Handsome Siblings (2020)

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

This excellent adaption of one of Gu Long's best known works 绝代双骄 is also known as peerless or legendary twins. The cringey English title is a shameless bid to advertise the main leads as eye candy idol actors. This delightful romp through jianghu is faithful to the original story and checks all the boxes in terms of what a true blue wuxia ought to be.

This is a typical Gu Long plot structured around one overarching conspiracy that comes to light after the main protagonists encounter many adventures and solve a few smaller related mysteries. A woman scorned by unrequited love sets out to extract a terrible vengeance by separating twin brothers at birth and raising them to kill or be killed by each other. As the leader of the powerful Yihua Palace, she raises one of the brothers Hua Wuque (Hu Yitian) to be a stellar martial artist whose mission is to hunt down and personally kill the wicked Jiang Xiaoyu. Wuque is a handsome, refined and righteous but overly naive and reserved young man who is the spitting image of his father Jiang Feng.

Wuque's brother Jiang Xiaoyu (Chen Zheyuan) is rescued by Jiang Feng's sworn brother legendary swordsman Yan Nantian and grows up under the influence of the ten great villains of Wicked Canyon. He is renown for his intelligence (mostly due to self praise) and is a lively, charismatic and healthily skeptical young rogue. Less skilled than Wuque, he relies on his deviousness to squirm out of tight situations. He is a determined bachelor that evades several persistent young women before meeting his match in wit and resourcefulness. This embroils him in several romantic entanglements and triangles. During his many colorful adventures, his path crosses with Wuque and they become friends and allies. Together they tackle their main antagonist, the scheming Jiang Biehe and his son Jiang Yulang. Despite their disparate upbringings and appearing on surface to to be polar opposites, both brothers are innately good natured and have common values that bind them in a deep friendship. Nonetheless in accordance with jianghu code of conduct, they must fulfill their vow to face each other in a predestined duel to the death.

The plot and the many archetypal characters in this well known story may seem tropey and unoriginal but Gu Long was one of the pioneers of the modern wuxia genre. If this feels familiar or like something you have watched before, it is more likely those stories or characters were influenced by this rather than the other way around. It is easy to follow because the audience is usually one step ahead of both protagonists and antagonists and knows the big secret that they are brothers. It is a favorite of mine because the overused revenge trope is handled compassionately and does not devolve into simply just an eye for an eye. All of Gu Long's women are capable of being frighteningly single minded in love, unscrupulous, vindictive and utterly ruthless and unforgiving. One of these bad-ass ladies always gets the guy but this is from the 1950s so while there is romance, it is very chaste by today's standards.

I was really impressed by the cast. Many important roles were played by young and upcoming actors and this was very obvious in the first 4 episodes. After that, almost everyone got into character and it came together quite well. While Chen Zheyuan somewhat overacted Jiang Xiaoyu, he is a very versatile and charismatic young actor. He just needs to not try so hard, be a bit more nuanced and develop his own style. Similarly Hu Yitian's Hua Wuque was a bit too restrained or underacted initially. But they had great chemistry and really excelled at showing us how the brothers grew to become more alike as they got to know each other. I must also mention the awesome cat and mouse encounters between Jiang Yulang and Jiang Xiaoyu - what an excellent villain! I actually found this to be the best acted, most nuanced main role.

Finally in terms of what makes or breaks any wuxia it is the fight scenes. These really knocked the ball out of the park - they were truly awesome - excitingly and powerfully choreographed with the right balance between stills, slow motion and non-stop movement. And naturally it is Gu Long so it is a total feast in terms of the number of heart stopping lethal clashes between some very colorful, slightly eccentric martial arts champions with wildly improbable combat abilities. I love this stuff and immediately rewound and re-watched each epic clash.

What a fun, well paced, light heart-ed and engaging wuxia. I wish all adaptations of the classic, best loved Gu Long and Jin Yong wuxias get this kind of quality remake. Two thumbs up!

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SUMMARY:
The REAL selling point (besides CZY's portrayal of XYE) is the relationship/character growth between HWQ and XYE. If you feel like the plot is getting repetitive, know it gets better after the first half, and know that the build up of the last few episodes is incredibly well done and so painful in the right way. If you do not have a sentimental attachment to this story, or if you do not care for familial relationships, I don't think you'd particularly like it. However, if you like wuxia and you like familial relationships, I would power through just for CZY's XYE and for the build up of the last few episodes.

