sifeng

if only the wuxias nowadays had this much beauty, thought, character etc. the fight scenes were soooo good, the cinematography was jaw-dropping, the overall love for warriors and jianghu is just flowing through every scene. just a life changing experience!

I have never seen a show that hates its own ML and FL as much as Heroes. The way you could literally forget they exist in this show... the real stars have to be Di Feijing (MVP of the entire thing IMO), Su Mengzhen and Lei Chun IMO. They tried to make a really cool, almost Li Chengyin from Goodbye My Princess esque, character with Bai Choufei, but it just feels... weird for some reason. It had so much potential in the first few episodes but quickly went down the drain with the Guan Qi arc IMO.

yes because as we know the Untamed invented playing the flute and the zither and they have never been played in dramas beforehand. And of course any drama Meng Ziyi is in is just a poor imitation of the Untamed, even the ones she was in beforehand! As the matter of fact those directors time traveled to the future to watch the Untamed, went back in time, and casted her! /j

In all honesty, the first few episodes were actually highly reminiscent of old wuxia dramas (before they all started to suck and lose the whole concept of wuxia). And considering the Untamed is xianxia - a whole different genre - I would have to say I do not believe this drama is trying to imitate it. If anything, it feels more like the director took huge inspiration from dramas like Legend of the Condor Heroes, but with a melodramatic twist in order to add drama and angst (in typical Li Muge fashion as one could say).

yeah, I also did some research and realized that playing pipa horizontally was common back then. I think Lin yun good with what she's given if that is indeed the truth but idk I expected some more effort from the production team.

literally! I don't even think she's holding the instrument right?? Maybe she's playing another version of pipa or something because usually it's supposed to be upright while she's playing it like a guitar, and the sounds don't match her hands at all.

While Lin Yun is doing a lot better acting-wise than in her previous dramas, I still feel like I would've made more sense to cast Zhou Jieqiong (Kyulkyung) as Song Yinzhang. Neither are great at acting, but at least Zhou Jieqiong actually knows how to play pipa...

I disagree with your evaluation of Xuanji. If you consider her upbringing - being shielded from everything by her sister/Minyan/her father, it makes absolute sense that she doesn't really have any aspiration to become stronger, she's already living a life she's totally fine with, and why would she change that? She only begins to want to change (get her emotions back so to speak) when she realizes what she is missing out on. And when she comments on her stammering, again, you have to understand her upbringing + her absolute lack of EQ because of her whole has no emotions understands no pain thing. To be completely honest, I find Xuanji a refreshing character because even though she is stupid, she's honest and she always wants to protect those she loves. Her initial stereotype is quite annoying, true, but I think given that set-up, her actions make complete sense. (Unpopular opinion, but I actually think I like Xuanji more than Sifeng after finishing this show and pondering over it. He is always sacrificing himself and doesn't trust Xuanji, the woman he loves the most in the world, a single bit. He lies to her, constantly. Xuanji trusts him 100%, going as far as threatening to kill herself to prove his innocence, but he is given opportunity after opportunity to work alongside his soulmate, and instead he decides to take the burden all upon himself and manipulate Xuanji. And then people blame HER for not trusting him when he LIED TO HER??? Sifeng is always suffering because he gives no care towards what Xuanji feels, he just decides that he'll suffer - no matter what she thinks or believes. The only reason he is so well loved is because he is so iconic and because Cheng Yi did such a good job portraying him).

the scenery looks so beautiful!! I just really hope wang hedi's acting is tolerable here, his chemistry with yu shuxin already looks promising.

for some reason I guess this needs to. be re-iterated: why are you guys all blaming xuanji when she has absolutely NO clue what is going on? Why is she at fault for Sifeng's lies and constant deception? Why is she at fault for Bai Lin's contradictions and hypocritical actions? Really, even though I love sifeng (if my username somehow wasn't a dead giveaway), the last conflict really showed how the flaws he exhibited early on could become deadly in disastrous situations. He takes everything upon himself and communicates absolutely nothing to Xuanji. His insecurities and self-sacrificing tendency is his downfall and that, ultimately, is what leads to the huge misunderstandings. Had he just, you know, communicated, like people in healthy relationships are supposed to do, this drama could have been avoided. Yeah, Xuanji is a little stupid, but that doesn't mean she is to blame for everything. How tf is Xuanji supposed to know what's going on? Is she supposed to suddenly break the fourth wall and watch the show like we do?

He says he does, but in actuality he definitely doesn't like her in the romantic sense.

im not sure there's one episode where chu li suddenly falls in love with him, but they start dating in ep 21

ep 23

A Xiang did tell Chu Li that he's backed up by a superior so he probably does have free time and whatnot because of nepotism.

I don't know if any English speaking audiences find the FL to be "basic", but I've seen Chinese fans saying so and I have to disagree vehemently. She's not a genius by any means, but I think she's a pretty great character! She learns from her mistakes, and actually fixes them by herself. That's pretty awesome for a Chinese drama FL. I wish they could've made her sign the contract with Zhou Chuan out of her own ability and not the fact that they're old friends on text but still, I think she's a pretty good character. She stands up for herself, speaks reason, and usually acts with reason too.

Same! I actually quite like the FL's character! I also agree that it doesn't feel like she actually likes Mr. Fox. She seems to like the ML more, and even got jealous when he spoke with the SFL on the phone in a recent episode.

My memory of this show is rusty but did Hao Chen's lies ever get exposed in front of Xuanji? Like did she ever catch him in the middle of a lie? If not then I totally understand her reasoning here. He might be sketchy to us, but that's because we totally know that he's a bad person. Xuanji doesn't know that and she mostly sees him as an older brother figure. Also Xuanji DID trust Sifeng. She protected him with her life when her father tried to convict him of being a demon. She only stopped trusting him after his lie was exposed.

But he is a demon? And he very clearly lied to her throughout the entire series. I don't recall if he ever told Xuanji that he wasn't a demon, but he still did hide his true identity from her up until he was forced to reveal it so. And it's fine and all to not be expressive with words, but not when you're in a relationship. Without communication and trust, any relationship, no matter how good, will break apart eventually, and this time, the person who first refused to communicate nor trust was Sifeng. And should she have trusted Hao Chen? No. But that's a different topic.

Rant incoming: I hate how people always blame Xuanji for being stupid in latter episodes when honestly the person who first messed up in their relationship was Sifeng. He didn't tell her anything about what was going on. As the matter of fact, no one told her anything about what was going on. She doesn't have that omnipotent knowledge that we possess, from her standpoint, all she can see is betrayal! Xuanji doesn't trust Sifeng anymore, but why is that? Because he lied to her first! and then proceeded to lie to her about five times after that too. So why do we blame Xuanji for not trusting him? Obviously she has her faults - I mean having known Sifeng loved her in 9 lifetimes should be a big hint he still loves her now, but still - but not everything in the world is her fault.

what’s the airing schedule this week? is it 6 eps on monday again?

I second Minglan from The Story of Minglan! The two are very different, but they are both very intelligent and strong, though I'd say their personalities are like direct opposites. I think Huang Rong from The Legend of the Condor Heroes is quite similar to the FL. She is super smart, outgoing, and kind of a trickster type.