Hi, you're reading My Dream List Article where a junkie on good storytelling shares her thoughts knowledge and occasional weird ideas on stories and how they're told.

This is my first impression after watching on the recently just aired period The Long Ballad Chinese drama.

The Long Ballad, Chang Ge Xing this drama helicoptered in on the very last day of March. And it's been aired on the platform Tencent.

It says it has 49 episodes and it's led by Dilraba and Wu Lei This is also a drama based on an existing IP but it's a manga ip instead of a web novel.

The original author is named Xia Da and this is actually unfinished series, and because it has a lot of copyright issues and stuff.

So there may not be a day when it actually gets finished.

Personally, I haven't read the original manga i've heard from manga fans that they've changed a lot of the character setups, made up characters that do not exist in original story and changed a lot of things.

So pretty much you have to look at this drama.

Story-wise as a separate work, the story is focused on the main character played by Dilraba called Li Changge. She's set up as the daughter of the crown prince at that particular time in Tang dynasty.

And if you read into Tang dynasty history you know at the very beginning of Tang dynasty, there was a very famous Xuan Wu Men Zhi Bian.

A huge power struggle usurp thing that happened between the brothers resulting in the clan of the crown prince, Li Jiancheng got totally destroyed.

And then his younger brother Qin Wang (Prince Qin) later took the throne and become one of the most well known chinese emperor in the entire chinese ancient history, Li Shimin, Tang Tai Zong.

So our main female lead character is the daughter of the unfortunate crown prince at the time.

Her story is a personal surviving revenge and putting her personal need and hate after the need of the nation type of epic story.

Although many of the characters you'll come across in this drama do you exist in real history this is not a historical drama.

It's pretty much an idol period drama that is still targeted to the younger audience demographics.

This Is My First Impression After Watching On The Recently Just Aired Period The Long Ballad Chinese Drama.

The Long Ballad (2021)
Drama	The Long Ballad (长歌行), also known as Chang Ge Xing Chinese Drama
Genre	Romance, Action, Historical, Adventure, War
Director by	Chu Yui Bun
Screenwriter	Chang Jiang Pei Yu Fei
Starring
Main Role	Dilraba Dilmurat Li Chang Ge / Princess Yong Ning / Li Shi Si Leo Wu Ashile Sun Liu Yu Ning Hao Du Rosy Zhao Li Le Yan / Princess Yong An Alen Fang Wei Shu Yu
Support Role	Yi Da Qian Mu Jin Jin Song Yan Li Khan Kudousi Jiang Ainiwaer Ashile She Er Lu Yan Bei Madame Jin Se Yang Ming Na Princess Yi Cheng / Khatun Liu Tian Bao Nu Er [Ashile Tribe] Jiang Xiao Lin Su Yi She [Ashile Sun's subordinate] Li Jian Yi Qin Lao [Gongsun Heng's butler] Wu Chen Xu Xu Feng [Gongsun Heng's bodyguard] Liu Chu Xuan Luo Shi Ba See More
Other
Country of origin	China
Original language	Mandarin
No. of episodes	49
Production
Producer	Yan Bei
Production location	Hengdian
Where to Watch The Long Ballad - TencentVideo, Viki, China Huace TV

So first, let me give you my rating based on the first 12 episodes i've watched.

Out of 10 Star I'll give it a rating of 7 Star and with the potential of going up if the later episodes become better.

Now let me get into the details

First as usual, talking about the things I appreciate about this drama.

The most important thing so far in the first of episode is it doesn't drag, dragging, watering down, making a drama unnecessarily long is a big big big problem for Chinese dramas.

Fortunately, this drama doesn't have that problem. It moves quite fast.

People don't stop for unnecessary long conversations that covers 20 minutes and doesn't move anything forward, although it's not draggy, it's also not crazy at pacing ... such as the next door.

Big palace drama that is just absolute nightmare for an editor to see.

So that is a good thing, but it's based on the first 12 episodes.

