I usually distance myself from any wuxia drama which is not any of Jin Yong’s adaptations. No reason in particular, it’s just I cannot imagine there’s a good wuxia drama with exciting jianghu conflicts and a complicated love story and revenge usually resulted from it. Moreover, there are not many wuxia dramas (good or not) in this xianxia era so I’ve generally been stuck to historical/palace/mystery/crime/political genres. And to be honest, I was just planning to watch Dear Mayang Street (merely because I’m a fan of Xu Weizhou) but I‘ve never seen Tan Songyun in any drama before (I don’t watch Go Ahead, sorry! >_<) so I thought I’d just watch this drama to get a glimpse of her acting.

And here I am now, a month later, crazy over it. And falling so hard for Ren Jialun, too.

One particular factor that made me choose this drama over any other of Tan Songyun’s to try is the theme and the background setting. Yes, it’s about jinyiwei―those (in)famous Imperial Guards of China’s Ming Dynasty. Brotherhood of Blades I & II are my favorite Chinese wuxia movies and this drama is set in the same dynasty with the same jinyiwei background and pretty much the same vibe (even the same style of directing and fighting choreography, if you ask me). So the first time I dived into it I was already hooked up, though the two main leads really provided me with so much laughter. But honestly, the thing that I initially thought was sort of weird about it was its soundtracks. Zhou Shen’s opening song and Heart Wall sang by Ren Jialun himself got me thinking, “why so sad? it’s a mystery wuxia drama, anyway.” But of course, this drama is NOT really about mystery, if you just put aside the female lead’s family background.

It indeed starts with a mystery, though, where the Palace loses an important beachline defense map and the Imperial Guards are investigating it (oh, I so LOVE the opening scene where Lu Yi is doing his job so ruthlessly, and that’s when I fell in love with RJL’s acting at the first sight! >_<). But then the one instigating the theft is reported dead at his home, so the Imperial Police Department takes the case. This is when Lu Yi and our female lead Yuan Jinxia meet for the first time and, of course, do not have good opinions about each other. But then the two (different) security departments under the Emperor have to work together to solve the case, which brings them to even bigger and more mysterious and treacherous cases leading up to the political conspiracy of the higher-ups.

I really, really thought it’s a mystery wuxia drama until later on I realized that there is so much romance and where the entire narrative leads us. But even then I wasn’t sure if I should call it a romance wuxia drama or something, because even if it’s all about Lu Yi and Yuan Jinxia gradually realizing and revealing their feelings for each other and blatantly caring for each other in front of others (poor Cen Fu! :DDD), I sensed that romance is not what this drama is about. And it is proven once we get into what Yan Shifan is doing in Hangzhou―Lu Yi-Jinxia’s romance is all what we see on screen, yes, but deep under the surface it’s about corruption and court politics and rotten officials and revenge and all that. And their love story is entangled in this huge mess, and that’s what makes this drama so much interesting to me.

Truth to be told, the court political conflict here is actually so much more complicated and engrossing than that in Nirvana in Fire. The problem is it’s not as well-written, and pretty badly directed, and very badly edited that sometimes I had to pause and thought, “oh, wait...” because I felt that some parts of certain scenes were missing. But thankfully, the acting of almost the entire cast is just amazing. I already know what Ren Jialun actually is like as a person after watching Back to Field S4 (once again, I watched that show for Xu Weizhou―who was a guest in two eps―but he was there, too, with Tan Songyun), but I’ve never seen his acting before. And that opening scene when Lu Yi is torturing the prisoner has truly caught my heart. I remember being shocked and thinking, “oh, WOW! Ren Jialun!”, because when you can be a very different person on screen and in real life, then you are a good actor. That’s it.

And of course I have to applaud Tan Songyun’s performance. We all know there are just so many dramas with cross-dressing female characters recently, but I can say that TSY is the only actress who can do it really, really well. You want a tomboyish girl, she gives you a tomboyish girl. Almost no make-up, absolutely no pretence, just naturally doing what she needs to do. And, oh yes, please don’t forget about Ye Qing. Her character is not exceptional, but her acting is really good. And even the actress who plays Zhai Lanye has done a very good job! Love her :).

And now, can we talk about Yan Shifan? Yes? Okay. We all know he’s the main villain in this drama, surely nothing good can be said about him. A corrupt official? Yes. A cunning politician? Yes. A man with a BDSM sexual preference? Yes. BUT, he only loves one woman in his entire life. This side of him, I think, is very interesting. It makes him more human than what we can see from the outside. And Han Dong does his character very, very, very well. I just LOVE his acting as Yan Shifan. It makes him very eccentric, makes the audience “oh I hate you so much but you are so charismatic just how can I deal with this?!” And his triangle love story with Zhai Lanye and Lin Ling is so much more engaging than that moronic, cliche, annoying one between Lu Yi-Jinxia-Xie Xiao. No joke, really.

I just wish this drama could be better made: better written, better directed, better edited, with better CGI and overall setting (coz seriously, one fake house for almost ALL the officials’ family home setting? one place for both the Imperial Guards Office and Wu Shuoxu’s residence?). And I surely wish they didn’t end the story that way. I mean, it’s not rushed (or, too rushed), it’s just a little bit awkward. Why don’t they show it when Lu Yi confronts the Emperor about the Xia family’s case―the way Mei Changsu confronts the Emperor (played by the same actor, by the way) to clear his family’s name, I mean, that’s pretty much the same thing, right?―and only having Yang Yue tell Jinxia about it in the middle of the street? WHY? And some time after that, the Emperor just pardons everyone like nothing really happens -___-

All in all, however, it’s still a pretty good drama with good premise and good acting and I enjoyed it very very much. It really is a pleasant surprise for me.