First Four Episodes of Legend of Anle with Dilraba Dilmurat and Gong Jun Garners Polarizing Reviews But is Strangely Watchable Similar to Word of Honor
Some dramas are just enjoyable regardless of all its myriad of flaws and so far through the first 4 episodes of Legend of Anle it’s just that for me. I found myself watching each episode without FF which the last C-drama that happened for me was Love Like the Galaxy. Even with Till the End of the Moon I would FF watch. The reviews for Anle are split, with the detractors rightfully criticizing the insanely bad CGI (everything on the ocean scene is mwahahaha level bad), the dubbing that doesn’t match the lips, Dilraba Dilmurat‘s character being too aggressive and girlboss sleazy, Gong Jun being too wan and stiff as the reserved Prince, and the overall drama production not meeting the S-level designation so one wonders where all the money went.
I find Dilraba playing an even more forceful and assertive version of her character in The Blue Whisper and she pulls off the delicate balance without tipping over into annoying. Gong Jun is basically switched to playing the reactive Zhou Zi Shu character from WoD this time which so far he’s doing fine but I can see why some viewers think he’s veered into bland. OTP chemistry is mid but I can see it getting better as the two spend more time trying to talk down the baddie while she’s additionally trying to get revenge in a Nirvana in Fire lite way. On a side note, the drama is from the director of WoD and that’s also another reason I find it easy to watch despite the low budget costumes and woeful special effects, and thank god this is not a xianxia drama and just a standard period/investigative/court drama so less need for special affects. For the recent month of C-drama premieres this is my favorite (which is just saying this one sucks the least lol), and between the two top liuliang led dramas which is this and The Longest Promise the lead visuals here at least make up for the general by-the-books plotting.
A lot of historical dramas this year are a miss for me. I didnt enjoy d xianxia genre much lately. Too much blood vomiting. Last few historical C drama I enjoyed was Imperial Coroner (2021), A dream of splendor (2022) and Love like the galaxy (2022). None so far this year. I find Gong Jun too placid. His character probably needs an actor with stronger pathos or charisma, which he still lacks. Reba looks beautiful, nice to see her on the screen again.
This is not good at all but I agree with koala, it is watchable if you want to continue but unfortunately I won’t cause I actually expected more from the drama but it is disappointing like almost all cdramas this year.
Hidden Love was the only one that worked out of all the cdramas I was anticipating recently. It exceeded expectations. Another one was When I Fly Towards You and maybe Destined but the rest have been underwhelming to say the least. Especially the one that featured the so called big stars.
This, so true well it left with lost u forever n lotus book, let see how these ones pans out.
When I Fly Towards You is such a surprise gem for me. I was 8 eps in on Hidden Love, waiting for new eps when I decided to check it out and I never looked back. I ended up being so enamored with it that I put Hidden Love on the backburner (not sure if I will pick it back up). I decided that even though I like and watch for the chemistry between Zhao Lu Si and Chen Zhe Yuan, I ultimately do not love the story itself.
When I Fly Towards You on the other hand, I love their portrayal of the different relationships. Rang Rang and Zai Zai are so healingly sweet; he wasn’t a jerk to begin with (shocker) and appropriately gave her the right signs/responses to proceed with her crush as he also develops his crush on her. The friendships and family ties were also so heartwarming.
When I Fly Towards You was so good! Way better than Hidden Love. It was really cute.
Destined started out good too but I quickly got bored when they start escaping. Right now Legend of Anle looks interesting enough to watch; hopefully it won’t go stale.
This needs to be said, again. Gong Jun has no chemistry with female leads. None. Nada. I will debate anyone on this point and win every time.lol
Lol I like it confident
That’s so true. GJ has ZERO chemistry with ALL his female leads regardless of how decent actresses they are. He has the best chemistry with his male costar in Word of Honor. He’s also pretty lively in the hit variety show Running Man full of male entertainers. lol.
Lol the only one this year that I thought was decent, worth the watch and well-rounded was “An Ancient Love Song.” While short and sad, the pacing, plot, and feels were there.
I would recommend “The Starry Love” for the lovely and nontoxic sisterhood, quite rare for c-dramas.
“Till the End of the Moon” just for visuals and pretty costumes, but much of the plot and scenes could be FF.
I’m trying to continue Destined, but I lost interest right when ML’s family is about to lose everything.
“Hidden Love” for the love of the almighty, please don’t watch until episode 8. The first 3rd is just plain no – horrible, horrible, directing. But the latter 2/3rd is good and watchable and sweet.
And surprisingly, I adored “My Uncanny Destiny.” Wow what a surprise hit for me. For once it’s a badass FL who gives no $hit about being badass. It’s an underrated drama, and not given the kind of cred it deserves.
Wow you could be my twin. Second recommendation for An Ancient Love asking and My Uncanny Destiny. Both lower budget but well done in it’s genre.
It’s pretty bad, very disappointing. I’ve been waiting for this one because the drama is in my favorite fabricated-historical genre and I don’t dislike both leads. But after wasting time watching ep1, I have to agree with all the negative reviews including cheap 5-cent CGI (considering claimed S+ production, where’s all the money gone? lol), Raba’s tacky makeup (same issue for almost all the C drama actresses), plot not making sense, Raba’s audacious lines cringe worthy, to just name a few. And where’s GJ’s charisma he exuded in Word of Honor? He looked so banal and bored himself in this drama. Lol. I did see Raba reprise a similar role again. She has become boring to watch with costume dramas since her breakout in Eternal Love of Dream.
