Hello, you're watching AvenueX and today let's talk about the recently started airing period fantasy drama
Hu Xin, Back from the Brink.
This is a 40 episodes web drama that's been aired on the platform Yoku
It is directed by He Shupei, Zeng Xiaoyu, Han Ping
written by Jiu Lu Fei Xiang, Wang Ruoke, Zhang Wenyan
JLFX being the over original author of the novel that the drama isbased on
There are a couple of her previous works that have been made into dramas
such as the really well known Cang Lan Jue last year and a couple of years back, Zhao Yao
for Hu Xin, it is led by Hou Minghao and Zhou Ye as the 2 leads.
It was shot from the middle of August back in 2021 to the same year beginning of December.
This is a 40 episode drama and I am making this first impression video based on the first 17 episodes.
So far i'll give it a 1.5 gold mine rating.
And I cannot tell at this point whether it's gonna go up or go down in the future,
because the story is mainly credited to the original author of the novel that it's based on.
And she has actually a reputation of crashing her own story when it gets adapted.
So as usual, let me first quickly introduce you to the story,
then the good and bad to help you make up your mind about whether you should watches roma.
The female lead role played by Zhou Ye is named Yan Hui and she's just a normal human girl.
She was actually born with a really bad heart condition, as a baby.
She was casted away by her biological parents because of that.
Yet her life was saved by an accidental thing that dropped on her that saved her heart,
allow her to grow up normally and healthily.
And and that comes from our male character played by Hou Minghao named Tian Yao
and he is a dragon,
he falls in love with a xiu xian woman, in the story setting
the cultivation people are against the demons.
All kinds of animals turned into humans who have magical powers
in this world setting, they are by nature of being who they are enemies.
But they still "fall in love", or at least he thought she is deeply in love with him
until the day of the wedding night.
He realized she has been faking all the way.
And the only reason as she agreed to marry him is so that she can murder him when he's least alarmed
to steal all his scale and his power to make a legendary armor
so that her real lover can live forever. That's so twisted.
Anyway, our unfortunate male lead character, the dragon
got dismembered by the lover and buried in different locations in this world
so that he cannot die, but he also cannot come back as one piece,
but she didn't succeed because it lacks one last piece,
which is the heart scale that he manages to throw out before she can grab it.
And that thing accidentally landed on the baby and nothing helped her to survive and gave her a healthy heart.
She lived like a beggar on the street until she's about nine ten years old and got picked up by a xiu xian person
He shi fu played by Zhang Zhiyao
so she spent the next about 10 years of her life up in the mountain training.
And those are all previous histories of the setup of the story
before our proper story starts, when our female character leaves the mountain
goes into the world and encounters the dragon guy.
Let's get into the detail.
First on the positive end point number one,
this is a point that I never thought i'd mention for drama or even consider it
to be worth talking about as a positive point.
But due to recent drama that aired on the same platform that shocked me to no end
this drama, everybody had very normal makeup!
Second positive point, it is weirdly cute in ways you will never expect.
I don't think any previous fantasy drama in the last 5/6 years
have actually decided to production design wise,
aesthetic wise, design creatures in such a cartoon and kids channel way,
but somehow actually quite adorable.
So all the weird creatures, little fairies, dragons,
even the cg are very basic and poor.
They're not high end, but they are done in the style that you never expect.
You'll see a live action drama actually use that.
Somehow though it works with the vibe of. this drama.
So I put it on a positive side for it being just so different from others and weirdly entertaining.
Third positive thing about this drama is the casting choices of the main roles
Hou Minghao, Zhou Ye, Wang Yilun
When they all look very fitting for the roles
you wouldn't feel it's like a group of people who are way beyond the age,
but still trying to play down and trying to fake that youth.
I say that because again, recently we have things to compare it with.
And when you have a reference, you have this and you see the clear
necessity of casting the right vibe, age type, look,people for the right role
how important that is for an idol drama.
Then the 4th point, already a 4th point, the points are very short,
but this is a big point and very important point and the point that makes me go.
wow Finally, I can relax and watch a drama and not feel like
there is the possibility of getting offended every step of the way
all the roles in this drama, whether they're main or supportive,
99% of the time, they're such normal, reasonable, logical,
and making sense people
you never thought that could be a positive point for a drama
that should be a given, creating convincing, reasonable,making sense in your narrative setting roles
yeah well it doesn't happen to every drama.
