Z
Fast pace, good plot, great acting, brings back memories from the Wuxia drama era!
In the last couple of years, the c-drama market has been saturated with a lot fantasy/xianxia based period drama or court/palace based dramas, so "The Legend of Fei" feels a little bit like a breath of fresh air. If you have watched the TVB Wuxia dramas back in the days, you will feel a sense of familiarity that this drama brings.
Story:
The plot is fast paced so each episodes goes by very quickly. Again, bring me back to the old days of the TVB Wuxia era when these dramas used to be around 30 episodes and there was no 'fillers' for the sake of making more episodes to earn money. Although "Legend of Fei" is 51 episodes, from what I have seen of 12 episodes, they sure crammed in a lot in those episodes. Episodes 1-10 has a lot of elements that contributed to world setting, character setting, and plot setting/foreshadowing elements, and then starting at episode 11, we started to see things pick up (11-12 are must watch episodes). The most important thing is that, 'Legend of Fei' captures the essence of 'rivers and lakes', the core element of what is important in a martial art story. The interesting thing is that YouFei as the heroine seems to have taken the 'hero' script that is typical of martial arts drama, who throughout the storyline roamed the marital arts world, learned different martial arts techniques from people she encountered, and make fellowship along the way as she get closer to becoming a more powerful martial master.
Acting/Casting:
I was a little worry at first about the casting but after the first couple of episodes and seeing the chemistry between the two leads, I said that this casting choice is very good. I think I understood why they casted Wang Yibo for Xie Yun. Xie Yun is an extremely active and lively character, if you cast an older actor to play this, he may come off as 'greasy' and it would not look good. The Xie Yun played by Wang Yibo is very lively and adds a lot of comedy to the episodes. He's actually a very talented actor, body posture and facial expression/management are impeccable. Youfei played by Zhao Liying, at first I was a little concern about her age as she's playing someone who's way younger than her actual age, but because of her baby face, it's not noticeable at all. Her strong point is that she's able to grab the emotional parts of Youfei very well and this gives her the ability to connect with the audience with the character.
Music:
Both opening and ending song are great, specially the ending song by Jane Zhang and Liu YuNing. Some of the background music are also great, very authentic martial arts feel and it fit the scenes very well. For example, the instrumental piece in the the drinking scene between Youfei and XieYun, when Youfei got drunk and lean on XieYun's back. At first he mistaken it as her leaning on him on purpose and started to smile until he found out that it was because she passed out drunk.
Rewatch value:
I do have to say that I'm not too fond of this director's choice of scene cutting, he has a tendency to blur the background to the point where it looks a little fake and he love close-up face shots. You may wonder why you can't remember the character names well but can remember their faces very well...the reason is because of this. And it really test the actor's ability for facial management and sometimes you can see the detail of pores and skin blemishes on some of the actors' face. I have to say that both of the lead actors have great skin. Despite the technical flaw, this drama only gets better with each rewatch as you catch more detail through each run.
Overall Summary:
If you like martial arts drama, this is a must watch. If you value a good storyline with interesting characters this is for you. It feels fresh among all of the period dramas that has been released in recent year. The chemistry and interactions between Youfei and XieYun is top notch.
After reading some comments on the drama page, I want to say a few words. As a long time c-drama watcher since the early 90s, I have watched the rise and fall of Hong Kong and Taiwanese dramaland and the rise of mainland dramas. In recent years, I'm not happy with the status quo of how c-dramas has come to be and produced - it has shifted focus away from good scripting and acting towards trope heavy and filler based dramas that has little substances. C-dramaland has lost its originality as one drama after another started to look the same.. Few Wuxia dramas are being make nowadays and the few good ones are far in between, for example "Nivarna In Fire". But even that and Princess Agent was not able to capture the essence of "Rivers and Lakes" that you typically seen from the Jing Dong dramas and older TVB Wuxia dramas. This is why I treasure what I have seen in this drama so far. There is an originality element to it that's not common in this era of c-drama. And the icing on the cake is that the focus has shift from a male hero to a female hero.
