together, but they are together in other ways); but then after that, they have a lot of screen time physically together again. As someone who adores Shi Ying and love his scenes with Zhu Yan, I found I have no complaints about their overall screen time throughout the drama. I have seen dramas where the ML & FL don't seem to get enough screen time but this is *not* one of those dramas.

I'm glad you had no bad intentions and apologize for misunderstanding you. My bad.

As I understand it, Douban scores are generally quite low, especially for Xianxias and romances (though "Love Between Fairy & Devil" and "Lost You Forever" seemed to be exceptions since they did quite well on Douban).

So? And "Till the End of the Moon", despite being so well-loved, has 5.6 on Douban. Not sure what your point is.

Viewers' ratings are subjective after all. If a drama is easily misunderstood, as I think "The Longest Promise" is, then a lot of viewers are not going to give it high ratings. That doesn't necessarily mean the drama is objectively bad. Ratings just reflect popularity and majority **subjective** opinion -- it doesn't necessarily reflect the true quality. Unless we assume "popular" always = "good quality" and "majority opinion" always = "objective and right"... which I do not.

Me personally, I think reviews are useful only to get more details about the drama than the official summary can give. While it's also good to get a sense of how others liked the drama, we always have to keep in mind that everyone's feelings about a drama is subjective. The number ratings part is the least reliable -- I almost never pay attention to it. But that's just me. After all, I've watched drams that were close to 9.0 which I didn't like, and I've watched dramas that are rated 7.5 that I loved.

But back to "The Longest Promise" -- why this drama is easily misunderstood. Firstly, it takes patience because it doesn't start out on the fastest pace. This is one of those dramas that start out slow but then gets much more interesting later on -- but many viewers get up before reaching that point. And having given up without finishing, and many viewers give it a low rating. And then this drama also takes attention to detail and a bit of an analytical mind to notice all the clues and symbolisms that point to the deeper themes in the story that makes it so intricate and beautiful. Many viewers miss most of that and therefore think this story is pointless and even full of plotholes -- and therefore give it low rating. And then of course there's the hate towards the leading actress, which makes a lot of people not relate to the main couple and therefore prejudice them into feeling that there is a "lack of chemistry" in the love story -- therefore more marks docked off. And not to mention there are those who still haven't let go of Xiao Zhan in his more extroverted and expressive role as Wei Wuxian in "The Untamed" and who feel that his role here as the highly introverted Shi Ying is "boring" and "dull -- therefore further points taken off. ....But for viewers who don't fall under any of those traps and who are able to appreciate the story for what it is -- it's an absolute beautiful, meaningful, and multi-layered story.

Agree... Not to mention that sexy voice (or, dare I say, "bedroom voice") he used to whisper in her ears: "Yan'er, is this a good enough reason?", right after the kiss...

There's a very good post by AmericanoLover in the "Recent Discussions" forum here that gives a great analysis of the ending. The post is titled "CLICK HERE to Read a Very Long Ending Explanation".

There's also a discussion post on reddit titled "The Longest Promise Ending Explained (very long read)", with lots of information.

In both of these posts, there's a link to a very good essay that explains how there are clues throughout the drama that points to the ending being a happy one. It also helped me see that this drama is much more than just a love story, though it is that too. It really makes me realize this drama is actually quite multi-layered.

Firstly, I just want to say - I'm so glad you found Shi Ying as precious as I find him. You've got great tastes in characters. ;) He really deserves a lot more love from more viewers.

As for him "ascending" and what that means -- no, in that xianxia universe, it doesn't mean he'll go to heaven in the Christian sense. It means he becomes a higher level of being -- like perhaps a kind of god or deity. He can still come back to earth in one way or another. Some people have speculated that he probably became a flower god -- specifically the god of the Xue Hanwei. That would make sense given how he is always associated with that flower throughout the show. According to Zhu Yan, Shi Ying literally even *smells* like that flower! (We know this from her comment about his fragrance the first time she was hidden inside his sleeve.)

But honestly, that ending is open enough to leave room for you to imagine other possible ways for him to come back, even as a full mortal. I just don't think there's much chance of it being truly a "bad ending" where he simply died and didn't come back at all, as some pessimistic viewers think. The only way that could be true is if that last scene of Shi Ying was really just all in Zhu Yan's head, and she was just hallucinating because she missed him... And as we can see, that doesn't add up if we look carefully at the details shown in the last scenes.

If you haven't read it yet -- there's a great post by Americano Lover in the Discussions forum here that includes an excellent essay explaining how the clues given throughout The Longest Promise actually points to the drama having a happy ending. I remember feeling sad and lost when I first finished watching the drama, but reading that post and the essay made me feel so much better and actually helped me appreciate the drama even more than I already did. Additionally, there's also a reddit discussion post on this which also links to the same essay. I wanted to provide the reddit link to the post here, but it seems MDL doesn't allow that. So if you want to find it, search for a reddit post titled "The Longest Promise Ending Explained (very long read)". It should pop up easily on google.

I know I'm responding a month late, but.....The ending is actually a happy one, or at worst a bitter-sweet one, if we look at all the clues that are laid out in the drama. Basically the clues hint that in the end Shi Ying ascended to immortality. At worse, he only comes back briefly during xue hanwei blooming season. But a better possibility is that he eventually finds a way to come back for longer than that -- because, given the nature of their universe where so many incredible things can be achieved even by mere mortals, why can't Shi Ying as an immortal find a way to stay for a longer time with his love? There's nothing in the drama that says that's not a possibility -- and the "open ending" allows us to entertain it.

After watching this drama multiple times and considering all the clues, I'm convinced he came back one way or another.

Although the last scene of Shi Ying might look like an illusion to some pessimistic viewers, logically it can't be an illusion. Just from the fact that Shi Ying started appearing out of the flower as Zhu Yan had her back turned -- that in itself is an indication that she wasn't imagining him. She was walking away from the tree, and then only stopped to turn around because she heard something happening behind her. Not to mention that Shi Ying had a very noticeable shadow in that scene... and illusions aren't supposed to have shadows. Every detail of that scene was very carefully crafted -- so I'm pretty sure that shadow was left there on purpose. It wasn't just left there due to lazy editing.

Finally, even the lead actress said the ending was supposed to be a happy one (or, in her words, "full of joy").

Except in this drama there isn't such a loophole. The FL doesn't like to study.... and she really was less knowledgeable than her peers. And you can see how she started to improve under her master's training and guidance.

Although most xianxia dramas are (to me) already quite visually pleasing to look at, I find this one beats all that I've seen so far. It literally looks (and sounds) like a hauntingly beautiful Chinese fairytale.

Zhu Yan's (Ren Min's) voice was dubbed. I think the actress probably would've got less hate directed at her if she dubbed her own voice for this show, because her voice actor seemed to have irritated a lot of people. And many people didn't realize that wasn't actually the actress's real voice.

As for the bangs making her look young.... Well, actually, her character is supposed to be very young. In the beginning episodes, before she became disciple to Shi Ying, she was supposed to be only about 14 or 15. This is one of the problems I have with many Chinese fantasy dramas, where they don't make clear the age of many of the main characters, which often leads to misunderstandings by viewers.