I am writing this review in an attempt to relieve my post-TLB hangover...I refuse to believe that it's actually over.

So,,,I came to The Long Balland "blind" I'd never watched a historical c-drama, have no idea (still) what wuxia and that other one (is it xianxia??) is, have a sketchy background on the Tang Dynasty, totally unfamiliar with the cast and well, just generally prepared to inducted into this brand new world by the cast of TLB and boy was happy about that fact. TLB just built up and then smashed my conceptualization of what this genre can offer.

Okay, let's talk about Changge....first time I have watched a Female Lead character whose baddassery is not watered down by romance....first time a FL has a line saying, "Okay I am going to go save my man" and then proceeds to do just that!!! I was so excited about the beautiful depiction of Li Changge as the woman we all are. I mean we had real character development, we watched her cry and plot revenge, feed her anger with grief, then make mistakes and then grow up and face her fears and her beliefs and then come full circle and see the futility of her revenge mission. I loved especially that she could see the folly of taking the wrong path in the life of another wounded and vengeful woman (and then helped us the audience understand the writer's overarching message). Li Changge was never portrayed as the woman with everything, in fact, we saw so many of her faults that we could truly appreciate her strength and therefore the power and charm she had over those who loved her and trusted her and chose to follow her.

Now, enter Ashile Sun....wuuuuwi. Helluuuuurrrr! Somebody give that guy a medal. Do you know I was a third-way through the drama when I finally googled Wu Lei and learnt he's 21?! Whaaaat?! It was all in the eyes! And together, Changge and Sun had some blazing chemistry. I loved that he stepped in not to reign her in but to be a part of her life. The slow burn was a bitter-sweet torment to watch. The lack of pretensions was just a breath of fresh air as well.

And then the second lead couple...I fell hard for HanYan...just wow! So cute!

This was not a flawless drama. While there were was some epic production feats., the fact remains that the battle scenes were an anti-climax. I appreciate the artistic use of manhua comic scenes to translate what could have been a mass production to scale a depiction of war scenes from that era but...uhm...its a let-down to have suspense building towards a royal battle and then have no proper imagery to support it. Some CGI scenes were also just awful.

All that said TLB is one to watch and definitely deserving of the hype.