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Best Chinese drama
Not a fan of long episodes but this drama made me stick to my screen. Main leads r fantastic. Story is very good. hesitated bcoz of bromance tag but it's not too much or too less, it's just PERFECT. Loved a drama after long time & willing to watch it again. All I have to say is don't hesitate by BL tag. It's close to original except SOME scenes. Music is too good. Acting is damn good. Every scene is connected & love btwn leads is.... No words. This will be my all time fav Chinese drama. I laughed, cried, got angry, felt butterflies... U have to watch it till the end. Don't leave in half just bcoz u r confused, it'll clear up at the end. I still listen to this music & even it's my alarm tone (wuji). That much I love this series.Was this review helpful to you?
Please make season 2 and release it cause I want still to watch what will happen to them
Before I review the story please I beg to who the making the untamed drama please make another season or another project BL with the same actor of the untamed... please cause it's not enough to see in season 1 .... Please make season 2 I beg to you?????Story - For those who love the novel and dissapointed because there's no BL in this, DON'T WORRY!! The bromance is wonderful and will make you can't stop smiling. The story is rather faithful to the novel (not exactly the same tho).. they adapted many sweet scenes of LWJ and WWX.. (Trust me, they adapted almost everything except the confession scene and steamy scenes). For the additional plots, I don't have any problem with them.. it doesn't really change anything (maybe only more screentimes for minor characters like Wen Qing and Jiang Yanli).. And I think they add a new character, Xue Chonghai, to smooth the story.. It was a big question in the novel HOW DID WWX LEARN DEMON CULTIVATION? And the story about Xue Chonghai is to answer the question..
This drama really has exceed everyone's expectations.. like, at first, in China, many the original novel fans can't accept the show (because there's no BL or Xiao Zhan & Wang Yibo don't have WWX & LWJ's charm, etc) and so The Untamed only got a low rating (4.8 in douban) but it keeps on increasing after the show airing.. now it has reached 8.0!! I think it proves the beauty of this show..
Acting/Cast - Both Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo did a great job in this drama!! At first, I though Xiao Zhan wouldn't suit WWX since he doesn't look like someone who talks a lot.. but I WAS WRONG.. WWX IS MADE FOR XIAO ZHAN!! And for Wang Yibo.. there're not many expressions shown by Lan Wangji here.. but I think Wang Yibo did a great job showing a cool but caring Lan Wangji~ >< The other supporting actors are new but really did a great job.. especially Yu Bin who played our little angel, Wen Ning~ like when he was stabbed, I can feel his pain too ugh.. ToT
Music - This drama has a set of beautiful songs.. the ending song, Wu Ji, sung by Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo and Yi Nan Ping are my favs.. Yi Nan Ping is a theme song for A Xian, A Cheng, and A Li.. the lyrics is so heartwrenching (I almost cried when the song was played).. and there are character songs too.. like Bu Wang sung by Wang Yibo for Lan Wangji's character song, Qu Jin Chen Qing by Xiao Zhan for Wei Wuxian's, Chi Zi by Yu Bin for Wen Ning's, Bu You by Liu Haikuan for Lan Xichen's, etc.. all of them have beautiful lyrics that tell the story of each characters.. MY EARS ARE BLESSED!!
Rewatch Value - DEFINITELY!! I can rewatch this wonderful drama again and again..
Overall - A must watch drama!! There is a complete set of genre inside.. comedy, mystery, friendship, family, romance..
Please I will waiting until another season or another project BL with the same actor of the untamed
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The thing I like about this series is it'll bring you to a lot of realizations. It'll teach you to value and appreciate everyting. It'll teach you that greadiness and vengeance will just bring you evil. Don't be a mute, a deaf and a blind in the things that is obviously unfair. Voice out your opinions and perceptions. Be brave, be strong and bolder.
"Curb the violence and assist the weak. Have no regrets". The line that I cannot forget from the series because this expresses lots of emotions and promises.
And last and foremost, I truly admire the friendship of Wei WuXian and Lan Wangji. Their friendship is exceptional and real. A friendship that will make you envy. A friendship that'll make you wish and hope that you also have.
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I don't think it's perfect - but pretty near it! There are still points where I am scratching my head - but could be due to the poor translation? (Maybe I should read the book but that's probably still not as good as the original material in Chinese!).
The actors Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo omg... amazing. The chemistry these two had *swoon*. I can't get over these two, and I love the way they are with each other, how dedicated, how loyal... soulmates, and an amazing friendship. I cannot get over how great they were, and I have rewatched series for a second time focusing on them because it is just so so amazing. I am at this point where I am feeling so empty and missing watching this series, living this series.
