Dashed story.

This is a review mostly for me to remember why I dropped this drama, plus some frustrations.

So this is meant to be the prequel to The Blood of Youth, which I watched a couple years ago when it came out, and which I enjoyed quite a bit, mostly on account of Li Hongyi. That said, while it was enjoyable watching the stories of the forebears of the leads on TBoY being told and connecting characters to their older versions in TBoY, I wish this had been its own standalone story that could have gone its own way without being bound to a foregone conclusion.

I thought this drama started off well, and Baili Dongjun is your typical dashing youth with his whole life ahead of him, which is how pretty much, and as are, all the male characters in this story start. I was also very fond of his first master GC, and I thought the first part of the story was very moving, and the first half of the drama went as you would imagine a wuxia about youth to go. I did however note the very noticeable swapping out of BLDJ's 'first mate', if you will - we first meet Sikong Changfeng by his side, who then very conspicuously gets swapped out at intervals when BLDJ re-encounters Ye Dingzhi, and vice versa - if SKCG is by his side, then YDZ isn't. Or if YDZ is around, then SKCF comes back in. The only time both SKCF and YDZ are around at the same time is very briefly when YDZ returns to Tianqi in an attempt to save his bride, at least up until where I stopped in the drama.

While I understand that BLDJ and YDZ are meant to be foils of each other in terms of how their character progression goes based on what happens to them in the story, I found that the telling and execution of the story was just plain frustrating. A story that goes how it does because of daft reasons, or what feels like stupidity because of poor execution, is rarely satisfying.

So I got to episode 25 and that was where it became clear that they were just doing YDZ dirty because that was the way it had to go, pretty much; or that was how it felt like to me. I am aware that this is based on the novel of which this drama is an adaptation, and that we are somehow supposed to get to the events of TBoY as they stand there.

This is where, for me, I wish that this had been a triumphant story with YDZ as the lead of a completely different drama and story, where he gets to be the hero of it. I understand that this is my own personal bias and that of course the story isn't written specifically for me, but effectively this is a story about injustice that is perpetrated, as it stands. And I don't really find that compelling at all; in fact, it's depressing.

BLDJ and YDZ are best friends since childhood, who grew up together. BLDJ is shown to be politically aware - he says to his first master in early episodes that he knows that his grandfather spoils him for a reason, which is that the more his reputation is that of a flamboyant good-for-nothing playboy, being the grandson of the Marquis of Zhenxi, the more the emperor can be at ease. He then announces that he chooses to give this up because he has met people from jianghu who have shown him that you can be a dashing youth of the jianghu doing things of meaning and weight, but also because he has decided to take on the mantle of becoming the Sword Deity - on behalf of his childhood best friend whose whole family was executed on an imperial edict which everyone seems to know was simply an unjust excuse - as well as becoming a Liquor Deity, which was his promise with said childhood best friend; that BLDJ would become the Liquor Deity while his friend the Sword Deity.

This is the part where it becomes abundantly clear that this drama does not know quite what it wants to be, and/or just doesn't blend the political side of things with the wuxia/jianghu side of things well, if at all. The politics side of things is always present, but feels conspicuously separate somehow from the jianghu/wuxia side of things.

Even though it's clear that BLDJ cares for his friend very much, and even though it is also clear that he does not want to partake in politics, not once does BLDJ - nor anyone really, for that matter - seem to really express how unjust the execution of his friend's whole family was and is; nor to try to do anything about that. For a drama about - oh, I don't know - the bonds of friendship, that seems odd, to say the least. It's not that I don't get that BLDJ is a carefree character, nor that that is the spirit of jianghu. It's that it just really seems to reinforce just how divorced the political side of things is from the wuxia aspect.

YDZ, while wanting to cleanse the wrongs heaped upon his family, does not seem to do much about it either himself. He follows his shifu around learning martial arts and when we first meet him in the drama, has been travelling around by himself anyway away from his shifu for what sounds like quite some time. He even tells his childhood promised bride about his travels around the world, and it's made clear during the Academy initial examination that he lived in the north for several years during his travels. What are his moves towards trying to right the wrong accusation against his family? We don't see any of that. No political machinations, nothing. When he meets Prince Qing, nothing comes of that either. The arrest warrant for him throughout Beili does absolutely nothing as well to deter him from moving around within the country freely when he returns from Nanjue to try to stop the wedding between his childhood promised bride and someone else apparently, as all we see is him arriving without even a hat on to meet the person receiving him. Even when he meets Xiao Ruofeng, ninth prince of Beili, no emotional turmoil or anything is shown at being in such close proximity to someone of the imperial family who executed his own whatsoever.

So, despite this grievous injustice, BLDJ does not even offer to help right this wrong after finding out his childhood best friend is still alive. There is no mention of this thought even up until over halfway into the story. While I understand that their childhood agreement was to each become the Liquor and Sword Deity respectively and to wander jianghu making a name for themselves, this was before the execution of his best friend's entire family, including said best friend himself.

