The Long Ballad is essentially a story about Dilraba's character, Li Chang Ge, who is ousted by her own country and her plot for revenge to avenge the death of her family at her own home, and she then met a handsome "prince" from the grasslands and fell in love. That is in short what the story is about, at least according to me.

However, after watching episodes after episodes, I kinda like and enjoyed watching the second female and male lead story better than the main couple. Their character development, I thought is much better and you will see them grow and change as the story progresses. The other supporting characters, for me is also more interesting.

Overall, this is quite a good watch. The pacing is good, some episodes end with a cliffhanger to keep you interested. The politics part of the story doesn't interest me as much but I guess it's essential to the whole story. There are some cute moments, especially with Zhao Lu Si's and Liu Yu Ning's character.

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If you decide to watch this, have zero expectation. You will enjoy the ride :)

This drama is very short, only about 9-10 minutes for each episode with a total of 30 episodes. I finished it in just a couple of hours, skipping the beginning and ending theme. As the drama is short, it doesn't waste time on unnecessary side character story. Mostly just focus on the main characters. The story is nothing special, but it was action packed and leave you wanting to continue to the next episode until the end. The main FL and ML's acting is pretty good i thought, especially the ML. Bonus: he's super hot! I don't remember watching him in other drama, but he's apparently a supporting character in some of the dramas that I've watched, but not memorable. Overall, it's an entertaining short story with a gorgeous male lead!

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I was looking for a drama series with Wuxia genre that has many fighting scenes. I thought since this drama series has a "Sword" in its name, i figured it would include sword fighting scenes. I was right. There are many sword fighting scenes throughout this drama. I am happy with the plethora of action scenes in this drama. Just what I'm looking for. And it's good fighting scenes too. The reason for the lower rating is because the storyline is confusing, I can't keep track of the many supporting characters. The first 1-2 episodes were really good, but when they start introducing one supporting characters after another, I got confused. I understand that period costume drama usually has a ton of characters, not just the main leads. But I failed to understand the connection of these supporting characters and their importance in the story. Oh and did I mention the ending? It is by far one of the worst ending that I've watched! The ending took so many stars of my rating in my opinion. It felt so rush and confusing that by the end of the series, I go "WHAT WAS THAT?" "IS THAT ALL?" and then the ending credit song would play. Weird ending indeed. If you're someone who doesn't really care of pay particular attention to the loopholes in the story, you would enjoy this drama for the fighting scenes alone. There's not that many drama that has these scenes nowadays. I might even rewatch this just for the fighting scenes whenever I feel like watching a Wuxia drama.

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This is a nice and heartwarming Taiwanese romance/idol drama. I mainly watch this for Aaron Yan, right after finishing Refresh Man, but found that I quite enjoy this drama for the other characters as well. Sorry for comparing this with Refresh Man, but I thought Aaron Yan's chemistry with FL in Refresh Man is better than with Puff Guo. Her character is very annoying at the beginning, with whiny loud voice, but you will get to warm up to her character as the drama progresses. I absolutely despise the ex-girlfriend character. She is a spoiled, selfish, annoying and mean girl who is so unreasonable at times that you want to throw something at your television. Other than that one silly character, this drama is nice to watch when you're just looking for something light to watch. I love the OST, there are two songs from this drama that I super love and listen over and over again :)

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Once in a while you come across drama series that resonates with you even weeks and weeks after you finish watching the drama. The Bond is such drama. I have finished the drama almost a month before writing this review and to me, it felt just like I just finished the drama.

I still miss my regular evening watching the Qiao siblings' life. I like their interaction and how strong their siblings' bond is and how they struggle through everyday life with their deadbeat single. The siblings stuck together since they lost their mother giving birth to their fifth brother. These siblings took care of each other, particularly the big brother who is really like a dad to them. I like how real the relationship is, that it's not always smooth and they bicker and fight many times, but when it comes to siblings bond, they can always depend on their siblings in good and bad times.

I like how the drama follows the siblings from when they were children until they grew up, have careers and have a family of their own. I thought the actors and actresses that played the four siblings (and the father) did really well as YiCheng, ErChiang, Sanli and SiMei. There is superb character development here until the end.

This is one show that I really really enjoyed this year. One of the best ones I've watched and I can see myself re-watching this in the future.

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Confusing and Complicated

What attracted me to this drama is that because it's part of iQiyi's Light On Series, a lineup of mystery and thriller drama produced by iQiyi and that the episodes are only 12, easy compared to most c-drama that are at least 30-40 episodes long. No need to invest a lot of my time in this, and each episode is only between 30-40 minutes, so in total, the whole series is probably only 5-6 hours long, like finishing three movies.

