★★★★★
The 2017 Chinese drama, starring Yang Mi as Bai Qian, Mark Chao as Ye-Hua/Mo-Yuan, Dilraba Dilmurat as Bei Feng-jiu, Zhang Bin-Bin as Li Jing, and Vengo Gao as Dong Hua Di-Jun.
Brief summary: The Nine-tailed Fox princess Bai Qian disguises herself as a boy to study under the esteemed God of War Mo-Yuan. Shortly thereafter however, war breaks out between the Celestial Tribe and the Ghost Tribe and Mo-Yuan’s soul is divided to keep the Ghost Tribe’s king Qing-Cang imprisoned. Mourning the loss of her teacher, Bai Qian steals the body back to her kingdom Qing Qiu to preserve his body. But that very year the new crown prince of the celestial tribe Ye-Hua is born under mysterious circumstances and 70,000 years later has grown to look exactly like Mo-Yuan! Ye-Hua grows up with an ambition to prove he is not Mo-Yuan, especially to his arranged fiancée Queen Bai Qian of Qing Qiu.
The appeal of Chinese dramas typically lie in two parts: the costuming and the meticulous storylines. This drama definitely excelled in both categories! I loved it! As a reminder from my comments on the last Chinese drama I reviewed, we have to watch these dramas with a different mindset and with different expectations. Fantasy dramas especially will have a lot of slow motion action, occasional voice-over, and digitized green screen. So we can’t draw our judgement based on how we personally feel about those techniques.
This drama is all about two lovers that are fated to be, but bad things keep happening. It’s definitely a good pick if you’re in the mood for some romance!
But this drama doesn’t give us quite everything we would have wanted. I won’t accuse it of being cruel, but I was really hoping that DiJun and Feng-Jiu would work things out between them.
I really liked the OST! It was catchy, sweet, and set the mood well. Adding it to my playlist for sure!
I’m not typically an emotional person, and I wasn’t too bothered by the events of episode 56, but watching Bai Qian dream about him was pretty heartbreaking. Almost just as hurtful as watching Ye-Hwa spend 300 years with that soul lamp, raising A-Li as both father and mother. Speaking of whom, where did he disappear to? You’d think that Bai Qian would be driven to reunite with her son in Ye-Hwa’s absence! But I had also forgotten that A-Li was technically a grandson of the Celestial Palace. Those immortals be like the American government— full of rules but overall difficult to work with.
Lots of talent! Although I don’t have a whole lot of experience watching C-dramas, even I had heard of the cast members before. Their fame says something about their talent (well, most of the time this is the case. Definitely not in America, though).
A great drama! What a moving story! 5/5 stars!
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