The Legend of Fei (2020)

Don’t waste time

I admit I watched because of the female and male leads, being a fan of both. But let me tell you, it stops there. This seems to be the situation where putting two popular actors together don’t make a right. The chemistry was LACKING.

While the story is suppose to be good, the storytelling is just way too slow and doesn’t provide substance.

The overall production lacks quality and just plain fake. I should have pulled out the 80s vcr and watch the old stuff for that matter.

The fight scene is not exciting and doesn’t have the draw that makes you watch to root for the hero/heroine.

Just about the only thing that made this drama is the costume department. The makeup team did a good job on the ML, but FL looks really washed out.

Watch this if you want to watch you favorite actors. Otherwise don’t waste time.

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Good Actors, Boring Story

This drama is only for those who come here for the actors - Zhao Liying or Wang Yibo. The story is a snooze fest, the martial arts are non-existent, and characters get upgrades or downgrades instead of character development.

Characters: Zhou Fei and Xie Yun work great as the main leads. Zhou Fei is strong-willed and determined, while Xie Yun is smart and crafty. Their interactions are fun and they make a cute couple. However, the only other characters of note are Yang Jin, Li Yan, and Ying Hecong. Their comedic trio helps through the worst parts of the story. All the other characters either start and end as extremely boring and stupid ones, start good and then fall into the abyss of craziness, or become slaves to the plot (their abilities and intelligence rise and fall depending on what the story needs).

Story: Contrived and dull. It feels like a ten volume epic, but without interesting characters, engaging plot, or any mystery. There were a lot of flashbacks that led to nowhere, people that added nothing to the whole story, schemes that would work only on children, and characters that were or turned dumb just so certain situations would happen.

Martial Arts: The fighting was extremely slow and over the top in a non-fun way. The drama took itself very seriously, but the martial arts looked unrealistic and were not exciting. The fact that the camerawork was atrocious did not help, either. In almost every fight, the camera zoomed in on a blade, a foot, or someone’s face instead of showing the duel in full view. This made for an awful viewing experience.

The drama became a chore after the middle, and the only reason I managed to finish it is because of the main leads and the few fun side characters. However, I would not rewatch it even under duress.

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The pure of wuxia and the best romantic comedy drama

I love the cemistry between xieyun and afei, they are very cute and sweet. I like this couple when doing little fight, its remain me with romcom full house kdrama, or sassy girl chunyang kdrama. The BGM or backsound so good realy music of wuxia drama. The style of story also pure wuxia, different from the untamed that a lot of fantasy and little martial arts.

Its also mystery drama because a lot of mystery or secret in this drama, maybe sometime you will confuse because many secret didnt show clearly in begining episod but its will clear in the end of episode. if you read the novel first until ending its help you, so you didnt confuse with the mystery or story.

A lot of people complain with a lot of new caracter in this drama, but for me its still interesting. If you ever watch 'power rangers' live action drama or 'sailormoon' live action drama you will like with style of this story. Many new caracter in every episod with new story. And the story still touching and interesting. It show that legend of fei is pure wuxia not xianxia.
This drama have adventure story that make the female lead can increase her level martial arts.

Alot of funny scene, martial arts scene, and tragic and sad scene. . Its very complete drama that ever i watch.

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Gives off a very different vibe from many of the previous ones I've seen

Overall the drama is lovely and keeps me anticipating for the next episode. The acting is great. The martial arts scenes are really well done. The story and its progress is also well played out.

I know ppl have had issues with the production and I agree because the cgi could have definitely been better in some places but I understand they had limited places to go to because of covid. And the beginning of the drama can be a little slow because it's mostly building a base for future events. Apart from those, I found all other aspects of the drama to be pretty good.

For the acting, the only reason I gave it an 8 is because the main leads seem to be the only characters that really stand out. And the non-lead couples kinda seemed to happen too suddenly. This is likely a problem with the script and post production cutting. Otherwise, every cast member does their job well. No complains about their acting.

The chemistry between the main leads though is especially praise worthy. Their love is more of a slow growing type and its just feels so nice to see them together. There is no excessive drama just a really beautiful relationship. The emotions you feel from their acting is so real.

I especially appreciate how well the fight scenes are portrayed. Sometimes the fight scenes can really make or break a drama for me. But these are well organized and look very natural. It definitely keeps you hooked so big hats off to everyone involved.

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Sympathy to all wuxia lovers who watched this drama.

