Thoroughly enjoyed this...

This drama is not a continuation to Ten Mile Peach Blossom although many of the key characters in the former series are either mentioned or re-featured. You can watch this series on its own without watching the former. It is more of a romantic comedy and more light-hearted compared to the Ten Mile Peach Blossom. There are more romantic and comical scenes while Ten Mile has more intense battle and gut-wrenching scenes. The witty verbal exchanges are hilarious. And the scenes when DiJun is teasing and flirting with FengJiu are amusing. However, you probably need to have a good command of Mandarin to appreciate it - from the English subtitles, I suspect much is lost.

It has its own moment of suspense, making you wonder what is going to happen next and it did keep me glued to YouTube and myasiantv.io especially towards the second half. If you are a romantic, you will enjoy this. Dil and Gao had 'come out of age' to convincingly play the lead roles in this drama with only a short awkward appearance by Yang Mi and none by Mark Chao.

The initial 10 scenes are a little slow but comical, and almost look like a repeat of Ten Mile Peach Blossom with FengJiu's attempt to make it to DiJun's palace to serve him and the rivalry between FengJiu and ZhiHe was boring. It would be better if the duration of an episode or two were trimmed from the initial 10 episodes - they feel like time fillers. However, the story deviates. Once you get past these, you will start to enjoy it.

Like most dramas, it has its weaknesses in the story - a lot of the plot was based on FengJiu's distrust of DiJun - almost to the extend she looked like a self-pitying fool. For a plucky and mischievous girl, she suddenly became a fool when it came to matters of the heart. A lot of the gut-wrenching scenes become unconvincing and comical as they are more of self-pitying based on some imagination she was unloved and that DiJun loved someone else.

Dil is ravishingly beautiful as FengJiu and Gao is dashingly handsome as DiJun with the white hair and purple/white robes. Good looking leads are often key success factors for a drama or movie.

We all like a happy ending - I certainly do - I watch drama to enjoy it not sadden by it and I avoid tragedies. I always check that before I start any drama these days after suffering a few sad days with some other tragedies.

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Another Tragic Second Lead

After we watched a drama, we often remember the tragic handsome second lead in the story more than other character in the story. This happened for me in this drama.

Li Rong, the princess of Xia, was married to Pei WenXuan. Although she did not have much say in the choice of her spouse, the two fell in love. Unfortunately, WenXuan's past engagement to the concubine of Li Chuan, the young emperor, became a point of misunderstanding between the two. With the misunderstanding not properly explained, it resulted in their turning against each other. Thinking that WenXuan had poisoned her, Li Rong ordered the assassination of her husband.

The two woke up from death returning to 20 years ago before they were married. This time, things were more complicated - they were not the only ones who returned with the memories of what might be to come. The other person who also returned was an antagonist who wanted to kill Li Chuan that Li Rong and WenXuan supported, to stop him from becoming emperor,.

In the past one year, this was the third drama I watched which was about a second chance in life. The previous two were The Kunning Palace and Marry my Husband (Korean). Both of these were very good, so I was a little sceptical how this was going to measure up. It turned out to be an interesting story. Zhang LingHe was once again the lead actor (as in Story of Kunning Palace). However, in this drama, he was a little more subdued but infused some humour in an otherwise very serious drama. His jealous reaction to RongQing was entertaining and funny to watch.

There were numerous interesting characters in the story. WenXuan had a hard time convincing Li Rong of his love. Li Rong grew up in the palace with a hardened view on love and a strong sense of distrust. Portraying one who was tough and guided by logical, she actually had a weak emotional side and was completely devastated when she discovered the people she trusted and loved betrayed her.

The handsome talented Su RongQing, who was deeply and secretly in love with Li Rong, was an obsessive and stubborn personality. He had the chance of becoming the prince consort to Li Rong but he threw it all away to pursue his obsession with protecting his family and the noble families. He would protect her with his life but yet stand in opposition to her chosen path. He was obsessed both in love and in his pursuit. He was not quite the villain as he pursue all these with actual selfless goals but insisted on taking a misguided path. So I term him an anti-hero.