Ok here's the full review:

I don't usually write reviews because I am too lazy, but I felt like I had to write one for this drama. I watched The Proud Twins (2005 HK/TW version called 小魚兒與花無缺) while it was airing, and it has always been one of my favorite shows. I also love Hu Yitian from ALSB, so I was very excited for this drama. When the casting/characters were revealed, however, I was kind of worried because they replaced my favorite villain from TPT which I felt was one of the biggest selling points of TPT. Another thing I felt was incredibly well done in TPT was the tragedy in several relationships, and when I found out that HS did not include those specific tragedies, I was extremely disappointed.

WITH THAT SAID. If you loved TPT, for sentimental reasons, WATCH THIS VERSION.

ACTING/CHARACTER PORTRAYAL:
- Chen Zheyuan does Xiaoyu'er //so// much justice. I don't think they could have casted a better actor for him. I don't even have enough words for how much I love CZY's XYE. He absolutely carried this show. 100% you will fall in love with him. He brings XYE to life just as well as the XYE in TPT, and he showcases how multifaceted XYE is. The dynamics of his principles, what is good/bad to him, what's evil/wrong or right/just, he just does such a good job at expressing his emotions and reactions. The struggle he experiences in terms of who he wants to be, who he thinks he is, who he actually is is just beautifully laid out and his growth is beautiful and makes sense. I will say that BOTH the brothers' character development is visible, realistic, and touching.

- HYT gets better as the drama goes along, and I think he does a good job in playing his two characters differently. His acting and his character improves as the drama goes along. At first, I was kind of thrown off by the difference b/t this HWQ and the one in TPT, and it took awhile for him to grow on me. I would say it wasn't until the second half of the drama that I started to care about HWQ, but once I got there, I really, really appreciated his part in the show. He serves as a wonderful contrast to XYE, and over the course of the show, both brothers learn from each other. The similarities between the two noticeably grow in the second half of the show, and I felt it was very well done.

- In general, there is a lot of room for improvement plot-wise and acting-wise (specifically for Hua Wuque, Tie Xinlan, and Jiang Yulang).

CHARACTER TLDR: XYE is Ironman and HWQ is Captain America.

ROMANCE:
If you're here for the romance, you'll probably be disappointed. There isn't much focus or development on these relationships. There /is/ a love-triangle. If you hate love triangles (I do), don't worry, it works out pretty well, it's never the main point, and I think it creates the right amount of conflict that leads to growth.

PLOT:
If you're familiar with the original plot, it's pretty cool to see this version. It feels a bit messy in the middle 1/3 of the show. It seems like they're constantly going on irrelevant side quests, but the end does (for the most part) tie everything together. It might feel kind of repetitive and annoying after awhile, but I would power through for the ending. The plot could have been improved, but I think the skeleton of it worked and set up for the real selling point of the drama which was the relationship between XYE and HWQ.

SET/VISUALS:
This was beautifully done! The fight scenes were so cool, I love how they were choreographed, mad props to any newbies to wuxia (HYT). The costumes were never over-the-top but were still incredibly appealing, and this is definitely a good looking cast! The landscape/background/everything was just very aesthetic and beautiful. Nothing looked fake or cheap.

SPOILERS/THOUGHTS BELOW:

If you watched TPT, they did SuYing dirty as hell lmao and the XiaoXianNü in TPT is basically SuYing in HS. They should've introduced SuYing way earlier to make the connection more legitimate. I also felt like HS!TieXinLan was super useless and I really missed Fan Bingbing's version. Even though she lost her wugong pretty early on, she just had more of a personality and was more relevant to the plot.

I also thought the way YaoYue unraveled at the end wasn't super well done? I dunno, it seemed pretty obvious that XYE would pull the trick he pulled at the end, and it seemed OOC for no one to expect that. Also, why would YaoYue not even check for herself to see if XYE was really dead??