Then we come to the part where, for some reason, YDZ does not mention to BLDJ that he has re-encountered their other childhood friend Yi Wenjun, who is his promised bride - even though they all know each other. Somehow this never comes up at all. Nor does YDZ ask BLDJ for his help in helping her escape from her cage. ????????????? I thought these three were supposed to have been very good friends in their childhood. While they said that there was a forged letter telling BLDJ that YWJ had gone travelling some years ago thus why he has not been able to be in contact with her, I don't really understand why YDZ would never have mentioned meeting her again to BLDJ??? What is that???

The day of the wedding comes and the plan to save YWJ fails. She is about to kill herself and then XRF says to her that YDZ will be kept safe after she hears him crying out in anguish. She then says let's continue the rites. I've seen people commenting that this was to keep him safe and that this was a veiled threat by XRF implying that YDZ is in their hands, which, fair enough on the latter.

I stopped watching at this point because it's pretty clear that what happens to YWJ next can only be [TW/CW: rape and sexual assault] is rape. She's clearly not willing to marry Xiao Ruojin but this is where things are now.

Having gotten this far it wasn't a big guess as to the rest of the story and I've read the comments in the discussion about how everything is YWJ's fault and that she is a horrible terrible character who makes horrendous mistakes and is annoying etc. While I haven't watched the rest of the story, and while I don't doubt that there are terrible mistakes made on her part later on and can't refute if she does become a horribly annoying and frustrating character, what I don't understand is how this is more her fault than the imperial family and her father's fault for using her as a pawn and forcing a woman into a marriage.

So a) the emperor kills his sworn brother General Ye and his entire family, the Ye clan, including YDZ; b) YWJ catches the eye of XRJ, son of the emperor, and the emperor, knowing full well the implications of XRJ taking YWJ as a consort, appoints the marriage; c) YWJ is forced to become XRJ's side consort - not even the main consort at first, and later even only then the 'co-main consort', and which marriage means and almost certainly - and later on definitely, based on the comments [TW/CW again for mention of rape and sexual assault] - involves rape, and also being drugged for it, no less.

But somehow this is all YWJ's fault because she, after all of this happens, makes some very poor decisions.

To me, this is a story about how everyone fails YDZ and YWJ. I cannot see how this can be an enjoyable story at all. I mean, does BLDJ stand on YDZ's side? Sure. But does he do enough from the get-go to even ask after what's going on for YDZ? Hmmmmm.

If this story is supposed to be about the parallels between BLDJ and YDZ, then it seems clear that YDZ suffers what he does simply to accomplish this; because it is necessary for him to meet the extermination of his whole family and to lose everything simply so that he goes down a different path than BLDJ. The reasons are articulated rudimentarily - because the emperor was afraid and suspicious (as usual), and then because a prince liked the look of a girl - but never fleshed out with weight through being shown in the story, or at least not in anything up to episode 25 anyway; I can't say if this doesn't get shown later. Up to episode 25, XRJ and YWJ are never even in the same scene - even in the marriage rites scenes, they hardly even seem to be in the same frame. Up until that point, there isn't even a scene of XRJ seeing YWJ for the first time and falling in love with her or anything. The emperor sent down the edict to execute his sworn brother's whole family because he decided to, there was no show of his fears or considerations up to that point in the drama either. YDZ seems to be a tragic character solely because he has to be, because he was designed to be - because he was written this way.

It seems to me that this is more a story about how everyone chooses this mirage of jianghu and 'the carefreeness of youth' over doing the right thing. I found myself wishing that this had been Nirvana in Fire instead, and YDZ could get his family name cleared and to spend time with YWJ re-connecting again.

Instead, they dashed the story and wrote A -> B -> C. This was not compelling for me, and frankly there was no sense of what they were trying to accomplish in the story. The repeated emphasis and insertion of 'youth' at every turn was also incredibly irritating to me.

This drama treaded solely on superficiality for me, like the CGI used in it, empty hollow clouds conjured up of digitalisation and pixels instead of getting down to any substance and the meatiness of either a well fleshed-out story or fighting scenes. Like the many 'dashing youths' or the Eight Young Masters of Beili, there were many fleeting clouds who were there to look nice and do effectively nothing, ornamentally pretty but only serving to dilute and obscure the lack of a substantial story and weight. Many veils blowing in the wind that occasionally blew open enough to see that there was little there to really admire, much like Master Liu Yue or his way of entering with much pomp but little actual fighting; or Lei Mengsha - talk a lot, most of it nonsense.

The acting was alright and probably the strongest point for me, the music was fine; I cried at multiple times at certain things. Some of it was moving, and a lot of it pretty, but most of it was air. Rewatch value is relatively low for me because I doubt I would come back to this. I am being generous with the acting/cast aspect because Li Hongyi's cameo was a little high point and because I was fond of BLDJ and YDZ's shifus, and the overall rating is also thus bumped up in part. It's a shame because it was very enjoyable at the start, and I would have liked to continue watching this if not for the abysmal L of the story.

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