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welcome to the first impression video from AvenueX
talking about the drama.
Feng Qi Luo Yang
Luo Yang is a 39 episodes.
Period drama that's been aired on the platform iQiyi
it is based on the novel written by Ma Boyong
directed by Xie Ze
led by Huang Xuan, Wang Yibo, Song Qian, Song Yi
and many many familiar faces.
This is a tang dynasty setting drama more
specifically a period of tang dynasty.
That's actually not called Tang
because it got ruled by a female emperor.
And her name is Wu Ze Tian
Therefore, during her reign
she changed the title of the country from Tang to Zhou
We refer to that period as Wu Zhou
although after she passed away the descendants of hers, also,
half of that blood is the Le Tang family,
changed it back.
So in a way, we can still call the period that she rules as Tang dynasty,
but notice that during that time is actually called Zhou
This drama took over 5 months to shoot starting at mid november,
and ending in late march this year
during summer has already released a trailer,
but hardly any news came about it until very recently.
It just said we're gonna come very soon and then it showed up
apart from the tiny tiny drama that happened on the first day of the airing of
this drama that i've mentioned.
In my last weekly video,
everything is going pretty smoothly with this drama right now.
As usual, let me first give you my rating
based on episodes i've watched
which at this point is 12 episodes.
I think it deserves a mid range to high.
One goldmine
We still have more than 2/3 of the drama to go.
And right now it's kind of hard to tell how it's gonna pan out.
As Chang'An Shi Er Shi Chen was set in chang'an,
feng qi luoyang is set in Luo Yang
because geologically luoyang is to the east of chang'an.
Often it also gets referred to as
Eastern capital
as the story is set in Wu Ze Tian Ruling period during Tang dynasty.
And it is true that at that period.
She moved most of her court and her residence to
Luo Yang and spent a lot of time there.
If you are an enthusiast of a human history,
city building,
urban planning all that
you probably have heard about the story of Chang'an and Luo yang
for a time in history Chang'an had a huge population.
And over the decades and time it caused the problem for its underground
water getting polluted to the point that it's no longer drinkable.
Even if you dig really deep well,
the water is still unhealthy,
unsafe, taste like shit
and that caused the city gradually to decline
Chang'an at certain time in history become not quite inhabitable.
And then livable by the rich and powerful.
Therefore, they move to other places.
Luo yang also historically very important city
took that function as for the drama itself.
It features the three leading characters played by Huang Xuan, Wang Yibo, Song Qian
Huang Xuan
comes from humble background.
He is a member of the Bu Liang Shi who are a type
of patrolling police of the city at the time,
but they're not very well respected.
They're not officials.
They're more like a type of hired servants of the officials,
a lot of hard work to do and very little respect.
And he's on a revenge and investigating mission
from the beginning of this drama
trying to find out what happened years ago and trying to seek revenge.
Wang Yibo plays
Baili Hongyi, or Baili Erlang,
Er Lang is the second son,
because he is the second son of the family.
Baili family is a powerful,
well known family,
but then north as well established
as some older clients and families,
if you've watched my video on forever and ever or one and only
combine video talking about Wei Jin Nan Bei since that period until tang dynasty,
the presence of the aristocrats,
the clan families
how important they are.
So basically he is from a powerful family,
but not as well established as some even more powerful families.
So kind of sandwiched in a weird place
and his father tries to climb up the ladder and get even further on by
marrying him to a more established family's girl played by Song Yi
But as Baili Hongyi this person he is
he doesn't care about marriage,
doesn't care about politics.
He's a little bit high functioning.
In designing things,
figuring out the mechanics like a natural born engineer
plus he likes to eat and he is a gourmet reviewer.
Obviously it's gonna get connected to Huang Xuan's
revenge mission and then Song Qian's role
She plays the character called Wu Siyue
If you hear the name Wu
you know she belongs to the clan of the emperor,
the female emperor Wu Zetian
Historically when wu zetian was in power,
she did use a lot of the Wu family people
Wu Siyue in this drama's setting
comes from a very side branch of the family.
