I was contemplating if I should write a review or not but after several weeks of having nothing else in my life except for this drama, I decided I need some form of closure. I haven’t read the novel and only seen the first episode of the anime before I watched The Untamed, so this review is from my own opinion about the drama.

Production:
First thing first, let just put it out there that this is consider a financially “poor” drama. From what I heard, the cost to produce this drama was relatively low. That becomes apparent throughout the show with bad camera lightening and poorly done fight scenes. If you are coming into this drama expecting perfection, then I would say to not even give it a try. With that being said, I do believe that if the funding for this drama was higher and that it was better constructed, it could potentially be THE drama that goes down in history of C-drama.

Story:
I came to the conclusion that this drama isn’t aiming to tell an amazingly unique story or to test the intelligence of the viewer by any means. It is a typical wuxia, but instead of focusing on the story, it focuses primarily on its characters and how each event that occurred affects the characters and how they grow as the story progresses. The show seem to have a very clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses and doesn’t try to be something that it’s not.

Characters/Actors:
Now, the gem of The Untamed is hand down it’s incredible group of characters. At first glance, the characters might just be your basic everyday wuxia characters that you can find in almost any novel. The amazing part of this show is that the characters are put into these situations that truthy determine who they are as a person base on the decision they make. While you may not agree with every one of their actions, at the end of the day you can still come to sympathize with them. Seriously, this show even explained to you the reasons why characters I believe to be “NPCs” behaved such a way they did. An unexpected life-lesson this drama has taught me.

Wei Wuxian, our protagonist yet the “villain” of the story, come off as those happy-going, carefree kind of character while Lan Wangj is the silent, stoic type that must only wear white. At least that is how it is expected to be, but no, they are definitely much more than that. I generally favor character like Wei Wuxian but they can potentially hit the danger zone of being too annoying or foolish. Wei Wuxian not only have the perfect balance of that character but also have that slight hit of innocence that make him so relatable and so humane yet is hated by the world. You see these scenarios all the time, but in The Untamed and the world that it has created it become convincing that such things happened the way it did. Xiao Zhan portrayal of Wei Wuxian is so on point that with even the tiniest facial movement you can see the life and fresh of the character. After this, I honestly cannot see another Wei Wuxian beside him.

For such a young age, Yibo did exceptionally well in his role as Lan Wangji. You can see the pain and longing he has every time he looks at Wei Wuxian. Romantic feeling or not, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are truly soulmate, and Xiao Zhan and Yibo are the perfect match with each other.

Conclusion:
Lastly, this drama isn’t for everyone; if there ever exist such a thing. Unlike a lot of people, I didn’t watch this drama because of the BL. And I believe that it is a lot more than just that. I grow and learn with the characters, and a part of me definitely has changed from this experience. Not just the two main leads, but all the side characters are so great that they deserve to be leads of their own show. 50 episodes might be enough to tell the story of The Untamed but give me another 10 episodes of our favorite gang just staring at each other with Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji not-so-subtle flirting and I wouldn’t even complain. If you’re still not convince, here’s more text for you to read (Note: the article isn’t written by me). https://www.soompi.com/article/1347833wpp/8-reasons-to-watch-c-drama-the-untamed-a-study-in-how-to-rip-your-heart-to-shreds-and-mend-it-again

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