Dance of the Phoenix (2020)

A show that could have been better developed.

It could have been incredible ...

Honestly, I started watching this drama because of Wang Hao Xuan, I think that many know him for the role of Xue Yang in The Untamed. As I really liked his acting and his character in the drama, I became a fan and wanted to follow the dramas in which he participated.
Then my saga begins to watch Dance Of Phoenix. At the time I was already in doubt if I would even watch this drama, basically because the story seemed like the typical story of Chinese drama, there was nothing really attractive to me, but I decided to continue on to Hao Xuan.

History: There was nothing very new for me, if you have seen some Chinese dramas, you must have seen some similar story or the same kind of development. Although it is based on the novel Godly Empress Doctor, I don't think they adapted the novel well. They could have developed the story further and added more episodes. It all happened so fast, the romance, the events ... So, for me the story was kind of uninteresting. I liked DarkNight Court, they were more interesting than the Celestial Palace and if I had explored their story further, the drama would have been better. I prefer the dark side of strength.

CGI: They weren't bad. The eagle (episode 1) and the rays (episode 26) were good effects, and the monster (episode 10), the wolf (episode 25) and the rays were good makeups. He liked the effect of the Court's powers as well.

OST: There is nothing special about OST, only two songs won my attention, which were the closing song (Tai Chu) and another song that appears in episode 26 (Lin Zhou) theme by Yu Mingye.

Performance: I will start with the protagonists, I liked the performance of the female protagonist, she had funny and cute expressions and knew how to be serious at the right moments, the protagonist I felt a little rigid and emotionless in some important moments of the plot, although I believe that your character has that kind of personality.
The other actors did well and captivated me. I really liked: Wang Hao Xuan (Yu MingYe) - his performance is totally different from his performance in The Untamed, as the expressive, sexy and charismatic villain Xue Yang. Here he was more serious, but we can see his emotions. I am very proud of how much he has improved <3

Guo Cheng (Feng Xun) - Made me laugh with his cute and funny acting like Feng Xun. I loved your expressions.

Estella Chen (Zhao Ge) Gao Ji Cai (Xuan Yi) - They were good too, she playing the cute Zhao Ge and he the serious and cute Xuan Yi.

Jinna (Zuo Qinluan) Played her villain very well, she had good expressions and made us angry with her character.

Characters:

Feng Wu: I like her very much, because she is an interesting, beautiful, intelligent, fun, independent and strong character (I love when she wears red) Wu is a kind of female character difficult to see in a Chinese drama, as it seems it became "fashionable" for female protagonists to be weak, fragile, with a child's voice, unable to make any decision and stupid as a door. I really avoid watching dramas that have characters like that, for me, as a woman, it's offensive. So having a character like her is a very good thing. I like the fact that she is decisive and does not let anyone put her down and that she is not a lady in danger who needs to be saved every 5 minutes. Her fight scene against the goddess Zuo was incredible, she looked very powerful and reminded me of the unbeatable Feng Wu of the novel. Wu has her own goals, her focus has always been to recover her cultivation and save her master and that makes me admire her as a woman. I missed seeing more scenes of her fighting or training, since she had incredible powers but which unfortunately were not so well explored in the drama, and only appeared in a moment of danger and then "PUFF" disappeared. But in general, she is a strong, adorable character, with a good heart and an incredible woman.

Jun LiYuan: What about him? Basically he is the typical character who dresses in white in Chinese dramas, who has the personality of an ice pack and who is all-powerful and who flatter everyone. I'm not a big fan of characters like that and from what I heard, in the novel he is unbearable and has no excuse for the pills he took in childhood, in the novel this pill never existed, he is cold, rude and arrogant by nature. They made him a little better in the drama, but he's not my type of character. And he had no chemistry with Feng Wu, his interactions were monotonous and I was always bored or messed with his cell phone when they interacted, because it was all a little forced, in fact they seemed more friends than lovers. We can't feel their love.

Yu Mingye: He and Feng Wu are the best characters without a doubt, in my opinion they are the most developed. MingYe had more depth than Liyuan. He grew up in a toxic environment, with an abusive father (he was punished when he failed on a mission) and yet he was someone with a good heart and kindness. He could be immature, powerful and arrogant and at the same time naive, adorable, selfless, gentle, loving and loyal.