From a very general sort of one liner summary, it would be,
everybody is a complicated, multiple layered, have good traits, but bad traits at the same time, person.
They may occasionally do something out of the kindness and altruismof their good heart,
but they are not always constantly sacrificing everything they have for other people.
They would always put their own safety, health, benefit as the priority.
When that's guaranteed safe, then they go and help other people
give you a tiny example of how reasonable people are,
which is there's one small plot of the female lead
She gets pursued by a really rich person who has a lot of money,
but who's not so let's say handsome.
And that guy is a good guy and he has money.
And he's like, do you want to be with me? If you want I'll give all the money I have to you.
And she almost did it. Not because she likes him, but because she really wants the money
and the male lead comes in and grab her and took her away.
Just before she would say yes,in a very tropey drama,
you would hear the male lead's reason is because I like you and I don't want the other guy to
you Know~But his reasoning for that is you can't cheat that guy.
You don't like him at all and if you do that,
you are being dishonest and you just want the marriage for the money.
And I cannot see that happening and not stopping it,
because you're doing the wrong thing to that guy, that guy is innocent.
That's his reasoning, he really means it not using that as an excuse
wow such normal humans!
with very good values and a reasonable head, and have decency.
And it doesn't just happen with the main roles
The supporting roles are as that as well.
There's a supporting female role. I think if you're watching this drama
you'll highly appreciate what a decent lady she is.
And let's say in the drama setting,
when the Yao and the Humans are the against each other,
her opinions are much more progressive than what most people would be thinking at the time,
but it comes from very reasonable background.
She's not like just born being a holy lotus.
She has her reasons and then when she tries to explain that to other people
who have different opinions, you wouldn't see it being forced or preached in any way
she would prove with her actions that it's the right way
and gradually turning other people's point of view around.
So all those plots just create so many interesting, reasonable,realistic,
may be fallible and flawed characters,
but then does not stop you from liking them.
It really reminds you of some very older Xian Xia that we haven't seen for a long time.
That would bring me to talk about the last really positive point about this drama
is I so appreciate, finally, we get a chinese fantasy drama in 2023,
where it's no longer every main character is a freaking princess, prince
the only god in heaven and earth who has the greatest birth lineage
from whatever ancient history, who has the greatest power either destined to be the only god
or destined to be the only devil
and the whole universe's existence rests on their shoulder,
and they have the biggest power and somehow the only thing they care about is fall in love.
So thankful that in this drama,
none of the main leads are super high class existence.
We don't have a heavenly realm in this story.
We don't even talk about any form of emperor or ruler,
whether it's heavenly emperor or human emperor,
yes the malled is a thousand years old dragon, but that's it.
Like he is not the crown prince of whatever inheritance
and our female lead she's just a human, like that's it.
And then even with the xiu xian, you just have very strong xiu xian skilled people.
They are not gods either. so In this drama,
it's just human, demons, all kinds of animal demons, shadow demons, illusion demons.
werid cgi demons that you don't even know what species they are,
but it does not matter. It's just such normal class people in existence.
And you see a lot of collaboration between all kinds of roles and they former team
and they go on adventure and they help each other out.
It really has that old old Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan vibe
It is that little people's struggle story in the big world
that is the early days of the spirit of Xian Xia that we've lost
in the last 5 years, because everybody is a god now in the Xian Xia land,
oh i'm just so thankful that this drama just gives you commoner characters
not playing the by birth and better than you game
So a lot of good things, but then I only give it 1.5 gold mine.
So point number one,
you can tell it doesn't have that much money from the sets from the costumes.
Things are very roughly made, coherent with the youku aesthetics of fantasy idol drama.
And like i've already said, in the positive part about the weird, cute cg is of creatures,
it is still very bad cgi sometimes you may laugh about it.
It's cute, but it's bad, okay?
The second not so great thing about it is although I really appreciate
the characters, the writing and I think the main roles,
the main actors actresses,
they're all doing a good enough job.
They're not making me jumping out of the narrative,
but that's it, it hasn't really delivered me any acting moments by episode 17
that really would make me look at it from a different angle.
And also ~ I didn't expect you can do that.
