Word of Honor (2021)

Love it!

I won't write about the story line or character details because they have been written many times, so this is just my opinion for the series.

I am not a fan of BL, which is why I have been putting The Untamed and Word of Honor on the to-watch shelf for a long time. I hesitated to watch this because of the BL storyline. But I didn't regret watching these two because they are one of the best chinese costume dramas that I've watched. The best ones in my opinion are Story of Yanxi Palace and Nirvana In Fire, but these two came close.

Word of Honor has all the elements that I like in a drama, good acting, handsome actors, beautiful costume and setting and wuxia scenes. Viewers are spoiled with beautiful colors in the costume, setting and cinematography as well as very amazing sceneries. There are plenty of WuXia fighting scenes in this drama that left you at the edge of your seats. There are also plenty of nice songs in the OST, I like the opening and ending theme and several others. That's why I always click "watch credit" and "play from the beginning" on Netflix for this drama because of the songs.

This drama is a rollercoaster of emotion for me. I felt sympathy for the characters, can feel happy, laughing at several scenes in the episodes, then change to feeling sad for some of the characters. The last three episodes in particular was a rollercoaster ride for me, like I didn't expect that to happen, why did it has to happen like that? Sad, then happy, and sad again.

I have to give a special shoutout to Simon Gong Jun as I thought he did a superb and excellent job as Wen Ke Xing. Huge kudos to Simon Gong!!!! I originally watch this because of Zhang Zhe Han, but Simon Gong stole my heart! He is so expressive and did very well in playing such a complex character. I first saw him in Begin Again, but after watching Word of Honor, I have just became a huge fan of Simon Gong Jun!!!

If you hesitate in watching this because of the BL element, please don't. It's there but it's subtle that I can just pass it on as true friendship and brotherhood. This drama is so much more than that, it is a story of friendship, family, loyalty, heroism and courage that it's very easy to overlook the BL element. It's there but in a subtle way, not "in your face" BL like those in Hollywood movies/series and Thai dramas. I would totally recommend this drama (and The Untamed of course).

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Great chemistry from the 2 lead characters

This is my second BL c-drama after “The Untamed” but in the latter, I could not get past the third episode. Simply put, I am not a BL lover, and could never enjoy such genre. The idea of handsome men cozying up to one another - despite the lack of physical intimacies - is rather disconcerting and impeding my enjoyment of the drama. I would rather watch gorgeous leading ladies strutting their stuff on screen; looking cute and lovely when needed or crying their heart out at the slightest of tragedy. So it was with trepidation that I watched “Word of Honor” as it premiered just as I completed watching “Weaving a Tale of Love” and “Douluo Continent”. Suffice to say that I have not been disappointed with this choice, and “Word of Honor” exceeds my expectation of BL c-drama .

The storyline is nothing to get excited about. Once you get past the ogling and amorous look from Simon Gong towards Zhang Zhe Han, and flirtatious behavior from the two male leads, this is just a normal wuxia-theme costume c-drama by a popular web writer, Priest. It details out the adventures of two (2) soul mates in jiang-hu where both of them goes through various trials and tribulations. Nothing special in the storyline to be honest. Had it not been for the BL genre, and you take away either of the MLs and replace him with a leading actress, this would be an average costume c-drama. But with two handsome MLs in this series, you have a storyline that caught the eyes and attention of nearly all female c-drama fans. That is the secret formula pioneered by “The Untamed” and it has become a trend among drama producers. “Word of Honor” is no different. The strength of this low-budget production is the chemistry and flirtatious behavior between two extremely good looking males. It might turn off some male fans, but it is a sure magnet for female fans. The douban rating of 8.6 from over 280K reviewers means that this is a highly popular and acclaimed historical costume drama of 2021.

