When you have a script like that
how could you expect the drama to be good
It's like she's zoned out
It's about twice as much as they've spent on The Untamed
where did the money go
Hi
you're watching AvenueX where a junkie on good story telling shares her thoughts
knowledge and occasional weird ideas on stories and how they're told
You Fei is a 51-episode drama that's been aired on Tencent
It's based on a Wu Xia novel written by a quite well known chinese web novel writer Priest
Ever since the creation of this project it has been under very strong spotlight
it went online on December 18th 2020
By the end of last year
it started to open the option for you to pay extra money to watch
8 episodes ahead of the normal poor vip subscribers
As usual
i'll give you my rating on my seven level scale first
and then we can go into details about this drama
As it currently stands
which is around episode 40 something
I'll give it one land mine score
So it's definitely not the absolute bottom of the possibility on my rating scale
I am disappointed
but at the same time it's kind of expected
when this drama started shooting back in 2019
Very early on Zhao Liying as the female lead has sent out a very well known
Weibo post that i've also mentioned in my previous videos
which is a burger's picture of what is promised
in the script and what she ended up with
The drama very unfortunately ran into pandemic
and stopped shooting for a couple of months
But it managed to finish by the middle of last year
And as it did came out before the end of 2020
you can say they've tried their best to push it out
and probably rushed a lot of things in post production
If you've been anticipating this drama
for whatever reason whether you are fan of the original text
or whether you are a fan of any of the leading actors and actresse
you probably are disappointed
Let's be honest
usually I will tell you what I like about the drama and what I don't like about drama or in reverse order
And this time I don't have anything I like about this drama
I don't hate it
similar quality
worse quality
Wu Xia dramas are in ample supply in chinese dramaland
Let's talk about the problems I observe
and i'm gonna talk about them in the order where I consider to be the
least problematic to the more problematic to the biggest problem
Let's start first with something that most of the international audiences wouldn't know
which is the title change
although it sounds exactly like it's original book
You Fei You Fei
they changed one character
the Fei character
You Fei
You means have something Fei
The original title means bandit
the female lead character Zhou Fei
her family that is Si Shi Ba Zhai 四十八寨
the 48 different small sects
combined big place that only they can get into
and it's heavily guarded from the chaotic world
In the story setting is considered from the political power
reigning power of that time as bandits
But the reigning power is a usurped power
So they don't recognize that power
That power obviously
knowing that these Jiang Hu people do not agree with this power
calls them bandit
Whereas themselves
Like Zhou Fei's parents would tell her
although you have the title
Fei
Bandit on you
you are a hero
you have hero's blood
It's a very well written title
kind of encapsulate the entire nature and spirit of the original work
whereas the drama version
they took out the bandit Fei
and put the character name Fei Zhou Fei's Fei into it
Fei means a type of jade that's really expensive and green
So it's very ironic that the change of the title took out the spirit
that rebellious spirit of the original work and
the drama really also did that
In many ways
Now let's talk about the three things mainly
that I think in their orders of severity
that is problematic for this drama
First the most obvious and actually most unimportant one production quality
Let's be honest it's 2020
if you've watched this drama does it look like a drama that's made
literally shot in 2020 and then came out in 2020
whether it's a period drama
whether it's Wu Xia with a lot of fighting drama
from any type of standard that is normal in chinese dramaland these days
It just doesn't look like something that was made NOW
The inter-cutting between made up set and the real location
It's so obvious
reminds you of some older TVB Wu Xia series
that's totally shot inside the studio
and where the stones are all fake made with foam
The lighting is very not textured
let's just say
And obviously there's a quite extensive amount of skin smoothing
Then the camera work
I've made a ranting video that kind of got right now is like over 100k views on Bilibili
That's just specifically about one long take that's about 4 minutes
The entire drama's camera work is pretty subpar
certain parts are really really bad, certain parts are just
I don't even know what noise i'm making
it just doesn't look good
Framing is awkward and often extremely close to the characters face while they're fighting
When you're doing a Wu Xia you really should film in a wider shot
to show the entire body movement and excitement and speed and force
like that's what you watch wu xia for
this drama just pretty much doesn't have it
So it has something to do with also the choreography
plus dubbing but I don't think dubbing is a huge problem for this drama
but still I'd prefer to hear the real voice
Anyway
so the production quality all in all doesn't look like first is from 2020
second
