The Longest Promise is a great drama full of love, devotion and bitterness of fate.
I suggest this drama for those who are truly fans of xianxia and are used to the bitterness of angst. Xiao Zhan as the main lead is something to look forward to if you are a fan of xianxia. A beautiful love story of a master and a disciple.

STORY:

Kongsang's young Crown Prince Shiying meets the young Princess of The Crimson Clan, Zhu Yan. Zhu Yan is a strong-willed girl who wishes to learn magic techniques and goes to ask the Crown Prince for permission to learn. Unfortunately, after meeting the prince, She falls down from the roof of the palace, right in front of the Emperor's beloved consort. The Consort wants to punish her and her clan for it, but Crown Prince Shiying stands up for her. Later on, Shiying gets framed for killing the Consort, even though she killed herself. The Empress decides to fake Shiying's death and asks for help from The High Priest of Jiu Yi Mountain. Emperor declares that Shiying is a criminal that shall not be mourned.
Princess Zhu Yan decides to go against the law and in secrecy pays her respects to Shiying which triggers a fate between them. Zhu Yan is now Shiying's cursed lady, who is predestined to kill him. Later on, Shiying and Zhu Yan meet in Jiu Yi mountain and the kind-hearted Shiying doesn't kill her, even though he knows that she is predestined to kill him. They soon become Master and Disciple. Meanwhile, Merfolk has been waiting for their Sea Emperor to return, as Kongsang people and Merfolk go to war, Zhu Yan and Shi Ying have to not only fight against their destiny when giving into affection, but also the whole kongsang's and merfolk's destiny too.




SPOILER PART OF THE STORY SHORTLY

First, I'm going to give warnings to those who want to watch this.
ENDING? - It's an "open" ending but also a happy ending. I'm going to talk about the ending later on this review.
LOVE RIVALS? - There aren't real love rivals that are actually romantically interested in Shiying or Zhu Yan. Princess Bai Xuelu tries to come between the main couple a couple of times, only for the title of the empress. Zhu Yan's clan's keeper, Zhi Yuan, was in love with Zhu Yan's ancestor and for a little while mistakens her to be Yao Yi's reincarnation.
ANGST? - Yes, very much. Shiying's and Zhu Yan's love is forbidden, and they dare not to express their feelings openly to each other easily, which creates misunderstandings between them.
DEATH? - Yes, as a matter of fact, Shiying dies but gets resurrected 2 times.



SPOILER PART OF THE STORY, MY OPINION:
The Longest Promise is great. It reminded me a little of the drama "Immortal Samsara". The CGI is good, the scenery is beautiful, and the story and the characters go well together.
Zhu Yan's personality can be a little overused in xianxia, the disciple who is clingy to their cold faced, yet kindhearted Master. I was happy that in The Longest Promise, Zhu Yan as a girl didn't always need Shiying to save her, instead she too saved him multiple times. Their love is equal, and I applaud this drama for it. Bai Xuelu, the illegitimate princess of the White King, had one of the best character developments for me. It was understandable where her ambition was coming from, as the only thing she wished for was justice for her mother. She wanted to become the empress and got used a lot because of that, but you could see her progressively feeling bad for what she has done and in the end she redeemed herself beautifully, I was expecting to hate her in the end, so I was very pleased. High Priest of Jiu Yi Mountain tried to redeem himself in the end, but he can't wash away the sins of trying to pressure Shiying to leave priesthood to become the next emperor, only because he wanted to avenge his loved one, Shiying's mother.