I also didn't like the way the drama ended. I wish the last scene was between the two brothers and not with the respective love interests. Oh well! The build-up to the final fight was still very well done imo, I was in soooo much pain LOL

Last fun fact - they have the same actor in TPT for Du Sha, one of the 十大惡人, in this version! Anyways I'll go back to crying about this drama now, thanks for reading

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One of the priceless dramas I've seen =3

Story: 9/10
Twins - Separated at birth - Raised to kill each other.
Yes, the plot is really captivating. I was attracted by the mentioned three things and I don't regret diving head first into it. So, here's my detailed review:
1 - Basic Story:
If you ask me what the main story is about, I'd say the story of this drama is built on obsession, greed and power. These are the three main things that caused the downfall of our main leads' parents, made our one of the bad villains cause an uproar in the martial arts world and for our lady villain to scheme and lose everything while doing so.
Where as the basic story isn't as powerful as some would like, it was still a good one.
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2- Execution:
One of the things that I loved the most about this drama is the execution of the story. It was so well done for a Chinese drama. Around episodes 14 to 25, I felt it was going downhill and sitting there going through 11 boring episodes is a good test of one's patience level but I' glad that I continued watching it instead of putting it on hold. The story picks up after episode 25 and it's worth binging from there till the end. Like many Chinese dramas, our leads go through one adventure to another before meeting each other. Even though those adventures were silly with pointless issues but somehow I felt as if they were necessary for building up the characters. And later, trust me when I say I was very surprised to see all these pointless story lines combine together for the climax. Every little action and hints here and there meant something BIG by the end. It was really beautifully done.
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3- Characters and their Development:
Unfortunately, this is where the story lost that one point from me. I'm sucker of character developments more than the story and Handsome Siblings fell short in this. Yes, there was some development in Han Yi Tian's character Hua Wuque but it wasn't much. Xiaoyu'er pretty much stayed the same smart ass as he was since the beginning maybe because he didn't need the development like Hua Wuque did. I guess this makes Xiaoyu'er a very unique character. The only thing that he really needed to learn was to trust others and the way he is, I doubt he learned it but I bet he did at the same time. He's the life of the show in my opinion and his camaraderie with other characters is one of the most beautiful things ever. Coming back to the development, there was some on Tie Xinlan's part as well. Her journey of finding herself and her true feelings shaped her character really nicely by the end. As for Su Ying, this precious girl came in so late but she was worth the wait. As for the villains, two of the three villains are tragic villains. I felt bad for them yet I didn't. They were not bad because they WANTED to be like million other villains. Tragic villains make sense and seem more human so, I'd say even the bad characters were nice to some extend.
Overall, the characters are life of the story. They're so beautiful and varying. The love/friendship between Xiaoyu'er and Hua Wuque is the BEST thing ever. Their scenes together are PERFECT and makes you wish for more. Their love and trust regarding each other is PRICELESS.
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4- Ending:
I feel that its really necessary to say something about the ending. I wouldn't have asked for more perfect ending other than what Handsome Siblings delivered. It was so, so perfect. Proper enclosure to every character we'd come across during these 44 episodes. I've rarely felt as satisfied as I felt watching this ending.

Acting/Cast: 9/10
Tbh, it was my first time seeing all these actors. Yes, I haven't seen Yi Tian's work before and Handsome Siblings was where I discovered him. He gave me Lan Wangji vibes. A lot. He's how every insanely good characters are. He's such a cute and precious character throughout and I wondered if that's how Yi Tian is or was this how his character was supposed to be? I guess this is me complimenting his acting! xD
Tbh, more than Han Yi Tian, it was Chen Zhe Yuan who blew me away with his acting. Yes, I felt number of emotions watching his character 'Xiaoyu'er' which is one of the complex characters I've seen. He's hilarious, he's smart (too damn smart), he's a trickster and he's kind and loving at the same time. He makes people laugh, he gets under their skin (a couple of times, he got under mine as well LOL), he gets angry and he loves passionately. He's a lot of things and he's my favorite kind of character and I salute Chen Zhe Yuan for bringing the character to life. This kid is so underrated tbh. I'd love to see more of his work.

Music: 9/10
I rarely love Chinese drama OSTs for they're usually slow for my taste but I loved all 4 (ONLY 4) OSTs of this drama. The background tracks were insanely good (I WISH THEY"D RELEASE THEM OR SOMETHING).

Re-watch Value: 8/10
This drama is safely tucked away in my 'DON'T DELETE STUFF' folder where it'll stay for a long, long time for me to keep going back to it every now and then. With such precious characters and light story line, who wouldn't want to see it every now and then?