I cannot promise for the later 37 episodes. It's gonna keep at this pacing.

The second thing i'm happy about this drama is it's actually not stupid.

Honestly, there are so many period idol drama that's set in a particular dynasty that seems to have an epic story.

And at the end of it, it's just stupid.

This drama's logic holds on a level that I will give it a pass. It doesn't stand tight scrutiny.

If you really want to go at it. But overall, when people are supposed to be plotting, they do plot when they're supposed to be clever. They are relatively speaking clever.

And there are certain sequences in this drama. When certain quite exciting plot is happening is actually well done.

The overall intelligence of every character, good. Bad people with different motivations are acceptable.

The thing is, if you need the Nirvana in Fire level of requirement for how clever people are and how many steps they can think ahead of each other, then it doesn't really go that far.

Certain moments are pretty also a problematic such as broad daylight.

The group of people who are trying to hide who they are in one of the biggest cities at the time comes out on the street, all dressed in black cape.

If you're doing it at night, okay I see, but you're doing it.

In broad daylight, it is the Xie Yun action in Legend of Fei, at the beginning crossing the river, wearing black under broad daylight. Those moments also exist.

So you kind of have to selectively ignore certain parts of the drama that just doesn't quite make sense.

And then there are certain parts of the drama that's watchable.

So I don't know if this is actually necessarily a really good thing or bad thing or acceptable thing, but i'll put it on the positive side because chinese period dramas have really lowered my requirement and standard for years.

The third thing that I think actually kept me watching the 12 episodes now the young actors are pretty good.

I mean the older ones playing the father uncle generation are all pretty good, but the younger ones I guess I didn't have expectation coming to the drama.

I worry about it's being a super idol-ish drama, therefore I have zero expectation for Wu Lei, Dilraba, Zhao Lusi, all of them I was like yeah I don't have expectation, let me just see what you can do.

And couple of scenes are actually super enjoyable. Definitely watchable and they're very pretty people.

Oh And then this drama has some very curious OST I think the creative team behind it probably is aiming at doing something that's different.

So it doesn't fall into the traditional period. Chinese drama style of music, certainly some very contemporary style of music jamming in at places actually feels quite engaging and interesting.

Now let's get to the part that are not so positive.

First this drama has moments that are actually like plot heightened point that literally got drawn.

When she falls into a river, it's actually no actor on camera, but suddenly turns into manga.

I don't have a big problem with it, because I think it's a style that you can go for.

I don't know if that actually necessarily saves you a lot of money. To to do it in manga instead of shooting real people.

But the style of the manga in the drama, I wish they could do it with a different style. It feels a little bit old for 2021.

Definitely not as well done, say, as Horizon Tower last year, it's actually a crime short drama that's contemporary, but they have a huge section of it that's animated and that animation is so well done.

Then. A small thing is this, the two strand of hair for the female character is the iconic look. She has in the manga.

They copied some of her clothing and hair exact. So I see the effort of the crew.

But here, right, I would really argue, because at times, you do have to balance and see whether it actually fits the actor.

Dilraba she's beautiful okay like. No need to argue about that.

She has a long face shape and She has very wide eyes with those 2 strands covering the side of her face. She looks like an alien like at this point, there's no space on her face anymore.

It's just totally eyes making her face look even longer which really doesn't help the type of hair that will actually suit her is to plump up the side and not draw the attention to the length of her face.

So the hair style really doesn't suit the actress. I see why they do it.

But the fact is the manga character. The princess Li Changge is a typical, tiny shape, asian and very eastern Asian Han looking princess (though her mother is of a minority).

So the fact is both the leading actors, Wu Lei and Dilraba already do not look like the manga at all Why are you so fixated on like making them you know having the particular hair style that really actually doesn't fit the actress.

Then there's a weird thing, tiny thing, but it gave me problem which is for the middle age range actors, the qin wang, prince qin who later become a Tang Tai Zong, and for the very famous historical officials that existed at the same time, Wei Zheng, Du Ruhui, Fang Xuanling.

