Xianxia C-drama The Last Immortal premiered this week and is off to a solid start. The initial feedback is just okay, neither big criticism nor big praise, a solid start. Top billed female lead Zhao Lu Si showed her strength in buzz by her character breaking 9 in the daily VLinkage chart on the day of the drama premiere. She only came in 3rd though, with Liu Shi Shi in the second spot and Liu Yu Ning still perched on top in number 1 where he’s been for the past ten days thanks to A Journey to Love. If The Last Immortal gains traction I can see Zhao Lu Si taking the top spot especially as A Journey to Love rounds the corner to the final episodes of its airing.
OKAY? It’s actually sooooo bad. People who criticize Esther Yu for her baby voice and not Zhao Lusi… lol. At least with Esther’s body language, she can put her whole weight into her tiny voice character to become her, but Zhao Lusi, you can tell she’s holding back because she’s actually talented at playing strong willed, sensible characters. Sigh. What a horrible contract to be tied to. Haha. Now I’m really looking forward to the project with her and LYN. 😅
She purposely dubbed as baby voice to distinguish character development. If you watched, she is a baby and newly “hatched” and that’s why she has that voice. The first couple eps are a little slow but on the 3rd ep it picks up and wraps you in the story more. As with almost any drama, the first few eps are almost always like that.
The baby voice is just bad. She was better in The Long Ballad with LYN so hopefully they will be better as well in their drama together. The only thing working with The Last Immortal is that she has good chemistry with WAY. But too much animated/cartoonish CGIs, look out of place with ancient drama.
Esther Yu has baby voice the whole drama and way worse than Zhao Lusi I can’t stand it. I couldn’t even last one episode.
Exactly ! Esther doesn’t have right visuals for Xianxia either.
Esther’s voice is an acquired taste, lol. I failed my first attempt at LBDAF, but surprisingly after MJTY and knowing that baby voice is part of her acting, I could finish LBDAF and her modern drama with ZBB.
Zhao lusi is not baby voice but a lazy voice you know when try speaking barely moving your mouth and toungue
Lol. You’re right. Because unlike Esther Yu, Zhao Lusi’s voice is her real one 😅
What is VLinkage, please? Is it like hot search on Weibo?
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I’m at Episode 6 and loving it. Waiting for the next few to drop. I can see the character differences–her “queen” voice, her “just-hatched” voice, and her turned teen voice (after spending a few years with her boy-mom, bwahaha). Her beginning ghost body language was definitely different from her spirit-phoenix and her water-spirit oersonas. Happy to see her at #3!
When the tragedies start coming, there will probably be a more serious Ah Yin.
Same here! It’s a great solid story, people just have to give it a shot
Krissy,
Glad you’re enjoying it too! Just saw Episodes 7 & 8 and shite is about to happen on Daze Mt. It’s a solid story so far and am glad it’s following the book plot, even though they changed some names connected to Ancient Love Poetry. I’m quite invested in the young immortals–usually, the power dynamic is so lopsided, with the ML so many thousands of years older, but in this case, they’re both young and somewhat brash, just like the “teens” they are. Now that he has underwent his first thunder tribulation, he should be displaying more abilities with that “little” sword his father gave him. I like that the director and production aren’t padding the timeline so far, moving crisply through each plot point they have to cover to move our leads to their destined real selves. The only criticism I have is because of so much backstory needed to be covered (from Ancient Love Poetry), the director resorted to having the characters telling each other “history” stories for the audience. I can see how that could confuse some people.
It’s a meh drama, only her fans will continue watching it after the first few eps because everyone else is apathetic. The plot is bad and lacks followeable logic (why did Ayin suddenly die in ep1, to make people pity her role? Why force them into a Master Servant Pact, to make us feel bad for the FL reincarnating into a servant?).
I can see why Lusi took this role since her character is the only likeable one in the drama and the ML/2FL are very detestable, but it’s so deliberate that the show is a vehicle to push only Lusi that you don’t want to watch on, since none of the side characters are compelling? Compare that to AJTL, LFBAD, LLTG etc side characters are compellling enough for the audience to care about. Lusi always does roles where she is the poor, pitiable, suffering FL who gets audience sympathy by making sad noises or expressions e.g. Gen Z, Hidden Love, LLTG, Love of Thousand Years, TLI so it’s kinda stale imo
Also the fake rumors Koala posted about Leo Wu or Wang Yibo wanting to act in this drama after Jing Boran left are so ridiculous. The ML role is so dislikeable no wonder Jing Boran left, and i can’t see Leo or Yibo wanting such a 挂片男主 role where they get scolded for everything bad that happens to the FL
Agreed… I can’t imagine Jing Boran taking this role. It will be such a downgrade. I’ve given it a go and watched a few episodes, but alas going to drop for now… it’s simply too slow and forgettable.
Maybe when all the episodes come out I’ll check it out. For now, it’s au revoir.
I don’t understand why Zhao Lusi keeps taking these roles because I think she has talent enough to do stronger characters. The reason I like C dramas is because most of their female characters are strong and capable. I have tried to watch Hidden Love several times, but i am failing to finish it. Her characters always start weak, pitiable or needing someone to save her. It’s lost its charm for me. It’s a pity though, because I like her.
Have you watched her in Who Rules The World? Her Bai Fengxi is a badass character; like the book, the story started with her.