Also the familial relationship of Shiji and Jiang Chen with Wei Ying omg... again, this will always make me cry and hurt my heart.
I have been replaying the OST because so many of the songs are so great! But it almost makes me so sad because I can't experience their story again afresh.
I would have rated this 8 when I first finished it... but after not being able to stop thinking about it for the last week, I have to put it up to 9. I won't give it a 10 because there are some small parts where I wasn't sure what was happening, how this or that happened.
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I am hoping for tv series that emphasizes on friendship, bravery, magic, fantasy and more twist and unexpected ending without too much romance(bored with it, so common).
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The lovable cast and their chemistry as well as the Yi City arc saved this drama for me!
This drama's overall worth watching, but you need to adjust expectations. I suspect the reason it's so highly regarded is because of its efforts to adhere to the BL elements, cast chemistry (despite relatively poor acting from many, they all fit their character counterparts and shared great chemistry with one another), and overall faithfulness to the main story beats in the novel.However, this drama is plagued with major problems in its storytelling and overall production (aside from its low budget). There's a good story somewhere in there due to the source material (I later read half of the book in Chinese and it made a lot more sense than it did in the drama), but the drama has the worst production I've ever seen and fails to properly tell the story. Everything the drama changes due to censorship is not well thought out, but they're too lazy to work on the script more and just assume people have read the book.
For example, in the novel, the past was told in a series of short flashbacks and was the least interesting part. But for some reason, the drama creators decided to devote around 30 episodes to the past when there really wasn't enough novel material to warrant all that time wasted. This resulted in padded filler (they actually made up a storyline that ended up being a complete waste of time) and slow pacing for the first 30+ episodes. The drama only started getting good around the Yi City arc, which was when it started focusing on the current timeline.
Even then, the drama's storytelling was often confusing without prior knowledge of the novel. I was lucky enough to have my sister by my side to explain some of the main story beats because the drama did a piss poor job of telling it using the camera. There were some weirdly shot sequences that left me utterly confounded about what the director was trying to tell me. This confusion was all cleared up by the novel, which was well-written and completely believable. Lol, the novel author's a much better storyteller than the drama crew.
The editing and camerawork is also very shoddy and amateurish. There are many awkwardly filmed sequences where they cut off character's heads or the camera angle's not quite right. But all this gets a free pass just because many people are in love with the cast/chemistry btw characters.
The best rating I can give this drama is an 8/10 and that's only because I fell in love with the Yi City arc (loved the relationship between two characters) and I also loved the sibling chemistry btw the ML and his brother (I actually found them to have the spark and angst that's missing from the lead couple -this is largely due to censorship preventing the leads' romance from having central focus).
In addition, I adored the younger generation disciples and all of their interactions with the leads. But I can't give this drama a 9 or 10 when almost everything aside from cast chemistry/music and some well-done sequences are all executed poorly.
Honestly, even an 8/10 is generous, but that's my biased rating and I admit to it freely, lol. The cast chemistry and relationships are what ultimately save this drama for me. This is the main area where I give credit to the production crew. I don't credit them for the ambitious plot because that came from the novel and they weren't even particularly skilled at telling it, lol. In fact, many story changes they made only served to confuse the viewer and some, like the Yin metal storyline, were a complete waste of time.
It's certainly not a masterpiece like "Nirvana in Fire" and it's not just the censorship holding it back either since the entire drama's replete with numerous craftmanship flaws that has nothing to do with censorship. Censorship certainly doesn't excuse shoddy storytelling (ex: the romance btw the ML's sister and another character was poorly done/inconsistent whereas it made complete sense in the book), crappy editing, and amateurish camerawork.
So overall, this drama is worth watching if you can forgive the amateurish production and manage to connect and fall in love with its many lovable characters. But do prepare yourself to be patient for the first 30+ episodes (some got into it after the first 15 or so terrible episodes, but I didn't fall in love until the Yi City arc).
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Deserves its current top rating on the list
I am very selective of dramas I watched online and typically I only watched those with high ratings. I must say this drama deserves its current top rating for Chinese dramas. Good looking actors and actresses, bromance, mystery, beautiful cinematography, special effects, comic moments, heart-wrenching scenes, melodious music rolled into one.The initial couple of episodes were rather confusing. But I was intrigued by the mystery of Wei Ying's death and resurrection, and I watched on - great job of introducing that at the beginning. When I reached the episode he was thrown off the cliff, I revisited the two initial episodes and they all started to make sense. Similarly, I was not impressed initially with the cast. But the drama improved further down the track and so did the acting of the actors/actresses.