Gu Xiang/Zhou Ye’s introduction as a maid gives me the creep. It is her 1st historical c-drama . She reminds me of Li Yan character (Zhou Jie Qiong) in “Legend of Fei” but with slightly better martial arts skill. She looks like Zhang Ziyi in her younger days, at least to me. But as the series progresses, I am beginning to warm up to Gu Xiang character. In fact at the very end, I wish they could have more scenes featuring Gu Xiang. She is a fresh face in this industry, just like Wu Juanyi in the “Douluo Continent”. Sometimes you get bored looking at Yang Mi, Yang Zi, Tiffany Tang, Zhao Liying, etc reprising the same roles repeatedly. The chemistry between the two (2) MLs is evident for everyone to see. Simon Gong’s lustful and lecherous look at Zhang Zheyan takes a bit of getting used to, but it is cute and funny at the same time.

I am a few episodes from completing this series, but the ending will not change my mind about this series. Because of “Word of Honor”, I will give “The Untamed” a second look. Overall 8.5/10.0 score and that is purely down to Simon Gong/Zhang Zhehan chemistry.

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"Word of Honor" in my eyes

Several spoilers are about to come. Beware!

After watching the “Word of Honor”, I dropped myself so deeply and couldn’t help to think it over and over in my mind. That’s exactly why I am longing to write something about it. However, there is a big problem that I have to choose a proper word to transform Wu Xia into English. Usually, words like Chinese Martial, Chinese swordplay, Chinese Kong Fu, or Traditional Wushu are used to describe Wu Xia. As a Chinese who grew up and impacted under the atmosphere of Wu Xia culture, I don’t think the words above could clarify the real connotation of Wu Xia. In my view, Wu, which means Chinese martial or Kong Fu, is over-emphasized in the western society nowadays. contrarily, Xia is the core. To the post-70s, the 80s, the 90s, or even more generations, Wu Xia is not only a word, it is also an amazing world fascinating being including Chinese traditional culture, Chinese feelings, and Chinese dreams. It hasn’t been understood correctly in non-Chinese spoken countries, because there are no words that could present it perfectly. Consequently, I decided to use the original Chinese words full of oriental characteristics to explain this drama, especially the value behind it.

There are two main characters in this drama, Zhou Zishu (hereafter called Zhou) and Wen Kexing(hereafter called Wink), both of whom are mysterious and unfightable. Zhou was the leader of the secret assassination organization. As he killed so many people who are innocent and lost his sect brothers, he started to wonder about the meaning of life and decided to escape from the organization after paying a big price. Zhou left with a broken body and drunk himself into dreams to idle away the last 3 years of his life until he met Wink. Revenge is always the eternal theme of novels or films, no matter in China or the western society, this drama is not excepted. Being the master of the Ghost Valley, Wink has a commiserable childhood experience. He lost his parents and grew up in a dangerous and horrible valley environment. Killing or being killed is the only thing he has learnt learned from the terrible reality. He has a strong hatred of the Ghost Valley or even the whole world, so he made an evil plan to avenge his parents’ death. Fate leads the encounter of Zhou and Wink, and everything changed from then on.
Not the same as the western films or culture, we Chinese people pay more attention to the redemption behind avenge instead of the revenge itself. As you have known that both Zhou and Wink are not the traditional normal person nor good person, they are more like villains. What’s interesting in this drama is that Wink always called himself a nice person although he conducted the evil plan to mess the world up. Furthermore, there are abundant statues of Buddha outside of the Ghost Valley which is known as hell. It seems a little paradoxical and incomprehensible, right? On the contrary, it is exactly the point that the scriptwriter or the author trying to tell us through this drama. No one is born guilty, even the evils could be changed. If you have ever studied Chinese Buddhism you will learn that certain figures save the astray person by sacrificing themselves. From my perspective, that’s what Wink planed at first, he determined to clean the terrible and dirty world with his own life. Having said all the above, I am feeling pity for Wink. Wink shouldn’t be the abandoned one since he hasn’t done anything wrong at first. As I said before, Zhou is not a nice person in the conventional sense, but he is one of those who have brought love to little Wink. Zhou is just like the light in the endless darkness that brings Wink warmth and hope, at the same time, Wink recalls Zhou’s responsibility and courage to live on. It is the most impressive and highlights part of this drama, and I am willing to call it the mutual salvation.