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So Incredibly Bad

This is probably one of the worst shows I've ever watched. I love a good costume drama and a good fantasy drama, and this show came highly recommended so I was excited to watch it. Oh boy was I disappointed. There was no plot in this show. It is 44 episodes of waiting for a fight and explaining why there has to be a fight only for the fight to do nothing for the plot. The villains were so ridiculous that they couldn't be taken seriously and the reasons they were villains in the first place were flimsy at best. This is saying a lot because I LOVE a campy show. This was not camp, it was just bad. I had to keep watching until the end thinking "surely the ending must be exciting, right?" Wrong. The fight between brothers was incredibly anti-climatic and the resolution really didn't explain itself well. The random deus ex machina of whatever happened there felt so dumb. The thing that irked me the most about the show was the way it totally negated all of the supposed power of the main female character the moment a man showed up saying he would protect her. They kept saying she was really powerful and skilled and then she proceeded to do NO FIGHTING for the rest of the series, instead showing her shoulder blades as a distraction and fainting a lot???? The love triangle they trapped her in with the main leads PLUS the random introduction of another woman at the end just so the main character didn't "end up alone" was so incredibly contrived. I know Chinese fantasy tends not to be the most kind to female characters, but this all just felt insulting. The only thing I can say for this series is that the actors were giving it their all, I just wish their all would have been spent on a better script. I do not recommend wasting your time on this show. If you want something fun and fantasy, there are tons of other shows to choose from that WON'T make you want to tear your hair out in frustration for lack of progress.

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Am I finally getting into chinese dramas? :o But honestly, Handsome Siblings was amazing. Is it the most perfect, mind-blowing story out there? No, not at all. It's also not the best written drama. But was it super enjoyable and am I glad that I watched it? Hell yes!

The execution of the story was very good and the pace was also quite nice. Of course you have to be patient if you decide to watch it, because what's written in the synopsis happens somewhere in the middle of the drama and that's when the main story starts. But despite this fact, the first half was also very intriguing and fun to watch and I actually liked it more than the second. In the second part of the drama there were some draggy episodes, especially around episode 30-35. That wasn't much of a problem though.

Now, even though the plot was quite nice and the story was very exciting to watch, I think what shines the most in this drama are the characters. Xiao Yuer is perhaps one of the best written characters I've ever encountered during all these three years of watching dramas. He was undeniably very smart, witty, cunning, funny and kind-hearted beautiful man who could decieve literally everyone. His tricks never failed to amaze me. He was just a very good and entertaining character to watch and he made the drama 1000x times better, not gonna lie. He had his bad and good sides, he was far from perfect and that's why we all love him! Hua Wu Que, unlike his twin Yuer, is simply a kind-hearted and naive man who actually fights brilliantly. Being smart, diligent and graceful, Wu Que was very easy character to like (especially with this handsome face). Jiang Yu Lang, though... Omg, I'm speechless, I don't know what to say about him. He was just comical and ridiculous af! Honestly, ever action of him was so stupid, so pathetic that it make me laugh so hard! His epxressions were so on point, I want to congratulate the director for choosing the perfect actor for this role!

The drama has some very interesting females though. Most of the women in it were very bitchy lol, that isn't a bad thing though. I love my girls Zhang Ging and Murong Jiu. Yao Yue, who is the biggest villian in the drama, was also very cool. Of course she was horrible as a character, very pathetic if you ask me BUT I liked her. I think her character was well-written and the actress did a brilliant job portaying such awful human. Su Ying was also a nice character although I didn't really care about her that much.
Tie Xin Lan though... girl, what was the point of your character? Okay, in the first half you had some kind of a story, but after that? She was so bland, so stupid, stubborn for no reason, she was just useless. I don't know, I simply didn't like her.

The acting was pretty good. Chen Zhe Yuan did a PHENOMENAL job portraying Xiao Yuer! He's such a talanted boy and I really hope that he'll get more good roles in the future (bc I'll definitely follow his projects). Hu Yi Tian was fine, slightly wooden at times and not that good at emotional scenes but overall, decent job. Vicky Liang wasn't very good in my opinion though, her acting wasn't convincing at all, quite expressionless but her character was boring so who could blame her? Liang Jie was adorable as Su Ying, she looks so smol tho lol I thought she was a teenager but then I checked her age and realized that she's older that Zhe Yuan... yelp. Of course Zhou Jun Chao was amazing as Yu Lang, I don't think I'll be able to watch him in something else without seeing Jiang Yu Lang in him lol.