Then there was the old emperor who was determined to fight the nobles whom he believed had been standing in his way of building a better country and fighting the war against the northern invaders. However, his obsession led to him to be blinded in the choice of succession to his throne.

The last 4 episodes were intense and suspenseful. I was restless watching it. Although recent Chinese dramas tend to be less tragic, the writer could easily flip the story for either side to win in the last few episodes.

There was not much to criticise except to nitpick on some small matters. When RongQing fell over the cliff with Li Rong trying to save her, they both ended up on the river bank all wet but with their hair wear almost intact. Surely falling all the way into the water should have done more damages.

The last piece of music played by RongQing on the qin was quite lame - like a piece from an old Cantonese opera. I thought they could do better. Really lame compared to the piece played by Rong in this drama, or those play in The Double or The Kunning Palace.

Also in this drama, all the men were such faithful lovers, other than the old emperor. Lol. I don't see this happening in real life - after being rejected, most men would move on eventually and some move on very quickly; only an exceptional few lingers.

Nevertheless, I highly recommend this drama. I think it's greatest strength was in portraying the characters in the story. They were each with distinct characters and personalities.

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Twists and turns

This was an interesting story. The Crown Prince died under mysterious circumstance. The royal physicians attributed it to a blood disease. But the Queen believed that he had been murdered. Defiant against all forces trying to stop her, she was determined to investigate. His death sparked off a fight for the crown prince position now out for grabs. The Queen hoped that one of her four grand princes would succeed the Crown Prince. However, the Queen Dowager, Chief State Councilor and other royal consorts especially Consort Hwang, the birth mother of the King's eldest son, were not going to make it easy.

What I like about this drama?

1. The story had a lot of twists and turns, shrouded in mystery. The investigation led to the uncovering of a similar mysterious death of Crown Prince Taein, the brother of the current King. So what was the connection? The sons of the Queen, the grand princes were all underdogs - with skeletons in their closets, unambitious or disadvantaged. The power-hungry, scheming and wicked Queen Dowager was against her as well. It all seemed a losing game for the Queen.

2. Mix of humour. The drama was quite intense. However, there were moments of humorous relief.

3. The cast was good, not to leave out good looking as well. The leads were outstanding.

What I do not like about this drama?

1. It was based on yet another theme of fighting for the throne; a theme that was beaten to death.

2. Very intense and stressful to watch.

3. Not much chemistry between the male and female leads. They were not given much chance to demonstrate their chemistry either.

Overall, I rated this a 9.5 with not much else to nitpick on. Enjoy it...

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My favourite Cheng Yi's drama yet

I was usually not a fan of Cheng Yi - insofar, the dramas I watched of his are mostly of him portraying depressive characters. This was the first time I see him in a character that was somewhat playful, wickedly humourous and cleverly cunning - a lot more interesting, and I think he did very well. Of course the second lead Joseph Zeng also did very well as his naive side kick.

Overall, I rated this drama very highly although I hated the ending. An excellent cast, good looking actors/resses, interesting story, realistic costume and backdrop, good cinematography - it scored well on all the important factors. But like a lot of Chinese drama, it had a bitter sweet ending.

Li Xiang Yi (Cheng Yi) was an outstanding swordsman with a very strong sense of justice and righteousness. Di Fei Sheng, head of the JinYuan sect challenged him to a fight for the top rank in the martial world. Secretly poisoned by Jiao Li Qiao, a psychopath, before the fight, he fell into the river after destroying the ship of the JinYuan sect and was missing.

Ten years later, Di Fei Sheng recovered from his injuries and emerged once again in the martial world. Around this time, someone who earned the title of a miracle doctor known as Li LianHua was travelling around the world in a tower horse carriage. He met Fang DuoBing, a young passionate swordsman who claimed to be the disciple of the missing Li XiangYi. Both had identities that they were either hiding or were ignorant of.

