Legend of Fei (2020)

A nicely paced martial arts coming of age drama that kept my interest from start to sensible finish.

After 9 pages of reviews, I don't know why I feel the need to add my two cents except that I've watched a LOT of this genre and Legend of Fei was a such a pleasant surprise after the numerous disappointing storylines that have been served up lately. The plot was dished out one course at a time, not too rushed and not to draggy, with each resolution leading logically to the next mystery. There were no awful censor edits making it disjointed, the ending wasn't stupid or needlessly tragic, and it wasn't a cliffhanger (another fave of late).

Sure, the kids start off whiny and immature, but they grow over the course of their adventures (although Li Yan remains annoying to the end). The main romance grows organically, which takes time, but their mutual admiration and eventual interdependence portray a love that feels really deep and beautiful, even without a lot of skinship. And Wang Yibo's acting was really good. I enjoyed the playful character he created, but he had some nuanced fear and anguish that came off really well too. The secondary characters were more comic-booky, except for Li Sheng, but I liked spending time with them on their quests (except for Li Yan).

So if you're looking for an enjoyable, comfortably paced adventure and enjoy this genre, you should give it a try. Oh, and the music is very good too!

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Zhao Li Ying maravilhosa!

Zhao Li Ying em seu papel é perfeita.
Este é seu drama de retorno após a licença maternidade,
contracenando com um ator mais jovem, de grande talento.

E sim, pela nota fica visível que o drama não me agradou tanto quanto esperava.
Talvez pela minha expectativa ser alta e não ter se comprido.

Vamos ao que realmente importa, esse é um daqueles drama com muitos episódios.
É uma boa escolha para aquelas que gostam desse gênero ou gostem dos atores principal.
Mas não espere uma grande química entre o casal principal. Você não deve esperar por isso.

Posso dizer que a historia é aceitável, mas ela não me prendeu o suficiente, em vários momentos perdi o interesse.
Souberam aproveitar alguns bons momentos, então sim a trama tem seus pontos altos.
Ao menos três episódios são memoráveis ao meu ver, esses eu lembro muito bem.

A qualidade da produção é aceitável.
Figurino é bom. A coreografia das cenas de luta não são das melhores,
certo talvez eu esteja exagerando nesse quesito, mas elas não me agradam tanto.

A OST é boa sim e ela sabe entrar em certos momentos,
que faz dar uma brilho a certos momentos chaves.

O romance esta ali, o problema mesmo é que pra mim simplesmente não funciona,
principalmente por causa da falta de química que existe entre eles,
mas talvez isso seja eu sendo chato e pegando no pé do drama.

Seu elenco tem dois grandes atores principais,
Zhao Li Ying é incrível e dispensa comentários, individualmente é maravilhosa.
Wang Yi Bo é bom ator e sua atuação convence e cumpre o esperado dele, rendendo boas cenas.
Mas volta a repetir individualmente eles são incríveis, mas a falta de química entre eles, quebra o romance.

Por fim, posso dizer minhas considerações finais.
O drama é aceitável e se você gosta de um dos atores principais,
esta é uma boa escolha, mas não espere um drama maravilhoso. Sim ele tem seus bons momentos,
mas não acho que seja o tipo de drama que você vai querer ver varias vezes, talvez umas duas vezes no máximo.

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Average Wuxia Drama !! (minor spoilers)

Let me give you an honest review, It all started off nicely for the first 7-8 episodes for me, we are got to see and know some characters, some stories, and full packed action. Next 15 episodes went straight downhill, I skipped most parts we get to see so many characters come and go for no reason. It's so confusing to remember who is who, their names. Like not even a single person stays in your mind. For every character, there is a back story that goes like a long history lesson..And these episodes more than leads the story shifts to side characters. Then next 10(up to 27)episodes were good, the leads developed feelings towards each other, the story was beautiful..but then after ep 42 I again dropped interest, skipped the most, and finally convinced myself to finish it for ZLY and WY as I like both of them. I would not recommend you to watch this...Only you can watch if you're a fan of leads

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Long awaited - left disappointed

I waited until this was fully subbed before watching. I love the FL in all other drama so was looking forward to this. ML I was interested to see how he would perform.
Good points:
No love triangle between leads
No silly misunderstandings
No really annoying characters that you really hated - also bad thing as even the baddies didnt make your blood boil like they should
Now to the bad:
Story really dragged
Major Lack of chemistry between the leads - i wouldnt say the acting was bad but something was missing
Fight scenes were nothing special
Side characters one dimensional

It had all the makings of a good drama but I found the whole thing dull. I skipped loads just to get to the end.