I wish they had given him more screen time, but even with the little screen time, he stole the show. All the comments I read on Youtube talked about him and how he was the best Liyuan and that Feng Wu should stay with MingYe ( everyone fell in love with him) He had a lot of chemistry with her and would be a more interesting couple than Feng Wu and Jun Liyuan (I wish Yu MingYe and Feng Wu had been together in the end). MingYe showed that he really loved Wu because he always helped and supported her in his follies, he was always the first to take action and save her, he gave up on her because he knew she loved the other, and yet he said that they could be friends ( even suffering from it) he indirectly helped save Wu and the others, when they would be trapped on the mountain because of the barrier that Mozun placed. While fighting LiYuan, he guided him so that his blows would hit the main points of the barrier. And for the love of Wu, he went against his father and cut him off to save her, and he knew what was going to happen to him and yet he went and did it. And we know what happened to him, don't we ??? I haven't recovered from that yet.

In the end, he lost everything through unrequited love. He lost his arm, his court and in the end even his father. All this so that the protagonists lived well. And in the end he continued to help everyone, he released LiYuan and helped Feng Wu to win (even though it would make his court lose). If that's not being a good character, then I don't know what it is. In the end, he was the most wronged character in the drama and deserved much more. If there is a second season, give it a decent ending. Hao Xuan did a good job playing YMY, he loved his fight scenes, the style of his clothes and his acting. He has a strong presence, incredible beauty and looks stunning with period clothes and long hair

Feng Xun, Zhao Ge, Xuan Yi and Qing Qinluan: Feng Xun was the typical character who talked too much and outgoing, I really had fun with what he did, too bad they didn't give him much time and much importance. Zhao Ge was adorable and his romance with the serious and cute Xuan Yi was very cute, they had great chemistry and were the best couple.

Zuo Qinluan could have been better used, I found his death very early. She was an interesting character, she was powerful and she had her own motivations that involved power. She was very envious of Wu and wanted to take her place at all costs.

End: Although I don't care about a sad ending, I do care about the incomplete ending. It was kind of disappointing, although I don't care that they don't end up together. I didn't find the couple engaging or with chemistry so I wasn't sad. I felt that the last chapter could have been better elaborated, I thought that everything happened very quickly.

Some unanswered questions:

1- Where does Feng Wu go? Will she go back to her time or did she die?
2- How will Jun Liyuan continue without her?
3- Where did Yu MingYe go after everything that happened to him?

For those who like to spend time, I think this show would be good.

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I can't help but feel like the story is being made so shortcut

I think 30episodes is too little for this story cuz there are so many points that they don't explain us show us that make the drama so bad & confusing
There are many points that happens too fast and some events that I can understand.
I felt like Why??? there are many other ways but why???
To conclude , I felt like 30episodes is too little for this drama. I felt like I was watching the drama by skipping many necessary scenes.

And the ending.... I thought her teacher was dead by giving all his spiritual energy to the male lead but how he survived ??? So many questions left after watching it.

The thing that shock me is the fact that the actress is from modern world ,she is a traditional student & even her real name can only be found on the synopsis. Nothing was shown or even told in drama!!!

Another thing that annoy me was they change cloth at the critical time. For eg1... Female lead thought male lead was dead and she was mourning.The main point is at that time they were hiddening from the enemy in a cave and she changed clothes...
Eg 2.... Male lead is also injured and he was in hurry to save the female lead. When he arrived he was wearing the new dress 🤧

I think from the ending there maybe Season 2

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a lot left unsaid

this drama had so much potential but left me with a lot of questions

I just wish they would've shown where the new feng wu came from... in the beginning her master said that she would "remember" where she came from/who she is and I was looking forward to a scene that showed her as a "medical student" but there weren't any and I would have never known if I didn't read the synopsis. She came from "another world" which I'm assuming is the modern world... but other than some slang words the entire drama her personality/attitude doesn't make it seem like she doesn't fit in (like the way the FL in The Eternal Love reacted to things). It seemed like she just accepted her fate and decided this was her life and she needed to help her "master" that she didn't even know. I hate the ending when she had to go back to her world but it doesn't show where her world is or the usual cliche scene where ML is actually also in her world LMAO

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Time traveling meets deity meets chinese harry potter?

To be honest the story was like a 7/ 10. The story is too complicated and doesn't explain itself well.. Its too busy
1) female lead time travels or her soul gets transfered into Feng Wu 's body. She holds phoenix powers but lost the phoenix blood because the evil girl in the story took it from her. ( but theres no showing of the soul transfer)
2) Female lead has a master who has been in slumber, due to the fact that he tried to save feng wu when she lost her phoenix blood ... So feng wu mission becomes finding the broken spirit/soul pieces of her master, to awaken him., all while she is attending an academy ( kinda like the ones of harry potter)
3) The "supposely" heaven queen.. Her story is kinda complicated too.. she isnt a pure character but also one who is evil. She tries to over throw the heaven king which is her husband. She holds hatred for feng wu's master, because when the queen was young , she like the master, but the master didn't like her.... so hence she doesnt want feng wu to find the other parts of his soul.
4) Other parts of the story involves battling mythical creatures. ( which was interesting)
5) At the academy there is a master who ends up turning evil ? His character story line was awkward and weird.
6) some of the effects were way to fake.... like the thunder/lighting part... sighs..

