The Tycoon (2025)

A compelling Watch!

'Legend of the Magnate' is a worthy adaptation of the original Novel 大生意人 (Dà shēngyì rén), literally translates to 'The Great Businessman', which is more suitable as a title, instead of this overbearing English title.However, the Native Chinese title of this drama wasn’t changed from the book and kept the same as it is, Dà shēngyì rén! It is indeed a business-heavy drama set in the Late Qing Dynasty in the 1860s, During & after the Xianfeng Emperor's reign,a turbulent period of wars and rebellions.

The story centers around The Main Male protagonist Gu pingyuan, a scholar who was framed during his Imperial examination and got exiled in the harsh & cold Northern land Ningguta.After 5 years of his exile, he managed to escape that place after much hardship & struggles,narrowly escaping death.In the process,he met a humble merchant family from shanxi, Chang si with his daughter Chang Yu'er, And Li Qin, son of a powerful and wealthy Beijing Tycoon,Li Wantang. Gu pingyuan,starting from the rock-bottom,gradually starts navigating the complex political and business environments of that era, getting involved with 8 big business families of Shanxi, And a Free spirited 'Rebel' Noblewoman Su zixuan.

There's not much to 'spoil' in the plot,as the plot mostly is Main-character driven, & the true focus yields heavily on the merchants and business deals,All the other aspects kinda take a backseat in the story, eg. The romance of the leads is very subtle, but one poetic scene in the Rain totally stole my heart & soul in an earlier episode.The director of this drama,Zhang Ting,who also wrote the adapted screenplay, did a good job bringing out the best of each scenes, all thanks to the veteran Actors who portrayed their roles perfectly as per characters.Chen Xiao is amazing as always, Luo Yi zhou as Li Qin was brilliant (such an acting talent to discover this year!), The Acting masterclass of Cheng Tai shen as Chang Si, Huang Zhi zhong as Li Wantang, & Liang Guan Hua as Viceroy Ruilin were truly remarkable,and this drama almost felt like a big level movie production in certain scenes.The cinematography, specially in the Mongolian grasslands and Anhui Tea making episodes were eye candy, Natural Make-up & styling with plain beautiful costumes were Cherry on Top.


There was Taiping rebellion going on in the beginning of the drama until middle episodes, Drama mentions it as "rebels of south" for obvious censorship reasons, As I've always noticed, Qing Dynasty dramas are largely scrutinised by Chinese censor board, i guess they Have their reasonings of possible historical distortion or maybe ''public opinions" surrounding many topics, the reason why I'm discussing this matter is, i found it interesting how this drama at some exact points of the story, deviated from the Novel,and deliberately changed some character arcs and omitted some definite important parts as well (eg. Li Cheng, Su zixuan & Bai yimei's individual characterizations). I read the novel quite a long while ago and liked it a lot, The Author of the novel, Zhao Zhiyu, is a Manchu descendant of the Plain Blue Banner,whose ancestor was Irgen Gioro Gagai, a founding general of the Qing Dynasty. Majoring in language & literature, zhao zhiyu actually Researched on the Commercial history & political-business relations of Qing Dynasty era for many years,Maybe that's why i found the situations of the storyline quite realistic and believable to watch.In one scene we see the Main protagonist solving a huge sum of loan issue of the 8 families by creating 'Bank drafts', Which i believe is a tribute to Shanxi merchants of the 19th century who pioneered this sophisticated financial banking system known as Piaohao (票號), which served as a prototype of modern banking system of credit and debts.Although Gu pingyuan always have a touch of luck amongst the craziest troubles, he cleverly solved matters, strategically approached things and paved his own ways out of absolute despair,which is one of the intriguing parts about his character and for overall drama. The dialogues are superbly written with depth,& screenwriter of the drama is as good as the novel author for sure....

...ehem,Till the ending episodes.If it weren’t for the last 5/6 episodes, i'd have given this drama a solid 8.5 or Maybe 9.0.The ending wasn’t satisfying to me at all. Salt trade matters in Liangjiang were dragged for long enough, some of the important character dynamics were abruptly changed in the end which made no sense at all, Gu pingyuan's Ending is even more underwhelming,some may finish the drama and question Himself, "All these to meet this end? I'm not talking about happy ending or sad ending, It's surely a happy ending, but the end mostly DOES NOT justify the character build-up and the overall journey of Gu pingyuan, who was supposed to meet a glorious ending becoming a well recognised Big Businessman respected by all merchants in the central plains.Rather than that,Drama made him a Wanderer ship merchant or what? nah,i can't accept it at all.

This is not a drama to binge watch,It's specifically for slow & attentive watchers,and it needs a rather mature audience to understand the depth & significance of the whole storyline. I enjoyed watching it and it wasn’t boring or annoying at all,there's some light comedic scenes to balance out with the seriousness, and Gu family with Chang & Liao family gave some warmth in the story to continue it,the wedding ceremony of our leads was too natural and a real happy occasion meeting all the people Gu pingyuan and Chang Yu'er met in their journey throughout northern & southern regions.I really wished they flesh out Ms. Su zixuan's character MORE, she was one of the most important & interesting strong characters in the Novel that served a purpose from soup to nuts ,but the drama sadly made her just a plot device for Main character's storyline.Another is Li wantang's character,i can't believe the character changes that were made after the Secret reveal,It wasn’t supposed to be like how it was done. Many changes in the drama story were better than the original story,i appreciate that,but then,i couldn’t end it with satisfaction as a Novel reader bcz of these vacuums.

8/10, the overall quality of the drama was great, i hope the viewers who didn’t read the novel enjoyed it more.It's very much worth watching.

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Ahead of the times

Adapted from the novel of the same name (大生意人), this drama ambitiously tries to cover a lot of ground and time in only 40 episodes. Having not read the novel, I can judge the drama on its merits alone. And there is certainly a lot to admire about this lavishly produced period drama set from the Taiping Rebellion during the Qing dynasty all the way to the early days of revolution before the Republic of China. Shot on location for the most part with a generally naturalistic and accurate-to-history approach to costumes, makeup and styling, Legend of the Magnate is a welcome break from the manicured and somewhat derivative idol period dramas coming out of Chinese drama land these days. Performances are also more raw (everyone is using their own voice here too as far as I can tell) and real, with some very moving sections of the story.

The story starts off with a bang in the frigid cold of Ningguta as Gu Pingyuan makes a thrilling escape from exile. From there, the story slowly begins to lose focus as more and more strands of storylines are introduced, making it harder on the audience to connect emotionally with every strand. Some storylines were more effective for me than others. Whether you agree or not with the romance, the Li Cheng and Bai Yimei storyline was striking for me. Serving tea to Empress Dowager Cixi - while completely farfetched - was also thrilling. Unfortunately, the latter part of the drama had some of the weaker storylines. The British characters were not developed enough to make me feel much by the time the last couple episodes came along. Female characters that were so impactful and gripping to watch (Ms. Su and Chang Yu'er) in the first half have less to do in the latter half.

All in all, this is worthy period drama to catch if one appreciates a more grounded production with a generally more well-written script (with better dialogue and performances than the usual idol dramas of today). But this story could have either been expanded to allow for better development of certain storylines or eliminated sections that did not elaborate on the core characters - some of whom I feel were underused by the latter third of the story.

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