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The sword and her shield + A bunch of naive and troublemaker supporting characters!

"Don't always bother about the ending. The ending you want may not be what others want. Why don't you just follow your heart? - Madaam Nichang

This whole drama as the title suggests, is all about Zhou Fei and her adventure to get stronger and powerful while protecting the oppressed people by fighting the demon sect.

Looking back... We can divide this whole drama into 3 major parts. First (1-20 episodes) would be the introduction of the FL and how her love story started and went on while improving her skills by going in missions and meeting several masters who taught her techniques to better build her martial arts skills. Second (21-40) is her pursuit to deepen her romance with Xie Yun while strengthening her skills by gradually defeating some mid to high ranking enemies. Lastly (41-51) is where she deals with everything on her way while achieving great heights with her fighting skills to vanquish the main villain and to achieve peace and order.

Everything considered, I'd say that this drama did good in terms of the FLs improvements when it comes to her martial arts skills. Although I'd also admit that some of it is simply ridiculous at some point (For example is the way she dealt with the enemies during the rare-medicinal-plant searching is plain questionable and stupid) but one thing I love about it is that they never went extremely overboard and it was a rather stable process of hardwork, strong will and perseverance.

If anything, one of the main problem I've had with this is the amount of foolish and burden side characters they have. It made the story slower and more eventful in an irritating way. I honestly felt like things could've been resolved quickly without their stupid interferance and random interventions. They're always the major reason why things are escalating badly and I hated how they constantly do it without suffering heavy consequences. Mind you!! I'm not talking about 1-3 characters here, it is beyond that! Probably around 6-7 maximum. Just imagine!!

And even when I admire and appreciate how they executed this very thought of "Stay calm, be brave and you'll win" there's always a limitation to everything! I hated how they can still freaking take their time like they're on a field trip while all the mess is happening— Sense of crisis and urgency was sacrificed for some romantic scenes... Which is stupid. And lastly, is how their kindness tends to bite them back, always. I detested the constant kindness and sympathy they showed to their enemies only to be betrayed right at the next moment.

Anyways, looking at the brighter side. I just love the CPs in this drama. Despite their incompetence and flaws, they managed to liven up the whole vibe of the show and make it more exciting and fun to watch. Of course! special mention to our Main Leads who devoured everyone in terms of chemistry. Wang Yibo's smile is so enchanting and charming that you can get lost in it. I swear!

Lastly, the Ending... I'm still hesitant whether to feel good or displeased about it. It made me go "that's it? after all the chaos and fighting?" because of how simple and fast it all went on after all the dramas. It's disappointing how they settled for less after going through great lengths to build up and intensify the whole story. It was very underwhelming and unexpected in a negative way. A waste of energy, time and money. Well, I guess, atleast they all got happy ending? Lol

P.S. "True love, means you can't even stand her eating someone else's dishes" I just love this phrase so much. + Their love language of pulling each other's hair was such a bliss to see. <3

Story - 8.0, Actually, It wasn't bad. It just that they added so much unnecessary plots and dramas that made the story boring and bland here and there. Would've been better if they stick on solving problems without making the supporting characters a bait and stop them from being completely reliant to the Main leads to rescue them. Also, they could've invested on a more signifant and impactful ending. Unfortunately... they did not!

Acting/Cast - 9.5, Acting is actually good. Oh God, Wang Yibo is mesmerizing while Zhao Liying deadass nailed it. I just wish to get more smiles from her specially during the lighter and romantic scenes. Also, better character improvement and structure for the CPs. They all shined but their roles made them seem incapable. it irked me!

Music - 9.5, The overall BGM is good and I love how I can feel at ease listening to them while watching the scenes. The only issue I got with it is that they often overlaps with the conversions in almost the same volume as the dialogues; to the point where it's distracting me already. They should've focused on better music placement and sound control i'd say.

Rewatch Value - 8.0, If i were to watch this drama again, I'd probably do a lot of skips and will only watch the moments I find memorable and fun. The story was dragged so much in the middle so watching it as a whole would be a tough job for me to do.

Overall - 8.5, This is considerably a good drama with its flaws and imperfection. I just think that improvements could've been implemented in various areas to make the characters and story more structured and exciting to watch.

IF you find my review helpful please let me know

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A little more skinship! I would have found good...

The story contained many little annoyances, script annoyances, but I don't want to overstate them. For example, the idiots of the stronghold, Deng+Sheng, let themselves be provoked to come out during the siege, so that enemy Tian Shu can also come in. So what qualifies the idiot Li Sheng to take over the leadership of the Strongholds later on, instead of the capable FL, who was beaten disgustingly by Mom throughout her youth? Well, that's just a small note on the side.

