I wasn’t going to write this review. I watched the drama months ago, after having watched the MDZS donghua last year, I’m elbows deep drowning in MDZS content. So I thought “who needs another Untamed/CQL review? especially from someone who has Wei Wuxian as an icon atm?”. This review might be, at this point, very late.

However, when you continue watching content and you find yourself comparing most media you come across to this one, you start to think you have to put out there how good it is. It deserves at least that time of my day. And, also, I think Xiao Zhan right now needs all the praise he can get, because he also deserves it.

Even having seen other versions, I still fell in love with this story all over again with the drama. I feel like each adaptation of this work has its own identity, in a way, that derives of several things, like what the medium itself can offer, who portrays the characters, what the adaptation is allowed to showcase due to censorship, etc.

The drama version is, possibly, the furthest from the source material in various instances, but I feel that only adds to the fun of hearing the story all over again. Because this is, I assure you, a story worth hearing several times, not only because it’s very good but also because there are a lot of characters, time frames, mysteries and elements at play, all handled beautifully in the drama.

You can’t make a version of Mo Dao Zu Shi without two good leads that have chemistry. In the case of the drama, it was even more important, because some of the things other adaptations can show, in different degrees of explicitness, the drama cannot. So it falls on the directing and on the acting to convey the relationship that is the foundation of the story, with whichever elements they’ve got. And Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo are just perfect in the roles. They understand the characters, the relationship and the story, and it shows.

The entire cast is like hand-picked to perfection. Even if some characters have variations with other versions in terms of characterization, they all do such a great ensemble job that it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the roles they’ve got. Marius Wang deserves all my praise, because Jiang Cheng is such a complex character to portray, and he does it amazingly, his emotional scenes annihilated me.

This drama is a different version of the source material yet it has in it the essence and foundation of it and works with amazing scenery, incredible production design and the music, which is such an important part of MDZS in every version, is sublime.

If you’ve never watched a xianxia series before, don’t fret, I think this drama is a good first dive to it, especially because there’s so much more material to get into if there’s something you can’t quite grasp.

If you’re looking for lgbtq+ content, this particular version might be the less explicit but it’s incredibly emotional and has the positive vibe the subject matter deserves while having the relationship involved in a fantastic plot, with political turmoil, assassinations, mystery, action, amazing female characters (with more to do than in other versions of the story, congrats CQL for doing that) and an amazing cast.

Just watch it, basically, is what I’m saying. If historical fantasy and good lgbtq+ content is in your radar, give this a go.