Fighting for Love (2024)

Fighting for Stupidity

When I read the synopsis I was excited with the premise of a strong female character who excels in war strategies and becomes a female general. The FL is intelligent, devious at times and cross dresses as a man, there's a lot of male brotherhood camaraderie she develops with other male characters which is nice because sometimes its not all just about romantic love. While she is talented, the parts where she goes from commoner to elite fighting soldier with top notch archery and horsemanship skills was unrealistic.

The love story really falls flat in my opinion. The ML is good looking but he's a bumbling idiot supposed playboy. His character is really flat and not bright. Its hard to believe he can last as a general for even a minute. I can't really feel drawn to his character. The love story between them doesn't have any emotional pull, its a bit robotic and forced in the acting. Maybe its me but it might be more interesting to see two robots fall in love than the FL and ML.

The SML and the FL seems to have more chemistry as they are on opposing sides and the SML is smart and bold. I watched it because I wanted to see how their story unfolds even though its pretty clear the FL will not end up with the SML. They should have really developed their story more because it was more compelling and a bit more complex than the FL's love story arc with the ML.

Overall it could have been executed better, the last dozen or so episodes was a bit of fast forwarding. I completed it because I was curious how it works out between the FL and SML and how she breaks through to become a general.

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For clown and country.

Fighting For Love is a drama adaptation of a novel with the same Chinese title Ā Mài Cóngjūn/阿麦从军 or A Mai Joins the Army. The novel enjoys an impressive 8.6 score on Douban. It is a female centric story about A Mai, an orphaned noblewoman who seeks justice for her family's betrayal. She joins the army and works her way up to become a fierce and undefeated general. She discovers a greater purpose along the way, which is to defend her country. This takes place during the Northern and Southern dynasties, a period of war, chaos and political turmoil. It is not a romance and there is no real male protagonist; it is about one brave and patriotic woman's awesome journey. I abandoned the book because of its intense and graphic focus on war.

Clearly the original story does not fit with the typical male-centric costume drama formula with plenty of romance tropes. What a breath of fresh air, right? Wrong. In the adaptation, Shang Yizhi is elevated to male protagonist and his story arc is as central as A Mai's. Which in and of itself, is not a terrible thing. Like A Mai, Yizhi has a hidden identity and was a victim of foul play. His cause becomes hers as she rescues him and helps him outsmart his enemies. She discovers her military prowess, forms life and death bonds with her troops and finds meaning in defending the citizens of Nanxia. They have a shared purpose and are catalysts for each other's growth. It is natural for attraction or feelings to develop between them though it does not need to be romantic.

The critical fail in the adaptation is they wrote Yizhi as a kind hearted and playful anti-hero character. While some of his comedic scenes are witty and funny, this diminishes him into a parody role. This should be a complex character who does consequential things; a once carefree young nobleman whose world changes overnight. Instead, the writers stuck him with a love brain and Peter Pan syndrome until the final arc. As he is pushed first to survive and then to reclaim his birthright, all of his motivations continue to simply revolve around A'Mai. A character that chooses each time to save the girl and let the world rot does not deserve to end up where he does! This devalues A'Mai and the Zhenbei army's achievements and sacrifices into a fight for clown and country. Even though he becomes morally ambiguous and utilitarian at the end, this evolution is too abrupt. His character progression should have begun well before he returned to the capital. Zhang Haowei did his best with this role but the character is just too poorly designed.

A Mai is quite consistently written throughout even though it is difficult to connect with her feelings for Yizhi. Even though she is too lovely to ever be mistaken for a man, Zhang Tianai does a wonderful job with the role. Her mannerisms are very masculine and she literally shakes with rage and hatred in her scenes with Chen Qi. Best of all, she is no Mary Sue in need of constant rescuing even though all the men fall for her. She just has terrible luck with men; she gets involved with a backstabber, a clown and an enemy with a choking fetish. The one good man she meets is brother-zoned, father-zoned and what happens to him is definitely over-kill. Chen Qi is the most interesting and conflicted antagonist and his and A Mai's story is really sad. Wang Ruichang is very charismatic and the fan favorite but his Chang Yuqing has no development and no real story arc. He just pops up whenever something needs to go wrong for the leads.

