Xuan-Yuan Sword: Scar of Sky (2012)

This drama deserves better rating

When it comes to Hu Ge's drama, I guess I would always be a bit bias. He is undoubtedly one of China's best actors. In this drama, he acted 4 different characters - a monstrous highly-skilled general who would not hesitate to kill and make use of people around him to achieve his means, a smart and kind swordsman who would go to great length to help his friends, the same swordsman but insane, and then the monstrous general who had been softened by love. There are a lot of good actors in China, but few can achieve the same level of emotional facial expression as convincingly as he can.

And of course three other well-known pretty actresses makes it worth watching for the guys. Overall, the acting is very good.

For a story, this is the typical fantasy drama with some illogical parts - fantasy dramas have this liberty to do that. A lot of misunderstanding happened because of stealth and distrust. The story unraveled as more and more of the background and secrets of the past are revealed. It is a relatively short drama - only 36 and each episode are short as well - removing the repeated part at the beginning, each episode is only about 30 minutes.

It was filmed about eight years ago, cinematography and computer generated graphics were good for its time. The opening and closing theme songs had been removed from the YouTube version so music was a bit lacking. On the whole, it is still worth a watch. The ending is not a perfect happy ever after, but not a tragedy.

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Start with low expectations and be pleasantly surprised.

Go in with very low expectations, and be pleasantly surprised, seriously.

It starts as a very cheesey, silly series and actually grows some serious oomph & ambitition. SFX are a bit dated, and the music gets a little repetitive and obvious, but the cast is stellar and carry off the story, which grows more teeth than you expect.

Hu Ge definitely carries this show, but the rest keep up fairly well with him. I didn't loathe all the female characters, and was glad at least one pair had a happy ending. However Hu Ge definitely seems to like his tortured hero characters! To be fair, he does angst so *very* prettily.

If you can survive the silliness of the first few eps, it will be well worth it. This series punches higher than is immediately obvious from the first eps, and production values.

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