I had a hole in the shape of ‘Word of Honor’ after finishing this drama. Not long before finishing this, I finished reading the original novel this drama was adapted from, ‘Faraway Wanderers’, and that was a very enjoyable read. The drama was… I don’t know if I have a word for it other than amazing. Super happy to see the drama embracing it as a BL instead of a BL adaptation disguised as “Bromance”, and the result was amazing. I think this is the first time I watched a drama while it was still airing (well, the English sub anyway).

At first, I started watching it because of its genre (Wuxia), but soon I was basically sucked into its love story. It was beyond my expectation to be honest, because I often got irked by the romance in a lot of dramas, and though this drama still has some of that extended shots of stares (thankfully there was no calling each other’s name millions of times for no reason), it felt natural. Also, knowing that this is a BL adaptation, I didn’t expect to see any sort of romance between the leads, as they often would have bromance instead (though after ‘The Untamed’, I admit I’d expect to see some subtle romance). Then in the first few episodes I remember being so surprised at how openly and blatantly Wen Kexing flirts with Zhou Zishu (seriously, Wen Kexing brought a whole new level of flirting with his poetry and fan). Though the story is a bit different than the original novel, they stayed true to its essence. That loyalty and devotion to each other are at the forefront of it. They’re willing to die for each other, they vowed to live and die together, and they bicker like an old married couple (poor Chengling for being a third wheel, and got confused earlier on when the two of them would teach him different things then argue about it, thus hindering Chengling’s martial arts progress).

In general I like the progression of the relationships, as I feel that it was on a good paced. However, I’m not a big fan on the ending (even with the epilogue episode) as I felt it a little rushed (and I thought it fell a little flat), and was also unsatisfactory in some parts (Scorpion’s fate, for example). I felt that the drama could be a bit longer to close things off properly and explain things further, especially since they’ve changed quite a lot of things in the drama from the original material anyway (the novel was quite short).

There was no shixiong/shidi relationship between Zhou Zishou and Wen Kexing in the novel, but I thought the addition of this in the drama was very well done. I often feel that we can't seem to have an epic love story without childhood connection and sometimes it feels forced and I was a bit worried about this too in this drama, but in the end I think it gives Wen Kexing ties to the human world and deeper connection to Zhou Zishu.

There are other things I'm annoyed with but those are the things that almost always comes with cdramas - the audio, the jumping over the 180 line with no reasons, etc. The underwater scenes were... let's just say I wished they didn't do them on wires and actually shoot underwater, because it wasn't very well done, and you can see a very jarring difference between the shots that was done on wire with the ones actually done underwater. I was also a bit irked by a lot of things in the fight scenes, there were a lot of close ups and slow mo and twirling that didn't really add anything.

That being said, I felt satisfied after watching this. Definitely give it a watch… and bring tissues, and maybe ice cream to soothe your emotional heart.