A refreshing watch

Word of Honor is a breath of fresh air within the highly saturated Chinese drama market. I can finally watch a drama where most of the cast's intelligence is intact, and most of the plot makes sense. A lot of people think that the first few episodes are boring. I beg to disagree. The 1st episode is extremely important to the plot as a whole; if you skip the 1st episode, you might not be able to understand the story. If you are expecting a highly grandiose story or plotline, then I don't think this is for you. The Wuxia elements and storytelling is average, but it makes sense. I have watched many Chinese dramas, and you would be surprised at how many of them fail to even tell a basic story. I was actually surprised at how many details and foreshadowing the screenwriter put into the dialogues when watching it for a second time. The characters' interactions are also interesting, and the growth/change is very clear. The side characters have their purpose and all of them have interesting plotlines.

Honestly, this drama is nothing extraordinary compared to the hundreds of other dramas in mydramalist. Still, it stands out within the Chinese drama market because of its complete storyline, good acting, and just the overall dedication to the drama. When the market is saturated with terrible plotlines, terrible actors, and thoughtless production crews, SHL's staff and production crew surprised me at how far they were willing to go for the audiences. They re-edited scenes in different episodes due to fans' requests, and they got the voice actor to redub episode 14. They edited out an ost and then re-edited it in again for the fans. They did their very best with a 4.3 million budget, the lowest BL budget this year. They actually had to cut out 9 episodes by the end because they ran out of funds. The ending after ep 30 was rushed and the plot started going off the rails during ep 31-32. Was a pity? Yes. Could they have done better? Yes. But I was not angry at the outcome of this drama. Overall, this was a drama that has exceeded my expectations.

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