I do appreciate that the director, the scriptwriter, the actors, and the crew in this drama give the full efforts to “Word of Honor”. They tried their best to display an excellent work with logical storytelling, marvelous choreography, meaningful Chinese poems, and beautiful costumes full of Chinese traditional aesthetic. I enjoy the dialogues and martial fights between Wink and Zhou so much. A lot of feelings are channeled in an unspoken way and leaving our audiences the room for interpretation. The tiny details are essential, especially the eye contact, the body contact, and the ancient poems or idioms. All of them are full of flirtation feels. The micro-emotions in this drama moved me so much that most of the time I will put myself in Wink’s role. I’d like to compare Wink to porcelain, which is exquisite and hard outwardly but delicate and eager to be protected inwardly. Wink knows the complex society and nefarious humans nature so much that he keeps alert all the time. Since he has lost the expectation of the world and the desire to live, he is determined to destroy the world. When he encountered Zhou he was attracted and gradually fall in love. As I said before that Wink always doubts everything including the love from others. So he uses flamboyant words constantly to cover his pains and feelings and tests Zhou with unanswered questions repeatedly to tell if Zhou could understand and trust him completely at the beginning of this drama. While he confirmed Zhou’s love he started to reveal the true self and try to struggle against the world for love. To be honest, I see myself in Wink’s experience, we are the same persons that always looking forward to being loved but hesitant and doubt when coming across love.

Another reason why I appreciate this drama is that all the side characters here are displayed naturally and totally. They completely showed the complexity and uncertainty of human beings. Even the good person could do wrong while the demon person could also do good, each of them has their own particular emotions and principles just like ourselves in reality. From my perspective, the scriptwriter is trying to deliver the conception that there is no definite right and wrong, nor love and hate. Someone describes both Zhou and Wink as the ones with thousands of layers of gray because there is no pure black and white. If you have ever used image applications you will understand that. When we remove all the colors from the picture, it will be shown with varieties degrees of gray. Therefore, we shouldn’t simply divide the person into two extremes and ignore the good one’s errors or the bad one’s philanthropic acts.

As a BL adaption drama, “Word of Honor” is very adventrual and clever. It was adapted from “The Wanderers” which was written by Priest decades ago. Through readers, we know that most of the scenarios in this novel are blatant sexy and hard to pass the censorship. The talented scriptwriter applied the ancient idioms or classic stories skillfully to display some sexual implications. Candidly, it needs a large amount of knowledge about Chinese culture or history to understand this drama. For example, Wink used a large number of amatory poems to show his love for Zhou. In one of the plots, he cut the blood sleeve of Zhou which is always acknowledged as the metaphor of homosexuality in Chinese ancient stories. Besides, they even stuck two pancakes together to implicate the physical intimacy of Wink and Zhou. It is very interesting to enjoy the word games and explore the potential secrets behind the drama.

All in all, it is an excellent work about Wu Xia even though there are certain shortcomings. The film crew showed their sincerity to the audience and saluted to the old school Chinese martial. They narrated a beautiful Chinese story and delivered the Chinese universe value to the world. It explained something deeper about Wu Xia. Wu, namely martial, is just the tool to fulfill Xia. So what’s the real meaning of Xia? I believe that the ancient Chinese swordsman living thousands of years ago must have questioned the samely. What they were persuing when they decided to live in danger and instability as a swordsman? What impelled them and made them insist to protect the weak or the country with their blood and body? All I can imagine is Xia, the particular spirit about responsibility and sympathy, the unique humanitarianism that derives from Chinese culture and romance.