I was so excited when this drama was announced and finally aired after some delays, featuring Zhao Liying and Wang Yibo as the lead female and male respectively. With these two actors on the set, what can go wrong? However, after watching full episode, it seems that these two great actors might have chosen a wrong drama altogether..

Keeping it succinct, here are a few, among many other things, that puzzled me:

Why Fei keeps searching for a blade when in the end of the day there is nothing special about it and she could have killed the villain practically with any blade?

Did Chuchu's little brother just simply disappear after a few episodes? Why is he there in the first place, and yet Chuchu did not seem to miss him at all?

Xie Yu has a bone-chilling poison in his body that restrict him using his martial art skills, which is said to be very powerful. Until the end of the story, even after he is recovered, the powerful skill never appear anyway.

The build up story shows that Fei's father was called to lead the army to guard the border. He came back when the story almost ends, and yet still did not contribute anything significant to the story..

Fei's mother is one of the strongest character in terms of martial arts, but her contribution in the overarching story is too insignificant..

I think I will just stop here. I am not so sure where those high-ratings come from. This is a novel adaptation. Nonetheless, putting the original story aside, the plot is so weak that it gets very boring after the build up stage, particularly the middle part which has a lot of slow-paced scenes and dull moments. There are attempts to make the romance so romantic and poetic, but I do not think it suits with Fei's character at all. Poor chemistry, plain acting, too many wasteful characters.

How about the ending? The best way to describe the ending is 'just like that' - no climax. I could see there is an attempt to make the last fight becomes the culmination of all the overarching story, but it looked forced and rushed up. The last half-episode after this fight is not even worth spending your time at.

My sympathy is for all wuxia lovers out there, who may have spent so many episodes to seek for a great wuxia drama through this movie.

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one of the enjoyable drama to watch

this drama is complete set, with action, commedy, sad and romance.. i love watching the cute chemistry between the female lead Zhou Fei and the male Lead Xie Yun, as always i never doubteb Zhao Liying acting she is so good at every role, what surprised me was Wang Yi bo his acting grow up alot in this drama, and he have ood chemistry with Zhao Liying, they looks so cute and sweet together, i almost forget that Liying and already married and want to ship them as a cp bcause they damn so cute..
i already watch until 40 episode, my emotion have been upside down with this drama, some time the story made me laugh, and some time made me gigle when saw both the female and the male leads interaction, i also crying alot, i just hope for happy ending like the story in the novel

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Totally not worth the hype!!!

I am a person who normally doesn't write reviews but this one was an absolute mess. First the kind of reviews this drama has recieved is kind of puzzling to me. As one of the most anticipated dramas, I seriously wanted to like it but the drama pathetically fell short in a lot of places. My reasons for not liking the drama are as follows, 1. For a Wuxia drama the martial arts component is most important. To begin with the drama did not have much fighting scenes and the ones that were there are shot terribly, all of them have been shot at a close angle. The camera angles were horribly done and the lead characters were really not used well. Their full potential was never used. 2. Production value is pathetic. The sets, lighting and CGI throughout the drama is horrible. The battle scenes have just 10 or so guys, which is terrible. Even small budget dramas have done much better. 3. Lets talk abiut the storyline, it drags in alot of places and nothing really happens. For all the hype the drama created it is not worth it. You can binge watch once just for the sake of the lead actors but nothing great.

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Don't have high expectations.

I had high expectations for this, as I thought this would be a perfect drama for ZLY. It's not exactly wrong, but I'm left wanting more. Her character does improve throughout the series, but at times she contradicts herself by being immature and illogical which breaks the image of the strong heroine. I wanted to see her actually getting stronger, but the thing which has become common with these kinds of dramas, the lead suddenly grows out of nowhere. You could argue that it would be uninteresting to see the journey instead of the result, but why have it as a focal point in the first place?

I expected more martial arts and awesome choreography, but thus far it's been fairly disappointing. The plot also is rather boring. It feels like it would be much better if it wasn't dragged out so much. The romance scenes between the main leads have been annoying to watch from the start and I skip them as soon as they start. I haven't read the novel, but if it has as much romance with cringy dialog I'm rather glad I haven't touched it yet.

They could've left out the character of Zhou Jie Qiong entirely as she was immature and annoying since episode one. She contributed absolutely nothing good to the plot. I understand she's there for comic relief, but it didn't make it any better.

Most actors do an okay job with what they've been given. As I've seen several of them in other dramas, I know that it's the directing which makes me want for more. I can only hope that the actors/actresses themselves felt frustrated too.

