I’d heard about the Untamed and decided to give it a try, not knowing anything about it. The first episode was very confusing to me, and I had to do a bunch of googling to even get a grasp. If anyone goes into this show as their first Chinese drama, they may also find the names confusing- there are many characters introduced very quickly. It became better as I slowly understood more, but I was still a bit confused and waiting for the show to become more exciting. I was at the point of, “if it doesn’t get better soon, I’ll drop the show”. However, I’m so glad I stuck with it- things took a turn at a certain episode and suddenly the show was much more emotional and intense. It became so good that it didn’t matter that I was confused at the beginning- and once you watch the whole show, watching the beginning again makes a lot more sense and you can see all the hints that were woven in.

(More spoilery from here)

The Untamed really wonderfully dealt with a lot of themes and issues, and each character was complex and layered. Wei Wuxian’s descent into madness was for me, unexpected (despite seeing how he was “evil” at the beginning, because I was so confused that I forgot about that) but fascinating and satisfying. The Wen clan initially seems like the main antagonist, but then it turns out that our protagonist is the villain, at least in the eyes of society. The Untamed showed so much about the struggles between what is right or wrong individually, vs within relationships, vs in society, or when someone has no choices... making bad choices for good reasons, or vice versa...

The character development is amazing and each character was complex enough to be the protagonist of their own show, in my opinion. Even most of the villains were so dimensional that I couldn’t dislike them. I can see why people call this show a masterpiece, and despite my initial confusion, this turned out to be one of the best shows I’ve ever watched.