Legend of Fu Yao 扶摇 Review

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The 2018 Chinese drama, starring Yang Mi as Fu-Yao and Ethan Juan as Zhangsun Wu-Ji. Based on the novel “Empress Fu-Yao” by Tian-Xia Gui-Yuan.



Brief summary: Fu-Yao has grown up a slave in Mount Xuanyuan, told that that’s all she ever will be. But Fu-Yao has dreams of better and bigger things. She doesn’t want much, but only to leave Mount Xuanyuan as a free person and live the way she wants. After she meets a handsome stranger, everything quickly starts to change and she just might have a chance. That is, if fate doesn’t destroy her first.



Where to begin! I have given four-star reviews before, some meaning “not quite five but it was really good,” but this one we could call “just barely deserves four stars so I might as well round up.” I mean, seriously! When was the last time I felt such complex emotions about a drama? The ideas, the costuming, the sets, and the actors were all amazing, but having it be so long and the complicated plot (that seemed to have trouble staying in a single line on its own) were difficult together.



Let’s start with the problems:

1. What most people disliked about this drama is quite true. The plot jumps around a bit and sometimes you’re not totally sure how you or the characters got from point A to point C because point B is somehow missing and then all the sudden we’re at points G, H, and I because we still haven’t figured out why. Follow? 😂😂 At first, I just rolled with it because those plot jumps and the confusion we feel as onlookers seem to be a trend in Wu Xia Chinese dramas. But then it grew to be something of a nuisance.



2. The characters singing. If you are going to have characters sing in your drama, please just get someone who can sing. Don’t edit over them and don’t try to turn it into concert worthy material when they’re just singing. I realize that the producers wanted to influence the mood and give the viewers feels, but it was so fake that I skipped forward every time Zhan Bei-Ye cued up the music.



3. Who are these idiots that tried to cremate a body that had turned to stone?

4. The second half of the drama became a circular/cyclical repetitive pattern of the main characters saying “we can’t have a happy ending, so we might as well try to stall the inevitable and beat ourselves up in the process.” Over and over again they did this! Especially Wu-Ji!

5. Secondary characters too often in Chinese dramas are used for a while to fill in episodes, maybe give us feels, but then they disappear. We hear nothing more from them and it’s like they fell off the face of the earth! This is another critique that viewers had towards the episode finale- we don’t hear anything about those characters. Do they mourn? Do they find their own solace and victories in the conquest of life? Did they make Fu-Yao and Wu-Ji’s sacrifices worth it?



Although the organization of the entire thing bothered me a little, the drama did have its strong points. When this drama is exciting, it’s exciting. When it’s depressing, it’s depressing. When it gets hot and romantic... wow! The high contrasts kept every episode gripping and kept me on the edge of my seat. Fu-Yao's impressive character and Wu-Ji's devotion were the strong points in this drama (and when I say strong, I mean... wow!).



“Who in this world does not fear death?” I can’t remember where the question came up in the drama, but it seems to define the theme of all 66 episodes. All of the characters look death in the face several times and each time they have a choice: be brave and probably die, or flee in fear and probably live. Since they’re all crazy, of course they choose bravery and possible death. But there’s something that could have been clarified— bravery is not the absence of fear but rather the overcoming of it. The unknown is something we inherently fear and nothing will change that, but reall bravery is that we know that fear and willfully choose not to give in to it.



One of my favorite quotes from this drama was from Fu-Yao in episode 64 when she asked Wu-Ji: “Do you think there could be a world where light shines everywhere and all people are equal? Even if there’s darkness that we can’t avoid, there will be those who strive for light and equality.” When I first heard it, I thought she was just revealing part of her dream to Wu-Ji, but looking at the words again I’m more convinced that her meaning is that there never will be a perfect world where the light shines everywhere and wherein all people are perfectly equal. There will be shadows, there will be fights over power or money or whatever, and there may be bitter darkness from time to time. But none of that stuff will matter if there are people who believe in light and righteousness and are willing to fight for it.



I know a lot of people are confused about the ending, so I’ll throw in my opinion: We never saw them  die. Yes, they were on the ground bleeding profusely, but all 66 episodes were filled with life and death situations, and if characters were near death or even died they were somehow healed. What I’ve learned from watching these shows is that it’s not over until it’s obviously over. Thus, I am inclined to believe that this means the characters actually lived and that final scene was not a final jab with a knife in our feels.



So after all is said and done, I think I can give this drama 4/5 stars, but I would improve some points. It had its struggles but its strengths were still very impressive!