The angst between Shiying and Zhuyan was just as painful for me as it was when I was watching "Immortal Samsara".
Shiying and Zhuyan meet in Jiu Yi Mountain as Zhu yan wishes to learn the spell to bring back a person from the dead. Se wishes to bring back the Crown Prince. Even when knowing that she is the cursed lady, Shiying holds her dear as he is grateful to her for being the only one who mourned his fake death and remembering the crown prince. Zhu Yan and Shiying were never meant to be disciple and master, but due to his own growing affection and to protect her, accepts her as his disciple. They eventually become a very close Master-Disciple pair. Shiying slowly but surely falls for Zhuyan, but to protect her, after 3 years, she is sent back to home from the mountain. She is sad and misses Shiying. Zhu Yan's parents want her to get married, and eventually she is forced to marry into Huotu tribe, but she plans to escape. Shiying has been investigating a matter that concerns Huotu tribe and comes to witness her wedding and her escape. Huotu Tribe had been involved with the Ice Clan, a banished clan, and were planning on making Zhu yan into a puppet.

Merfolk and Kongsang people have been at odds for a long time, and the Sea Emperor's return is a bad omen. The Sea Emperor turns out to be a little boy, Sumo. Sumo met Zhuyan at the Huotu tribe, as Sumo's father is the Huotu tribe's deceased chief. She saves Sumo and his mother. Eventually, Zhu Yan's keeper, Zhi Yuan, finds the sea emperor and tells a lie to Shiying and Zhuyan that he is the sea emperor. This creates a rift between Shiying and Zhuyan, as Zhuyan eventually stops Shiying from killing Zhi Yuan by claiming to love him. Zhi Yuan stops the war between merfolk and Kongsang people and willingly fights again with Shiying, losing is life. Zhu yan is devastated and points a sword at Shiying and tells him that she hates him. Shiying takes hold of her blade and stabs himself with it, because he feels guilty of killing Zhuyan's loved one and to protect her from a curse that High Priest had planted on her. As Shiying dies, she tries to tell him that the one she truly loves is him, but it's too late. High Priest helps Zhuyan to bring back Shiying. She performs a spell to exchange half of her life for him. She succeeds and as Shiying fully recovers and realizes that Zhuyan loves him, he leaves the priesthood and goes through the tribulations of hell. As they finally think they could be together for good, Crimson Clan is accused of treason as they kept Zhi Yuan in their residence for 200 years, as Zhu yan and Shiying try to find evidence of Crimson Clan being innocent, they find out Zhi Yuan is still alive. He gets possessed by the god of destruction, who is the culprit behind everything. He kidnaps Zhuyan and after she gets rescued, Shiying and Zhuyan get married. Eventually Shiying and Zhuyan fight against the god of destruction and Zhi Yuan dies and god of destruction possesses Zhuyan. Shiying decides to let god of destruction to possess him instead and asks Zhu Yan to kill him. She kills him and mourns him for a year until when the snowy rosa blooms, and he is resurrected.

Now, that was a lot. And this was all simplified as possible. For me, the angst was a bit too much, but it was saved by the sweet moments and due to the amazing acting of Xiao Zhan. The fact that Shiying dies 2 times and gets resurrected was for sure too much for my heart. The ending is similar to "The Starry Love" and "Immortal Samsara". At least, we get to actually see him come back to life. I was hoping for a really happy ending, but this wasn't the worst. The drama was overall a good one, and I highly suggest this for xianxia lovers.

ACTING:

Xiao Zhan as Shiying,
Amazing. Maybe I'm a little biased, because I happen to be a fan of him, but I honestly think his acting is great. I love the way he acts, especially the "being in love" acting. He manages to make me believe that he is truly in love and is committed. Also, he for sure is one of the best cdrama actors when it comes to showing the feelings of pain, sadness and misery. He makes me cry when he looks so realistically sad. My favorite scenes were in the end when "he is possessed." It was great acting from him. Just the perfect casting for this role.

Ren Min as Zhu Yan,
Beautiful and courageous. I don't get why some people commented on her looks. I think she looked very beautiful. Her acting was great, especially when she was acting sad. I could really empathize with her. A great pick for this role.

Alen Fang as Zhi Yuan,
Just right. He was just the perfect choice for this role. When "being possessed", his acting really shined.


Overall a 8,5.