Overall, the story was still nice, with the nice little big romance and non-stop adventures. A love story, with no messy love triangles, no brutal torture, no nauseating forced marriages. Thank you.

Intermittent boredom spots were sometimes distracting, but I was able to grab an occasional beer from the fridge during that time.
I didn't notice the age difference of the main characters. Zhao Li Ying is cute after all and easily passes for much younger. Even if she sometimes looks like Tweety, the lunch of Tomcat Sylvester. And Yibo did his thing well, too.

Side kick Li Yan was annoying, her articulations alternated between screechy and super screechy, she should have been left out. This marginal character had an outrageous amount of screen time. Li Cheng, the boring loser, also had too much of it and all at the expense of the main couple.

A lot of reviews here, I can relate to. Guys, you are all right. But what the heck, entertained myself quite well and give this thing a 9.

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What a waste, it could have been so good, but it wasn't...

I tried, I really did. I literally watched 32 episodes of this and it was pretty hard to keep going.

This is basically just a sappy adolescent feeling love story superficially wrapped in a weak plot. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's nice to look at on the surface, but as you go on, you start to realize that there is just no suspense or actual point. Zhou Fei has training wheels on most of the time and sometimes just plainly seems to not know wtf is going on, but suddenly becomes a fighting genius randomly. She's like Goku, 90% dumb, 10% badass when it counts. And Xie Yun is supposed to be so damn smart and capable, but he does plenty of redundant dumbsh** too.

There is no hardship for these main characters, Zhou Fei is going to be victorious no matter how dubious the situation seems, so don't hold your breath. And certainly don't worry about Xie Yun, because no matter how dire his fatally poisoned situation appears, he's not going to die either, in fact, I started to feel like he wasn't even in any real danger early on.
One minute there's no cure or poison strong enough to counter what he's been poisoned with, and then one episode later they're off to find the poison that can counter what he's poisoned with. And does Zhou Fei find this contradiction of information (ie. plot hole) important enough to ask questions about? Nope, she's just gonna' go get the thing, it's not as if anything about it had to make sense to her. 😂

Literally all the time they point out that he's very badly poisoned, they tell you this so many (many, many) times, it's the most poisonous poison to ever poison. But you know, it's only going to almost kill him every time he does something he shouldn't because if he did the poison will kill him...eh. But it doesn't, it only almost does, over and over, almost. Can't be that bad then, seeing as how he released the seal for the poison to (very prematurely and pointlessly) try to get involved in a fight in which he made about 10% difference to the over all out come of. And all for love, guys.

So yeah, it's just a very, very drawn out love story with no reason to worry about any one, because nothing really bad actually happens.

All that said, the acting wasn't bad, just the writing and plot. Too inconsistent, no suspense and sometimes pointless side stories, it's kind of like watching a lame anime where you stick around just for the attractive scenery. I mean, their outfits (especially Xie Yun's) were really great, so stylish and great colours too. Visually, in terms of character appearances, very nice job. But that's not enough to carry a show. I think the biggest issue for me was that I was looking forward to this show and was disappointed. They should have just advertised it as a love story with a little bit of fighting drama, so that what's on the label matches what's inside; as it was, I was only intrigued by this intriguing drama for about ten episodes.

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Developing Martial Artist

The cast jive very well together. The chemistry between Zhou Fei (Zanilia Zhao) and Xie Yun (Wang Yibo) was on point.
The series focus on the making of an upcoming young martial artist’s journey, which includes a range of life’s rainbow, family love and issues, love and love issues, obstacles and her own personal growth through all.

Zhou Fei grew up under the shelter of a stellar grandfather, who was a grandiose martial artist during his time. The she was under the wings of her parents. Her grandfather established, built, and protected the 48 Fortress. Many sects tried to breach Fortress but failed to do so because of Zhou Fei’s grandfather and her parents, specifically her mother. Her mother was extremely strict with reasons of course – survival. She was more so tough on Zhou Fei than others, as she was in the line up of being Young Master of the Fortress. Little did they know that they had their own little martial artist within their family.
The impenetrable Fortress was not so impenetrable for Xie Yun, the Prince of the former dynasty. He managed to not only break in but dazzle the occupants of the Fortress by breaking through one of their most secured entrance. Little did he a Zhou Fei know that they would end up lovers. Situations presented themselves in such a way that the rebellious Fei got what she had wanted for years, to venture out of 48 Fortress. However, little did she know that this journey will make her into a refined martial artist. Fei experiences many different aspects of the world of Martial Arts and was able to learn from many renounced teachers. We see her character growth throughout the journey, and we also treated to the subtle bloom of her and Xie Yun’s love story.

