The Blood of Youth: Quest of Heroic Hearts (2026)

This feels like someone wrote a fanfic and filmed it

This... Is... Uh, the largest budget of a fanfic being filmed that I've seen.

I went in not finding any information on the series, but as a fan of this universe, decided to give it a try. This seems like a typical next Gen fanfic, with basically enough tropes in it that you can make a drinking game out of. It has your signature bromance, BL if you squint, angst, sacrifice, will they/won't they romance, tragic background, damsel in distress, etc etc. And despite the campiness, its contents were captivating enough that I binged this in 2 days. Know that that I didn't manage to finish the remake version of Blood of Youth net series (Great Journey of Teenagers) past episode 2, so this at least was enjoyable.

Both acting and cinematography were good, visuals, choreography and CGI also good. Of course, there's no huge demigod sized avatars battling with city destruction moves, but I enjoy the classic wuxia story with a bit of CGI to help express qi. I can't say much on music though, they recycled the music and songs from the original series so there's a sense of familiarity, but also nothing really new there.

Pacing and story is where it hit a slight snag. The first one could be contributed to this being the new style short series so everything happened at decently fast pace. In a way, it made the funny moments meant for tension relief feel more like face-palm moments because there's not enough time to build proper tension that you need relief from. The whole series is only about 5 hours long if you take away all the opening and credits.

Story... I think this would have been a better standalone story outside of the BoY universe because there is quite a bit of information that feels contradictory, or doesn't make much sense without at least another series or three to explain why such things would come to be. Don't get me wrong, I loved the little references to the world we know, but a number of them also felt like "Hey, that's not right!" It took away from it a little because of that, but otherwise it was enjoyable enough to keep me entertained for a few hours.

Like I said, I did watch this in 2 days, so there was something right going on there. But I'll probably not watch it again unless I'm trying to show a friend who is also into the fandom.

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