The first Light On Series I watched was The Bad Kids, which blew me away! It was so good and few months after I finished the series, I still have goosebumps and think about this drama. It is that good! Unfortunately, Sisyphus did not live up to that drama. The first couple of episodes are interesting as they are still building up the story and characters, but halfway through the plot is very confusing for me. I don't know if it's just me who are struggling to follow what happened and why this and that happened, but many of the reviews of this drama that I read said the same thing. And the last couple of episodes are the most confusing ones, there are too many questions that are not answered. The Bad Kids also have unanswered questions (which I could probably find in the novel), but they wrap it up nicely so that it's not a big hole in the story.

Maybe in order to understand it better, I have to re-watch the drama. However, this drama left a bad taste in my mouth and I don't think I can go through being confused a second time. I have too many c-drama on my list (and they just kept on coming with new ones every week) to bother rewatching this.

My recommendation is if you like mystery or thriller, start with The Bad Kids (The Long Night is also good but i haven't watched it) and just skip this one.

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This is nothing like Eternal Love (Ten Miles of Peach Blossom). I watch this out of curiosity because I like Eternal Love and my friends have been raving about this drama, so I thought I'd give it a try. But I was not impressed. This drama is super duper slow and draggy. I actually didn't like Dilraba's and Vengo's character in Eternal Love (nor do I like them as actor & actress). That's my ultimate fault for watching this drama and wasting my precious time. This drama's main point is the love story between Feng Jiu and Dong Hua and not much else. It alternates between worlds and I got confused and just gave up trying to catch up to the story. But I'm not one who left a drama unfinished, so I watched it with either 1.5x or 2.0x speed, just to make it end quicker. Forgive me, but I seriously cannot stand Dilraba's character. She is a spoilt brat and annoying with her ultimate crush to Dong Hua. Some people may find her cute, but I do find her character and her voice super annoying. It gets really boring after a while watching her infatuation with the Dijun. The only good thing about this drama is the supporting characters. I love watching A Li, Si Ming, Lian Song and Cheng Yu. I thought they're the highlight of this drama. Another good thing is the great color of the scenes. I love it! If not for this, I would have given this drama a lower rating. It even failed for me as a romance drama.

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One of my favorite drama from years ago was Scarlett Love, where a modern woman traveled back to the Qing Dynasty and fall in love. With this one, the gender is reversed. A man, who's an author, traveled back in history and fall in love with a lady from that period of time. The story is promising and different. However, I got confused with the time travel part. Each time the author goes back to history, the lady seemed to be the younger version (well, I got confused even when writing this review :)) The episodes are very short (maybe that's why there's some missing details here and there) which is good for those who don't have plenty of time to invest in a long drama. Acting is okay. I really like the FL. Maybe I have to re-watch this to better understand the story. But for now, this is not high on my rating.

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The only good thing about this drama are the fighting scenes and the scenery. The rest is very mediocre. Acting is so-so, especially the main leads. Costume is not eye-catching and reminds me of those 80's hongkong wuxia drama that I grew up with (although production quality is slightly more advance). Although the number of episodes of this drama is fewer than most costume dramas, for me it felt very long.... I was excited at first because the first 5-6 episodes were good but it went downhill after that and it's a slow burn and the main male lead in the beginning was so annoying and took a long time for his character to grow. I wouldn't recommend this drama, well maybe if you want to see the fighting scenes. I really like the fighting scenes, it's rare finding one with this many fighting scenes these days.

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Love it!

I won't write about the story line or character details because they have been written many times, so this is just my opinion for the series.

I am not a fan of BL, which is why I have been putting The Untamed and Word of Honor on the to-watch shelf for a long time. I hesitated to watch this because of the BL storyline. But I didn't regret watching these two because they are one of the best chinese costume dramas that I've watched. The best ones in my opinion are Story of Yanxi Palace and Nirvana In Fire, but these two came close.

Word of Honor has all the elements that I like in a drama, good acting, handsome actors, beautiful costume and setting and wuxia scenes. Viewers are spoiled with beautiful colors in the costume, setting and cinematography as well as very amazing sceneries. There are plenty of WuXia fighting scenes in this drama that left you at the edge of your seats. There are also plenty of nice songs in the OST, I like the opening and ending theme and several others. That's why I always click "watch credit" and "play from the beginning" on Netflix for this drama because of the songs.

This drama is a rollercoaster of emotion for me. I felt sympathy for the characters, can feel happy, laughing at several scenes in the episodes, then change to feeling sad for some of the characters. The last three episodes in particular was a rollercoaster ride for me, like I didn't expect that to happen, why did it has to happen like that? Sad, then happy, and sad again.