So she is related to the emperor by blood,
but no very close.
She is one of the small leaders of the Nei Wei
which is internal/ inner court guards who directly report to the emperor.
And she also gets involved in this criminal case investigation and
Song Yi's character who married Wang Yibo's character is also her.
girlfriend
So everybody got linked together and they all ended up with a certain
role to play in finding out a case step by step and finally
figure out what is the big conspiracy that is going on in their city.
Now let's talk about the things that are good and not so good about this drama.
The first positive thing about this drama is
wow the smell of money.
The moment you start watching this drama
it's gonna ram in your face
the physical existence of money.
It's gonna hit your face like a crazy shower in summer.
It has long takes running through a crazy, busy,
packed streets,
filled with architecture details,
prop details, costume details, extras,
horses, camels,
mules
so many things going on.
1 second of that costs god knows how much money.
So if you enjoy the grandeur,
of a really expensive drama of costumes, of props,
of the time setting and everything just looking lush and beautiful.
oh Yeah.
This probably would be the drama before 2022 come.
Don't think there's gonna be another one that can
compare to this one within a month time showing up.
Also I appreciate that it has that rich color, contrast,
texture, oil painting, cinematic.
Don't think the camera work is as good as Chang'an Shi Er Shi Chen
but it's good enough.
People have normal human skin color.
No one is intentionally whitened to the point that they are whiter
than caucasian people which doesn't make sense.
One thing I wanna remind people of is if you're really into costumes,
don't take this drama too seriously.
It's not even close to how well researched Chang'an Shi Er Shi Chen is
and Chang'an Shi Er Shi Chen is not that really perfectly researching either.
So this drama added a lot of imagined elements into the costumes,
into the details of pretty much everything that shows up on camera,
so just don't take it as study material, basically
That's one big point that has a lot of little points in it.
The second thing about this drama is
very fast pacing,
no wasted moments.
If you're worried about things getting too watered down,
well at least in the first 12 episodes, it didn't happen, nothing.
not saying it's not gonna happen later because we all know what happened to
Chang'an Shi Er Shi Chen is
Third thing I really like about this drama is
It has a lot of fighting sequences,
and it's very well done.
Choreograph is like top notch
also how they shoot it is very interesting.
There are a lot of shots that give you the feeling that
the cameraman is really in the middle of the action.
They're like almost go pro style
following the characters' angles
and how they swing the sword.
Their body movement
hope no camera man got hurt during the filming of this drama
because some of the shots look rather insane.
Like, how did they do that?
And some of the fighting sequences uses to maximum
of what the props, what the buildings, what the canopies
everything that's on set.
They use that to maximum to create really interesting
chase, fight, dodge, run away that sequences very pleasing.
If you're a fan of those type of things,
you're gonna love this drama.
And i'm impressed by Song Qian and Huang Xuan cause
these are the two main characters who do a lot of fights.
They have their years and years of professional dancing
training to thank for, for their ability
using their physical body and arms and everything to
show the incredible fighting sequences.
In case, people don't know Huang Xuan is a professional dancer
very very good actually
before he became an actor.
Although, again, the weapons are not very accurate to its period.
If you're an expert of historical weapons,
you probably will cringe like hell when you
watch what they use and how they use it,
pretty much nothing is correct.
Then I lost count of the point,
but I also appreciate this drama.
Everyone uses their own voice.
And a lot of it sounds like on set recording.
Instead of ADR
you will be able to hear if you wear headphones
in the middle of a conversation.
One line sounds different than others.
That probably is ADRed
because the origin recording had too much noise.
But when they can they will use onset recording,
you'll hear a lot of environment sound,
you hear a lot of imperfect recording.
I feel the onset recording of this drama probably try its best,
but at points,
it's not very well recorded.