Onto some of the parts i liked...
1) Male lead is handsome and definitely the driver of this drama. Female lead just didnt stand out enough.
2) Male lead's love for female lead. He really liked her and showed his affection for her. For her she did too but it didn't feel the same. Some are saying that they have no chemistry, which i agree and disgree on. The scenes of them being together is sweet tho !!!! it doesnt involve kissing . But for the kissing scenes it was not the greatest and no chemistry. I feel like a lot of them just lock lips and then don't move, lol that really isnt a kiss. They just hold it there, or another famous one is the spontaneous kiss which catches the female lead by surprise. haha maybe i'm too picky about the kissing scenes.
3) second male lead is also cute and caring towards the female lead. I didn't like his ending/ what happened to him
4)I liked how the female lead was a really kind character and innocent character.

It started off pretty solid, but after 20 something episodes , everything unravels and becomes kinda blunt and doesnt explain itself well. :( its not a bad watch, but got tired of it ...

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Spectacularly Mediocre

The plot, the acting, the fight scenes. Everything about this show is average, but I guess it's entertaining enough to keep me watching. I read a comment somewhere that it was a mosh-posh of things from other shows and it's so true. The no-love curse, the school arc, the tower arc, the fallen genius, even the master trapped in another dimension. The only thing I find new and refreshing is the relationship between the ML and SML/antagonist, they are hilarious and actually kind of adorable. I guess I'm mainly watching for the tiny snippets of "bromance" moments I get cause the romance kind of came out of nowhere for me and was meh.

EDIT: I dropped it xD

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it was going well until the last few episodes

The first few episodes were great. They were exciting and I was on edge about what will happen next. The characters were interesting and some may recognize the second male lead as xue yang from the untamed. I was enjoying this drama and really looking forward towards what would happen in the end, it was heavily disappointing. The second male lead have more chemistry with the female lead than the Male lead. Quite honestly thought Feng Wu should've been with Yu ming ye.

{Story}
The story was great until towards the end. Exciting and the conflicts in the episodes were good. The scenes where feng wu went to the tower to retrieve the item was really cool and it got me excited. The FL strength was demonstrated pretty well, although she still had to be saved by the ML a couple times. There was a lot of unanswered questions in the beginning and especially the end. We still don't know why or how a modern girl popped into Feng Wu's body and why the master came to go fetch her back to modern society in the last episode. There is too many plot holes in the end and it was very confusing. Too many things happened at once, I still don't know what actually happened to the girl when she was consumed by a bright light.

{Acting/Cast}
The acting was pretty good. I'm not one who can easily tell who is good and who is bad at acting so you can't take my word for it. Originally I watched this drama because of the cast. They had I believe two actors from the untamed that I was excited to see like Wang Hao Xuan and Guo Cheng. They styled Wang Hao Xuan similarly to xue yang which I guess was to attract people like me who saw him in the cast. Although I am disappointed at how they basically wasted Wang Hao Xuan towards the end when he lost his arm (which is also similar to what happened to his character in The Untamed).

{Music}
I skipped the opening and end credit songs 90% of the time. I wouldn't say it's bad but I wouldn't say its amazing. The opening song was not memorable like the untamed end credits or the opening credits of the romance of tiger and rose. Through memorability of songs is based on each induvial's taste but the songs in this drama is something you'll most likely forget in a week after you finished the drama.

{Rewatch value}
Will I ever rewatch this and would I recommend rewatching this drama? No I wouldn't. I would not rewatch this unless I feel like pissing myself off. The ending was terrible and confusing.

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Just finished this drama a minute ago and the two things I wanna say is I would have liked to see more of Xue Yi and Zhao Ge and Second, what was that ending unless there are plans for a season 2. Other than that, kinda found it lame that the crux of the story was that all this drama went down coz that queen got rejected once lol. Acting was decent by everyone. The same actor who played Yu mingye here was also Xue yang in The untamed and his acting was definitely better here. But not getting too hung up on the script and technicalities, all in all it was a good time pass watch.