I have to give a special shoutout to Simon Gong Jun as I thought he did a superb and excellent job as Wen Ke Xing. Huge kudos to Simon Gong!!!! I originally watch this because of Zhang Zhe Han, but Simon Gong stole my heart! He is so expressive and did very well in playing such a complex character. I first saw him in Begin Again, but after watching Word of Honor, I have just became a huge fan of Simon Gong Jun!!!

If you hesitate in watching this because of the BL element, please don't. It's there but it's subtle that I can just pass it on as true friendship and brotherhood. This drama is so much more than that, it is a story of friendship, family, loyalty, heroism and courage that it's very easy to overlook the BL element. It's there but in a subtle way, not "in your face" BL like those in Hollywood movies/series and Thai dramas. I would totally recommend this drama (and The Untamed of course).

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Not for the faint hearted

This is the first Japanese drama that I've watched since the classic Ordinary People and Tokyo Love Story. I mostly just watch Chinese drama nowadays, but this one came up in my Netflix recommendation, so I decided to give it a try. Compared to c-dramas, this is very short and I was able to finish it in just one day. It has a 9 scale on a binge-worthiness level, but declines to 2 or 3 on a memorable and re-watch value. The story is interesting and the first four episodes I thought was very good and succeeded in catching my attention and pushing that "watch next" button on Netflix. However, the second part of the show was just so-so and I thought what happens after Arisu arrived at the Beach was weird with the organization, the parties etc were weird and a bit inconsistent and left me with many questions marks, and even after watching the last episode, I still have lots of question marks.This series is definitely not for the faint hearted. There are a lot of blood and violence and I wouldn't recommend it to you if the sight of blood on your screen leaves you feeling queasy. Acting is just sub-par I think. None of the actors or actresses are good in my opinion. They are just so-so actors with unmemorable performance. I don't watch many Japanese drama, so I am not familiar with the actors and actresses, but I am not impressed with their acting.

You might like this if you are a fan of the manga or the actors & actresses and likes gory psychological thriller. As for me? i am only in for the psychological thriller part, but only like 50% of the series, not like The Bad Kids, which I thought was superb from start to finish and still leaves some impression even months after watching The Bad Kids. Acting of the actors and actresses in The Bad Kids are far superior compared with Alice in Borderland.

But, hey, we all have different tastes and opinions.

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Excessive Flashbacks

The premise of the story is interesting and it starred Shawn Dou and Yang Shuo, so I decided to watch it. The first episode was good, however the FL starts to annoy me a few episodes in. I persisted because i wanted to see how it ends and i’m not the kind who skipped and just watch the last episode. Middle towards the end gets really weird in my opinion. I also think the flashbacks are excessive and repetitive. I hate those. A few are okay, but if you have to see the same ones multiple times, you start to get annoyed and bored. Hello… we know what he or she is thinking already, so stop it with the flashbacks! Finally finished this series. Rewatch value for me is 0. I won’t put myself through the same torture of watching those repetitive flashbacks, no matter how handsome Shawn Dou and Yang Shuo are in this drama ?

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Story about strong women

This drama is one of the favorites that I've watched this year (2023). I enjoy watching slice of life drama and especially one that deals with real and difficult issues. This drama is one that deals with real life issues such as infidelity, divorce, workplace and business competition. The characters feel real and the actors played them really well. The three main female characters are all strong women, but I particularly like Gu Jia. She's the strongest of them all I think.

SPOILER ALERT!
Throughout the drama you get to see character developments for the main characters. Zhong Xiao Qin started out as a dependent and rather spoiled, a people pleaser that cannot survive on her own. She always has her parents and her husband to guide her through life. But she became a strong women after the divorce and can stand up for herself. Wang Man Ni's character development is not too significant in my opinion. She is already a strong, independent woman and she's my least favorite character. Gu Jia, now she is my favorite. I love her character. She can be soft but strong at the same time. In the beginning, I thought she's just a boring upper middle income housewife with a kid and adoring husband. But as you progressed, you get to see that she's actually the one that works hard for her family and she's one that will not hesitate to give the harsh truth to the friends to get them to wake up and move on from the problems. I like her! I thought she's the one that has it all and will have the happy ending. But her life was turned upside down when a home-wrecker chased her husband. But, She handled the husband's infidelity in an elegant way. She is the strongest of them all.

I like to see the friendship between these three women. And it's also interesting to see how life in a big city like Shanghai is. The struggles that you have to endure to live in Shanghai (there's a part of the story where Man Ni returns to her hometown and there, everybody is friendly and know everybody and always ready with a helping hand, a contrast with life in Shanghai).

There is a silent family at the end of each episode that I also like. I think the main idea of this family is to show that it's simple life that brings happiness and wealth and more money comes with its problems.

I think this drama is excellent and would definitely recommend it if you like slice of life stories.

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