The solid success of A Journey to Love is both a surprise and a true happiness for me. I love leads Liu Shi Shi and Liu Yu Ning separate and now together in this drama but neither are top liuliangs to drive traffic. This drama is succeeding on the quality of the script, acting, and directing and in one week it has reached 10,000 heat index on iQiyi. This week the main cast was at Sina headquarters for a Weibo promotional event and I love how the two leads coordinated their attire and looked so rocking fabulous. Shi Shi is slaying and Liu Yu Ning’s proportions are INSANE. I also found a common complaint about the drama framing rather perplexing in how the director keeps trying to make Liu Yu Ning looked normal tall, akin to his other male leads, rather than towering over everyone. The drama is currently up to episode 20 and continues to be rollicking fun, and a testament to how neither fandom are crazy the Douban ratings are out already at a good opening of 7.5.
I love this show. It is all a wuxia romance needs to be. The director makes all the good choices, fight scenes are great, all characters are enjoyable and the leads are doing a fine job. As to your comment about LYN’s height, they really do try to make him stand out less, I imagine for practical reasons (because think what the real difference between him and Liu Shishi is, just imagine her on those photos above without the 12cm heels and then think how they would look like fighting side-by-side in their real heights!!😁). Vanity of the other leading male actors may also be a reason, although they are all tall lads. What I find a little jarring, to be honest, is the difference between long shots, where you can see LYN is quite taller and then a sudden cut to a close-up scene where magically everyone is more or less of the same height. So yeah, sometimes this is done in a sloppy way, but the drama is really good and that is such a minor thing.
aren’t the fight scenes are mostly using special effects and stunts
I really enjoy the show despite didn’t have high expectation in the beginning..but when we don’t have high expectation on one drama and they come out good..you will feel very happy…
This drama has good recipe..the mixed of romance, brotherhood,wuxia element,palace intrigue and comedy that I did not expect before. I am not big fans of LYN as an actor but I am very happy that he can deliver this role with such depth..and for LSS, I have been fans since old days..Happy she comeback as a baddass.
I just hope one thing that the Maquis Chang qing character will be written atleast on par with ML..this kind of character history has so many potential to be dug out..
Love this drama to pieces! I adore both leads and the cast! It was the underwhelming underdog with no promos, no liulangs, and look how far it came through! I’m so glad that the cast and drama is getting recognize for their acting, script, and story; although there may be minor hiccups, it doesn’t pull you away from the pros of this drama. LOL I need Shi Shi and Liu Yu Ning in a modern mature sexy drama!
Wow… I am such a fan of this series! I think this is the only show so far that I have not fast forwarded any scenes… and that says a LOT!! I didn’t know what to expect when i started, and so was wonderfully surprised by how good it is!
I always wondered why there is such a hype with Liu ShiShi, but after watching her in this, i get it… her posture, demeanor, expressions just nails this role. She looks soo believable as a cold blooded assassin/loyal robot who is learning how to be human. I’m only half way, but i love it so far.
They look like a badass battle CP standing with the rest of the cast in that pic
Grats to the cast and crew! Loving the drama so far! It’s hard waiting for episodes to release.
I’m on track to finish the whole drama. It will be the 1st cdrama in 2023 if my interest sticks. And it’s sticking so bad right now. My last cdrama was Dream of Splendor.
FYI A Dream of Splendour was by the same screenwriter Zhang Wei, a professor at the Beijing Film Academy
Thanks. Now I remember I did saw mentioned of that for AJTL. So far, the ML here seems better written than Chen xiao’s. I hope that stays true all the way through. 🤞
I’m picking up the drama again after binging a very good K drama, currently at ep 14. I do think the strength of this drama is a very solid cast with unique personality for each main characters. There are some new faces whom I think have acting talent and are appealing on screen, e.g., the little princess and the 2nd ML (?) who played a former pupil of Liu Shi Shi’s character. My favorite is Alen Fang. He’s such a tease and so fun to watch. He has the perfect comedic timing that I laughed whenever he opened up mouth. LOL. Nonetheless, I still think the pace is a bit too slow with too many unnecessary conversations. More than enough has been given to the love lines between the OTP but too few arcs were dedicated to other development so that the plot is losing intensity and falling short of complexity. I hope more interesting story lines will come out later. Otherwise, this will be another C drama that I have to drop cos it all started looking interesting in the beginning but gradually losing steam later on.
BTW, Liu Yu Ning and the drama both made it to top VLinkage popularity indices every day. Other actors including Liu Shi Shi and Alen Fang also made it to top 10. Therefore, the drama is popular in China now.
it piques my interest; thanks, will check this out
I’m in ep 2p, and LOVE IT!!
IDK why the buzz on LYN. He is totally nailed the acting, not to mention cooperate with respected senior LSS.. Anyway, superlove the dialogues. Every character stand out. IMO it has the best scenario of romance-costume genre in 2023 (from international audience perspective).
I I was excited to was excited to watch the drama, but failed at episode 1, didn’t like it. Tried again after ther hype. Still lost interest.