These four guys, they have exact same skin tone, they look pretty much the same with their hair style and everything.

And up to episode ten, I still have problems telling them apart.

So when an actor shows up on the screen I have to pause, is he that guy or that guy or that guy or that guy?

I'm pretty good at recognizing face usually I don't have problems, but for this drama, it gave me so much pain every time these guys show up, I'm like .... who is um (Confuse)

So my dear international audiences, if you have the same problem while you're watching the drama, no, you're not alone feel good about it because this chinese person who kind of is good at recognizing face also has problems.

Then there's another thing about the politics. The conspiracy, the out smarting each other thing that's very long tradition of Chinese court stuff.

In this drama is just not very well written. It's like okay in terms of like the logic still works, but it's not juicy and some of it is intentionally written to make the female lead look like a leading character with halos.

She is the most intelligent, she knows everything which doesn't quite make sense anyway for her age.

And even though she gets the education, she's like literally only 15 or something.

As the story starts, she would actually teach much older man who's already had years of experience, living in the politics, living in the government official positions, running a place, knowing it's economics and stuff.

She will show them how to deal with like the economy of the land or how to run armies and how to ploy certain like military move, which is pushing the character's halo a little bit too much.

And why would anyone listen to her? Honestly.

So young, right?

It's like the older man of the older types of patriarchal chinese society.

10:07

There's just no way logic doesn't quite work for those part.

Then the final thing about this is, although I appreciate they don't go crazy with the romantic part of the plot for the two leads up to this point.

I still don't get the CP, so the coupling, the chemistry between Wu Lei and Dilraba hasn't worked at all.

I think for some audiences, it has worked a little bit, but I don't think it has worked magnificently at least.

I don't see anywhere people going crazy about. Wow It's coupling so sweet, wow it's so like intense.

They do have a feeling of like older sister and younger brother acting.

And it does include some very old tropes such as like in the beginning, the football game, which is just so Wu Mei Niang Chuan Qi If you've watched that drama.

Then like the falling down the roof thing is like... that just happened in every, every romantic drama and then obviously getting shot by an arrow and then realizing okay she's a girl like mhm a lot of old tropes not very refreshing engaging chemistry working the cp that I really, really ship and look forward is the male second and female second.

Zhao Lusi and Liu Yuning's role the stone face cool hearted guard versus the little white flower princess cannot wait for their future plot because I totally can see what's gonna happen with this classic setup with the princess and the guard of hers.

I bet my money on it. It's gonna get exciting later in the plot.

I also actually ship Zhao Lusi and Dilraba the sister cousin shipping. Wow These two girls actually have better chemistry.

The female lead and female second has better chemistry than female lead and male lead there are a couple of scenes of these two girls together that just made everybody go screaming.

I'm not a GL fan in anyway, but I was like I ship them that looks good.

I even dig the older guys, you know the prince and his loyal officials and this official versus that official like the middle aged men cp is also quite sweet.

So this drama actually has a lot of cps, but unfortunately the main lead cp is not working for me yet to me.

To me, that's definitely a problem because this drama is about the two leads honestly.

So we shall see the later episodes whether uh that situation is gonna get resolved.

This drama still has like 70% to go. So we do not know what's gonna happen later.

I wouldn't be surprised if the script just breaks down halfway or the pacing just disappears.

We've seen that too many times.

So i'll keep my expectation reasonable. And i'll definitely check this drama as it goes on, cannot predict the future.

So I do not know if I will make further articles on this drama.

It totally depends on if it's worth watching later.

Hope this review has been useful to you. I do see a lot of very contested opinions.

Some of the reviewers hated this drama like it's the worst drama ....

Some people really liked it, so that kind of divide is in itself quite interesting.

That means it's not totally without good stuff, but then it's definitely far away from being a great drama.

That will conclude my first impression on the drama Chang Ge XIng The Long Ballad

RATING
8.6/10

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First impression after watching on the recently just aired period The Long Ballad Chinese drama