Bai Hehuai Lover

It usually takes me at least a handful of episodes to get into a show, but I was HOOKED on Zhan Zhao Adventures from the first few minutes. As a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge fan of fight choreography, this is definitely some of the best fight scenes I've watched — they were always such a delight. I loved that this whole show is about righting injustices, including one prevalent arc about sex trafficking and our trio of heroes destroying that network (and also Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang giving one of the trafficked women drugs that would be the equivalent of castrating the men who try to take advantage of them 😍🥰). Another theme of the show was Huo Linglong's desire to pave her own path instead of the following her family's expectations. She's been arranged to marry a man that she has no romantic interest in, so she runs away and she remains steadfast in wanting freedom, even after being exposed to the ugliness of the jianghu. While it's certainly not at Fated Hearts level of interrogating misogyny, it's not nothing, and I love that the show had frank discussions about these topics. (That being said, it definitely wasn't perfect wrt these topics. There's a plot thread about a woman who holds a child hostage and uses him for medical stuff and she never really faces any justice for this........ The kid just manages to escape and she's kinda like "well, people know about our secret now so it's more of a risk to keep holding him hostage, might as well let him leave ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" Like........... we have no smoke for the child abuser just bc she agreed that sex trafficking is bad and begrudgingly helped Zhan Zhao get the access he needed so the trio could free those women???? HUH??????)

And let's talk about the trio bc the exquisite polyam vibes!!!!! Zhan Zhao and Huo Linglong just immediately deciding to trust each other and protect each other. Bai Yutang just happening to be in the right place at the right time and noticing that Huo Linglong had no interest in being around Shao Jizu and butting in to keep him away from her. Bai Yutang helping her save Zhan Zhao and then immediately getting him medical help. Like it's amazing how they just immediately care about each other and want to keep each other safe when they don't even know each other yet. And then as they do get to know each other, it becomes so so so clear that they are an inseparable unit. I loved that the antagonists realized the way to defeat Zhan Zhao was to destroy the trust the three of them had built and that the attempts to do so were utter failures. Whether you read it as platonic or romantic, it is undeniable that the three of them love each other deeply and that they can't bear the thought of anything happening to the other two. (Altho w the way that Zhan Zhao was looking at both Huo Linglong and Bai Yutang, lbr it is romantic lmfao.) Also Zhan Zhao/Huo Linglong was clearly the overt romance of the show and wow them...................... I knew it was over for me when Huo Linglong was about to abandon Zhan Zhao but then came back and protected him when they were ambushed. And the scene where he touched her hair when he was trying to comfort her........... Oh I'm soft............

Unfortunately though I do think the final episode was a flop. A character needlessly being killed off solely for our protagonist's angst (bc if it hadn't happened, literally nothing would have changed), stretching believability about one character surviving given how badly his health had been declining for the past few episodes, Huo Linglong being separated from Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang nearly the whole time................ I was just really not a fan of like 85% of the last episode which is..... a bummer. But regardless, this is still absolutely one of my fave cdramas, and who knows, maybe the ending will grow on me in time.