From episode 1 to 20, it was bearable. But from that point on, it became less and less interesting. I have this habit of finishing dramas no matter how bad it is, so I did. But I have to admit I had to FF way more than I usually do. It was that uninteresting.

If you're contemplating to start this, be warned. If you still like this, despite its flaws, then kudos to you. It was definitely not worth my time.

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Story started off fun and exciting

Story started off fun and exciting with main leads that were a sure draw but ended up being drawn out and riddled with fillers and plot holes. A disappointment after the build up.

Positives:

* Strong female character depictions. Women in this drama are independent, can lead, fight, initiate romance, and generally are the equal of men. There is one screaming whiner but even she rises to the occasion in the end. What I like here is that female lead is not been nerfed. Unlike other c-drama female lead always been nerfed when she meet male lead.

* This is a classic wuxia drama. Its main focus is the lead learning how to fight and the fighting that happens among people and sects. There is romance and the smattering of imperial influence but the story mainly stays focused on the martial arts world and the conflicts within it.

* The FL is a mature actress and doesn't play the maiden-in-distress role which is nice. She does most of the saving instead of needing to be saved. ML (WYB) is eye candy even though his acting is not vey strong. His character is not written well so its a toss-up as to whether its weak acting or weak character development.

* There is no annoying love-triangles and misunderstandings. Relationships develop and basically stay on track. It is refreshing not to have the stupid misunderstanding story arc.

Negatives:

* For a drama that is suppose to be action focused, it gets quite boring and dragged out. There is a LOT of dialogue and at the most inopportune times. Half way through a fight: let's have a talk. Half way into a rescue: let's have a talk. Half way through a mission crisis: let's have a talk. Worst yet, the conversations don't really add anything except to break up the momentum of the show.

* The story is not well written. Its main storyline really only takes about 10 episodes. The rest are filled with side stories and countless side characters that come and go so often that I couldn't really keep track of nor did I care to after a while. Then there were side characters that appeared throughout the show that didn't do anything or really add to the story (Zhou Fei's parents).

* Although the FL's character had some development, it was minimal and didn't fully utilize the actress' skills. WYB's character, the ML, was even flatter. He was more of the negative side-kick to the FL than a main. Some scene also is unnecessary. Especially when they try to solve heaven and earth puzzle. Li Sheng is the one that solving the puzzle(we can see his character development - from naughty child to great leader) and ML just staying with FL and keep discouraging her then smile like 'I know it will be like this'. Support character is much more useful then him. and we can see FL and other support can cooperate with each other. then ML come and make scene like he carrying all of them. - this is not about actress it just about the character.

Conclusion:

This drama was a miss. It wasn't even a near miss. For the potential, the hype, and the actor and actress it had: it turned out to be a major miss. The writing was poor, the story dragged, and there were so many fillers, most of the middle episodes made me fall asleep or continually hit skip. It's a real bummer but I would not recommend this drama.

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The Return of Zhao Liying + Changing Style of Wang Yibo

I will begin this review by admitting that I was shocked by the seemingly poor production quality when I first began watching the series. Specifically, the XiMo River scene appeared exceedingly fake. I, however, began watching this drama for the cast, so I continued to watch it, despite questionable filming + editing.

CAST: The cast is wonderful, and it is definitely not their fault in any way for this drama receiving polarizing reviews. Starting off with Zhao Liying, she looks extremely young for her age, though other people think otherwise, but that's a matter of opinion. Her acting is incredibly natural, and it does not feel like she is acting; it feels as if she is Zhou Fei. Wang Yibo, who acted in the Untamed, surprised me with his lively acting because, when compared to previous dramas, his character was so different from the rest. I think he completed his role as Xie Yun very well. The interactions between the main characters are also NICE, and the only thing I would request is that there be more of those interactions!

STORY: Perhaps it is because I have never read the original novel, but the take off of the drama was slightly confusing for me. There were a lot of characters, and I think it definitely requires a lot of attention to not be confused. But as the story picked up, I believe this was around episode 11 or 12, I found myself enjoying it, rather than sitting and thinking about the plot. There are definitely imperfections with the plot, especially with the way the scenes are arranged, but overall, it keeps to a fair Wuxia theme, with the female lead exploring the 'jianghu' and gaining more knowledge.