The music though!!! 10000/10! 44 episodes and I never skipped the opening or the ending! Such beautiful songs which perfectly suit the atmosphere of the drama. They just made me even more excited lol.

Overall, Handsome Siblings is a very good pick if you want to watch something not too serious but not too light either. Just a simple story with some endearing characters, very strong bromance, light romance and good acting. I also recommend it to people who are just getting into chinese historical dramas, I think this would be the right choice for you because it was for me. I'll miss this amazing show for sure!

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YES BUT NO

Since I have more to say about this drama I will be going with my usual review format.
However since I tend to ramble in my reviews, here is my recommendation for people
just skimming through it :
If you are looking for some cute romance, witty stories and some good laughs then I would say go for it. Its also on netflix, which is a huge plus as no subtitle problem.
However if you are expecting some heart wrenching sibling moments and some quality sibling bonding, yeah then maybe lower those expectations down to like 0.5.

OK now to the positives

1. The characters
Most characters are well developed and even the ones that are not ( as the just appear in like 2/3 episodes) are all
understandable in the actions and well acted.
Let me talk some more about the brothers.
I liked that it showed in their different attitudes in how differently they were raised. But the more free especially one
of the became, it showed that their true characters were quite similar.
Also both girls are different, cute and nice. They also aren't really playing a lot of stereotypes so that is definitely helpful.

2. The romantic interests of the brothers

OK what I really liked about this, is that it was a much more realistic approach to a love triangle ( which I ususally really hate ). In this the girl likes one brother and he also seems intersted. But as the plot goes she spends much more time with the other brother and he falls for her as well.
Later on her feelings slowly change and she starts to fall for the brother she spends time with.
When this is revealed to there other brother, he doesn't throw a fit or wants to seek revenge.
Instead he is understanding and he just shows how mature they both are.

3. The story

Ok here we have some positives to say. It was a fun storyline, with a lot of twists and turns.
It however never dwelled too long on anything and moved at a great pace.
The brothers both have their own struggles and their own mysteries to unveil.
And both grew in character, got to know more people.
Also the whole brothers want to kill each other, was more like to over story which loomed over everything.
It wasn't the focus all the time though, which was great since it could have gotten really boring otherwise.
The small storylines are usually witty and interesting.
Some are a bit overdramatic ( like the wedding couple killing themselves ) but one can't get everything right.

4. The setting was also cool and creative. Super pretty.

Now to the negatives:

1. The romance and how is was portrayed

Ok now one might be confused, since I mentioned romance as a postive before.
The romantic interests for the brother are quite realistic and fun. However the rest of the romance portrayed is very cliche and weird.
Lets talk about our main villains the two sisters. Both in love with the same dude. One gives up like 10 year od her cultivation to save him and then kind of expects him to marry er out of gratitude.
He doesn't, he then runs away with the servant, gets her pregnant and so the sister then both want revenge.
I mean I get it the dude didnt want her, but to use that as a reason for driving both of them to death and still not being satisfied and then having both brothers kill each other, is just a bit too far.
In my language we would say, her reasoning is on thin ice.
Also she then kills her only sister to fulfill this goal of a revenge on a dead men !!! I mean girl.
I though ok she just seems insane, but everyone kind of expected it as logical.

This however isn't the only time such a weird romance plot is used.
It is literally used again with the same women just that she now rejected a dude and cut off his legs ( LIKE JUST WHY ? )
so he decides to also go completely insane, raise a kid ( just because it looks like her as a daughter ) and take revenge on her also like 13 years later.
Like come on.... this is just a weird plot device and it kind of just comes out of left flied.
It also made the villain kind of meh. Like I get it she is evil, but either give her a better reason or just make her evil to the bone. But dont give me such a whimsical reason to justify her crimes.


Their was some side couple romances some really cool but also a but shallowly done. The whole amnesia tool was used which is just not my fav.

2. the parents

Ok so let me get this straight. The parents of these two boys. One is a material arts expert and the other is a servant.
However he can't defeat these 12 people that the villain can defeat in one move. Even though they are from the same school and were supposedly both amazing material artist.
But Ill just take that.
Then they get caught by the two women.
The one sister ( who hadn't spend as much time with the dude ) also makes a love confession to him in front of his wife and two kids. Like who is he, sexiest man alive at the time or something.
The mother of the kids sees no other way to save her husband and children than kill herself to satisfy the desire for revenge of the villains. OK i get it, makes sense. She even does this heart breaking goodbye and touches her kinds hand.
She begs him to beg the villains to spare the kids and him.
And what does this man do, kills himself as well without even spending a second thought on his kids and leaving them exposed. His suicide was so selfish, because he only did it to be with his wife and he didnt care about the kids he was supposed to take care of.
I would have been fine of he put up a fight or stroke a deal. His death and his kids go unharmed. But he doesn't neither.
He also doesn't say goodbye to his kids like his wife did.
I dont know. I really didnt like how they handled his death.