This series is not about an established martial artist, but a developing one. I like the fact that the creatives took the time to develop Fei’s character as such and were able to weave in her and Xie Yun ‘s love story without taking away from the actual story and everyone had enough screen space as needed and the interaction between the characters were on point.

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Fast pace, good plot, great acting, brings back memories from the Wuxia drama era!

In the last couple of years, the c-drama market has been saturated with a lot fantasy/xianxia based period drama or court/palace based dramas, so "The Legend of Fei" feels a little bit like a breath of fresh air. If you have watched the TVB Wuxia dramas back in the days, you will feel a sense of familiarity that this drama brings.

Story:
The plot is fast paced so each episodes goes by very quickly. Again, bring me back to the old days of the TVB Wuxia era when these dramas used to be around 30 episodes and there was no 'fillers' for the sake of making more episodes to earn money. Although "Legend of Fei" is 51 episodes, from what I have seen of 12 episodes, they sure crammed in a lot in those episodes. Episodes 1-10 has a lot of elements that contributed to world setting, character setting, and plot setting/foreshadowing elements, and then starting at episode 11, we started to see things pick up (11-12 are must watch episodes). The most important thing is that, 'Legend of Fei' captures the essence of 'rivers and lakes', the core element of what is important in a martial art story. The interesting thing is that YouFei as the heroine seems to have taken the 'hero' script that is typical of martial arts drama, who throughout the storyline roamed the marital arts world, learned different martial arts techniques from people she encountered, and make fellowship along the way as she get closer to becoming a more powerful martial master.

Acting/Casting:
I was a little worry at first about the casting but after the first couple of episodes and seeing the chemistry between the two leads, I said that this casting choice is very good. I think I understood why they casted Wang Yibo for Xie Yun. Xie Yun is an extremely active and lively character, if you cast an older actor to play this, he may come off as 'greasy' and it would not look good. The Xie Yun played by Wang Yibo is very lively and adds a lot of comedy to the episodes. He's actually a very talented actor, body posture and facial expression/management are impeccable. Youfei played by Zhao Liying, at first I was a little concern about her age as she's playing someone who's way younger than her actual age, but because of her baby face, it's not noticeable at all. Her strong point is that she's able to grab the emotional parts of Youfei very well and this gives her the ability to connect with the audience with the character.

Music:
Both opening and ending song are great, specially the ending song by Jane Zhang and Liu YuNing. Some of the background music are also great, very authentic martial arts feel and it fit the scenes very well. For example, the instrumental piece in the the drinking scene between Youfei and XieYun, when Youfei got drunk and lean on XieYun's back. At first he mistaken it as her leaning on him on purpose and started to smile until he found out that it was because she passed out drunk.

Rewatch value:
I do have to say that I'm not too fond of this director's choice of scene cutting, he has a tendency to blur the background to the point where it looks a little fake and he love close-up face shots. You may wonder why you can't remember the character names well but can remember their faces very well...the reason is because of this. And it really test the actor's ability for facial management and sometimes you can see the detail of pores and skin blemishes on some of the actors' face. I have to say that both of the lead actors have great skin. Despite the technical flaw, this drama only gets better with each rewatch as you catch more detail through each run.

Overall Summary:
If you like martial arts drama, this is a must watch. If you value a good storyline with interesting characters this is for you. It feels fresh among all of the period dramas that has been released in recent year. The chemistry and interactions between Youfei and XieYun is top notch.

After reading some comments on the drama page, I want to say a few words. As a long time c-drama watcher since the early 90s, I have watched the rise and fall of Hong Kong and Taiwanese dramaland and the rise of mainland dramas. In recent years, I'm not happy with the status quo of how c-dramas has come to be and produced - it has shifted focus away from good scripting and acting towards trope heavy and filler based dramas that has little substances. C-dramaland has lost its originality as one drama after another started to look the same.. Few Wuxia dramas are being make nowadays and the few good ones are far in between, for example "Nivarna In Fire". But even that and Princess Agent was not able to capture the essence of "Rivers and Lakes" that you typically seen from the Jing Dong dramas and older TVB Wuxia dramas. This is why I treasure what I have seen in this drama so far. There is an originality element to it that's not common in this era of c-drama. And the icing on the cake is that the focus has shift from a male hero to a female hero.

I hope "Legend of Fei" maintain the quality of the storyline throughout and if it does, it will be a gem, a treasure among c-dramas.

(This review is done up to episode 12. I will update as I watch more episodes!)

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