Actually, there is still a question that lingered around me day and night after I watched this drama. In the extra episode, Zhou and Wink are living together in an extremely cold world immortally, but it is inconsistent with the storytelling from the context. So I wondered what if the plot is just the dream of Zhou? We all know that Zhou has the drug named the magic wine and it could create an illusion world in which you will be satisfied with the things you desired. Supposing that Wink died and left Zhou behind to suffer the endless life full of solitariness. What will Zhou do? Living in the cruel reality or addicted himself to the fictional dreams about Wink? On the surface, Wink seems to be the selfless one for he chose the death and left the survival chance to Zhou. On the other hand, he deprived Zhou of the right to sacrifice for him. Wink knows from the beginning to the end that the deeper the love, the more pain to the living one.

Whatever the truth is, the undertone of this drama is still the vow of “Till death we part”. Their fears, their hatred, their guilt, and the efforts they have made to redeem themselves in the tough world. All of them touch me and remind me to value the nice details in my life.

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Nearly.

Rated= 7.5~ 38/50 ~ 7.6
RPG Scene // Mages armed with Staffs, Venturing into Enchanted Forest.

This was my 2nd venture into Chinese fantasy and much like it's predecessor, I found that there were so many characters I could barely keep up. I am slowly learning that this is very common in Chinese shows. The casts are huge. My poor brain.

This one starts with just full on attack of information that it's a little hard to digest at first. I can tell this has come from a book series because they were just info dumping all over the plot.

For me, at it's heart, this a redemption tale for the two male leads, and I loved the set up. Zhou, a tormented assassin's group leader and Wen, Chief of Ghost Valley. Both of them essentially the 'bad guy'. Neither of them have any will to live, Zhou is consumed by remorse for his past behaviour and is basically torturing himself while he drinks himself into a stupor waiting for death. On the other hand, we have Wen who is consumed with grief and hatred, and pretty much has the attitude that if the world is going to set me on fire and laugh as I burn, I'm going to take as many mofos as I can with me.
It's deep and it's complicated, and I love that since this is meant to be a romantic couple. It's not so much a 'love conquers' theme, it's finding a reason to live beyond pain, even in little every day things.

Having said that, there is very clear homosexual feelings from the get go. My first chinese series was Untamed, and it was much more subtle. You could pass it off as just a deep brotherhood. This is not. This is outright flirting and sexual feelings. At times I was in shock that this was allowed. But it adds to the romanticism of finding something to live for. In this case, it's each other, which ultimately leads you to th ending sequence. I think we jumped a little too quickly into 'soulmate' but that might be a culture clash. I don't know if soulmate has a more platonic meaning in asia since the sages of ajni were called soulmates.

What first started to let me down, was the constant back and forth between the two leads. I think they broke up about 4 times, only to be normal again 3 scenes later. I found that a little jarring and unnecessary drama, another pet peeve in writing. Speaking of which, there is major unnecessary drama towards the end and even though I saw it coming from about episode 15, it still sucked to see. I understand this happens in the novels so it's on the OG writer but still, it's something that really peeves me off in many types of shows. It was deliberately built up over the show, just to hurt your feelings at the end. I don't feel it added a whole lot to the actual plot.

I did not know about the extra episode, 37 or MV style ending so when I got to the end of 36, I was punched in the face. Understandably with the censors and they wanted to keep a happy ending, but it's such a random place to end a show. It really does feel like we're missing episodes and apparently they did cut several down due to the budget running out. (or they were actually shut down but that just might be me) When I managed to get the ending online, I was fairly satisfied with it. It's pretty romantic and ironic that the show started with both characters, alone, wandering and wanting to die, where now together, immortal on a mountain.

I feel like what let the series down were the cuts the most. As we were reaching the end, there were a few things just being forgotten about or happening off screen.

