Angels and Guards (2026)

Good start, better ending!!

Well, I came to this mini drama because of the presence of that actress, Zhang Nan, that I have watched in previous dramas like The Wanted Detective, Glory or Gone With the Rain. In all this series, her performance was superb, wonderful and near perfection, what a great performer she is. I like too the wuxia dramas, more like no other kind, more like xianxia or some magical issues that I’m not entirely on them. And when I realised this was mainly featuring female characters in fighting duties, i’ll think It could be a good attempt.

At first, the drama starts with an average tone, introducing the main characters, the Jinyiwei stuff and the struggles in the past and some uncover things. Sheng Bingfan (Zhang Nan) is a cold and stubborn girl who wants to uncover the death of her father in the hands of the famous assassin Leng Xin. Hua Mange is her partner, a wonderful and straighforward character, and the cute Cheng Xintian closes the trio of female agents. They are supported by the MLs of the show, the frivolous Chang Beiming (Jiang Chao), a noble with a double life and many secrets to hide, and Xu Duoyu (Ge Qiugu), an scholar with innovative ideas about war and fighting. The plot begins a little sloppy, maybe, not very exciting, while making Chang and Bingfan to enter a kind of love and hate relationship, but this is not a romance, so this story is not really developed. The presence of another villain, Feng Fuliu, as a masked warrior with no clear intentions, entangle the plot some more. Slowly, the pacing is improving, the plots are more interesting and everything starts to work better. About half the drama, I was completely hooked with the history, the mega cute female team and some of the fighting scenes. This is not the good point of the drama, of course. Some of the actors, starting with Zhang Nan, does not seem to have worked so much in the coreography. However, Zhang repay it with her good acting skills in the fights, and the other characters really do it very well. Hua Mange is charming in her fighting skills with her whip, and the ML did a good job, too, with cool weapons like his fan.

But the highlight of the show, for me, is the main villain, the character of Leng Xin (who is not a lead but a support role in the cast). Spoiler alert, this character is portayed by the actress named Wang Junbi, a little girl who doesn’t seem to fit for a supposed “terrific” role like that. However, in the show, Leng Xin is presented as the public enemy number 1, with incredible fighting and qigong skills, even superior to any other character in the story. This is not some common in this kind of dramas, male centered forever, and I’ve never seen a final boss fight between two women (Bingfan and Lengxin). For that reason alone It’s worth watching, my god. The final battle, with the assassin Leng Xin fighting alone all the other characters together and nearly winning, has been very exciting, and I almost changed my mind wanting her to win, hahaha. Some of the choreographies are really good, albeit brief, and everybody made an excelent performance with the wirework, yeah.

Besides, spoiler alert too, I liked a lot the performance of Leng Xin as a cute and undercover maid. Her relationship with Xintian, presented as truly love, is something not often seen in this kind of shows, here we have one sided sismance, hahaha, truly heartwarming. That actress, Wang Junbi made a really cool performance as an histrionic character, evil to the bones, without redemption, at the final episodes. It’s very very very coooool, I can only praise her.

On the whole, I can say that there are minor flaws in the show; if you’re not searching some deep story, or a heartwarming romance, or some like that, if you want entertainment, here it is. I want to praise all the performers in the show, everybody is doing a very good job here.

For all of that, I can only rate this mini drama very high; since I really enjoyed watching it. I’m not in the “rewatch” mode, hardly ever, but in this case I could do it, for sure. Thumbs up!

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