You hear way too much noise and its environmental ambience,
but then I still appreciate that.
I'd prefer that then super clean,
every track is recorded in a studio and they add artificially the
space and it just wouldn't sound as genuine as the onset recording.
You can tell Huang Xuan
compared to Song Qian, Wang Yibo
yeah his line delivery is so much stronger.
He is one of the best at line delivery actor of his age range.
With him being there.
It's a little bit unfair to have song qian and wang yi bo.
To compare,
I am happy enough with what they've delivered me.
I hoped for them not bringing me out of the story
while I was watching them acting and they did that.
They didn't bring me out of the story.
I can fully immerse myself in the storytelling and that's good enough for me.
Whereas Huang Xuan
I know he can do a lot of things and he is
when given the right script can be in incredibly good.
So far, i'm very happy with what he delivers.
And if there's problems with his acting,
I mostly would actually say it's not his problem,
but more like the narrative and script's own problem.
These are the positive things of this drama
that I really appreciate and enjoyed watching.
Now let's talk about things that are not so ideal for me.
First, I don't quite like the music of it.
I'd rather they reduce the amount of bgm that's kind of going on all the time.
Then the style of it sometimes gets really
yin jian
underworld,
haunting singing voice.
And this oh~~~~~
comes up when I know it's supposed to be a little bit scary,
a little bit threatening,
impeding doom type of style.
But come on.
It's just so in your face,
and it's really loud.
When you're watching it, probably don't turn the volume too high.
Particular, if you're using headphones,
don't turn it up too much.
I've warned you okay for the health of your eardrum.
Second thing, also a technical aspect,
although I think the production quality is really, really satisfying.
It has a little bit,
too much slow-mo going on.
When it tries to show you
wow that fighting move is so cool,
the slow mo of the water falling and it flies up and the
moment somebody jumps out of the window
and~~~~ super slow,
a little bit too much,
it gives you the feeling of you're trying to show off how cool it is.
It only works if the audiences are not very consciously
aware of the fact that you're trying to be cool.
As soon as they become aware of,
you are trying to make them feel you look really cool and posh,
then it fails.
And it's doing a little bit too much of that.
It also gives you the feeling that is trying to sometimes fill up the uh time,
but sometimes trying to sell the emotion and
atmosphere too eagerly to the audiences.
Instead of let the audiences,
get into the story voluntarily.
They're trying to just throw too many things at you.
I'll try not to spoil it for you,
but still explain what I mean
Huang Xuan has a scene in current time of the drama setting,
kind of having a big off loading of his emotional baggage,
very emotional moment,
brilliant acting from his end.
And then it cuts to a scene that is basically his memory of what happened
in the past and in the past the moment when he made up his mind to revenge.
And that scene is short with a lot of intentional,
emotional design
for example,
rain at night,
crazy water fall down.
It took probably the whole crew a whole night to film that type of scene,
and everybody is drenched by fake rain machine.
And it's not gonna be comfortable to shoot
because they shot during winter
visually it's brilliant.
He's acting has no problem.
Nothing has problem apart from the fact that you don't need the scene
It doesn't actually add any important,
useful information to the story itself,
whether you see the exact moment when he
makes up the mind to do revenge or not.
And this drama has this type of scenes quite often,
and i'm worried about later episodes.
Usually when things slow down a bit,
they're gonna need more of such moments that just
looks really great
cost money to shoot,
but does it actually do anything for the story?
So while I was watching that,
I start to worry about,
it may become a second Chang'an Shi Er Shi Chen
Where the story just starts to drift off in the
later half of it while it still looks amazing.
It constantly throws visual stimulants at you make you go
wow, cost so much money to make
WOW that's spectacular,
but then story is kind of shitty
I hope that doesn't happen to the second half of this drama, but if it happens,
I wouldn't be too surprised.
The final thing on the negative end is if I have to be very
picky at this drama and think carefully about certain plots,
and certain character setups and why people
the way they are
doesn't quite make sense.