Doesn't look like it cost that much money
Now the rumor has it is spent about 2.8 yi
which is 280 million rmb divide that by about 6.5
is the USD amount
You can do the math
Let's just say
if that number is true
it's about twice as much as they've spent on The Untamed
give you a frame of reference
but obviously when The Untamed was filmed
the two leads weren't famous at all
Potentially their salary is much lower
Where did the morning go honestly
and my ranting song I've put it on my second channel
Welcome to check it out
There are many Wu Xia dramas or not even claiming to be Wu Xia dramas
but having wu xia element dramas that you've seen last year
that are low budget have done much better job
let's be honest
So production quality definitely doesn't deserve any kind of praise
The second thing is to do with actors acting
if you're a fan of any particular people i'd say hear me out
i am trying to be as objective as I can be
Personally
i'm not a fan of any of the particular people that are in this drama
Honestly
i'm not a fan of anyone
I'm old enough to pretty much given up on fan girling anyone
When I say i'm fan girling
it's just temporary
hormonal thing
put people on the pedestal and then idealize them
It usually causes a lot of problems
If everybody does that
it cause a big problem for the society
as we can see these days going on in the world
I'm not gonna talk about the supporting roles
just focusing on the two leads
Zhao Liying and Wang Yibo playing Zhou Fei and Xie Yun
if we're using an absolute scale of scoring their performance
not considering anything they've done previously who they are or whatever
just the performance in the drama itself
I'll give both of them a pass
but that's just about it
They didn't do a great job
They didn't stand out in any way
There's no impressive stuff in their acting
If using relative scale
comparing each of their performance to their own portfolio
then Wang Yibo has performed better
He's less experienced much younger
He only had one previous period drama
which is The Untamed
I had an expectation of what he would appear to be
And as I watch his drama
i'd say it's pretty much exactly
as I expected
In that sense
he performed better relatively to Zhao Liying
who is a much more experienced actress who's worked in the industry
For over 10 years
I've made videos talking about her
I personally really admire her in terms of starting from totally grassroot
having no connections in the industry
no family member
nobody is like even close to the entertainment business
and fought for her way
from the very bottom extra level to the very
very top
Like that alone
is pretty much a miracle in chinese dramaland
but that wouldn't affect my criticism and my review of her acting
which is she has done much better works before
her abilities is so much more than what she has demonstrated in this drama
So she has performed below her own standard and compared to her previous works in this drama
In terms of why it ended up like that
only she and the people who are close to her know
maybe she came back to acting too quickly after she had her child
in a lot of scenes
She's just not fully there
When you look at her eyes
it's like she's zoned out
and at times when she needs to pull all that emotional resource up
none of that is very effectively conveyed to the audience
I feel like she's always at 60%
even sometimes 40%
It's like she's standing there waiting for something to happen
and most of the time it doesn't
This is my honest opinion
I'll take responsibility for what I say
I think she picked the wrong project as a comeback
project after she became a mom
for whatever reason that she did this
it wasn't a good choice
But then i'm not really that worried for her as an actress
because she's got enough work under her belt
and she has more works to come
chinese dramaland
too many dramas
some are bound to be bad
Then the third thing
the most important thing I think that failed everything is like if this thing didn't work
that's why all the other things didn't work
is this project never was meant to be
a good project that respected its original text
I'm pretty sure the investors
the producers
people who actually controls the script
controls
what gets made
what doesn't get made
how much money goes into this and that
all those things these people didn't care about the story
There's no love
You don't sense passion
I know it sounds like quantum mechanics
which is like you can't prove it's there
that type of thing
but it's so easy to feel it
The script is written by freaking ten different script writers
How does that work
Nobody did any effort in making a good script to begin with
and they just want to get this thing done
put it out as quickly as possible
and then Ge Jiu Cai
Cut the chives
take the fans' money
Some people say it's authentic to the original novel
I'm like no
it's not
Cause the internal logic of every character in the original novel is very consistent
Whereas this drama
It got to the point where it just does not make sense
For example
Xie Yun showed up right from the beginning
I know they're trying to make the male lead show up as quickly as possible
but it doesn't make sense because in the book
he waited for months
figuring out how to get through that crazy river with all the wires
and he couldn't really do it
He picked a night darkness and the old guy is not there
and trying to cross and then ran into Zhou Fei and her cousin