The story was interesting as DuoBing and an unwilling LianHua worked together to uncover a huge conspiracy involving a vanquished kingdom and the bloodline of the current Xi dynasty. It was one of the best detective dramas that I had watched.

Strongly recommend this drama but I must say, you better not be suffering from a depression as the ending was melancholic.

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This was a drama where I did not get to really like any of the key characters except for Prince Zhou. He was bright and capable, and tried to do the right thing even when it involved his love rival. Although his father loved him, he did not choose him as the crown prince. And I always sympathised with the underdog, even more so when he was a handsome underdog.

The main male lead acted by Xu Kai was somewhat silly and stupid but ironically he became very outstanding in military strategies and martial arts. The emperor Li Shi Min was the least likeable portrayal of this character of the 3 dramas I watched including The Empress of China, The Long Ballad. He was not as brilliant as history recorded him to be. The lead female character acted by Li YiTong was pretty and intelligent but was always bureaucratic and stony - her character was incredulous - always perfect. The empress was deemed a virtuous empress but she had a vicious side and was obviously protecting her son, the crown prince and his position. She even killed her fourth daughter-in-law because of the setup from the jealous and petty crown princess. The crown prince was like his consort - petty and not quite bright.

There were a lot of comical scenes but yet it was not quite a comedy - there were intense political rivalry, deceit, and deaths. I would say it is a mix genre.

There were an obvious discontinuity in the drama - it seemed some parts were clumsily cut and trimmed.

The costumes were a little lacking compared to the top Chinese dramas and looked like a low budget production. The head wear for the guys were terrible. Overall, I would not rate it as a tiptop drama. But regardless, it is entertaining. So if you are locked down in this pandemic looking for something to do, watching this drama could be it.

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Overrated?

Frankly, I think this drama is over-rated on Mydramalist. Although the role reversal of men and women in 2 different cities is somewhat creative, the drama is quite cliche. The same old popular tricks in Chinese dramas are played - tripping and falling into the arms of the hero, damsel in distress, rivalry for the throne (in this case between sisters for city leadership). In this drama, the writer dreamed of herself as a character in a script she was writing - this is somewhat similar to being drawn into an earlier era as a different person. And the heroine is absolutely silly.

I didn't laugh; I didn't cry; I just endure to find out what would be the ending. Finally after watching episode 12, I skipped to the last 3 episodes and did not feel I missed much.

Also, I am beginning to doubt the rating on Mydramalist on the newly released dramas. Ratings had been quite 'accurate' on the qualities of dramas in the past. But in the recent few months, it has been a wreck. Dramas like Legend of Xiao Chuo was rated at 7.6 when I believe it should be between 8.6 to 9.1 in the same league as Nirvana in Fire 1&2 and Ten Mile Peach Blossom. And this drama is rated at 8.6 when I think it should be in the range of 7.6 to 7.9 - similar to Chang'an Youth, The Destiny of White Snake, Flame's Daughter and Bloody Romance.

The early reviewers have always this unhealthy influence on subsequent reviews at the early stage and bias the rating. I think the reviews following each drama reviews should be listed in reverse chronological order with the latest first, so that the earliest reviewer does not monopolise the first position.

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Mesmerising

This drama is absolutely worth watching, with two great leads - Wang Yibo and Zhao Liying. The two of them demonstrate the best onscreen chemistry I had ever seen in Chinese dramas. Their acting was very natural. I think this drama is underrated on Mydramalist.

Yibo continued to mesmerise with his good looks and excellent acting. He is very versatile and did equally well in this drama as a playful and mischievous young man as he did in The Untamed as a cold stern stony face. I am impressed with his acting skills - his facial expression is remarkable - he can talk without saying anything - just like the way he did in The Untamed. In this drama, his face would lit up whenever he saw Fei (acted by Liying). His jealous reaction when a love rival appeared on this scene is likely to make you crack up.

Liying has this amazing ability to develop this onscreen chemistry with her male counterparts in all the dramas I had seen her in.