The first few arcs of this story are quite good and the cinematography and action scenes are pretty awesome. The story falls apart mid-way and snowballs downhill into the palace arc. It is yet another perfectly good drama that is ruined by ignorant and silly romance writers who can't write palace intrigue (i.e., Destined, Legend of Zhuohua, Wonderland of Love etc etc). This arc is ridden with predictable villains, plot holes, clichés and a flabby dancing emperor who looks like a sloppy fashion mistake. To my surprise, the story comes together again in the final episodes to end fittingly and on a strong note.

It is not easy to rate this because there are many good parts. The first 12-15 episodes and the ending is good and worth ~8 but the middle and dreadful palace arc are only worth ~6+. I think ~7.5 overall is fair but I am only going to call it a 7.0 because the production deserves to be spanked for desecrating a fantastic novel.



Scroll down for SPOILER ending thoughts.







ENDING SPOILER

The final showdown between A Mai and Chen Qi is exciting and moving and it finally gives her closure. Poor Chen Qi is such an interesting, conflicted and ultimately tragic character it is a shame he was not better fleshed out. In the end he probably loved A Mai best.

I don't believe it is in character for A Mai to go off with Chang Yuqing at the end. His feelings for her are not better developed than Yizhi's and at least in the drama, they are one-sided. He is a rising star in Beimo and if A Mai were to marry him, she would have to defect to the enemy to be another caged bird as the wife of a Marquis. After just escaping the terrible fate of being the favorite concubine of an emperor?!? As advisor Xu points out, the countries are at perfect stalemate because their top generals A'Mai and Chang Yuqing don't really want to fight each other. There is peace with them glowering fiercely at each other across the border. A Mai is simply setting off for a well earned 3-year vacation while Beimo's internal palace politics play out. It is a perfect, strong independent woman ending in the spirit of the original novel; one that says A Mai does not have to be someone's arm candy to have a meaningful life.







X

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Not sure how to rate this one

I feel like I exhausted all of my thoughts in the comment section, so I'll just say this: if you start watching this show knowing that it is loosely based on the original novel and it is different from whatever you thought it would be from trailers, synopses, and promos; and you watch the first episode and find it pleasant, then go for it. Even if the story falls apart in the last third of the show and frustrates you, it is still watchable. The romance is there in the background, but it is not well-written or enjoyable. The weakest parts of this show are the storytelling, the male lead, and the writers' priorities in terms of the plot and characters. The biggest strengths are the cinematography, overall acting, and the music. I wanted to rate it lower, but considering how many bad shows get high ratings, this one is not high at all. P.S. The lack of the cliff trope, underwater kiss, etc., gives it extra points. ?

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Dumpster Fire that Sank Faster than the Titanic

The first absolute flop of 2024. This is what happens when great source material is essentially thrown out the window and absolute garbage is written instead with maybe 3%-5% of the book like the names of the characters and a few of the similarities but that's it. I only wanted to watch it for WRC who played SML and the great story of the female general. Instead what the audience got was a dumpster fire that sank faster than the Titanic.

Pros: Give all of the actors their dues; even with this hot mess of a script, they all did a great job as their respective characters. The costumes, OSTs, scenery, and the 10 minutes of screen time that WRC (CYQ) got in 36 episodes along with the FL (AM); their chemistry was really great as microscopically as it was shown. The fight scenes in the beginning were very well done. More of that was needed. Since the ending was so ambiguous; even though AM turned CYQ down in front of like everyone (which otherwise would have looked like she was "colluding" with the enemy again) at the end and rode off into the sunset supposedly alone, I do believe that this time she rode towards him as the rest of the time he was pursuing her. Who could resist that kind of proposal? A Marquis with an entire army just to ask her again to be his wife. What bolsters this opinion is that for the first time ever she wore pure white, had her hair down just like CYQ did and she crossed the river heading north. So I will take it as her understanding who really had her best interest all this time at heart and would let her be free. Also they shot a second ending where supposedly she meets him in a forest after she leaves and they set off traveling Jianghu together. I would have preferred this ending but according to the leads apparently even they didn't know which one would be used.

Cons: Dear lord, where do I begin? Literally everything that wasn't mentioned above. How can someone take such a fantastic story and turn into a mess of epic proportions? What was wrong with the first female general being the story? Why force the rather ridiculous romance of ML and FL on us when there was literally nothing between them? She and Xiu'er had a greater connection ~insert massive eye roll here~! Why did it turn into ML's story? He was a joke, a fool of a playboy that by the mid-end turned into no less villain than the first emperor. He had no contemplation of taking of human life; only his own mattered, everyone else be damned. This wasn't "Fighting for Love", it was "Fighting Bullshit on Screen."

