Apple Eye
Fei Legend, Flat Lemonade?
When I read about the making of Legend of Fei I felt like a child waiting for its X-mas present to unbox. Just imagine! Our present darlings of c-drama put together, the product teams of Princess Agents and Boss & Me, BTS with carefully orchestrated choreographies, a story based on a Priest novel, how good is that! Once served, this exciting cocktail appears to be a flat lemonade, and I know, tastes differ. That's why I'm trying to explain my reasons in this review.
Story
Legend of Fei (2020) is based on the novel Bandits by Priest. The main characters are Zhou Fei (Zanilia Zhao) the granddaughter of a national hero turned into a bandit for the greater good, and young carefree martial arts hero Xie Yun (Wang Yibo) They find themselves confronted with trouble and decide to work together. During their many adventures they discover some secrets and the true identity of Xie Yun.
To adept a novel to the screen it is necessary to cut some parts and leave out the rest. Unfortunately, this choice wasn’t made. Comedy, romance, action, drama, all of it went back and forth, on and off, slowing the pacing of the story to the very closure. Much greater stress should be laid on the story of the main characters. It didn't happen. In her social media account, Zanilia Zhao likens this production to a Big Mac that turned out to be a flat hamburger. All I know is, this is a Priest novel, and all we get to see is a narrative for children.
Actors
Zanilia Zhao (Zhou Fei) is still a shining star. Male lead Wang Yibo does his very best, eager to prove his actor skills after his rise to fame as Lan Wangji in The Untamed. Unfortunately, WYB has to cope with two major set backs. One, he looks like a boy still wet behind his ears besides Zanilia Zhao. Two, his character Xie Yun is reminiscent of the flippant Wei Ying, his love interest in The Untamed, making it all too clear that Wei Ying was a much better, fleshed-out character than Xie Yun, accentuating the greatness of The Untamed versus the inferior LOF.
Production
Sometimes, a lesser story can be neutralized by the quality of the production. Unfortunately, Legend of Fei is very uneven, just like its pacing.
Verdict
Some episodes are good with beautiful landscapes, choreographies, close-ups, romantic gestures, but soon this feeling evaporates with the bad dubbing, childlike dialogues, cheap looking attributes and so forth. So, I don’t think this series will become my favorite. If you’re a die-hard fan of WYB or ZZ however, you probably end up watching Legend of Fei anyway. So perhaps this is the only purpose of the series. Its reason of being.
Story
Legend of Fei (2020) is based on the novel Bandits by Priest. The main characters are Zhou Fei (Zanilia Zhao) the granddaughter of a national hero turned into a bandit for the greater good, and young carefree martial arts hero Xie Yun (Wang Yibo) They find themselves confronted with trouble and decide to work together. During their many adventures they discover some secrets and the true identity of Xie Yun.
To adept a novel to the screen it is necessary to cut some parts and leave out the rest. Unfortunately, this choice wasn’t made. Comedy, romance, action, drama, all of it went back and forth, on and off, slowing the pacing of the story to the very closure. Much greater stress should be laid on the story of the main characters. It didn't happen. In her social media account, Zanilia Zhao likens this production to a Big Mac that turned out to be a flat hamburger. All I know is, this is a Priest novel, and all we get to see is a narrative for children.
Actors
Zanilia Zhao (Zhou Fei) is still a shining star. Male lead Wang Yibo does his very best, eager to prove his actor skills after his rise to fame as Lan Wangji in The Untamed. Unfortunately, WYB has to cope with two major set backs. One, he looks like a boy still wet behind his ears besides Zanilia Zhao. Two, his character Xie Yun is reminiscent of the flippant Wei Ying, his love interest in The Untamed, making it all too clear that Wei Ying was a much better, fleshed-out character than Xie Yun, accentuating the greatness of The Untamed versus the inferior LOF.
Production
Sometimes, a lesser story can be neutralized by the quality of the production. Unfortunately, Legend of Fei is very uneven, just like its pacing.
Verdict
Some episodes are good with beautiful landscapes, choreographies, close-ups, romantic gestures, but soon this feeling evaporates with the bad dubbing, childlike dialogues, cheap looking attributes and so forth. So, I don’t think this series will become my favorite. If you’re a die-hard fan of WYB or ZZ however, you probably end up watching Legend of Fei anyway. So perhaps this is the only purpose of the series. Its reason of being.
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