The drama was not so emotionally intense and there were humour scattered throughout. But as a drama, it would keep you captivated as you wonder who was Xie Yun, what was going to happen next, the mystery behind the 'Hai tian yi ser' and the various dramatic events. The pace was good until about episode 38 when there were a few scenes when the story was not making much progress - seemed to me like time fillers. However, I do not think they account for more than an episode put together.

I watched the drama a second time and liked it even better the second time. Not caught up with wondering where the story was going, I could focus on the acting and appreciate it even more.

However, I must suggest that translators stop using 'legend of' as drama titles - they are so overused, they cheapen the value of the drama, and sound so cliche. This drama could be simply called 'Fei' or 'Shrouded Myth' or 'Love Beyond'.

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Another drama I would highly recommend. What impressed me in this drama is the on-screen chemistry between Allen Ren and Seven Tan (what a strange English name). For a romance drama, chemistry between the main leads is tremendously important. In this drama, it is what makes it successful. I gave Allen a perfect 10 for his facial expression of emotions and the look in his eyes. Han Dong did very well too in his portrayal of the badass. Seven was good in her portrayal of a clever, mischievous, lively young girl.

Both the opening and ending theme songs were beautiful - melodious tune and lovely lyrics.

It is unfortunate the audio track was muted at various spots in the MGTV YouTube uploads and the English subtitles are really painful to read. The subtitles on the MGTV version was a mix bag - seemingly alright but with some contextual wrong use of words. It looked like it was done through a digital translator but was not edited by a human. In the rewatch, I found the Hotspot uploads which seem to have better audio and subtitles and less inserted ads.

The entire drama is well-paced except for a few episodes when it got a little boring and dry. There were a couple of lost opportunities to build some suspense and tension but the director/scriptwriter/editor had let it past.

For example, when Lu Yi and Xie Xiao were missing, the editor could have delayed showing what happened to them and let them re-appeared unexpectedly at the battle. That could have left the viewers on edge - worried that the battle would be lost as no help was on the way and the two guys might be missing.

Another incidence was when Yang Yue fell off the cliff and re-appeared under a veil. Again what happened between these incidence could have been kept under wrap - possibly making it a mystery who was this person under the veil - the knowledge that he was saved made it easy to guess who that was. The explanations of what happened to them could have been left until after they re-appear as a flashback explanation. The drama at these points became rather boring run-of-the-mill repeats of things going wrong instead of interesting plots.



Also, a couple of the characters were a little boring. XieXiao was always impetuous and goofy, and YangYue was always a bit thick-headed. And they did not seem to develop through the drama.

I like the ending - playing up the emotions and not quite a tragedy.

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I would have given it a perfect 10 if...

This drama could have been rated in the same league as Ten Mile Peach Blossom or Nirvana in Fire and I would have given it a perfect 10 if...

The drama would keep you chasing episode after episode. Story was intriguing. And the entire cast is first class - the main actors Kenny Lin, Zhao Liying, Li Qin and Shawn Duo were outstanding and though Allen Deng only appeared for a brief moment, his cheeky and comical acting brightened up the sombre drama. The chemistry between Liying and Kenny were amazing. Kenny acted this cold personality YuWen Yue who was softened by Xing'er acted by Liying. When the two were together, you could feel YuWen Yue's cold personality struggling to hide his growing affection for his slave girl, and left you wishing something would happen between the two of them.

There were times when I wanted to give Xing'er and Chun'er a slap in the face. Xing'er is an extremely stubborn character driven by her sense of righteousness. She might be a person of principle but her insistence in a crucial situation had indeed jeopardised Yun Xun's chance of a probable victory. Chun'er was this spoilt princess who wanted to get her way all the time and when things went wrong because of her willfulness, she blamed others for it.