The crappy palace politics and the twists with Mu Bai or whatever his real name was and the empress who apparently grew a heart and brain overnight. So unnecessary and just dragged this already giant mess into an even bigger abyss. Why kill Tang Ge? And the anticlimactic end to CQ. I can't form sentences on this absolute scale of destruction of a solid story. I hope Beimo returns and conquers Nanxia so their people would live in peace and away from the royal madness as it seems Beimo has it more together and their people aren't subjected to the crap Nanxia does.

The amount of loose ends is staggering. I stopped trying to figure them out halfway through because they legitimately gave me a headache. Very few were actually tied. This macaroni art Frankenstein project wrapped filming in December of 2021 and people were waiting only to be sorely disappointed a little over 3 years later. I truly hope WRC gets better scripts and projects in the future; he deserves it. This was a great injustice to him and his character because essentially everyone but the ML were relegated to support cast even the FL and it was her story!

Would I recommend it? Absolutely not. It'll piss you off especially if you read the book or know anything about the original IP or if you're watching for some semblance of integrity or intelligence, none of which exists here. The entire production team screwed up on a stratospheric level. Just run!

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Fighting For Garbage

LMAO, the screenwriter hoodwinked viewers into thinking that this garbage adaptation would still have the three important elements that drew people into the book which were the following:

1. No palace drama
2. Strong and capable female lead
3. Female lead centric drama

Yet somehow the story shifts focus and the male lead becomes the main character and the second male lead becomes a background character/afterthought.

The only redeeming quality this drama has is that the fight scenes are pretty decent and that the ending was somewhat satisfactory since she did not end up with anyone and refused to see the emperor. However, they including her running off into the sunset made no sense to me. Honestly, this drama wasted so much of my time and was a big disappointment. Giving this 5.5 out of 10 stars was me being kind.

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DUAL CHARACTER

I think we all can agree that the acting was good, the story though had lots of compromising turns, meaning: I am scratching my head like 'heh? but why?' First of all, the title is so deceiving, I don't see there's love worth fighting for. The drama started really good, I almost rated all 10 but as it progressed start to of annoy me.

We all know the basic synopsis of this drama: a respectful female general of the founding era of the Southern Xia dynasty, enduring hardships to become a legendary female warrior. Amai (Zhang Tianai), the daughter of the Duke of Jingguo in Southern Xia, witnesses her entire family being killed by adopted brother Chen Qi (Sun Shao Long). By an incident brought AMei together with Shang Yi Zhi (Zhang Hao Wei) who became his best friend. Amai, now a young woman, disguises herself as a man decided to join the military becoming an infantry with the intention to come face to face Chen Qi who're the Marshal General from enemy forces in the battle seeking revenge. Her hard work paid off as she's promoted highly due to her intelligence, loyalty, dedication, wisdom, and charisma. Although few people knew her true identity, they covered it for the better of battalion. When serving as a general, A Mai had an enemy named General Chang Yu Qing (Wang Rui Chang). They went through a difficult time that brought the two closer. The war in front of them forced A Mai to shift her personal affairs to defend her nation.

What I like about this drama?
* Some comedy in the episodes, great writing up to ep 22
* Amei was beautiful as a woman but easily transform into a handsome man too
* AMei went through reality of harshness, difficulties, hard training/labor, bully from a foot soldier, got promoted to higher ranking of well deserved. I like this because most of C-drama cross-dressing female general acted like females (cute beautiful face, doing girly stuff, flamboyant, separate room than male counterparts) Zhang Tian'Ai acted/thinking like a man and she actually lived & training hard like real men.
* Shang Yi Zhi (Zhang Hao Wei) came from a privilege life, his parent spoiled him to no end. His real identity Qing Han hidden since he was young to avoid banishment/retaliation from the Emperor. From a naive spoiled young man, his character developed each step. He depended fully to his advisor Mr. Xu, bodyguard Mu Bai, and A Mei as his trusted right hand. He might not a favorite ML but he's matured as he act selfishly as an Emperor to get what he wanted. He's willing to kill everyone as long A Mei say so, he cared less to anything as long as A Mei like to live with him as his Empress. Too bad A Mei had better understanding to what her heart saying...and it wasn't him.
* I like the end of drama. Peace to the country as Beimo Kingdom was in domestic turmoil. Chang Yu Qing (Wang Rui Chang) was again propose to her. Shang Yi Zhi was present hoping to get to meet her. Qi Yu safe and sound learning and training hard.