Like not even one moment of the acting has gotten to the point where i'm like,
wow
if you already have a good enough script of the characters,
even when you don't have that much money,
if your acting is really superb, it can make a difference.
Unfortunately, at this point,I haven't seen anybody having the ability to pull the story one step up,
then there are a couple of things closer to episode fifteen, sixteen,seventeen around those time.
You start to see problems showing up and you're a little bit worried
the alarm starts to~ ~~~ go in your head.
And if you've watched Zhao Yao previously many years ago and suffered
you know what the alarm clock feels like,
plot and character starts to wobble don't quite stay consistent.
As they've been set up in earlier episodes,
there are two main points.
Point number one is there is a plot that happened shocked a lot of people
by episode 16, end of 16. Basically, the melanie did something
that is significantly hurtful to the female lead
without explaining or doing anything.
He just like heads righ into it.
You can reason it around in later episodes, yes, because he did it for reasonable reason.
But as an audience, when I watch to that point,
because I believe who those two characters are by everything to be set up
at that point. When that action happens, it's very out of character
and out of the setup of who they are before,
because they have since day one being open to each other
by episode two or three, the female knows everything about the guy's secret and why he's following her,
why he needs that thing in her heart, which is keeping her alive.
And she's also very open about what she thinks about that and how she can deal with it.
And even when she is for one episode under the spell of certain weird magical things
that she falls in love with him, but not really.
She was also very open about what she feels about him, and she doesn't understand,
but she tells him, what you see in this male lead and female lead relationship
is super openess, 100% frankness.
They never hide things from each other type of thing.
And then by episode 16, if that plot needs to happen,
which is he needs to take that thing out of her for a while before he can return it,
because he needs it to do something
for everything you've built up. What makes sense would be.
He would actually tell her, it's like this is what happens and I have no choices I need to do this.
He would actually tell her and she probably would agree,
but then he didn't say anything.
He just like~~~ did that to her
It only creates one useful thing for the plot is let the male second comes in and save her,
because they want to build that line as well.
But it sacrifices the validity and everything you've built up earlier for the two leads.
Then the second thing that comes in with this, that also does not quite make sense,
is the male second.
He's a very interesting role from day one when you see him,
he's such a an audience's mouthpiece role
because he is the CP fan. He's the coupling fan of the male lead and female,
and he forces them to get together.
He needs them being a real couple who loves each other to
have a magical object retrieved from somewhere that requires this kind of coupling.
So his goal is to make sure that male lead and female falls in love for real
from the day one he shows up, which is a really funny role
And there's a lot of comedy that happens with it.
But at certain point of the narrative,
it just like suddenly, without much built up,
happens that he became interested personally in female lead
and suddenly the male lead becomes his competitor.
I'm like, oh no,
it suddenly crashes into the Gou Xie land, the dog blood, the melodrama,
the crappy tropey things you've seen almost every period idol drama would have
a male second who can't get the female,
suddenly all the attractiveness, the uniqueness of the male second role disappears.
Like I said it kind of just suddenly does not make sense if the male second, I mean I don't like it,
but if you have to make him fall in love with Zhou Ye's role
you have to give me oh a shit load of reason and built up
little by little episode by episode scene by scene to the point when it actually happens.
You're like, okay maybe I don't like it, but at least it makes sense.
That's everything I wanna say about this drama.
I've said a lot actually already,
I think it is getting a really high score right now on China's Douban
because people are over compensating over the fact that the
drama that aired just before it on the same platform just created
such unbelievable bizarre mess in the dramaland.
If you look at the early days when this drama first went out on China's internet
\about all kinds of reviews, whether it's in video form or writing form,
most people just cannot help but compare it to that drama and say
because this drama in this aspect is better than that drama.
Therefore I'm gonna just overcompensate and liking it and say better things about this drama
more than say if Till The End of The Moon hasn't happened,
i've said everything I can think of and hope that's useful for you to make up your mind
about whether you should test Hu Xin out.
Don't have too much hope in it, basically,
it's not the greatest masterpiece work in Xian Xia land at all,
but for some light, entertainment, probably can work for you.
And it does have very eye pleasing young people
dressed up pretty nicely in the drama.
Thank you for watching AvenueX, 'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile live long and happy drama watching.