I had not read the novel, but this drama deserves credit in its own rights. From the reviews of readers of the novel, there were suggestions of homosexuality in the relationships. But the drama was tastefully done and there were no homosexual scenes. Although I am not homo-phobic, I really do not appreciate homosexual scenes so I am glad of there were none - I do not share and appreciate the emotions - in fact, they are a bit of a turn-off.
However, intense feelings and camaraderie were enacted. The looks that Lan Zhan gave to Wei Ying were full of quiet intense emotions, and the feeling of pain at his death and suffering was well expressed. Wang YiBo acted Lan Zhan well. If WeiYing or LanZan is replaced by a female, coupled with a bit of tweak, this could become a romance story. In dramas, I have a type - I am strongly attracted to the charismatic, calm, intelligent, handsome hero of little words.
The mystery of what happened in the 16 years that Wei Ying was dead was not quite satisfactorily explained. Did he stay dead for 16 years until he was resurrected? If not, what happened to him in the 16 years? How did Mo Xuan Yue found and resurrect him?
And I love the music pieces - the theme song at the end and the music piece at the beginning.
I was impressed with the attention to details - they had chosen a boy who had dimples on his cheek to act the young Jin GuangYao - consistent with Zhu Zan Jin who had very obvious dimples and acted the adult.
Finally, to those who had started watching this drama and are the impatient type, stay on for a few episodes before you give up. And if you have not started, go ahead and you would not regret it.
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so otw to episode 14 and still, yes STILL i don't understand why this drama rated so high.
9.4! c'mom... the acting of this drama is so lame.
am i being like this bcoz i never had the chance to read the novel??? really???
don't get me wrong but i'm not into romance as well.
story of minglan is way waaayyyy better than this drama.
guess comparing them both will not give justice to minglan.
ps. got me until episode 14 bcoz of the rating
pps. i made an account just to express my dismay of this drama
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This drama is made for fans
I meant what I say in both a good and bad way.When I say this drama is made for fans in a bad way, I mean that the series had poor directing overall, with the series sometimes feeling like it's a bit all over the place. And there's a lot of things I can criticise for in this drama too; the occasional weird camera angles where they zoom in and out on the characters for not much reason, the fight scenes with way too many ballerina pirouettes, the sometimes weird colour grading, the misplaced slow-motions, the moments when they linger their camera for much too long on the characters sometimes, and the clarity of the plot. The inexperience of the actors along with potential lack of directing doesn't help much either, leaving some moments that could have been much more powerful a bit lacking.
However there are plus points for fans watching the series as well.
As a fan of the original series, I've tried to avoid watching this drama purely because I know how bad adaptations can be with them often editting out key parts of the story, so I was pleasantly surprised at how they tried to keep most of the plots and characters intact for the series. The main cast had chemistry together and the moments they share together and the moments after when they part endear me to the series.
Overall, my conclusion is that this is a great series for fans to watch if you are not very stringent about how good the actual production is and details on how the plot is presented, because this show can be quite terrible at that, and not a great series for people that aren't as interested in BL and are not as likely to pick up the subtle chemistry when the main leads interact.
The original story itself had been great as it illustrated not only the main character but also the side characters personality, motives and how some of which lead to their downfall, and I think the series tried to show most of the ideas explored in the original, though in a more confusing manner than would have been preferred. If I was not there to explain the plot to my siblings who watched it along with me, they would have been pretty confused on how the plot is progressing.
I am pretty happy to see BL getting adapted into different mediums, but I do hope that when it gets adapted, the strength of the medium is used to create an even better story instead of a copy and paste. After all, novels are not scripts, and each has their own strength that can be used to a better advantage. But overall I still enjoyed the series as a fan.
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Just watch it now did you hear me...
I think this is a very good show and i'll recommend it to everyone to watch. It has a very good story line?, very good characters?, very good actor? and very good chemistry? in them so i think it is perfect in every way.... So watch it now.... Did you hear me..?! If yes, then what are you doing go now...?! That all and I hope you enjoy watching this drama...bye..?! No i haven't reach 500 characters yet so i can't post it yet.. ?? I know I'm posting my review this late... And i have watched this drama so late and I regret it so I hope you won't regret missing this drama.....Was this review helpful to you?