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My theory for the ending & opinions

I wish they had chosen a better-looking actor for Jun, someone who at least looks the same age as Wu.

1. Most male actors are ugly, expect for the guy that wants to steal Jun’s wife. I wish they chose guys like in the Untamed.

Something that bothers me about ancient Chinese dramas is the men being much older than the women. The actual father will look like a grandfather, the grandfather will look like a grand grandfather and the young man will look older, but the same cannot be said for women. They are represented accurately according to their age.

2. One of the major reasons why I watched is to see where the second personality of Wu came from, and the only conclusion I can draw is that it was her when she was a child, but she suppressed that because she grew up into a very serious adult. Her mother says she reminds her of Wu as a child too, so that’s where my theory comes from. Also, Mo Jiuzhi “takes her back” which I interpret as him not being able to hold this illusion/spell anymore, or maybe returning the remaining piece of Wu from her childhood to her original owner.

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Overall good drama but could've been better.

• Contains spoilers, read at your own risk. You can skip to bullet points if you want a more general review. •

Honestly the drama started off pretty decent with a scene that caught your attention almost right away but about 10-15 episodes in, the drama kind of took a nosedive. First, it took Feng Wu the entire drama to get back what she lost in the beginning and even then, she didn't even end up doing anything that incredible with it so honestly that was kind of disappointing. They didn't really make Feng Wu out to be as powerful as she could've been. Second, Feng Wu's romance with Jun Linyuan was essentially almost non-existent because he fell for her so quickly and it wasn't really clear as to why he did lol. It seemed like he fell for her purely over the competition of winning her from Yu Mingye. I also feel bad for Yu Mingye because what he got in the end wasn't even close to what he deserved. Also, Zhao Ge was a pretty adorable character but I wish we got to see more of her romance with Xuan Yi and I wish she fought back for herself more than she actually did. Lastly, the ending.. boy that was the biggest disappointment of all. Not only was it not a happy ending but I don't really understand what happened and why it was significant enough to end the entire drama.

To sum it up in bullet points:
• Feng Wu's power in the end was disappointing.
• Feng Wu & Jun Linyuan's romance was small and fast-paced.
• Yu Mingye didn't deserve the ending he got.
• Zhao Ge was adorable but didn't stick up for herself enough.
• Not enough romance between Zhao Ge and Xuan Yi.
• The ending was not a happy ending and it was confusing.

OST: The OST was decent. There's catchier OSTs out there but this was suitable to the drama and its theme.

Acting: All the actors/actresses did decently well; enough for the drama to not feel like one of those low production dramas. Personally I think the FL & ML could've used improvement on showing their expressions in the bigger scenes but overall they were suitable to their roles.

Ending: Definitely the biggest thing that needs to be fixed. Lacked enough significance to end the drama and I'm not sure what it was supposed to show. It wasn't really the happy ending we were looking for.

Rewatch Value: Would rewatch it because there were interesting parts and I enjoyed the storyline but It'll probably be in my archives for awhile so nowhere in the near future.

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Confused at some point

Drama started with two girls fighting . Bad girl wanted to be the best in power so she wanted good girl phoenix's blood and she was achieved her blood and because of this good girl's all power was vanished with this she forgot her identity then her master gave her some energy of his energy due to which he lost his energy went into long sleep ,Then she had three worked to do . First she had to live a life of girl named called Feng Wu and not to tell her that who was her master . Second she had to live in Feng Wu's house among Feng Wu's people and cultivate there and restore her power . Third while restoring her power she had to help her master to wake up .
Upto here story was cleared but then
Lots of confusion.
First She lived a life of Feng Wu then why everybody's said that she was disappeared and not know where she was al,with this they said that she lost her cultivation . This statement make me confused that was she Fengwu or Feng Wu was the other person and both the girl stories were same.
Second who was Feng Wu ,where she was ,what was her story ,why she disappeared and what happened to her.
Third who was good girl ?,why she had to live a life of Feng Wu ,why not everybody's doubt on her when they came to know that she was not her that may be good girl hide her . Insted of it everybody's excent her.
Fourth at starting few episodes good girl was always with her assistant who looked also very cute so I thought she also an important character and may be she would be paired with lead actor's third friend . But suddenly Feng Wu 's best friend came into the drama who made her assistant role less and she had been portrayed as a second lead.
Like this are some more confusing plot.
Last the end what was that why the drama end like this ,is there second season?
I like to see second lead couple scenes more . I like their story too.
All I can say that this drama is one time watch .
It was not bad one but it has many flaws.

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