3. plot convenience

This is only a small point. But its like oh no I am stuck in this difficult situation but luckily I just met a man with the exact skill set that would get me out.

4. NOW THE BROTHERHOOD

This is the reason I am not the biggest fan of the drama. I watched this to see some really cute twin bonding and brothers taking on the world.
But they spent most of their time apart and even though they become friends. They never really take on an adventure together. They really skipped on this on.
so when is finals revealed that they are brother they hug and that kind of it.
Even when one thinks he killed his brother, the is no emotional breakdown.
so that was kind of the biggest letdown of the series.
I really wished we had gotten brothers take on the villain together. but that wasn't there case.


All in all good drama but the main point the brotherhood was a complete miss. I won't be rewatching it, but i think if one goes in not expecting a big brotherhood then it will be a great drama.

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I am really amazed how good this is. A lot of remakes of gulong or jinyong’s works are either unimpressive, boring, predictable, or out right horrible ( especially the endings). I wasn’t going to watch this version because I didn’t like the 2005 version (which includes a bit of court politics and had a horribly contrived ending), but I caught my mom watching it and something about Xiao yuer drew me in. He’s incredibly enjoyable to watch, like able, light hearted, bright, funny, and kind. His character pretty much drives the whole plot and the mood of the story. Before I disliked the handsome siblings story not knowing the 2005 version deviates a lot from the original story. I found out this version is actually true to the original novel and it changes my opinion of gu long’s works. The story would have been pretty original if I didn’t know of it before. Maybe I should be glad that I watched the 2005 version because it made watching this version 10x more enjoyable and unpredictable.

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Why does it get 8.2 in MDL?

This drama has the crappiest script in Chinese drama. Too many holes, questions and the downright impossible. I persevered because HYT looks good in Yihua Palace garb and WHQ fights beautifully, although his expression in this drama is a bit wooden, I must say. Acting-wise CZY stole the show. He somehow portrays just the right amount of everything. Many of the supporting actors were goodlooking, so that's like a redeeming quality, which helps me when the script was particularly hard to bear. There were NO interesting women in this drama, except for Master Yaoyue. She's beautiful and splendidly portrays the master of Yihua Palace. Chemistry between the couples is almost non-existent

I honestly cannot understand why in MDL the drama has quite a nice rating with all the shortcomings, yet very little redeeming quality.

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Real Wuxia Story Like the Old Days

I’m a wuxia novel fan, and Gu Long was one of my earlier favorite authors during my growing up years. However, I’ve not read this particular novel, Juedai Shuangjiao (Legendary Twins) which is supposed to be a great novel that has been adapted in this drama. When I stumbled across this drama, I was ecstatic because I recognized Hu Yitian and has wanted to watch his new dramas.

For the first few episodes, I was disappointed with the quality of the drama. I was not only disappointed with the acting and the overall plot, I found it hard to understand the logic of the characters. Everyone seemed stupid and gullible. The heroes could easily give up their own lives for some very trivial and unreal reasons. They could also fall into the tricks of the same villains over and over again. Everything was noisy with obnoxious and over exaggerated characters. I was stuck at episode 8 and found myself unable to move on.

I couldn’t understand the high rating on MDL; I thought I must be missing something. So I returned to the series and continued. As I began watching it with a mindset of simple logic, and seeing the impossibilities as possibilities, I began to follow the mood and flow of the story, and in fact rather enjoyed it till the end.

The story is a typical story from Gu Long’s novel - a whole maze of characters that can be confusing and hard to remember, the heroes always get the shorter ends whereas the villains triumph (initially), all the pretty girls tend to fall in love at first sight with the protagonist. Admittedly, the drama is tropey and the consequences are as expected. Nonetheless, embracing its shortcomings, I found the drama rather entertaining after I got passed the first 10 episodes.