Visually, it's the usual dream like, chinese fantasy but I have to admit that I didn't like the styling on this one. I found Wen's robes to be unflattering on him the most. I liked the first one he's in, the white silver ones, and the Chief red robes. Both of which we barely see him in. I found the shoulder cuts and colours just to be unflattering on him. I think keeping everything soft and lose on him, would have looked better. I can tell by the hair they were trying to keep things a little more in line with historical accuracy but I just didnt like it, or Zhou's hair. You can tell it's a choppy cut with extensions. It's a good looking cast but the styling definitely needed more work.

I would still rewatch it but I feel like there would be scenes I would be skipping.

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The best Wuxia drama

I have just finished watching this drama and felt very satisfied. The story is attractive and does not have unnecessary long conversations like most of other dramas. The cast acts very good especially the two leads. Gong Jun surprises me in the role of Wen Kexing who has many "faces". I knew him from the drama Lost Love In Time in the role of a nice and faithful Prince but this role did not impress me much. Wen Kexing seems to be a good role for Gong Jun to fully show his talent and his beauty. The costumes and make up are beautiful which shows the natural beauty of each cast. Although costumes of Wen Kexing are colorful, they are impressive and look gorgeous with Gong Jun. I really like and enjoy watching this drama which is the best martial art drama I have ever known in recent years!!!

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what to know before watching

before i get into the pros and cons, just a heads up that this review is a little bit of a comparison to the untamed so it’s somewhat biased :)

pros:
- overall the two leads portray their characters very well, the acting feels sincere but not over the top so they did a good job!

- the pacing, sets, costumes were good!

- side plots and characters were interesting and never unreasonable so i enjoyed that

- all the moments between wenzhou felt very gentle and soft and emotion filled which i very much cherished !! their dynamic is enjoyable to watch and will be close to your heart

cons:
- the flirting at the beginning is a bit hard to swallow, it seems a bit over the top and some points

- there are a lot a lot of old literature and poetry references (especially at the beginning) which is hard to understand for non native audiences, so sometimes the intention and meaning behind character dialogue is lost

- for the untamed fans i have to say the story is somewhat similar at some parts, but they have different focuses in my opinion where the romance in the untamed is subtle, the story focuses more on morality what is right or wrong etc, whereas WOH focuses more on the romance/soulmate aspect. which can be a good thing but for me it felt a little forced at times

- i think the chemistry between all of the characters did not feel as genuine as with the untamed where the characters are so close to your heart and interconnected with each other so you have no choice but to be immersed in their world

- the plot is not my favorite, although it is interesting and memorable it’s not striking ??

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Beautiful love

I finished watching this drama yesterday and I'm still so full of emotions for it. This review will most probably be biased, but I'll do my best to express myself clearly.

First of all, the story is pretty good. The main elements of the plot are nothing that hasn't been seen or told before, but I believe that whoever wrote the episodes did a wonderful job in arranging all of it in a beautiful way. The pacing is great for the majority of the series, there are no moments that felt empty or unnecessary for the sake of the story. I'm giving it a lower score because of some elements that I didn't find very satisfying, mainly the way some things seemed way too convenient (like some characters arriving to the scene conveniently early or conveniently late without proper reasons behind it) and some facets of the story that I believe deserved to be explored better, or at the very least explained further.

The actors all did an amazing job in what they did. No character felt out of place or stiff, and all of them were relevant in their own way, which is always satisfying to see. Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing were absolutely amazing and I loved any of their moments on the screen, both individually and together. Their relationship with each other blooms beautifully and I was in awe most of the time. As someone who watched multiple BL before, I feel confident enough to say that this could easily be classified as BL rather than a bromance: even without kisses or confessions, these two seemed so blatantly and hopelessly in love with each other that calling it a bromance would be an understatement.

I have not watched many dramas of this genre before, and most of the time I tend to drop them for one reason or another, but this time around I was invested all the way through and I ended up watching multiple episodes in a row. Word of Honor captured my heart, broke it in half and healed it back multiple times, but it was an adventure I really enjoyed. It became one of my favorite series and I recommend giving it a try!

