The Untamed | S01E22

Chinese Drama - 2019, 50 episodes

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Xue Yang

Just a sketch of Xue Yang from MDZS with the face of the actor that portrayed him in The Untamed, Wang Hao Xuan.

Cdrama: Stick to the Script! (2021-2022)

Steal something to eat 🤣🤣 #shorts #师兄请按剧本来#SticktotheScript #王皓轩 #屠芷莹 #wanghaoxuan #tuzhiying

Watch this video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sY-H4X8TtGA

в отличие от сяо чжаня и ван ибо, чтобы найти бтс с компанией города И, нужно специально искать. и чем больший треш происходит на экране, тем спокойнее смотреть бтс. вот сяо синчэнь (сун цзиян) машет рукой сюэ яну (ван хаосюань), которого поднимают на веревках. вот он же ударяет его мечом в ножнах по заднице в ответ на приставания. и все хорошо Unlike Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo, to find a BTS with a Yi City company, you need to search specifically. And the more trash happens on the screen, the calmer it is to watch BTS. Here is Xiao Xingchen (Song Jiyang) waving to Xue Yang (Wang Haoxuan), who is being lifted on ropes. Here he is hitting him on the ass with a sheathed sword in response to annoyance. And everything is fine !

— Ji Yang Song & Wang Hao Xuan icons ♡

I have come to the conclusion that there's not enough Wang Hao Xuan in my life and this makes me sad 🥺

The Untamed | S01E13

Chinese Drama - 2019, 50 episodes

Episodes | Viki | YouTube | Netflix | WeTV | Tencent | Prime | Catalogue

Dance of the Phœnix - Overall review

Now that I finally completed the series Dance of the phœnix, here’s my general review. For those who don’t know about this drama, it is the story of Feng Wu, a prodigious cultivator that lost all of her memories when someone stole her phœnix blood, which made her special. As she tries to regain her spiritual powers to awaken her sleeping master so she can return where she comes from, she makes friends, allies, but also many ennemies.

Plot

I would say the story is overall promising at the beginning, but as we progress through the series, things start to go astray. Character development isn’t a strength, they are all mostly the same at the beginning of the drama and at the end, except for Yu Mingye and Zuo Qingluan, who are in my opinion the two solid strengths of this story. Without them, it would have rather boring. 

My biggest issue with Dance of the phœnix is the many plot holes. Some characters disappear sometimes without any explanation and then they come back without any details as to why they left in the first place. Maybe it has something to do with the actors being unavailable? But the writers could have done a better job than that to hide it. Also, when we read the official summaries everywhere, it says that Feng Wu’s name is Meng Yuan and that she’s a medical student. BUT NEVER EVER IN THE DRAMA IS THAT MENTIONNED! There are clues here and there about the fact that she would be from our world (blowing candles for a birthday, eating ramen but has the quick ones in a box, references to Liu Bei, etc). Mu Jiuzhou, her master, mentions that she’s from another world, but we never get to learn how she came and where is she from. It really bothered me. Also there were a few stories that were a little useless. Especially the one about the wolf lady. It was cute. Then it became extremely sad and I’m still very very mad about what happened. The whole motives behind the bad guys was very weak in my opinion. Overall, it had potential, but it was wasted.

Overall, plot wise this does not deserve more than a 6/10.

Acting

There was good acting and bad acting. It wasn’t so consistent for Yang Chaoyue. I’ve seen comments saying that she seemed emotionless, but that is not what bothered me so much. I feel sometimes she was going way over the top in her acting and it wasn’t matching the character. But at some point, her character wasn’t consistent in the script to begin with, so it must have been hard to keep up. Jun Linyuan did an okay job, like it didn’t strike me as exceptional, but it wasn’t bad. It’s hard to judge when they play an emotionless character. But there were definitely some nice scenes from him, especially after he got a little more comfortable around Feng Wu as Jun Linyuan and he started teasing her.

The two actors that really impressed me were Jinna Fu and Wang Haoxuan. Jinna Fu had to portray the so ever complicated Zuo Qingluan and she did very well. I could believe in every mood swings she had. She made me hate her character, to the point I couldn’t see any redemption for her. And at the same time, I loved Zuo Qingluan just for that. She was alive, albeit motivated by the wrong reasons. I can’t say I’ve ever seen her out of character, even when it seemed a little inconsistent to me (I blame more of the writing than anything else). And finally, Wang Haoxuan. Can we talk about how Yu Mingye was perfect at all times? It was such a complex character, thorn between the expectations of his father, but his gentle nature. He could be cheeky and arrogant without me falling out of it. He made me laugh and cry. I think it was the most relatable character and Wang Haoxuan did an excellent job at showing all the different sides of this tormented child.

For me, the acting in general deserves a 8/10, but that’s because Jinna Fu and Wang Haoxuan did a wonderful job, the average was around maybe 7/10 for me.

Visuals

Here, this is what drew me first to this drama. I really liked the soft look of scenes. The costumes were simple, yet elegant. I enjoyed the colours being consistent for each sect of cultivation. The hairstyles were really a joy to look at, especially for the disciples of the Biluo Palace. I was very impressed. For sure, I’ve seen much more intricate costumes watching historical/xianxia drama, but here it was just enough. The colouring of the scenes were always appeasing. The one thing I didn’t really like is that they made the empress go darker and darker to show that she was the villainess while I think it would have made more sense if she became brighter and brighter. But that’s just my opinion.

The CGI really wasn’t so bad to be honest. Some creatures weren’t that great, but the little bird was great. I just wish they didn’t give it a robotic voice, but oh well. Also they didn’t go overboard with the spells, it wasn’t all over the place and they kept it minimal in special effects, which I like better. Cool special effects are nice, but once it starts becoming overwhelming, I lose all interest.

This drama gets a 9/10, because nothing’s perfect, but they did very well in that aspect.

Soundtrack

I think the soundtrack was one of the strengths of this drama. I really liked both the opening and the ending songs, though I didn’t listen to them every time I watched an episode. I also feel that in general, the music was appropriate to what was happening and really set up the mood of the story.

Here again, it’s 9/10, even though I don’t have as much to say.

Should you watch this drama? I would say no. It has lots of good things and I was pretty excited since it was from the same director as the Untamed, but however it didn’t live up to my expectations. It’s a sweet love story, but unfortunately, I don’t think it’s worth the 30 episodes. Everything was resolved in a very unsatisfying way, a lot of questions were left unanswered and to me the writers didn’t do a very good job to make everything coherent. This drama gets a 7/10, and I’m generous because when I first started watching, I really liked it.

List of full recaps

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30

Stick to the Script 2021

I just finished Stick to the script and WHERE IS MY S2

What was that ending??? Put Haoxuan character in the modern world now or something

Cdrama: Stick to the Script! (2021-2022)

Why is he dressed like this? 🤣🤣 #shorts #师兄请按剧本来#SticktotheScript #王皓轩#屠芷莹 #wanghaoxuan #tuzhiying

Watch this video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/F04r8hc7hSA

Building a fandom one brick at a time.

"Rewriting The Script" on ao3