Although this is fiction, the story is as complicated as the world's politics and indeed of China's politics. The emperor's narcissism and selfishness remind me of Donald Trump lol. The theme of a selfish emperor who is wary of his sons and ministers and purges them when suspicious of their motives is very common among contemporary Chinese dramas. I could see a shadow of Mao and the purges of his comrades before and during the cultural revolution. I hope I am not getting anyone in trouble here (the drama was already in a lot of trouble with copyrights.) What goes into fiction often is the influence of real life situations. This makes the story more believable and realistic.

With my eye for details and perfection, I cannot help but noticed that some Chinese actresses in period dramas dyed their hair but left the ends to grow, and Liying did that in this drama. This may be alright in modern settings but appears rather odd in period dramas when such fancy colour hair dye may not exist.

A rating of 8.3 on mydramalist.com is rather low for this drama. I think it was affected by two factors. It had a bad ending which deliberately left a door open for a sequel. Bad endings always leave a bad taste and a feeling of being letdown among the audience. Nirvana in Fire was an exception - unless you have that kind of emotional scenes displayed by Hu Ge and Liu Tao, and the intense story to match, it sets the rating back.

The second is some episodes were heavily and clumsily trimmed on some of the Asian drama websites, leaving the story rather disjointed and some important events poorly explained. Managing the duration seem to be a problem with Chinese dramas - this needs to start with the script. This series could have been split in two with a convenient ending at Yun Xun's escape to Yanbei. However, there is a recent addition to YouTube on the full untrimmed version - for this one, there is trade-offs, all the draggy bits are in it. Guess there is no win.

Look at what the Ten Mile Peach Blossom has done - it staged a comeback before the ending. That won it the applause - yes, you cry and then you brighten up and give it an excellent rating. This drama tried that too, but the effect was not strong enough to give a clear indication of that.

Heard that they are preparing a season 2. Hope they know how to end it properly.

So, if the ending has been better managed and the episodes were properly trimmed, it would be a perfect 10.

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Plenty of fighting scenes and amazingly well produced

This is an amazingly well produced fantasy drama. I am surprised it did not get better rating on mydramalist. Story was original and difficult to predict - there were some resemblance to the style in Games of Throne or Lord of the Rings (not quite in that league yet but very good). I would say it is as good as Nirvana in Fire 2 but fighting scenes were more intense and with the same lead actor. Battle and fighting scenes were well filmed - for this I think it would appeal to the male viewers - plus actresses were all very pretty. Acting was very good as well.

The opening theme song was eerie; I watched it at night and had to skip it, although the ending theme song was good. There were a lot of gloomy night scenes. So you know what mood it is set in.

Some parts were abrupt - there was some trimming down of the length of the drama it seems. These might have affected the rating.

Although the romance of Ji Ye, Asule, Yu Ran and Xiao Zhou were well acted out but the romance between Xi Yan and Su Shun Qin were more memorable - these two more mature actors showed more intensity in the demonstration of emotions. However few could match the heart rending scenes between Hu Ge and his female counterpart in Nirvana in Fire 1.

At the end all were victorious in their political ends but not in their love life. If you are a romantic, you may not accept this ending.

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You laugh and you cry

This is one of the best dramas (both English and Chinese productions) I have watched. It is wuxia, fantasy, romance, bromance rolled into one - with a rich mix of serious, suspense, comic and heart-wrenching moments. Of course, two dashingly handsome lead actors, and good looking support actors and actresses helped. Wallace Huo was outstanding in his expression of emotions - this is the first drama I watched of him and I am very impressed. I was hoping for a good ending to ChangQing's rather tragic love life.

If I am to nitpick, I would say I do not like the silly and rowdy XueJian character, the depressive LongKui when she was normal or the forlorn ZiXuan. They seems to me very chauvinistic depictions of women. I much prefer characters like Fu Yao or BaiQian in Ten Mile Blossom - they have much more interesting characters and more fighting spirits.

It is rare that a sequel would beat its predecessor in quality - but that is exactly what happen in this drama. It is far better than Chinese Paladin 1. The emotions it invoked was more intense, and the story was more intriguing.