MUSIC: Absolutely wonderful. Particularly, the OST called "Wuhua" by Zhang Liangying and Liu Yuning is stunning when paired with the drama. In ~episode 27, the song rings at the perfect time. Plus, it just sounds really great. The intro song also has a nice tone that is fitting for the wuxia genre. "Xiwei" by Wang Yibo is a very soft song that has very emotional lyrics, which are a perfect match for the plot.

REWATCH VALUE: I put a lower score in this category because that is just what I believe it is. I think certain episodes should most definitely be rewatched, but others? Eh, not really worth it. In particular, episode 9 felt like a DRAG, but others like 11, 12, and 30 were great!

OVERALL: Many people are disappointed by this drama because it had such a 'high production value'. But they often neglect the fact that they halted productions for multiple months due to COVID, and much of their budget went to waste during that time. So I am assuming certain scenes were not intended to be carried out by heavy post-production. I think the cast is wonderful, and they actually exceeded my expectation. I will have to finish the drama to really see how I feel about it, though.

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Should have chosen a scriptwriter that cared about the story

My first impression was pretty much "wow, they COULD NOT wait to introduce the love interest, huh?"

This was a mess from the very beginning. The pacing of the first episode was all over the place, it was like they wanted to get all the world-building and character set-up out of the way as quickly as possible so they could introduce the love interest within the first ten minutes of the first episode. It was like they took it as a personal challenge to see how quickly they could get the protagonist and the love interest to meet. Then all of a sudden, the cousin/fiance decides to leave because of a conversation he overheard. Just like that. Out of the blue. There's no substance nor build-up whatsoever that makes you care about the stuff that is going on. Xie Yun crossed the traps in the river with no problems despite the area being supposedly impenetrable and incredibly hard to enter. There's no stakes or any real feeling of danger, because you just know that he's gonna solve everything with his main character power. There's absolutely no use telling us that the fortress is well-guarded and hard to enter when it only takes minutes for Xie Yun to do it. They should have shown him putting more effort into solving the trap and figuring out how to get in. It all feels so half-assed.

The fight scenes weren't the worst I've seen, but definitely not passable for a show heavily marketed as a wuxia. Too many closeup shots on the character's faces when they should be showing the bodies actually fighting. The costumes are quite good, except for Zhou Fei's. I get that she's supposed to be dressed more masculine, but it is possible to give her better costumes that don't look so boring and cheap while still keeping the masculine vibe. They can do that for the male characters so why not for her? The acting is alright. I liked both of their performances but frankly the casting of Zhou Fei and Xie Yun is horribly mismatched. Zhao Liying and Wang Yibo are both fine by themselves, but when put together Wang Yibo obviously looks so much younger, and they just don't have enough chemistry to make up for it. That plus a terrible script just made the romance awkward for me, and because the plot writing and pacing is horrible, there's literally nothing else to look forward for.

Zhao Liying's makeup is also kind of distracting? Aside from being obviously cakey, the shiny lip-gloss and thick eyeliner is not subtle at all and looks so out of place, especially considering how her character is supposed to be tomboyish.

There's also the fake forest set that is so incredibly distracting because it's obviously the same one they use for many different scenes, and it looks even more artificial because of how bad the lighting is. They didn't even attempt to emulate the lighting texture of a dense forest which means every time they're in that fake forest, you can tell right away they're in a studio because of the stark, untextured overhead studio lighting. It looks like one of those old-timey wuxia dramas which is not what a c-drama from 2020 with a huge budget is supposed to look like. How on earth did they allocate the money?

As an adaptation of the original novel, You Fei, this show just fails even more. It's even easier to tell that the people who produced this show gave no shits about it when you've read the novel, because while they did adapt the big scenes, they did it in such a way that all complexity, nuance and buildup is lost.

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Legend of poisoning and eavesdropping

I am big fan of WYB, so I really wanted to like this drama but..


Story makes no sense, the main plot doesnt feel like a main plot. Every episode either had a poisoning scene or someone eavesdropping on very important and secretive news. Villains are just allowed to leave/ escape after getting caught!?!
Bad editing, looks like it was done in a hurry, some scenes makes no sense
Fight scenes are not done well, very unrealistic looking in terms of lack of blood, sweat, gore when fighting.
Terrible fake sets with bad CGI
Acting is very average, I expected more from a veteran actress but her acting was as average as Wang Yibo a newbie.
Poor chemistry between leads, the romance seemed forced, very unnatural.
Annoying characters with low intelligence
Laughable villains

It was a torture to complete this.

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