Chinese Hero Zhao Zi Long (2016)

The story is focused on Zhao Yun life. It tell about everything about him his family background, personality, ambition, adventure, skill and love-life. Don't expect the story will tell the whole story of Romance of the three kingdoms, because it won't...It just highlighting some parts where are important in Zhao Yun life (with a bit comedic added and little story adjustment).

Overall the story is good although sometimes I wonder...they didn't grow old at all :D The actors/actress acted very well, and some of them like Lin Geng Xin, Collin Chou, Jia Qing, Godfrey Gao, and Guo Dong Dong are outstanding. The main lead Yoona act very good as well regarding this is her 1st Chinese movies, but her playing character is not so well developed (in my opinion), and for me Kim Jeong Hoon who play the opposite character of Zhao Yun is a bit flat...even too flat for his character who always cover his true attention or feeling.
Music is very good as well, the BGM really fit with the scene and the OST is so nice :)

I really appreciate people who did the editing because I know it take so much time and energy for this 60 eps story and also for the costume, they look great and match the characters very well. However I think some detail in editing and costume could be better. Well, as we know for 1 scene they could shoot separately but the consistency about costume and hair style sometimes didn't fit. Questions like "Why even he/she bother to change the outfit in the middle of emergency situation like war?" or "How that's possible! Isn't he/she has dead?' sometimes raise in my mind. The background are obviously different in some scene too so you certainly know they didn't shoot on the spot.

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Deserves a better rating here.

I searched for Kenny Lin's dramas after watching him in Detective Dee and Princess Agent and found this. Generally, I do not watch dramas with ratings less than 8 on mydramalist. However, I decided to make an exception and did not regret it.

The story is interesting with many moments of suspense. Acting was great from a mix cast of Chinese and Korean actors/actresses. The male co-lead was a Korean actor and so was the female lead actress. I did not know this until I checked on the cast. Good looking actors and actresses, fighting and battle scenes for the testosterone driven and excellent stage setting. Excellent chemistry between the lead actor and actress helped brought out the romance in the story. The pace of the story was good without much draggy scenes.

There are some refinement which could have made this drama more appealing. Effects of the costumes were mixed - Lu Bu and Gao Ze were quite badly dressed - they looked like badly wrapped rice dumplings. That was a pity as both actors were very handsome. Also, somehow Kenny Lin would suddenly appear in this gorgeous white armour - he looked dashing of course, but where did the gorgeous suit came from given he was not financially well off at that time? Should have added a brief scene where the princess or someone gave it to him.

Characters are quite extreme - either very impetuous or very docile/reserved. The 2 lead female characters were wilful and impetuous.

Much of the later part of the drama was centred around the formation of the 3 kingdoms, the story from then on became predictable as story of the 3 kingdoms are well known among the older viewers like me.

A rating of 7.4 is really low for this drama and unwarranted. It should be among the 8.5 - 9 ratings if some lousy dramas could get a 7.9.

Regardless of these minor setbacks, the drama is enjoyable.

Titles often determine whether a viewer might watch the drama. I think the English title here is too plain - better be simply Zhao Zi Long or General Zhao Zi Long rather than Chinese Hero Zhao Zi Long.

If you are watching this on YouTube, there are two sets of videos on this drama. I prefer the one from YoYo starting at: https://youtu.be/w8ESJm5bbBI - first episode. The other is from China Zone - this is annoying with sections of the drama clumsily trimmed off.

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