I hope "Legend of Fei" maintain the quality of the storyline throughout and if it does, it will be a gem, a treasure among c-dramas.
(This review is done up to episode 12. I will update as I watch more episodes!)
Story:
The plot is fast paced so each episodes goes by very quickly. Again, bring me back to the old days of the TVB Wuxia era when these dramas used to be around 30 episodes and there was no 'fillers' for the sake of making more episodes to earn money. Although "Legend of Fei" is 51 episodes, from what I have seen of 12 episodes, they sure crammed in a lot in those episodes. Episodes 1-10 has a lot of elements that contributed to world setting, character setting, and plot setting/foreshadowing elements, and then starting at episode 11, we started to see things pick up (11-12 are must watch episodes). The most important thing is that, 'Legend of Fei' captures the essence of 'rivers and lakes', the core element of what is important in a martial art story. The interesting thing is that YouFei as the heroine seems to have taken the 'hero' script that is typical of martial arts drama, who throughout the storyline roamed the marital arts world, learned different martial arts techniques from people she encountered, and make fellowship along the way as she get closer to becoming a more powerful martial master.
Acting/Casting:
I was a little worry at first about the casting but after the first couple of episodes and seeing the chemistry between the two leads, I said that this casting choice is very good. I think I understood why they casted Wang Yibo for Xie Yun. Xie Yun is an extremely active and lively character, if you cast an older actor to play this, he may come off as 'greasy' and it would not look good. The Xie Yun played by Wang Yibo is very lively and adds a lot of comedy to the episodes. He's actually a very talented actor, body posture and facial expression/management are impeccable. Youfei played by Zhao Liying, at first I was a little concern about her age as she's playing someone who's way younger than her actual age, but because of her baby face, it's not noticeable at all. Her strong point is that she's able to grab the emotional parts of Youfei very well and this gives her the ability to connect with the audience with the character.
Music:
Both opening and ending song are great, specially the ending song by Jane Zhang and Liu YuNing. Some of the background music are also great, very authentic martial arts feel and it fit the scenes very well. For example, the instrumental piece in the the drinking scene between Youfei and XieYun, when Youfei got drunk and lean on XieYun's back. At first he mistaken it as her leaning on him on purpose and started to smile until he found out that it was because she passed out drunk.
Rewatch value:
I do have to say that I'm not too fond of this director's choice of scene cutting, he has a tendency to blur the background to the point where it looks a little fake and he love close-up face shots. You may wonder why you can't remember the character names well but can remember their faces very well...the reason is because of this. And it really test the actor's ability for facial management and sometimes you can see the detail of pores and skin blemishes on some of the actors' face. I have to say that both of the lead actors have great skin. Despite the technical flaw, this drama only gets better with each rewatch as you catch more detail through each run.
Overall Summary:
If you like martial arts drama, this is a must watch. If you value a good storyline with interesting characters this is for you. It feels fresh among all of the period dramas that has been released in recent year. The chemistry and interactions between Youfei and XieYun is top notch.
After reading some comments on the drama page, I want to say a few words. As a long time c-drama watcher since the early 90s, I have watched the rise and fall of Hong Kong and Taiwanese dramaland and the rise of mainland dramas. In recent years, I'm not happy with the status quo of how c-dramas has come to be and produced - it has shifted focus away from good scripting and acting towards trope heavy and filler based dramas that has little substances. C-dramaland has lost its originality as one drama after another started to look the same.. Few Wuxia dramas are being make nowadays and the few good ones are far in between, for example "Nivarna In Fire". But even that and Princess Agent was not able to capture the essence of "Rivers and Lakes" that you typically seen from the Jing Dong dramas and older TVB Wuxia dramas. This is why I treasure what I have seen in this drama so far. There is an originality element to it that's not common in this era of c-drama. And the icing on the cake is that the focus has shift from a male hero to a female hero.
I hope "Legend of Fei" maintain the quality of the storyline throughout and if it does, it will be a gem, a treasure among c-dramas.
(This review is done up to episode 12. I will update as I watch more episodes!)
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