This is a story of two twin brothers separated at birth, their parents murdered. One twin is adopted by the killers and the other is raised by a group of villains. 18 years later, the brothers meet and are told to kill each other for no reasons provided. The story revolves around the two brothers who go through all the adventures together and separately, and eventually learn about their own story and meet the loves of their lives.

The twins have totally opposite characteristics: one is dull and righteous (played by Hu Yitian), whereas the other street smart, jovial, bombastic and mischievous (played by Chen Zhi Yuan). It is hard to assess Hu Yitian’s acting because the character he plays is quiet with little emotion (he’s been brought up with not much affection). On the other hand, I really enjoy Chen Zhi Yuan’s acting, which is cute, funny and natural. Chen Zhi Yuan has a young boyish face which really helps in his portrayal of Xiao Yu’er (little fish) that brings out his playfulness.

To my surprise, the official sound tracks are very nice. They are composed with an air of authentic Chinese wuxia tunes; the music is soothing and the lyrics are moving.

Overall, I can’t say I love this drama. But to be fair, it is an interesting drama that deals deep into the relationship of a pair of separated brothers, and in the end the righteous wins over the evil.

If you’re a wuxia or Gu Long fan, you may thoroughly enjoy this drama. If you’re not so familiar with the author and his work, you may find it overwhelming and unrealistic. All in all, this is not as bad as I have originally thought. In fact, I have enjoyed the sword fighting and qinggong (wire fu) scenes pretty well.

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This is one of the best Chinese historical drama 2020.both of main actors are really good. I decided to watch this drama because of hu Yu tian.but after finished i decided to write this comment because of Chen zhe yuan.I never expected Chen zhe yuan will be this much good.this is my first drama from him.he is really funny and adorable.this drama never became to boring any second because of him.
Some of fight scenes were best I have ever seen in historical dramas.story also not bad.drama ending also satisfying and it is happy ending.first I thought this drama may not interesting because, some of bad reviews.i don’t know why many of viewers given low ratings for this drama.this drama is must watch.Not a time wasting.I’m so much loved to this drama Beginning to end.

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I went into this drama blind, having no familiarity with either the original novel or any of the prior TV series. Based on the title and the blurb, I had the impression that this would be about two brothers who are separated at birth and raised under different circumstances. And that's pretty much what happened!

Handsome Siblings features two brothers separated at birth after the untimely murder of their parents. One brother is raised by a group of chaotic neutral villains while the other raised in one of the premiere sects, the Shifting Flower Palace, unknowingly by the same people who killed their parents. Through various plots, contrivances, and coincidences, the two siblings are driven into conflict with one another.

Regarding plot, the drama is overall quite predictable other then a few twists that popped out of nowhere. The general trajectory of the plot unfolds about as one would imagine. Unlike some dramas which feature interlinking small stories to give payoff at a steady rate, this drama went with the single large overarching plot route. This led to some annoyance during the drama when all the villains continually escape consequences but it eventually wraps up neatly and with satisfying emotional payoff. However, I would recommend not thinking about this plot too much as the whole thing is built on a rickety foundation of unlikely coincidences where major characters meet each other at precisely the correct times, out of blind luck. The plot is also chock full of wuxia tropes, with murdered fathers, falling into ravines, nefarious plots, secret underground palaces, ancient powerful kungfu manuals, and quirky characters aplenty. If you suspend your disbelief however, it works fairly well.

The characters are generally likeable although many characters are fairly flat and archetypal. The acting is overall reasonable but there is some overacting as again, many of the characters are archetypes who only have one or two defining traits so they play up those traits. The two male leads are both decent, with Yu'er especially becoming much more likeable as the story goes along. Hua Wu Que is fairly wooden but that's also how his characters is written and he does a good job of letting his emotions just barely peek through. The female lead (Tie Xin Lan), unfortunately, is also very wooden and is oddly vaguely characterized but the secondary female lead (Su Ying) is likeable and well-portrayed. The side characters, both antagonistic and side kicks, are all well-portrayed.

Production values are reasonable as well. The cast is fairly small with limited extras but this is a wuxia piece and not a historical piece so it's not terribly distracting. Sets and costumes look good. Music is forgettable but not bad.

Overall, I had a fun time with this drama. If you're looking for a "great" drama maybe this won't be it--a lot of the plot and characterization is a bit simple, tropey, and contrived. But if you just want to be entertained by likeable characters doing fun things, give it a try.

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