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Mesmerised

It had been some months since I watched this drama. At that point, it was the first Chinese drama that I watched after years. I was so mesmerised by it that I rewatched it twice and recaptured some of the scenes a number of times. I had not given Chinese drama production much credit in the past - I thought of them as sterile, politically influenced and boring. But this got me hooked onto Chinese dramas ever since.

I have given it perfect scores for everything. The chemistry between the actor and actress was amazing. Costumes and scene setting was beautiful. Actors and actresses are good looking and acted their part well. The story moved from one life to another; each was intriguing. It held me in suspense wondering what the villain might do next to make life miserable for the hero and heroine of the story. It was an interesting development showing how the heroine of the story developed from a 'teenage girl' hurt by her first love to a 'mature woman' who moved on with her life. There are comic relief at various points.

Besides the actors and actresses, I gave the director, script writer and editor a lot of credit for putting together the plot so nicely.

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The night god will steal your heart

If you like the Ten Mile Peach Blossom, you may like this. Two good looking lead actors (and good looking actresses for the guys) certainly help. Mesmerizing theme songs, excellent acting, nice special effects, lovely costumes and interesting story plots makes it overall an outstanding production. I would have given it a perfect rating of 10 if some tightening of the plots had happened.

There are however a lot of apologizing, voicing of regrets, negative talks and lecturing. This may be a cultural thing as I noticed a lot of it in Chinese dramas. However, viewers from English speaking countries may find a little unappealing as it appears like this is a bunch of self-pitying or self-righteous characters. A little less of it may help or convert it to thoughts rather than speech may help.

In the later part of the drama, it starts to get a little draggy due to side stories of secondary characters and slow moving scenes. The script writer could have trimmed off 5 episodes and tightened the plot - that would have been better. Alternatively split it into 2 series with a sequel could have helped too - there was opportunity to do this at episode 46 when the Runyu successfully seized the throne.

Although this is fiction, some realism may make it more convincing. For a girl who enjoys the attention of a young handsome emperor totally devoted to her, it is highly unlikely she would not fall in love with him and switched affection. Especially at moments when the rival was behaving like a jerk, it would have so easily to fall into the new young emperor's arms. If I were a young woman in that situation I certainly would. I guess most Chinese directors and script writers are too conservative to make the heroine looks unfaithful. Both the heroines in this story are unrealistically faithful to their first love.

Also, stabbing a love one with a knife is a nasty thing, much worse if it has killed him. Even with lots of apologies and good reasons, it is unlikely a relationship could be mended. Something more is needed to explain why Xufeng would still love and forgive her - some twist in the story is required.

For these reasons, I took away only 0.5 in the rating as I still like the series a lot.

I am much more attracted to the Runyu's character than Xufeng as Runyu earned sympathy and Luo Yun Xi acted it well. Hope to see more of him in future lead roles.

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Like a salad

This drama was like a salad with with a wide mix of ingredients all tossed together. It was like a combination of a xianxia story set in modern times, a wuxian story, a science fiction, a bit of a comedy, a youth drama and special effects all rolled into one. In some ways, it also looked like watching a computer game. I would say it was taking a break from the usual Chinese drama themes of fight for the throne and such.

Zhang ChuLan was an orphan and a superhuman with special superpowers which he tried to hide. One day he was informed that his grandfather's body was dugged up and missing from his grave. At the same time, a mysterious Feng BaoBao appeared and claimed to be his sister.

The incidence led to the exposure that ChuLan was a superhuman. The sect which his grandfather was once part of was trying to locate him. He was invited to the superhuman contest where the winner would be the next head of the sect. ChuLan soon found out that BaoBao was a powerful superhuman who had lost memory of her early years but was way ahead of him in skills.

The superhumans lived alongside ordinary humans and was governed by an organisation called NaDongTong (NDT). NDT forbade superhumans from using their skills to harm or take advantage of ordinary humans. However, there were always rogues who disregarded this.

