Brief Story Line
The story focused on a young man with strong sense of justice named Hu Fei (Qin Jun Jie - Curse of the Golden Flower, Noble Aspirations series etc) who had been orphaned since baby. As he was roaming the world while trying to be powerful enough to beat his nemesis, the great swordsman Miao Ren Feng (Lin Yu Shen - Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Sabre 2019 series etc), Hu Fei experienced a lot of trial and tribulation.
During his so called adventure, Hu Fei came across many people who would have a lot impact in his life. Particularly a very skilled martial artist named Yuan Zi Yi (Liang Jie - Handsome Siblings series, The Eternal Love series etc) and the intelligent poison master student named Cheng Ling Su (Xing Fei - Master Devil Do Not Kiss Me series, Put Your Head on My Shoulder series etc).
And so how would the story conclude? You could find them all in this wuxia series.
End of Brief Story Line
I have watched numerous wuxia series even from my childhood years with plenty of favorite titles that have been remade more than few times. The ones I generally loved were the adaptation of novels by awesome writers. This series happened to be based on The Young Flying Fox written by one of the greatest wuxia writers of all time, Jin Yong back in early 1960s. You might have known or familiar with his name as he was the writer of popular Condor Heroes trilogy, Demi Gods and Semi Devils, The Deer and the Cauldron and many more. As a fan of the adaptation of his works, I obviously could not pass the chance to watch this one.
The best thing about this series to me was definitely the fight scenes. I was so delighted that the fight choreography was well executed and amazingly there were so many of them that I felt most episodes have at least one or more of those great scenes. They did not even have to use computer graphic to provide the effects on those fights. These are simply wonderfully crafted fight sequence where we could really enjoy the various styles by different individuals seemingly done by really skilled fighters.
The plot itself was really captivating. I have to applaud the writers, director and editing department for making the story telling to be coherent, as in some other past adaptations, we could feel there was a jump/skip in the story or not detail enough on certain part but too detail in other areas. Although this one was not that perfect either, especially towards the end (I meant that rushed final episode), I still felt in general the whole series was truly enjoyable.
I really like the performance of the main cast Qin Jun Jie and Liang Jie whose chemistry seemed quite convincing and their characters evolved gradually. Meanwhile, Xing Fei herself was pretty decent as Cheng Ling Su, but her chemistry with Qin Jun Jie was not really that great (at least personally to me). The greatest performance for me was definitely of Lin Yun Shen as Miao Ren Feng. That character was the best in the series. He was so cool, such a great martial artist and his on screen presence was very charismatic and gave the aura of amazing hero. Every time he appeared and showing his skills, I was always in awe. I really loved the scene in episode 12 which ended with his strong sentence while he walked away in slow motion and many other scenes where he was involved in epic fights.
Aside from those names, there were sooo many other characters involved. Some have more screen time than others. The important characters who have real impact on the story were Tianlong sect leader Tian Gui Nong (Peter Ho - Wind and Cloud TV series etc), Miao Ren Feng's wife Nan Lan (Maggie Huang), businessman Feng Tian Nan (Hei Zi), prince Fu Kang An (Ye Xiang Ming) and many others. For a series that consisted of 40 episodes, usually it would feel draggy, but this series did not create such feeling at all. Although, during the second half, I somehow felt the series became a bit too serious and lack the fun like in the first half (probably contributed by the focus that shifted a lot to the political part). And I was definitely not a fan of Fu Kang An and Nan Lan's side story which sometime could feel like too distracting.
The part that I thought could have been better was the closing song which was not memorable enough for me, even if it did give sentimental feel. The few episodes in second half that were too serious also reduced the fun element. Oh, in case you are wondering, there was romance in this series but it did not take the center stage and yet still engaging. The ending was rather unconventional and possibly not satisfying for most. I just wish it to be a little bit different, but it was still acceptable. So if you are looking for one of the better adaptation of Jin Yong's work where the story of Hu Fei (literal translation Flying Fox) was told in a wonderful and engaging way and full of so many great fight scenes without using special effects, with a bit of romance that did not feel overwhelming, then this is definitely a must see. It is currently available at WeTV or Iflix.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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