Maybe they start off weak because of character development? I mean, in Hidden Love, she becomes an adult woman, who gets good grades and has a bright future. She stood up to the male lead’s bully, and defends herself when her boss at her internship treats her unfairly. When her parents and brother opposed of the relationship, she spoke up and communicated her point of view. I feel like she was a pretty strong character in the end.
In LLTG, she didn’t really need anyone saving her. She could fend for herself and wreaked havoc on her aunt in her own way. It wasn’t until court politics were involved that her style of conflict resolution didn’t really work and needed ML to intervene. But she ended up saving him from being killed in the end. I wouldn’t really care that character weak either.
I personally appreciate a character with good development and watching them mature. I enjoy the journey of it all (assuming it’s well written).
Yes. By Episode 10, the ML’s demeanor has changed and he is a bit stronger and even has a great (and satisfying) scene repudiating the evil princess. Also, his tone when he subtly threatened her father showed his understanding of politics.
The thing is, the first 15 episodes show them very young. ML had 200 years of cultivation which he famously wagered away. In flashbacks, we are told he didn’t want to be powerful like his parents. So, I make the connection that he was unconsciously not wanting powerful things–his heritage, his cultivation, even the Magic Umbrella, the one thing which was supposed to protect him. He just wanted to be a bum, LOL.
By Ep 15, he was more responsible because he had started to care for his hatchling-girl and by Ep 17, that’s when the bad-ass stuff started happening. By 18, our FL will lose her baby voice as she would be in her next stage (trying not to spoil). Her character would mature from what happened before that.
I’ve been very happy with the plot thus far and have not fast forwarded. Of course, I’m a fan of Li Runyui and cannot wait to see him play suffering scenes 🙂 as he, too, will mature from events in Ep. 17.
Happy watching to you!
Lol drama is bad
I love Zhao Lusi. She can make a drama great. She makes her male leads better. Great chemistry with her male leads. I like all her male leads so far.
She is the 1st c actress that captured my heart,my one and only,no matter how haters of Zhao lusi drag down but still Zhao lusi will shine and shine and shine accept that fact haters,that lusi surpassed the legendary c actress,,whatever her role of her drama,its ok for me,just to seeing her acting is my happiness,,keep it up my queen lusi,,ur such a good actress and talented as well,u are the one who brought me into c drama land,,,lv u always my lusi💘💝💝💖💞💝💝💖💖
We’re actually on the same boat. I tried giving other drama/actors/actresses s a try but I’ve only managed to finish hers.
I just finished up to the latest episode. ZLS is still great as always, but her ML, on the other hand, feels lacking in charisma. I can’t tell if it’s from his characterization or his chemistry with ZLS.
As a character, ML is pretty weak. I still somewhat see him with a green flag because at this point, he doesn’t shy away from his faults. He owns them. But on the other hand, the relationship between him and ZLS doesn’t feel very convincing. I can see why Jing Boran rejected this role — if the plot follows some of the teasers/predictions about the drama, then we’re going to really see a scumbag ML and plenty of angst. It’s a hard role for sure (the punching bag for all the pain ZLS will deal with later on.) And the disappointment that this is the son of Xu Kai and Zhou Dong Yu from their epic tale previously. But the acting from the ML is okay for now.
It’s a pretty simple tale and nothing new in this genre, but it’s still entertaining to watch. If the storyline follows the predictions I’ve seen, though, I’m not sure I have the stomach to watch such dog blood angst
Not even going to bother with this one. Really can’t stand the baby, mumbling voice that she uses. Only her die-hard fans will keep passing off annoying acting as great acting.
I get it about the voice sometimes, but when you say acting it’s mostly about the voice for you? So you can take a good voice versus mediocre or bad acting? Genuine question here
Zhao Lusi break 9 in Vlinkage character index the very first day of its release. The second actress to break 9 on first day this 2023, first is Yang Zi.. And now The Last Immortal is topping the chart..
Yeah. TLI is beating the buzzed drama, A Journey to Love, on top of the VLinkage chart. Should I watch? I wonder why. But I’m not too surprised given ZLS’ popularity and AJoL’s plot is getting lame.
I def think you should give it a try, get past the first couple of eps. I personally have to do that with every drama I watch to see if it’s even worth continuing
@Krissy, honestly I hesitate a bit bcos of the ML. Sorry if you’re his fan. But I found him not appealing at all. While I love Lusi on screen most of the time, I only managed to finish two of her dramas, Love Like The Galaxy and Hidden Love. So many C dramas have failed me midway through. Liu Shi Shi’s recent buzzed drama A Journey to Love, although starting interesting, is perhaps gonna fall into that category soon. It’s just a waste of time to spend hours checking them out but end up dropping.
The drama really picked up after 10 as they started doing their quests and their connection became less master-servant. I’m going to wait until Episode 18 before I can say if Wang Anyu was holding back or not. That’s when his true self comes out and his tribulation is going to make him do Three-Miles things to our heroine.
If you like xanxia and its tropes, I’d say give it a try. If you don’t, no matter what people say, you won’t like it LOL because xanxia is an acquired taste. I didn’t like the tropes myself, at first, but now I just take it as a video game, leveling up, leveling down, fighting monsters, getting cultivation points and magic weapons. LOL. And if one gets killed, they get 3 lives!