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Word of Honor is the most well-produced television work that Zhang Zhehan has acted in to date. His portrayal of Zhou Zishu can be described as perfect, achieving a unity of outside appearance and inside spirit between himself and the character. His acting in some key plot points are even beyond ordinary comprehension, worthy of repeated appreciation. However, the script of Word of Honor itself lost much of the unique taste of the original work after being adapted by the screenwriter. The latter part of the story can be described as a sharp decline, with controversial plot points after Wen Kexing's faked death. Of course, it was also during this period that Zhang Zhehan's portrayal of Zhou Zishu left a deep impression on me, making me feel as if the character was really alive.

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Copy Paste Comment from Amazon Prime by Book Luver

Top reviews from the United States
Book Luver
5.0 out of 5 stars A Hit Drama of 2021
Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2021
Let me start you off with six reasons why you should watch this:

1) A dark horse drama that became an instant hit overnight in the first of 2021, and might be for the whole 2021. ATM, it has a rating of 9.7 on IMDb and 8.3 on Douban (Chinese rating site which is similar to IMDb, and people there are usually hard on the rating)

2) A BL drama that propelled the two males actors to stardom. Their popularity skyrocketed because of Word of Honor.

3) Censorship! Word of Honor doesn’t know who she is 😂 Everyone who watched it kept on asking how in the world did this drama passed the censorship?

4) If you’re a fan of the novel, “Faraway Wanderers” by Priest, you’ll love this. The scriptwriter is a fan of the author, so she kept the characters and story as closely to the novel as possible. She extended some stuffs to make the story longer because the novel is pretty short. Also, she added poetry, idioms, easter eggs and so on to depict the underlying love confessions between the main leads. She’s such a brilliant writer despite she’s just a rookie.

5) If you’re a fan of Wuxia, you’ll love this drama. Awesome Wuxia fighting styles in here. You’ll be amazed and certainly entertained.

6) Shameless flirting 101! You might become an expert flirt after you’ve done with this drama. Haha but seriously, one of the main leads Wen Ke Xing is a king of flirt. You’ll be blushing and laughing at what he spouts out of his mouth. Despite that they overdubbed some of his flirting dialogues, you will still enjoy it as much. Side note: I highly recommend you to watch the lip reading video for this drama to get the best experience of what he actually said 😆

I hope those six reasons alone will help rouse your curiosity. Go and watch it and you’ll know why. But here’s my review so far to help you make up your mind.

Well I just finished up to episode 15 so far on Youku’s YouTube channel, but let me say that this drama got me hooked so badly. I dropped the other dramas that I was watching to just watch this because my mind only think of this drama and nothing else 😂 For your information, I normally don’t watch BL drama. So this is pretty shocking to me that I fell hard for this one. I just adore the main leads in here. Their relationship and chemistry is to die for. You can feel and see that they are each other’s soulmate through and through.

Both leads are considered anti-heroes. They are not black and white nor good or bad. They both have tragic stories that shaped them the ways they are. It’s a story of redemption. And I can’t wait to see to the end where their paths will take them.

Despite the low budget production, this drama certainly doesn’t look like one. The scenery, costumes, fighting scenes are all done beautifully. The acting is top notch, especially for our leads Simon Gong and Zhang Zhe Han. They embodied their characters Wen Ken Xing and Zhou Zi Shu down to a T. I can’t imagine anybody else taking the roles but them. And gosh, their chemistry! They have one of the most explosive chemistry I’ve ever seen on screen, especially between two men. You will fall in love with their expressions, flirting, touching, interactions and everything. And omg, Wen Ke Xing’s flirting is on another level. He’s the king of all flirt! 😂 You will see when you watch it.

Overall, highly recommended! I can’t say enough about this beautiful drama. I will update again when I finish watching it. I have a good feeling that I will still love it as much as the first time.

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