trying to get pass the river and then get caught
in this contraption and then went to
try to save them
In the drama
He just showed up throw some leaves and passed it in midday daylight
Why
Because they wanna make him probably meeting
Zhou fei
the female lead within the first 10 minutes of the drama
and then turning in circles and hugging each other
That plot like makes a lot of sense
This type of thing happens continuously
I can give you another example
when Xie Yun is in this prison and Zhou Fei dropped down from the hole
and then just happened to run into him next door and then got to save him
In the original book
he was caught with a group of people
and he couldn't get out
and he's been in there
For months
his skeleton
bone skinny
and he's got beard growing out pretty haggard
and he had to eat the food there
because otherwise he wouldn't survive
but the food contains poison
which makes him impossible to to just break out
Then Zhou Fei came to his rescue because that plot happened that way
Later
Many episodes later
when his poison started to flare up
he told her
which is
if you didn't come and save me a year ago in that prison
I would have to be forced to use my power to get out
But if I did that
I would have died a year ago
So do not feel bad about me
probably gonna die very soon
So that plot line then links and makes logical sense
But in the drama version
they changed the earlier scene
He became somebody who voluntarily got locked in
and kind of only has been there for a couple of hours
because he looks clean shaven and very healthy
And he can literally pick the lock and get out as he wishes in the prison
Many episodes later when he had the conversation
with Zhou Fei which is verbatim from the original book
But then because you've changed earlier scene in the drama
then the later scene in the drama no longer makes logical sense
Because he clearly didn't need to use his power
As the drama suggested a year ago to break out
he pretty much can get out at any time
this type of disconnection the
not clean through-line
things that does not make sense
cause and effect
And all that just shows they didn't put any effort
into sort out the script
as the base of the drama
not to mention anything else
When you have a script like that
how could you expect the drama to be GOOD
I'm just guessing
a couple of writers write a couple of episodes
and they didn't even have a good thorough read through
to figuring out what you wrote earlier on would cause my later plot to be illogical
Therefore I need to change here
or you need to change there
when you have this kind of attitude
How can you expect a good drama
You can ask gods to come down and act and still gonna be crappy
I know it's mystical
Talking about passion and love
love of the story that will leak through the script and make people feel it
But If you're a drama watcher
you know when the drama itself
when the creative teams
when the people love their story
no matter how poor they are
no matter how shabby their budget
you feel it
if you compare Priest's own works
that has been made into dramas now already
which is Guardian and LOF
stark contrast one is done by two people at the time
not well known at all then the other
Is two people who are already super famous, top of the fame
The first drama lost its money
Like before it even started shooting
which caused the quality... is embarrassingly bad
and then the other one had all the money it can have
Theoretically I don't know
the claimed budget may be camouflage
for something else
tax evasion
If you've watched both dramas tell me
which drama do you think the creative team
the main people who are making this thing
Love their story
at the very end of this review
I wanna let you know I don't think it's the worst drama ever
any kind of that
within the Wu Xia dramas there are worst ones
let's be honest
So if you like
the leading actors you can still go in to watch it
and at times it's pretty enjoyable
certain scenes is okay to watch
but it's a very sad thing compared to what it could have been
Had the people who started this project
Really loved the story
The two leading characters are very interesting characters
if they've been treated with respect and love and given resources
to be well polished and well done
From the script point of view
from the directors point of view
from the actors or the time
everything
this drama could be emotionally more impactful ten times hundred times over
What you get now is really just the superficial stuff of the original story
It's another wasted opportunity for the original author's work
Priest has two more dramas are gonna come out this year
Faraway wanderer or A tale of the Wanderers and Sha Po Lang
Let's hope those two does a better job
compared to Guardian previously in terms of budgeting
and then LOF in terms of everything
Literally
if you just do it like
30-40% better in every category compared to
You Fei I'd be satisfied
I'm not asking for too much
I believe
I welcome your opinions in the common section
just be civil
be reasonable to each other
We've got enough fights after the incredible 2020
and still kind of not out of the woods yet
So we can always do with more love
consideration and kindness to each other
Thank you for watching AvenueX
Thanks to my supporters
I'm gonna add your names at the end of this video
I am so grateful for your presence in my life
I'll see you in my next video
Meanwhile
live long and happy drama watching