Who stole the body and why? Who is BaoBao? The mystery of the latter was finally uncovered in the last episode. However, the end of the last episode was another of the mix-mesh. BaoBao was to deliver a parcel but end up meeting a comic writer who drew a picture looking like her, apparently laying the ground for a sequel. They were already setting the scene for a sequel - why not lay more clue of what to come next instead of this cliche, another meet the writer or creator of the story.

As a drama, it is entertaining. But it was certainly full of illogic. The explanation of each of the eight supreme superskills was absolutely mind-boggling, may I add, very creative but made no sense.

Neo Hou played a unambitious young Taoist who was only interested in his superpowers. The first drama I watched of Neo Hou was in A Girl Like Me and noticed how handsome he was (and still is). Wanyan LuoRong who later also acted in Dashing Youth with Neo Hou, was one of the leads in this drama. Like Dashing Youth, this drama had a good number of handsome actors.

If you are interested in science fiction with a modern setting and with strong elements of Chinese xianxia (fairytale), you would likely enjoy this drama.

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Handsome actors and lots of special effects

The recruiter for this drama certainly had excellent taste for handsome actors. I counted at least 10. And there were plenty of special effects. Whenever the fighting got heated, some fantasy cartoon like characters would be featured to represent the type of inner strength of the martial artists.

The story featured three male leads each with their own romance story. Baili DongJun was the young heir and grandson of Marquis ZhenXi. He led a sheltered luxurious life. His ambition was to become a wine deity, well-known for the wine he brewed. Only when he was selected by Prince Xiao RuoFeng to become a student of the prestigious JiXia Academy headed by Li Chang Sheng, the top martial artist of the world, that he started on a different journey.

Ye Yun, on the other hand had an unfortunate life. He was a close childhood friend of DongJun. His family was executed by the emperor, on some untrue allegation of treason. He escaped and went on to become a highly skilled martial artist. Unfortunately for him, his life took several negative turns. The Beique targeted him as a candidate to acquire their martial art which required a special disposition that he possessed. They needed him to wake up their king who had been deep in a meditation since they lost their kingdom to Beili. For this, they lay several traps for him as he was unwilling to help the enemy.

Sikong Changfeng was a friend that DongJun made while the latter was trying to carve out a name for himself as a wine deity. Before this, he was a vagabond who had self-trained in martial arts and had no memory of his life before he turned fifteen. For him, his path to success was a lot smoother than Ye Yun as he caught the eye of Nangong ChunShui, the reincarnate of Li and became his disciple.

In this drama, you see the contrast in the lives of DongJun and YeYun. Both were disposed with special abilities. For DongJun, his life seemed to be a bed of roses. He rose from adversities to become stronger and seemed to meet the right people to help him. The love of his life turned out to be a beautiful Beique princess who had given up reviving her kingdom as she did not want another round of war and believed it was a futile attempt.

As for Ye Yun, in spite of his capabilities, his life was ruined first by a selfish and suspicious emperor and then by the cunning Beique Chancellor. There had been several times, when his life could have turned for the better but circumstances turned it into a nightmare. The love of his life was his childhood sweetheart and fiancee who was still in love with him through the years he went missing, presumably dead. She was a great beauty but was quite ignorant and somewhat stupid, and was easily deceived by the Beique and became a pawn to their plots.

Being a bit philosophical here: in life, some people are just so blessed that they rose from one challenge to another, gaining grounds each time. While others having worked hard through their lives but were set back with each turn.

Somehow, Chinese drama always have emperors less than qualified for their job morally. In this drama, it was no different. The emperor allowed Ye Yun's family to be executed, even though he knew General Ye was innocent - a complete asshole in my view. Somehow the best heir, in both capabilities and moral disposition, he chose turned down the throne in favour of a rapist - I was rather disappointed in this.

Neo Hou (MingHao) had this boyish look about him that made him very suited to the playful and mischievous DongJun in his teens. It would be interesting to see whether he could graduate into more mature roles when he grew older.

The cartoon-like special effects however, made the drama looked a bit kiddy, a little out of line with the serious nature of this drama.

However, on the whole, this is an interesting drama worth watching.

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