For example, for the characters Song Yi is playing
she's playing He Dong Liu Shi's daughter
So one of the most powerful aristocrat clan family at the time
well established hundreds of years history family and she is
kind of the only daughter of her generation.
She's brought up by her uncle who is now the leader and head of her liu family.
She marries to Wang Yibo's character.
The way she acts
once she got married in his family,
it's just very far away from what is standard
for that kind of high birth lady who basically
grew up buried in gold and silver and not meant to do any laborous job.
In any sense
and she acts like a little wife.
who's like cooking in the kitchen,
getting herself all messed up and trying to be like
husband pleasing.
I know the writing sets her up as she knows him
from her childhood and she likes him very much.
So she insisted marrying into his family,
but realistically okay I'm just thinking logically she also has a more prominent
family background and education on her as compared to his background.
The more reasonable thing would be,
she still would maintain a level of superiority
when she marries over.
And there's no need that she needs to act like a little wife,
all those laborous jobs would just not be in her
perception of something that she should be doing.
It's all the servants,
the slaves' job of doing that also.
Song Qian's character.
I just can't deal with the scenes where her brother who is also nei wei
inner guards,
leader and kind of her boss keeps nudging her about
you are a girl.
You don't need to do this and that you only need to care about
marrying a good family and don't do the job, it's too dangerous.
you Know
You should stay at home and find a husband
really?
that is just not making any sense.
They are from the Wu family,
they're from the female emperor,
the only female emperor,
Wu Ze Tian's family.
They are her relatives.
And during the Wu zhou period of tang dynasty,
it is the maximum of women's power and rights.
During imperial China.
Girls dress as men go on street and nobody has any problem with it
in courts.
There are very prominent female people who have super
like crazy political powers
as a master of kung fu
coming from the We family as a leader of the inner guards.
The making sense version of her would be she goes
around like a man and no guy dare even judge her.
Just because of her gender,
she would be like,
you cannot even win me at a fist fight.
How dare you you know talk to me like that?
And no guys would dare really,
and she would be like,
so not getting the concept of
because I'm a girl I need to do this and that
certainly not her brother like it just does
not make sense for the particular time setting.
Also, like Wang Yibo's character set up,
he might be a genius,
but you can't be a genius at EVERYTHING
he has super taste of food,
he is a master of gourmet food cooking.
He also knows anatomy.
Where did he get that training?
you know You can't just know it.
And there was no video recording back then
If you are not a proper professional coroner,
there's no way that you can get hold of a body
and just cut it open and figure out what happens.
And he somehow knows it as an aristocrat man.
And then he knows about lock engineering, too.
Then he knows about how to purify copper.
He knows about architecture,
and he's in charge of building the big temple.
And then right from the beginning, he quit the job.
I'm not saying, historically,
there cannot be a renaissance man in Chinese history.
But let's be honest,
he's so young,
he's barely 20 years old.
Where did he get the opportunity to learn that
much knowledge and be an expert of everything?
And it's more like
because we need him to know this part of the things.
And for this part of the plot, therefore, he is like that,
but think about the logic.
It does not make sense.
You have to kind of voluntarily ignore all these things that
just doesn't quite sit correctly with your anticipation or the
logic of its set up
think too much.
It will impeach your enjoyment of this drama.
That would be my rather long first impression of Luo yang.
I think i've covered everything I wanna talk about
and probably too much
I sincerely sincerely pray pray pray for
the later part of the drama not to drop,
not to have the classic problems that Chang'an had
It wouldn't be the greatest period drama i've ever seen,
but it will be good enough,
particularly for 2021
when we've had so many
incredibly unimaginable crappy dramas.
Thank you for watching AvenueX
I'll see you in my next video,
meanwhile live long and happy drama watching.
And I'm doing it as a man because I'm dressed up as a man.
If I'm a woman, i'll do it that way.
But hey,
in case you haven't noticed,
see you.