What I don't like about this drama?
** Ep 22 when she decided to marry Xu'Er to cover up her 'female' identity from her subordinates. Because of this, 2 people died, rising tension and fight broke up of the rumor of her femininity.
** Prime Minister Lin & Family. Alright, this family is so fucked-p, ambitious the PM used his children to get power. Who knew Mu Bai was his youngest son while Chen Qi was his oldest and daughter Ruo Fei was Yi Zhi Empress. Not to mention that this twist took all the screen time than other Male Leads. This drama turned into palace politics and harem jealousy & manipulation. I hate when I see women back stabbing or senile to each other.
** The title of the drama should be renamed to original: A Mai Cong Jun.

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Female General

In my opinion, it was an enjoyable, exciting drama from start to finish. It was not without its flaws. When I read the comments, viewers and commentators were looking for logic. If they are looking for logic, they should not watch any CHINESE TV series. There is no logic in any of it. I have never watched another CHINESE TV series that said, "Let's follow reality and logic, let's not mock the human mind, let's not do unimaginable things." That's why I found such comments unreasonable. There may be errors. I'm not looking for logic. I was drawn to the beauty of the story. It was well acted, well directed, and I liked the actors. Yes, were there aspects that were not satisfactory? Was there any player who was not satisfactory? For example, Zhang Hao Wei did not satisfy me with his acting in this drama. But did he grin a lot? NO. Normal. It was a series based on female actors. I found the actress Zhang Tian Ai successful. I like it. First of all, it is another thing to start as a private and become a general. It gave that excitement, could it have been better? YES. I don't say anything to these. But it satisfied me. Our story was already a story of revenge. A woman, who swore revenge after her father and mother were murdered in front of her and with the participation of her stepbrother, disguised herself as a man and rose to the rank of general in the army, which she entered as a private. On the other hand, it can also be said that it is the story of a woman who, as the child of a noble family, had a high-level identity, saw the bottom, lived, and then rose to a high-level identity again with her own efforts. It is also a story of friendship, brotherhood and love. He reaches this level with the protection of the child of the noble family that gives him these opportunities. A love is born between them, but unfortunately, this story ends in disappointment due to royal events, jealousies and revenge. Just when I thought it was ending, it felt like there was more. I didn't expect such an ending. I think there will be a second season. I thoroughly liked all the actors who played the supporting roles, apart from the leading roles. Including child actors. Well done to the director's efforts. I recommend everyone to watch it.

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A disappointment

Disappointment is the first word that comes to mind when reflecting on watching this drama. For fans of the original novel, this is not the faithful adaptation you were hoping for. At best, this drama is loosely inspired by the novel. The first half of the drama is watchable when the story is centered on Amai, our fearless female lead, as she seeks revenge for her dead family at the hands of her onetime adopted older brother, Chen Qi. She manages to join the army, and her struggles and triumphs throughout those arcs of the story and the bonds she forges with her sworn brother, Tang Shaoyi, and her army buddies are fun and heartwarming to watch. Her entanglements with the charismatic enemy general Chang Yuqing are also highlights of the show.

It is in the second half of the show that things really do fall apart. The story shifts focus to the male lead, Shang Yizhi (who is really Qi Huan, the son of the former crown prince), and having no solid character arc to lean upon, the story moves from one ridiculous political plot to another until the story goes up in flames at the very end. This is the show's greatest weakness: the writing of Yizhi's character. He begins as a "playboy" silly son of a marquis and becomes emperor almost by accident, but he has no real personality, drive or meat to his character other than the shell we are presented with. One simply does not care about what happens to him because everyone around him is far more interesting and key to moving the story along. He is simply along for the ride.

It is in the final few episodes that I really lost my patience with the ML. He betrays Amai firstly in marrying someone else and then betrays the Zhenbei army in the name of securing peace. At least in the end, Amai freed herself from him and was able to live her own life.

So proceed with caution in watching given the high risk of disappointment by the end, consider skipping most of the second half, or find another drama with better constructed characters and balance of story lines to fill your time. I found the music loud and grating most of the time, so there was not even that to soothe my angry soul by episode 36. It is my consideration of the generally great acting of the cast and the stronger first half that I offer a very general score of 7.5.