Koala is obviously biased in her reviews of recent C costume dramas. While she is very scathing about The Longest Promise which I consider the best production with convincing storyline and acting among all recently, she called out fair criticism of tawdry Legend of Anle “detractors.” NOPE! LoA isn’t watchable and I don’t think I have time to squander coming back to give a shot again. I have done that many many times giving these actors’ dramas a chance. But so far I was only able to finish Raba’s You’re My Glory while skipping many cheap romantic scenes. I had to drop ALL of GJ’s dramas including Word of Honor although he looked charming there.
I kind of agree: I found Anle boring,while LP is at least watchable and visually pleasant, although I can’t say I find it particularly interesting and Xiao Zhan seems to be miscast. Still, it is a much better show and it is kind of weird that both the show and that poor girl that is the FL got attacked so viciously.
The story in LP is more logical than LAL. LP is better after ml not stayed on the mountain. Fl RM is cute and a natural beauty. They have a good chemistry.
I dont like all things in LAL.
Well, Xiao Zhan is the mainly reason for me to watch The Longest Promise and am still watching. He is the best part of this drama. I read the original novel Zhu Yan. He made the young priest alive in his own charm. He made the book character more soulful, who isn’t even the center of the novel. The story was supposed to evolve around the heroine, Zhu Yan, and was written from her perspectives. I actually like the adapted drama better than the novel. The scriptwriting/directing revised/edited many scenes to make the storyline more convincing. The production team did a fantastic job to visualize Shi-yin’s mind/thinking with artistic imagery since the young priest was described as someone composed and reserved with very few words.
I hadn’t been able to stick to one single C drama without skipping any scene since The Untamed. So it’s very satisfying for me to sit through all the eps of TLP so far without fast forwarding. Everyone has different preference. Most C dramas are not for me. I wouldn’t even have paid attention to C drama if Xiao Zhan did not exist. He hasn’t disappointed me so far.
@Nena, I read fans’ discussion on Chinese social media saying Xiao Zhan as a brand spokesperson for Tencent, he had to fulfill the mission to promote younger celebrities in the interest of Tencent. Back then XZ just went through 227 and had no much say about his project choice. That’s why he was asked to sign up for The Longest Promise to promote less known actors/actresses having business interest with Tencent. Otherwise giving his popularity and large fanbase, he wouldn’t have picked a drama that was female-centered like The Longest Promise. There are way more scenes of Ren Min than Xiao Zhan. I don’t think it’s unfounded to gather why XZ was even cast in such a drama. Yeah, some fans complain about that.
What a character swap for GJ in WoH and this LoA !! Seems like Reba is the female reincarnation of Wen KeXing by plotting a revenge with a cheerful face mask. So far GJ’s prince role is kinda boring which the script is probably called for… hope there is more depth in the prince’s character development. The director is basically repeating his work in LoA by putting Reba in GJ’s old role, and GJ in the banned actor’s role. Hope this storyline will divert from WoH image soon… otherwise it will be too predictable.
It’s Zhang Zhe Han, call him by his name and not as “banned actor”.
@Somebody…, thanks for the insight. What you say makes sense, I mean that he accepted this role because he was going through a tough spot. Otherwise, I would find it extra weird that he would be cast as a moody 18 year old. That being said, I haven’t read the novel, so maybe his character gets older later on?
Anyway, I find the show (LP) to be watchable and the quality by me is fine, but nothing to write home about. Although I think that starting ep.6-7 it is getting more interesting.
In the novel, Shi-yin the young priest and Zhu Yan the rash heroine had a bigger age gap of about 8-9 years apart. Zhu Yan was only 10 years old when she started discipleship with Shi-yin who might be 18 yrs already. 8 years later they met again at Zhu Yan’s chaotic wedding. Xiao Zhan was about 27-28 yrs old. So his real age fits the adult role of Shi-yin.
Serious question, but how can a production that has top liulang stars also have cheap production? Do they spend all their money on the stars’ salaries and leave nothing to the actual production design?
You’re not the only one having this doubt. I guess so. It appears that Legend of Anle lacked resources to make a good production. One of my family members is a CGI engineer. He said film production nowadays relies heavily on CGI. Perhaps over 80%-90% of the drama setting you see on screen is created by CGI. CGI is very time consuming and resource-demanding that entails a lot of CGI engineers for team work. And that means salaries for many people to make the production possible. Three liuliang stars in one drama might have exhausted production team’s treasury. Lol
From that perspective, I think Xiao Zhan is comparatively wise in terms of choices of his projects. His recent dramas got positive reviews. His fans sometimes wonder why his costars were always relatively unknown that otherwise his dramas might have been more popular. But I think he assessed all the factors that would produce a good drama including director, scriptwriter, and producer to make the finial decision whether to take a project or not. Popularity of his dramas isn’t his major concern. His fans always have qualms about his costars. I don’t think these fans put themselves in his shoes. There’s only so much money to dispense. The pay a liuliang star gets from filming could hire a very decent graphic team with many CGI experts to work for the production.
From what I read on Weibo, Legend of Anle was meant to be an A production from the start. But one of the producers Sun Yuyang, who is a lecturer at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, asked Dilireba to star in this drama as a favor. Dilireba is a graduate of the said academy, and this drama is produced by Shanghai Films & Media and most of the supporting cast is from that company. Gong Jun was asked by the director and Youku to act as the male lead as a favor as well; since they were the ones who helped him secure the role of Wen Kexing which ended up propelling him to liuliang popularity. Its probably similar to how Xiao Zhan ended up acting in the Longest Promise because of his endorsement deal with Tencent as the spokesperson. No idea how Liu Yuning ended up as the second male lead, but apparently its cos of his friendship with Reba (and he also said on his broadcast he was interested to work with Gong Jun). So yeah, this drama is basically propelled to S+ just because of star power alone. The production value is still stuck at A.
Strangely with all the hype in LOA i think the story is so boring as compared to tlp..
LoA is indeed boring and ML together with FL has a very bland acting. Not convincing enough. I only like Liu Yunning here.