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There's no too much important characters but main are given limited screen time

I've been waiting for ep. 23-26 only to found out that those people in the palace have more screen time than the SML (General Chang Yu Qing). So dissappointing! I am rooting for Yu Qing to be with the FL actually. I hated it that they have not given the ML character development, atleast they could have turned him into a smart scheme or war strategist since he's not a martial artist . This week's episodes are so boring actually. ?If only I've known that Yu Qing is not in ep.23-26, i would have not watch any of it. Mai and Yu Qing have more chemistry than with the ML (i like the actor, not his character in here)

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Messy plot.

In my opinion the first few episodes were decent. But as the show progressed the story started getting messier. What I disliked the most is the background stories of each characters. The antagonists were made out to be worse than they actually were. On the other hand, the protagonists' characters and their background stories were glorified. Hence I couldn't empathize with the main leads' thoughts and emotions.

The second thing that bothered me was the story felt kind of unfinished with too many plot holes. Like how did everyone know that Shang Yizi is in fact Qi Huan, the son of prevous crown prince and when did everyone find out that Han Maisui is a woman? Why did Chang Yuqing suddenly fall in love with the fl? And most importantly why did the emperor who had tried several times to kill the ml, suddenly decides to abdicate the throne in favour of him instead of his own son? There are several other plot holes but I don't wish to go on.

The acting was good especially the fl. The fighting scenes and brotherhood of the soldiers were the things I loved. The ml's character wasn't memorable. Instead Tang Shaoyi's character was much more well written and better. I wish they gave him more screentime.

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Fighting for Disappointment

Yizhi was stupid and immature but it made sense because he was a spoiled and sheltered wealthy son of a princess. And he all of a sudden is on the run for his life with no experience or intelligence. I understand how people are annoyed with him but maybe we too often expect the guys to be the ideal man. To me it felt like his job is suppose to be simply and pure heartedly dedicating himself to Amai. I was able to accept this role and viewed Amai as the hero of the story and Yizhi as a man princess that she would come and rescue. Basically a gender reversal.

The problem starts when they reach the last battle of the show. They went through the majority of the show going through life and death together. And becoming more successful, strong, and able to go through adversity together. Then its simply gets all thrown away when they get to the last part of the show. Apparently all the struggle of the previous episodes were for nothing, and for whatever reason they simply drop the way that their characters were previously.

Yizhi is no longer strong enough to make it though the difficulties when it comes to Amai, when previously he always listened to her, and wouldn't do things that could lose her. And Amai is no longer willing to come save him from the evil plots. She quickly gets discouraged and stops believing him when the worst of the show comes along. I think it would have been easier for me to accept and transition to an ending where they literally just die in battle together. Because that would feel more in line with the majority of the show that was leading me on with a hero story type of dynamic. If the show was more like Goodbye my Princess and you didn't have much expectations for them to stay together or have a good ending, because it didn't lead you on, then it would have been easier to digest this ending.

In Goodbye My Princess it felt like the sad ending was beneficial to the prince's character, or at least makes sense. It was the finale of a tragic story. But in Fighting For Love it just ruins the show and they just give up on the battles that they've been fighting for love the entire show, like don't even call it Fighting For Love anymore please. What even was the point in the characters even overcoming everything that happened before anymore? The show became a bit pointless no?

I didn't rate it too low because it wasn't that bad before it gets to the last part of the show. Most of the show is enjoyable comedy. And it was cool to see a women hero that was actually done pretty well with pretending to be man to join the army.

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Deserves better than 7.6

I enjoyed this drama and I liked all the characters and how they were portrayed. Not the greatest drama for sure but pretty much all the criticism that was voiced in other reviews applies to all recent Chinese historical dramas.

I'd say if you were attracted by the tags attached to this drama (Strong Female Lead, Disguised As A Man, Orphan Female Lead, Revenge, ... ) you may very well find, as I did, that this drama delivers some welcome little twists to what you've come to expect from similarly tagged dramas.

I particularly enjoyed the interactions between the FL and SML and would love to see the two actors paired up again in another drama. After finishing this drama I also feel inspired enough to check out some of Zhang Tian Ai's and Wang Rui Chang's other dramas in the near future.

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